Easter is many things to many people. And to some people it is nothing or next to nothing. Let us meditate today on its potential to contribute to our entire species becoming less afraid of death and more committed to living wisely and fully.
And let us meditate on what this might mean to a renewed or resurrected body politic, one that looks to heal the obvious inequities in the American Constitution and way of life in order to render a more alive body politic.
And let us meditate on what resurrection has to teach us about the suffering and crucifixion of Mother Earth that is rampant today and so rarely mentioned by our ruling politicians. After all, Earth Day arrives this week.
There are many things I love about the teachings of psychologist Otto Rank, only now beginning to be acknowledged as the father of humanistic psychology. One of them is his appreciation of the importance that fear of death plays in human history. (Ernest Becker gives Rank credit and invokes him heavily in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Denial of Death.)
At one point Rank actually defines the human soul as the quest for immortality—that is how full of yearning he believes we are to live beyond this one existence in this one body. Rank believes our ancestors have always sought immortality—first in the survival of the tribe itself; and later in beauty; and in law; and in our children or family; and in grand projects like pyramids and kingships and empires and more.
But he says that the resurrection as Jesus and Paul teach it was the “greatest revolutionary idea” in human history (and Rank was a Jew and not a Christian). Why? Because it democratized resurrection—resurrection is for all of us—so now we can get on with living fully. No need to fear death and build empires, power trips, pyramids, and the rest to fend death off.
That would sort of alter history, wouldn’t it? Including today’s history and today’s power trips—efforts at immortality projects still rage today—from Sudan to Gaza to Ukraine to Washington D.C. as examples. Immortality projects dictate an immense amount of our current day politics at home and abroad.
A healthy democracy would guard against such immortality projects on a regular basis. The American founders established three co-equal branches of government as a safeguard for that very reason. The safeguards are being challenged today. Universities, the legal profession and the media are part of those safeguards too—and a number are selling their soul like Faust out of fear of death. And religion often chooses to sell its soul as well.
The potential for resurrecting the human race itself and recharging democracy for the 21st century as well as moving from death-wishes and Faustian bargains to adult interaction and respect for guardrails still exists. But it is fading fast.
Ask Mother Earth how things are going for her and all her efforts these five billion years to birth a planet so special and so laden with beauty and grace that the Scriptures and the angels sing “Holy, holy, holy” because “the heavens and the earth are filled with God’s glory.” True worshippers do the same.
A Blessed Easter to all.
See Matthew Fox, “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.
And Fox, “Jesus Christ as Mother Earth Crucified and Resurrected,” in Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, pp. 144-153.
And Fox, “Revisioning Easter and Pentecost: rolling away the obstacles to creativity so that the spirit of creativity can resurrect,” in Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet, pp. 118-153.
And Fox, “The Via Creativa,” in Fox, Original Blessing, pp. 176-249.
Banner image: “Planet Earth” watercolor by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
What does Easter 2025 mean to you today?
Recommended Reading
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
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
“This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.
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
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
