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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Joy + Justice = Compassion |
To commit to Joy and Justice and Celebration, as Barbara Ehrenreich does, is to commit to Compassion. As Meister Eckhart tells us, “what happens to another, whether it be a joy or a sorrow, happens to
me.” |
Here Eckhart names the essence of compassion which is acting out of a consciousness of interdependence. Such a consciousness steps out of our ego self and false selves, and journeys deeper to
our | “The Henna Artist Tattooing the Heads of Cancer Patients” as a gift, for empowerment, confidence…and a message. Great Big Story |
true self, the self that is in tune with and communion with other selves. Compassion therefore is one-half about relieving one another’s sorrow (through work for justice and healing including the structural causes of injustice); and it is also one-half about celebration and joy. We share one another’s joy as well as one another’s sorrows. Joy as integral to justice and compassion can be regularly ignored in a sin-based religious consciousness that is ill at ease with ecstasy because, as Augustine said about sex, one “loses control.” This patriarchal hang-up is washed away by Ehrenreich’s excellent study on Dancing in the
Streets: A History of Collective Joy. |
| Justice and Joy come together also insofar as Justice levels the playing field so that more persons can experience joy. Consider the goal of unions whose purpose when healthy is to empower workers so that their basic needs are met regarding compensation for work performed, working conditions, etc. |
About joy, Rabbi Heschel says: God is not only the creator of earth and heaven. He is also the One ‘who creates delight and joy’….Even lowly merriment has its ultimate origin in holiness. The
fire of evil can be better fought with flames of ecstasy than through fasting and mortifications. A new prohibition was added [by Hasidism]: ‘Thou shalt not be old!’ “Compassion means justice” for Eckhart; but it also means celebration. As with
Barbara Ehrenreich. |
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today's video, please click the image. You will be taken to today's post on the Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox website, where you can see the meditation in a larger version and also view and post your Comments. In the sharing that follows, a kind of community is developing around the DM.
If you can't reach Matthew's video on the website, try his Vimeo channel HERE. |
See Fox, The Reinvention of Work, especially Part III on Reinventing Ritual, pp. 91-112,
249-295. See also, Fox, Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God…Including the Unnameable God, pp. 37f.
Also see Fox, Original Blessing, pp. 277-292. Banner Image: Dance Protest for Extinction Rebellion, Melbourne, 2019. Photo by Julian Meehan on
Flickr. |
Queries for Contemplation Do you agree with Heschel that “even lowly merriment has its ultimate origin in holiness”? What follows from that? |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, please click HERE
to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments
field. |
The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood For Our Time Thomas Aquinas said, “To live well is to work well,” and in this bold call for the revitalization of daily work, Fox shares his vision of a world where our personal and professional lives are celebrated in harmony–a world where the self is not sacrificed for a job but is sanctified by authentic “soul work.” “Fox approaches the level of poetry in describing the reciprocity that must be present between one’s inner and outer work…[A]n important road map to social change.” ~~ National Catholic Reporter | |
Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God …Including the Unnameable God Too often, notions of God have been used as a means to control and to promote a narrow worldview.
In Naming the Unnameable, renowned theologian and author Matthew Fox ignites our imaginations by offering a colorful range of Divine Names gathered from scientists and poets and mystics past and present, inviting us to always begin where true spirituality begins: from experience. “This book is timely, important and admirably brief;
it is also open ended—there are always more names to come, and none can exhaust God’s nature.” -Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, author of Science Set Free and The Presence of the Past | |
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation
Spirituality In this book 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). Here Fox lays out 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 | |
See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE
Join Matthew Fox in a 6-week virtual course on “Mystics, Mysticism and Ourselves as Mystic-Prophets,” hosted by Creation Spirituality Communities. Wednesdays, 8/24, 8/31,
9/7, 9/14, 9/21, and 9/28, 4:00pm-6:00pm PT. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox and Neil Douglas-Klotz for “The Aramaic Jesus and the Cosmic Christ: Enduring Lessons for a World in Confusion,” a live video conversation online, a
pre-launch event for the release of Revelations of the Aramaic Jesus, Sunday,
September 11, 10:00am-11:15am PT. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox for the monthly Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat, discussing The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, Thursday, September 15, 4:00pm-6:00pm PT. Register HERE. |
Matthew Fox, Caroline Myss, and Andrew Harvey offer a 3-part series of solo online lectures on “The Power of Truth, Wisdom, Choice Part 2” through the Sophia Institute in Charleston, SC. Wednesdays, September 21, 28, October 5, 3:00pm-4:30pm PT. Register HERE. Creation Spirituality in Conversation |
| Andrew Harvey, author of The
Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism, interviews Matthew Fox on The Essential Writings of Creation Spirituality, July 26, 2022. |
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