In yesterday’s DM, which included paintings from over the centuries, we meditated on today’s feast day. The Annunciation story has clearly inspired many artists over the years.
I share with you today a brand-new painting of the Annunciation, by Javier Garcia Lemus, who came to San Francisco from El Salvador in his young twenties and now resides in Thousand Palms, California. I invite you to imbibe it and tomorrow I will share some of his reflections on it.
Yesterday I asked the question whether all humans—believers and non-believers alike—can find deep meaning in the Annunciation story today. I think so. Why? Because the essence of the story is Hope. And indark times, dire times, via negativa times, humans require hope to survive.
Facing the evil energies of our time, the spiritual warrior in all of us becomes pregnant like Mary responding to the divine call to contribute to today’s struggles.
Creativity is what our species has going for it. It is our strongest gift and our most dangerous one. Today’s feast day reminds us of the ever-present work of the Holy Spirit—what Thomas Aquinas had in mind when he said, “the same Spirit that hovered over the waters at the beginning of creation (we would say hovered over the fireball at the beginning of creation) hovers over the mind (waters and fires?) of the artist at work.”
Let us not forget that we are all artists, we are all working out of our creativity on a daily basis, whether in raising our children, balancing our checkbooks, cooking our meals, carrying out our work, making love, praying, talking, or standing up to wannabe dictators….Our lives are daily acts and choices calling for creativity.
And it is all divine interaction, as the subtitle of my book puts it: Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet.
Standing on Aquinas’s shoulders, Meister Eckhart makes a direct connection between the artist and the Annunciation this way. The work that is ‘with,’ outside,’ and ‘above’ the artist must become the work that is ‘in’ him or her, taking form within him or her, in other words, to the end that he may procure a work of art, in accordance with the verse, ‘The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee’ (Lk 1.35), that is, so that the ‘above’ may become ‘in.’
We are all artists. The Holy Spirit works on and through us all. The Via Creativa is integral to everyone’s spiritual journey. We all experience what Mary experienced, the coming of the Holy Spirit in our work and relationships and vocations. We all birth the Christ in us, as Eckhart insists. (Those who birth evil are birthing the antichrist.)
Creativity brings hope because it brings the new and the unexpected and breakthroughs in imagination including moral imagination and ways to practice solidarity. And it brings new encounters with awe and wonder and beauty and possibility. It brings energy and brings out the best in our species (also, sad to say, the worst). “In breakthrough, I learn that God and I are one,” observes Meister Eckhart.
As Eckhart told us elsewhere, a dream told him that he was
“pregnant with nothingness and out of that nothingness God was born.” How central the annunciation story is to all of our lives and communities. Indeed, the story it tells is central to the survival of our species.
See Matthew Fox, Passion For Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, p. 409. And the Via Creativa, pp. 293-416.
See also Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas, pp. 53-56.
See also Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 245-282.
And Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet.
And Fox, The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human.
See Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ, pp. 51-84.
Banner Image: “The Annunciation.” Fresco by Fra Angelico, 1438-1450. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Drink in this most recent painting of the Annunciation. Does it bring hope to you to assist your own creative resistance to evil and the despair that denying climate change, turning one’s back on the poor around the world and at home, killing democracy in favor of autocracy brings with it?
Recommended Reading
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.
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
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
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
The A.W.E. Project reminds us that awe is the appropriate response to the unfathomable wonder that is creation… A.W.E. is also the acronym for Fox’s proposed style of learning – an approach to balance the three R’s. This approach to learning, eldering, and mentoring is intelligent enough to honor the teachings of the Ancestors, to nurture Wisdom in addition to imparting knowledge, and to Educate through Fox’s 10 C’s. The 10 C’s are the core of the A.W.E. philosophy and process of education, and include: compassion, contemplation, and creativity. The A.W.E. Project does for the vast subject of “learning” what Fox’s Reinvention of Work did for vocation and Original Blessing did for theology. Included in the book is a dvd of the 10 C’s put to 10 video raps created and performed by Professor Pitt.
“An awe-based vision of educational renewal.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
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.
