I am back. Deep thanks to our DM team including: Phila Hoopes, Cynthia Greb, Rosanna Tufts, Dennis Edwards and Ellen Kennedy for keeping things going splendidly in my five-week absence. It was a bit complicated coordinating with very different time zones (Italy vs East Coast) and the rest, but they assured me things ran smoothly.
And of course Giant Kudos to Gianluigi Gugliermetto for his excellent meditations these past weeks in my absence. I was especially pleased to read his reflections, as they represent another generation of thinkers and, of course, another culture addressing spiritual topics through the lens of the creation spirituality lineage. (Though of course GG is bicultural, having lived in the US as a student at Claremont Divinity school and as a pastor in an Episcopal church in the Los Angeles diocese for over 20 years.) I found his reflections both spiritually substantive and candidly personal.
I am happy to announce that GG is not leaving us but will be writing three DM’s each week—Wednesday, Thursday and Friday—while I will write Mondays, Tuesdays, Saturdays and also contribute the video each Monday.
I am all the more pleased that GG will be an integral part of my upcoming 24-week class with The Shift Network where he will contribute an important role helping to process with students what they are learning along the way from my teachings, and also from the other 8 wonderful teachers who bring their insight and experience to the table.
I am getting revved up for this class where we will spend one third of the time focusing on the “Real Jesus” that we have learned so much about, it seems to me, through recent scholarship in our times. And two-thirds of the class teaching the Christian mystics (so often forgotten or misunderstood during the era of modern religion). Whether we are talking liberation theology or The Jesus Seminar or creation spirituality or feminist and black theologies and Celtic theologies, so much has emerged in our lifetimes about Jesus. My intention is to lay out some foundations for a Christ path awakening that might also serve to foster a “Christianity 2.0.”
Such an awakening hopefully will manifest how spirituality can come alive in our times of deep ecumenism, and a new cosmological story from science, and a movement from religion to spirituality. A time I have come to call in my forthcoming book, In Search of the Beloved: John of the Cross & the Triple Dark Night of Our Time that I’ve been working on during my absence from the DMs. The “three dark nights” of our time being the dark night of our souls caused by the dark night of democracy and the dark night of Mother Earth’s suffering.
In addition to my teaching 24 classes and GG leading process groups, we will be joined by 7 teachers I admire greatly and have myself learned from over the years including: Neil Douglas-Klotz on the Aramaic Jesus (I wrote a Foreword to his first book that retranslated the “Our Father” prayer and the Beatitudes published 35 years ago); Bruce Chilton whose book, Rabbi Jesus, I have often called the “best book on Jesus ever written;” John Philip Newell on the Celtic Jesus (an area far too often ignored); and Mirabai Starr on Teresa of Avila (her two books on John of the Cross have been at my side these past weeks); Rabbi David Zaslow, author of Jesus: First-Century Rabbi, on his brother rabbi Jesus; and Christena Cleveland, PhD, author of God Is a Black Woman and her exciting discovery as a black woman of the Black Madonna in our time.
Help to spread the word.
See Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominational Priest.
Fox, Original Blessing..
Fox, Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes.
Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ.
Fox, Christian Mystics.
Fox, Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God…Including the Unnameable God.
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision For a New Generation.
Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson and Jen Listug: Order of the Sacred Earth.
To read the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click HERE.
Banner image: Revs. Matthew Fox and Gianluigi Gugliermetto.
Queries for Contemplation
Who is the “Real Jesus” for you? Do you agree that we are in a triple dark night today? How are you dealing with it?
Recommended Reading
Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest (Revised/Updated Edition)
Matthew Fox’s stirring autobiography, Confessions, reveals his personal, intellectual, and spiritual journey from altar boy, to Dominican priest, to his eventual break with the Vatican. Five new chapters in this revised and updated edition bring added perspective in light of the author’s continued journey, and his reflections on the current changes taking place in church, society and the environment.
“The unfolding story of this irrepressible spiritual revolutionary enlivens the mind and emboldens the heart — must reading for anyone interested in courage, creativity, and the future of religion.”
—Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self
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
Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes
In this book, Fox gathers scholars from various cultures and traditions such as Helen Kenik, Jon Sobrino, Nicolas Berdyaev, Rosemary Ruether, M. D. Chenu, Mary Jose Hobday, Ronald Miller, Monika Hellwig, James Kenney, Justin O’Brien and others to approach creation spirituality from many traditions and many angles.
“An exciting and important book…a pleasant alternative to the oppressive burden of the fall/redemption tradition.” ~ New Review of Books and Religion
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.
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
As Matthew Fox notes, when an aging Albert Einstein was asked if he had any regrets, he replied, “I wish I had read more of the mystics earlier in my life.” The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
“Our world is in crisis, and we need road maps that can ground us in wisdom, inspire us to action, and help us gather our talents in service of compassion and justice. This revolutionary book does just that. Matthew Fox takes some of the most profound spiritual teachings of the West and translates them into practical daily mediations. Study and practice these teachings. Take what’s in this book and teach it to the youth because the new generation cannot afford to suffer the spirit and ethical illiteracy of the past.” — Adam Bucko, spiritual activist and co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation for Homeless Youth.
Naming the Unnameable: 89 Wonderful and Useful Names for God …Including the Unnameable God
Too often, notions of God have been used as a means to control and to promote a narrow worldview. In Naming the Unnameable, renowned theologian and author Matthew Fox ignites our imaginations by offering a colorful range of Divine Names gathered from scientists and poets and mystics past and present, inviting us to always begin where true spirituality begins: from experience.
“This book is timely, important and admirably brief; it is also open ended—there are always more names to come, and none can exhaust God’s nature.” -Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, author of Science Set Free and The Presence of the Past
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Authors Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox encourage us to use our talents in service of compassion and justice and to move beyond our broken systems–economic, political, educational, and religious–discovering a spirituality that not only helps us to get along, but also encourages us to reevaluate our traditions, transforming them and in the process building a more sacred and just world. Incorporating the words of young activist leaders culled from interviews and surveys, the book provides a framework that is deliberately interfaith and speaks to our profound yearning for a life with spiritual purpose and for a better world.
“Occupy Spirituality is a powerful, inspiring, and vital call to embodied awareness and enlightened actions.”
~~ Julia Butterfly Hill, environmental activist and author of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
By Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jen Listug
In the midst of global fire, earthquake and flood – as species are going extinct every day and national and global economies totter – the planet doesn’t need another church or religion. What it needs is a new Order, grounded in the Wisdom traditions of both East and West, including science and indigenous. An Order of the Sacred Earth united in one sacred vow: “I promise to be the best lover and defender of the Earth that I can be.”
Co-authored by Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jennifer Berit Listug, with a forward by David Korten, this collection of essays by 21 spiritual visionaries including Brian Swimme, Mirabai Starr, Theodore Richards, and Kristal Parks marks the founding of the diverse and inclusive Order of the Sacred Earth, a community now evolving around the world.
“The Order of the Sacred Earth not only calls us home to our true nature as Earth, but also offers us invaluable guidance and company on the way.” ~~ Joanna Macy, environmental activist and author of Active Hope.
