The news of concentration camps being built in Gaza is too hard to stomach. It’s overwhelming. Decency, humanity, the rule of law… all those things that seemingly have kept the modern world together are now being abandoned.
We know that we are called to act in all ways possible. But our deep feelings cannot easily be controlled. They may erupt and present themselves as depression, deep anxiety, rage, denial, and so on and so forth. When evil is so blatant as to maintain that bombing hospitals and the Red Cross is justified, or that those who protest against the genocide are “antisemitic,” we are more than justified in our feelings of impotence and sadness.
The situation makes me think of a Gospel story, the one in which the disciples are unable to perform an exorcism, despite having been charged by Jesus with the task. Then Jesus tells them: “This kind of demon cannot be expelled except by prayer” (Mark 9:29). Excuse me, Jesus? When confronting an especially hard kind of evil, one would like to be afforded especially hard measures, and prayer seems a very soft one.
I am putting aside the hypocrisy of those who offer “thoughts and prayers” at any other instance of a massacre in the USA. They could, in fact, support the regulation of weapons, and thus contribute to solving the problem. But if we truly are doing all we can, and we plan to do even more than we think we can to help solve the conflict in Israel/Palestine, and even so we have reached such a disastrous moment, can’t we feel lost and disheartened? And what is prayer going to do?
It’s hard to know what Jesus meant, because his world was that of shamanic-like practices and beliefs, mixed with faith in God as we came to know it. But I know that “prayer” has been reduced in the modern world to a simulacrum of what it was and what it can be. In one of his early works Matthew Fox defined prayer first by saying that it is not what most people think it is, and then by offering a definition: Prayer is a radical answer to life.
When we realize that our life is steeped in the great mysteries of life and death, including the continued presence of evil, then we have the chance to enter into a life of prayer. Prayer is a process and a state of being. Praying becomes staying open before reality, letting go of our claims to modify reality according to our needs, letting the reality of otherness touch us deeply, growing into the awareness of our being deeply intertwined with the people and the situations we are praying for. Their pain and our pain, just as their joy and our joy, become one. It’s one great cry or one great shout. It’s one humanity.
Over the years, Matthew has further deepened his notion of prayer. One of his 95 theses in his book A New Reformation reads as follows: The grief in the human heart needs to be attended to by rituals and practices that, when practiced, will lessen anger and allow creativity to flow anew. Prayer indeed has become ineffective and often meaningless in the modern world, having been reduced to the utterance of words.
I have instead experienced something very different, under Matt’s guidance, including several rites of grief. During a Cosmic Mass in Oakland, California, I was impressed at how well a large number of people responded to such collective rites. At other times, such as during a retreat with him in Italy, I was initially worried about the “psychic contagion” that may happen when people wail together, expressing the deep grief of their souls.
But I soon realized that even modern people — not just our ancestors — are able to experience the rebuilding of their inner coherence, once they allow themselves to lower their conscious control of everything and, at the same time, they are appropriately guided. Expressing aloud and collectively one’s pain and grief is an experience of chaos, but it can be that kind of chaos needed to let creative impulses emerge.
After my experience with rites of grief with Matthew, and later on with my own groups, I can now say that the open expression of grief creates a protective wall for the soul. Evil is much less likely to be invited in when it cannot feed on my inner chaos, precisely because such chaos is not simply “under control” — or so I think — but has found an appropriate outlet.
What is happening in Gaza — and in other troubled parts of the world — is not about us who live comfortable lives. It’s about them and their suffering. Nothing takes away from our responsibility to stop massacres through the political influence that each of us can exercise, through protests, through boycotts, etc. Yet prayer is also something meaningful that we can do. It is not asking God to intervene in our place, but it is a deep way of connecting to the victims, beyond words and physical space.
Spirituality and the Transformation of Christianity, p. 106.
See also Fox, Prayer: A Radical Response to Life.
And Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times.
And Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic and Beyond.
Banner Image: The Mourners by Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919). Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
How can I create rites of grief for myself and my friends?
Recommended Reading
A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality & The Transformation of Christianity
A modern-day theologian’s call for the radical transformation of Christianity that will allow us to move once again from the hollow trappings of organized religion to genuine spirituality. A New Reformation echoes the Reformation initiated by Martin Luther in 1517 and offers a new vision of Christianity that values the Earth, honors the feminine, and respects science and deep ecumenism.
“This is a deep and forceful book….With prophetic insight, Matthew Fox reveals what has corrupted religion in the West and the therapy for its healing.” ~Bruce Chilton, author of Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography
Prayer: A Radical Response to Life
How do prayer and mysticism relate to the struggle for social and ecological justice? Fox defines prayer as a radical response to life that includes our “Yes” to life (mysticism) and our “No” to forces that combat life (prophecy). How do we define adult prayer? And how—if at all—do prayer and mysticism relate to the struggle for social and ecological justice? One of Matthew Fox’s earliest books, originally published under the title On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Style, Prayer introduces a mystical/prophetic spirituality and a mature conception of how to pray. Called a “classic” when it first appeared, it lays out the difference between the creation spirituality tradition and the fall/redemption tradition that has so dominated Western theology since Augustine. A practical and theoretical book, it lays the groundwork for Fox’s later works. “One of the finest books I have read on contemporary spirituality.” – Rabbi Sholom A. Singer
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
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action.
Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book! Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic–and Beyond
Julian of Norwich lived through the dreadful bubonic plague that killed close to 50% of Europeans. Being an anchoress, she ‘sheltered in place’ and developed a deep wisdom that she shared in her book, Showings, which was the first book in English by a woman. A theologian way ahead of her time, Julian develops a feminist understanding of God as mother at the heart of nature’s goodness. Fox shares her teachings in this powerful and timely and inspiring book.
“What an utterly magnificent book. The work of Julian of Norwich, lovingly supported by the genius of Matthew Fox, is a roadmap into the heart of the eco-spiritual truth that all life breathes together.” –Caroline Myss
Now also available as an audiobook HERE.
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