The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
From Resentment to
Forgiveness:
A Path to Freedom 10/18/2024 |
PLEASE NOTE: With the days ticking down to 11/5, learn the deeper stakes in this year's election. 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. |
The opposite of Resentment is Forgiveness, and Forgiveness can be a path to freedom. The phrase “refusal to forgive” suggests that there is an invitation, perhaps even a constant invitation, to forgive. |
Where is this invitation or calling coming from? Were it only coming from an individual who may not deserve forgiveness, that would not be enough to awaken and engage the heart chakra. But if it is coming from the universe itself and from the Source of all things in the universe, then indeed it
is enough to awaken a person to action and to love. And one must presume |
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that that is the source of the call, since to learn to forgive is to learn a great lesson: A lesson about one’s own greatness and how the universe does forgive, and that is one way it gets on with its own tasks. Getting on with one’s tasks is one way to put issues behind us that are draining energy from our work and deeper selves including our vocation to compassion, the divine image in all of us. |
Forgiveness is vast—there really is no rational reason for it. Justice by itself does not ask for forgiveness but for restitution. In order for forgiveness to happen there is required some great love, a love that beckons one to another horizon, another place, another relationship. Sometimes this call is clear and sometimes it lurks hiding in the dark, is muffled and requires faith even to catch a faint echo of its presence. Big love
calls people to forgive bigly. |
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| When one is stuck in a place of unforgiveness, one should go back to listening again to the invitations of the cosmos. Just as the cosmos is large enough to absorb our pain, so the cosmos is large enough
to challenge us to forgiveness. Father Sky is that vast and invites us to be big as well. In the act of forgiving, the soul grows magnanimous. Perhaps this is another application of Meister Eckhart’s teaching that “the soul grows by subtraction and not addition." Forgiveness and letting go are a kind of subtraction
after all. In a capitalist society, |
subtraction is rarely held up as something valuable. More is the name of the game. Forgiveness happens. Forgiveness is possible. I once met a woman whose teenage son had been murdered in a drive-by killing in Los Angeles. They found and convicted the killer, who was about
the same age as her son, and she visited him in prison frequently and gradually they became fast friends. It turns out that he grew up without a mother. |
She told me that that friendship gave meaning to her son’s death. It also gives us meaning and hope: That the human heart is so big that it can move beyond hate and resentment to forgiveness. But it must make that choice. |
"Mom forgiving son's killer: 'I just want to hug you'" WOOD TV8 |
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, pp. 288-292. See Matthew Fox and Rupert Sheldrake, Natural Grace: dialogues on creation, darkness, and the soul in spirituality and science,pp. 98f. See Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election. See Fox, “Father Sky” in Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men:
Ten Metaphors To Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 3-18. See Fox, The Return of Father Sky: A Cosmic Mystery for Kids of All Ages. Banner image: The path to forgiveness. Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash |
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Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, or read other comments and enter into dialog, please click HERE to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
Queries for Contemplation |
How powerful a story is it for you to hear about this mother who not only forgave her son’s murderer but befriended him? What does that tell you of the depths and bigness of the human soul? Wouldn’t it be special to have presidential candidates who knew the lesson of how to cure resentment rather than demagoguing on resentment? |
Natural Grace: Dialogues on Creation, Darkness, and the Soul in Spirituality and Science
by Matthew Fox and Rupert Sheldrake
Natural Grace, a
208 page inspired dialogue between theologian Matthew Fox and scientist Rupert Sheldrake, unites wisdom and knowledge from unconventional angles. Considering themselves heretics in their own fields, Matthew and Rupert engage the conversation from postmodern and post-postmodern perspectives, deconstructing both religion and science—while setting the foundation for a new emerging worldview. Having outgrown the paradigms in which they were raised, both Fox and Sheldrake see it as part of their life
missions to share the natural synthesis of spirituality and science rooted in a paradigm of evolutionary cosmology. |
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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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Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil
that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly
masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics |
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The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an
ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael
Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God |
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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 |
Matthew Fox joins in the festivities as The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples celebrates their 80th Church Anniversary & Annual Howard Thurman Convocation,
Sunday, October 20, 3:00pm, at 2041 Larkin Street @ Broadway, San Francisco, CA 94109. Call (415) 776-4910 for information. |
Creation Spirituality Conversations Matthew Fox & James Twyman in conversation on Trump & MAGA as Antichrist |
Namaste Village hosted Matthew Fox & James Twyman in conversation on Matthew’s new book, Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election. With days ticking down to 11/5, discover the AntiChrist archetype as a searing device for understanding the deeper stakes in the #2024election. |
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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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