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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Creativity & Compassion: More Lessons from the Cosmos 1/07/2025 |
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. |
In Saturday’s DM, we meditated on the lessons of Extravagance, Generosity, Magnanimity and Expansion that the universe teaches us. And in yesterday’s DM, we meditated on Interdependence and Compassion as habits of the universe that can become incarnated in us. |
The word for “compassion” in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic comes from the word for womb or rehem in Hebrew. In calling us to compassion, we are reminded that the universe is God’s womb, a place of gestation and fertility and creativity therefore. A very vast womb indeed, science is now telling us: Two trillion galaxies big and still expanding. Creativity and birthing and interdependence are
everywhere. |
Star birth: shining depths of nebula NGC 1977 reflect a jet from newly formed star Parengo 2042 (orange object, bottom center), embedded in debris that could give rise to planets. A nearby star, 42 Orionis, gives radiance to the ionized gas of the jet. Photo by NASA, ESA, J. Bally (UofCO, Boulder). |
It follows that another habit of the universe is creativity. This is clear in our current view of the universe, but we cannot overstate how unlike this is in comparison to the machine universe of the modern era. Newton saw the universe as a machine. Rupert Sheldrake describes Newton’s universe this way: There was no freedom or spontaneity anywhere in nature. Everything had already been perfectly designed. What we now know is that from the first millisecond of the Fireball 13.8 billion years ago, the universe has been teeming with creativity.
Birthing, begetting, dying, and being reborn—all this
happens to stars and planets, galaxies and microbes, as well as plants, birds, animals and humans. Creativity is baked into the universe. |
Joy and tenderness in the sea: “10 Dolphins Dancing” by Lynn Patrick. | As Meister Eckhart put it: “What does God do all day long? God lies on
a maternity bed giving birth.” Eckhart calls compassion “an ocean” on more than one occasion. One |
feels the fetal waters of grace as he develops that image ever richer. Compassion means that God sets the soul in the highest and purest place which it can occupy: In space, in the sea, in a fathomless ocean, and there God works compassion. Therefore the prophet says: ‘Lord, have compassion on
the people who are in you.' Panentheism reminds us that we are swimming in a sea of divine grace called compassion. We breathe compassion in and out daily if we are awake and aware. He cites from the first epistle of John
(4:16f): |
Anyone who lives in love lives in God,
and God lives in him or her.
Love will come to its perfection in us…
because even in this world
we have become as he is. We are in God and God is in us. Compassion is the best name we can give to God, Eckhart teaches, and we, as sons and daughters and images of God, are |
St. Bart’s Singers and St. Bartholomew’s Choristers and Choir perform the Taize chant “Ubi Caritas” by Jacques Berthier (Paolo Bordignon, Organist and Choirmaster), September 10, 2020. |
sons or daughters of compassion. It follows that God’s peace prompts fraternal service, so that one creature sustains the other. One is enriching the other, that is why all creatures are interdependent. Our creativity, vast and wondrous and diverse as it is, is to be used for spreading compassion and justice. This is the way we imitate God, as Thomas Aquinas reminds us. This is our acting as co-creators with God. How are we doing? |
Adapted from Matthew Fox, “Compassion is an Ocean—The Mystical Side to Compassion,” in Fox, Passion For Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, pp. 440-446.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth, p. 47.
And
Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality, pp. 178-187.
And Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet.
And Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 245-383.
And Fox, "Chapter Four: Creativity and Compassion: From a Fetish with the Cross to an Exploration of the Empty Tomb, in Fox, "A Spirituality Named Compassion, pp. 104-139.
Banner Image: “Hubble Sees the Force Awakening in a Newborn Star — In the center of the image, partially obscured by a dark, Jedi-like cloak of dust, a newborn star shoots twin jets of superheated gas out
from its rotation axis into space at more than 100,000 miles per hour as a sort of birth announcement to the universe. This celestial lightsaber lies not in a galaxy far, far away but rather inside our own Milky Way.” Image
credit: NASA/ESA/STScI |
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Queries for Contemplation |
If our divinization and God-likeness is manifest in our marrying of our creativity and the many ways we birth compassion whether in our politics, economics, art, education, religion and parenting, how do you think we are doing? How can we do better? |
Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart
Matthew Fox’s comprehensive translation of Meister Eckhart’s sermons is a meeting of true prophets across centuries, resulting in
a spirituality for the new millennium. The holiness of creation, the divine life in each person and the divine power of our creativity, our call to do justice and practice compassion–these are among Eckhart’s themes, brilliantly interpreted and explained for today’s reader.
“The most important book on mysticism in 500 years.” — Madonna Kolbenschlag, author of Kissing Sleeping Beauty
Goodbye. |
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Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation
Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice. |
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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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Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in
directions that promote love of life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic.
“Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow. Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby Spong, author, Rescuing
the Bible from Fundamentalism, Living in Sin
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Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation
Spirituality
Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him. He also translated many of his works such as Biblical commentaries never before in English (or Italian or German of French). He gives Aquinas a forum so that he can be heard in our own time. He presents Thomas Aquinas entirely in his own words, but in a form designed to
allow late 20th-century minds and hearts to hear him in a fresh way.
“The teaching of Aquinas comes through will a fullness and an insight that has never been present in English before and [with] a vital message for the world today.” ~ Fr. Bede Griffiths (Afterword).
Foreword by Rupert Sheldrake |
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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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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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Join the Creation Spirituality Communities Education service as they host guest speaker Matthew Fox in an overview of Deep Ecumenism and its relevance today in the first class of a course, “Deep Ecumenism: Exploring Spiritual Identity” by Instructor Roxanne Whitelight. Matthew Fox’s lecture: Jan 15 - 4:00pm PT Course runs Wednesdays, January 15– February 19, 2025. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox as he discusses his book, co-authored with Rupert Sheldrake: The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm Where Science and Spirit Meet, in an online Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat. Thursday, January 16, 4:00pm-5:30pm PT. Register HERE. 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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