Although we need to look the truth straight in her eyes, which today means facing evil, and although building shelters made of pleasant lies won’t serve any good purpose, it remains true that words create reality.
This has been known since very ancient times. The capacity of symbolization through sounds has especially been developed by our species, even though it is not unique to us.
The power of incantations and spells, the special relevance of the words employed in rituals, the convincing rhetoric of proclamations, and the transforming force of poetry… all of this is grounded in the power that words have for us as humans.
At a time like ours, when “dogs are snarling and prowling about the city” (Psalm 59:14), it is especially relevant to remember the lesson by Marshall Rosenberg about the giraffe language and the jackal language.
Essentially, we are all trained to speak jackal, and thus hurt our opponents, but we could be just as effective — while holding strongly to our truth — by speaking giraffe, which does not hurt our dialogue partners. Far from being a children’s game, or a soft technique not applicable to harsh times, I believe that the language of nonviolent communication is a major tool at our disposal, together with empathy. Or rather, strictly linked to empathy.
After all, Trump and MAGA are the late expression, not the cause, of the present illnesses of American society. The same is the case with Netanyahu and the extremists in his government. Otherwise, you won’t have 83% of Israelis backing the removal of Palestinians from Gaza, according to a recent poll. The same could be said of many other societies.
If the human world is sick, and the human world is made essentially by words, we need to start again from the way we speak to each other. The way we speak to strangers, to our opponents, to our friends, to the police, to our neighbors, to children, and even to animals. I used to have a helper in my position as a parish priest who prided herself on her cynical words. That was wrong, hurtful, and very difficult to correct.
God created the world through speaking, according to the first tale of creation in the Bible. Those words have been wrongly seen as words of command, simply because the interpreters were speaking jackal. In reality, they are all words of encouragement: “Let the plants grow… let the birds fly… let human beings flourish…” (See Genesis 1). This is what the story really says, namely that God is the universal force enabling life.
It is through our perverted love of control that we have made of God’s Dabhar, God’s energy expressed in words, the power of an absolute monarch who is unaffected by the well-being of his subjects. In reality, God speaks giraffe.
The harsh words of prophets are never cynical or hurtful. Indeed, they can have an effect — always depending on the recipient, of course — only if they are said in love. Not just having in mind that “my words are meant in love” — my helper in the parish was sure about her good intentions — but using the giraffe language even when saying hard truths.
Thus, we shall speak God’s words as prophets. The prophetic word is a part of the flow of the one creative energy — it breaks out when this flow is dammed up by greed, corruption, boredom or injustice. For Dabhar will not be kept down; God’s energy will not be aborted; creation will take place.
The quote in the last line is from Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality, p. 39
See also Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
And Fox, Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint for Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century
And Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic–and Beyond
Banner Image: “Come here, Brother Wolf. I command you on behalf of Christ that you do no harm to me or to anyone.” Mural of St. Francis of Assisi and the Wolf of Gubbio at the St. Francis Inn in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, Pa. Photo by Jim McIntosh on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
How is my language grounded in empathy? How is my way of speaking influencing my environment? (Not WHAT I say, but HOW I say it).
Recommended Reading
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
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.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
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.
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
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.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
Matthew Fox writes in Hildegard of Bingen about this amazing woman and what we can learn from her.
In an era when women were marginalized, Hildegard was an outspoken, controversial figure. Yet so visionary was her insight that she was sought out by kings, popes, abbots, and bishops for advice.
“This book gives strong, sterling, and unvarnished evidence that everything – everything – we ourselves become will affect what women after us may also become….This is a truly marvelous, useful, profound, and creative book.” ~~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism.
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.
