The fifth chakra, located at the level of the throat, can be naturally paired with the capital sin of gluttony, which in Latin is spelled “gula” meaning indeed “throat.” While in the Catholic tradition this sin simply indicates an excessive consumption of food, in Matthew Fox’s revisitation it extends to all sorts of excessive consumption, thus to consumerism.
This is one of the most intractable social problems of our era, issuing for example in the production of enormous quantities of waste, but Matthew’s treatment of it in his book Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh shows it to be also a very problematic issue on a personal level.
In Matthew’s revision, gluttony becomes taking in too much of something, in the attempt to anesthetize oneself. This can happen most obviously with food or sex — which is why gluttony and lust are usually paired in the medieval lists, and dubbed “sins of the flesh,” although Matthew prefers to call them “sins against the flesh.”
However, the same can happen with advertising, gadgets, movies, pastimes, news, even with ideas and relationships. In all such cases, when we consume, we devour, finish, delete, exhaust, expend, dissipate, burn up, ingest, squander, and spend. And spend. And spend.
With consumerism, we are confronted both with an issue of excessive indiscriminate acquisition and an issue of dissipation. In the latter case, the tradition spoke of the sin of prodigality as a lack of savviness, which may end up leaving you destitute and dependent on other people’s charity. Our ancestors could not fathom, however, that we would have tried to stuff the planet full of our plastic waste.
It might be especially interesting for us today to notice that excessive acquisition and excessive spending are united by a lack of proper limits. We also risk losing sight of the intrinsic value of the things or people involved in our indiscriminate transactions.
Thus, it seems to me that we are presented here with a subtle psychological issue, which has become a monster with multiple heads in our society, to the extent that many different kind of goods are available in large quantities, while everything and everybody has been reduced indeed to “goods” that can be bought and sold. Have you noticed that journalists speak of the “net worth” of an individual in terms of money, like this were an obvious thing to do?
The throat is a very important physical and symbolic place in the human body, because it is through the throat that food is ingested, but also that voice is emitted. Also, the throat is mid-way between heart and brain, thus in between compassion and thinking. The throat is like a birth canal through which pass our deepest thoughts and hopes and dreams and poems. The throat, if clean and empty, is meant to trumpet our truth, to announce good news, to bestow our wisdom.
Keeping the throat clean is thus essential, for all these deeply human functions to happen properly. This is true at the basic physical individual level (respecting the limits of one’s body) — but also, or especially, when it comes to the social body, that is, when what is at stake is the capability of those who have less social power to be able to use their true voice and be heard.
In this sense, we all are called to become clear channels of truth and grace, which to me is one of the most basic meanings of the word “priest.” To be a channel of God’s truth and grace is the opposite of hoarding power — for example, boasting about one’s ability to celebrate sacraments, to the exclusion of those who are not ordained to such purpose. Authentic priesthood is the opposite of gagging others and taking away their voice. It is empowering others to find their voice and utter it.
Being grounded in the earth (1st chakra), enjoying just relationships (2nd chakra), feeling our strength in our own belly (3rd chakra) and being centered in compassion in our heart (4th chakra), we can become also prophets who begets other prophets (5th chakra), for the good of the whole.
But the sin of gluttony — revisited as consumerism, hoarding, wasting, stuffing, etc. — is pervasive and creeps in even where you don’t expect it to. A deep cleansing is in order, and nothing less will do.
Quotations from Matthew Fox’s Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, pp. 276, 279, and 290.
See also Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas.
And Fox, Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart.
Banner Image: A scene of festive gluttony, 1312. Detail of the Heavenly Ladder wall painting in the Vatopedi monastery, Mt. Athos, Greece. Artist unknown. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
What are the unexpected ways in which I find myself involved in the sin of gluttony, as revisited by Matthew Fox? And what I can do to get out of its hooks?
Recommended Reading
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
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
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
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
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.
