The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew
Fox |
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Is there One Advent—or Several? 12/23/2024 |
As the results of the election ripple out, learn the deeper stakes involved. Get your copy of Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election today! Choose your format in the book block below. |
We have been meditating on the Dark Night of the Soul and Society and our Species because it is Advent and Winter Solstice, a time of darkness in the Northern hemisphere. |
And because we anticipate a great “Coming of Light” arriving with Hannukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa following on the shift toward greater light that December 22 promises. Humanity is awaiting another period of darkness, it seems, that awaits us on January 20, 2025: A dark night of
oligarchy. Like Mechtild of Magdeburg whom we listened to last week and who counseled us to “embrace the very same love that wounded” us, poet Adrienne Rich teaches that |
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If we could learn to learn from pain
even as it grasps us….
And observe that
She [Marie Curie] died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power. Part of the mystery of
existence is the play between the Via Positiva and the Via Negativa, the joy and the suffering in life. The paradox and interaction of the two come together in a special way in the Advent-Solstice/Christmas-Hanukkah-Kwanzaa seasons. Meister Eckhart speaks to this reality when he says: “Everything praises
God. Darkness, privations, defects, evil too, praise God and bless God.” Mystics—and the mystic in all of us—learns to be at home with paradox. |
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| In 1918, Dorothy Day was arrested for picketing with militant suffragists and thrown into jail for the first (but certainly not the last) time. She wrote of the pain she underwent there:
The blackness of hell was all about me. The sorrows |
of the world encompassed me. I was like one gone down into a pit. Hope had forsaken me. I was that mother whose child had been raped and slain. I was the mother who had borne the monster who had done it. I was even that monster, feeling in my own heart every abomination. Moral imagination and compassion were born from her encounter with darkness. Poet Rainer Maria Rilke underwent a profoundly painful childhood, locked in the attic frequently by his mother for long periods of time. From it all he learned something of both praise and pleasure. Oh, tell us, poet, what do you do? I praise. But the deadly and the violent days,
how do you undergo them, take them in? I praise. But the namelessness—how do you raise
that, invoke the unnameable? I praise. What right have you, through every phase,
in every mask, to remain true? I praise. –and that both stillness and the wild affray
know you, like star and storm? Because I
praise. |
Molly Rush was a grandmother of seven who was jailed for protesting the Trident submarine which houses more destruction that all human wars combined, including the atomic bombs of WWII. When asked what she learned from jail she replies, “I have a greater sense of the preciousness of life.” She learned this because walking the prison yard she noticed after a while tiny flowers in the mud—“when that’s about all there is to see, they become
precious.” |
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May the trials and tribulations we are encountering this advent also raise our consciousness of preciousness and desire to praise. And resist and
act. |
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To be continued. |
Adapted from Matthew Fox, ”Being Emptied: Letting Pain be Pain: Kenosis,” in Fox, Original Blessing, pp. 140-144. See also: Fox, “Letting Go and Letting Be: Via Negativa,” in Fox, Meditations with Meister Eckhart, pp. 35-64.
Banner image: “Dawn’s Early Light.” Photo taken of sunrise near the winter solstice, by JLS Photography – Alaska on Flickr. | A Caring Note from the DM Team: The results of the U.S. election are affecting us all in a variety of ways, and challenging times certainly lie ahead. If the burden becomes overwhelming, we urge you, please, to seek support. Here are a few resources that can help: National Helpline for essential services: 211 or 211.org National Suicide/Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. Veterans Crisis
Line: 1-800-273-8255 LGBTQ Youth Lifeline: Call 1-866-488-7386 or text START to 678678. Trans Lifeline: Call 877-565-8860 National Sexual Assault Hotline: Call
800-656-4673 |
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Queries for Contemplation |
How do Mechtild of Magdeburg, Adrienne Rich, Dorothy Day, Molly Rush, and Meister Eckhart speak to the darkness you are experiencing this Advent and Solstice, 2024? Does a greater sense of the preciousness of life arise in you even in the midst of grief? |
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew
is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author,
The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story |
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Meditations with Meister Eckhart: A Centering Book
A centering book by Matthew Fox. This book of simple but rich meditations exemplifies the deep yet playful creation-centered spirituality of Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart
was a 13th-century Dominican preacher who was a mystic, prophet, feminist, activist, defender of the poor, and advocate of creation-centered spirituality, who was condemned shortly after he died.
“These quiet presentations of spirituality are remarkable for their immediacy and clarity.” –Publishers Weekly. |
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Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the
term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity. For immediate access to Trump
& The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE. To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE. To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE. Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download. |
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The Return of Father Sky: A Cosmic Mystery for Kids of All Ages
The second book in the Father Fox’s Fantastical Fables series, The Return of Father Sky helps boys and girls to celebrate a new relationship with the masculine by way of Father
Sky, whose return excites joy and wonder and possibility that enlarge the soul to welcome others and all creation. Written in a rhyming Dr. Seuss-like style, this full-color, beautifully illustrated book, written by world- renowned theologian Matthew Fox weaves together modern science and classic spirituality in a whimsical, entertaining format to illustrate important truths to readers aged 4 and up. With artwork curated from illustrators around the world, this book expresses the joy and wonder
of all peoples and cultures, planting seeds of respect, cooperation and hope to work together for the healing of our planet. |
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UPCOMING EVENTS See Matthew Fox's full calendar
HERE |
MONTHLY: Join Matthew Fox, Mariko Middleton, and Skylar Wilson of the Order of the Sacred Earth in a free virtual meeting for connection and networking with other mystic warriors. Last Tuesday of every month, 4:00-5:00pm PT.
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88665302478
Meeting ID: 886 6530 2478 Learn more at www.orderofthesacredearth.org |
Join Matthew Fox and cosmologist Brian Thomas Swimme in a new 7-week live video course hosted by The Shift Network: “The 4 Paths of Creation Spirituality: Embracing Awe, Chaos, Creativity & Transformation With the Universe as Your Guide.” Tuesdays, December 3 –
January 28 (except Dec 24 and 31), 5:00pm - 6:30pm PT Register HERE. |
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Creation Spirituality Conversations |
Hear a conversation between Matthew and Ana Otero of The Desert Rose Mystery School in "Mystical Pathways. A Sacred Talk with Matthew Fox, founder of the Creation Spirituality Movement." |
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Inspired by this post? Share your insights on BlueSky, Instagram, Universeodon, or Facebook using the hashtag #RevDrMatthewFox and tag Matt with @RevDrMatthewFox FOLLOW MATTHEW FOX: |
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