The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
Compassion and Earth vs. War and Retribution 10/27/2023 |
Yesterday’s DM ended this way: Where are our “defense departments” when we need them? Can’t the climate crisis awaken all humans everywhere to address the common foe: climate change? And let our other hatreds go? |
Let us explore our capacity for compassion and spiritual warriorhood again. Meister Eckhart teaches that “compassion begins at home: With one’s own body and one’s own soul." Today we need to say: |
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Compassion begins at home. With our own planet which is our common home. We are not destined or fated to end our species by destroying our planet whether by climate change, nuclear war or other wars. That would be a choice on our part, an irrational and stupid and abhorrent choice, but a choice. |
Pope Francis has called for Friday, October 27 to be a worldwide day of prayer, fasting and penance for peace. Rome
Report | It would not be a pure choice necessarily but a pile of blunders, hatreds, projections, mistakes and shadows born of self-hatred and self-ignorance and stirred up by lousy leaders, often
aspiring strongmen, wounded beyond belief. |
Yes, we can easily go the way of our many hominid cousins who are all extinct at this time in planetary history. We are currently the last ones
standing. All our spiritual traditions teach us we are capable of compassion. Of caring. Of letting go. Of love and justice and making equality happen. And of self-awareness. Of facing and embracing the shadows and traumas we and our ancestors have inherited. It is possible. Compassion to self and others is
possible. |
Maybe our media and social media should be promoting that message more than it does. A lot more. Maybe our defense departments should
be doing the same. Rabbi Heschel says: “Humanity is a reminder of God. As God is |
Orthodox Jews demonstrate in the 2022 London protest of the Israeli killing of veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Photograph by Alisdare Hickson on Wikimedia Commons. |
compassionate let humanity be compassionate.” In Islam, this prayer is repeated five times a day: “In the name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful.” Those who follow Allah are also called to follow a way of compassion. |
Adapted from Matthew Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths, pp. 386, 383.
Also Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion.
Banner Image: The light of peacemaking. Photo by Alonso
Reyes on Unsplash |
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Queries for Contemplation How high on the list of your religious or spiritual values and beliefs lies
compassion? Do you agree that we are capable of compassion? |
Responses are welcomed. To read the Comments or join in the conversation by adding your own, please click HERE and scroll down to the Comments field. |
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to
any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit |
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A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all
compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register |
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UPCOMING EVENTS See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE Join Matthew Fox for two days of learning and practice as he speaks at the online Stanford Medicine Contemplation by Design Summit, Wednesday and Thursday, November 1-2, 2023. Wed 4:00pm-5:30pm PT – Lecture, Q&A – Grounding & Expanding, Psyche
& Cosmos, Friendship with Self, Others, the Universe: Toward a “Cosmic Religion” (Einstein) and Human/Planetary Survival Thu 7:30am-8:15am – Guided Practice – Finding the Divine (the “I am”, the Christ, the Buddha Nature, the Tselem or Image of God) Within Thu 12:00pm-1:30pm – Workshop –
Recovering the Sacred Masculine and the Divine Feminine Register HERE. |
Join Matthew Fox as he delivers a Lecture and Q&A: “Towards a New Mythology: New & Ancient Names for God from Mystical Ancestors and Contemporary Science (& Fit for
Some Atheists too)” as part of the Unitarian Universalist of Berkeley Lawrence Lecture Series. Friday, November 10, 2023, 7:00pm-8:30pm PT. Register HERE. |
Creation Spirituality Conversations |
Aaron Perry hosts Matthew Fox on the Y On Earth podcast, on “Hildegard von Bingen & Her “Viriditas,” sharing profound wisdom and deep insights about the essential importance of our relationship with Mother Earth, our celebration of the Divine Feminine, and our
connection with Creation Spirituality, drawing upon centuries of knowledge and wisdom from indigenous and mystical traditions world-wide… particularly from the Rhineland Mystic Movement of the medieval European Renaissance, and a most extraordinary woman at its helm: Hildegard von Bingen. |
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Inspired by this post? Share your insights on Universeodon, Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #RevDrMatthewFox and tag Matt with @RevDrMatthewFox FOLLOW MATTHEW FOX: |
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