MATTHEW FOX: THE COSMIC CHRIST/ ORIGINAL BLESSING THEOLOGIAN

5. MATTHEW FOX, WEDNESDAYS AT ST. LUKE’S, 10/30/19

ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, THENEPISCOPAL PRIEST

Formerly a member of the Dominican Order within the Roman Catholic Church, he became a member of the Episcopal Churchfollowing his expulsion from the order in 1993. Fox was an early and influential exponent of a movement that came to be known as Creation Spirituality. The movement draws inspiration from the mystical philosophies of such medieval Catholic visionaries as Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Saint Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Dante Alighieri, Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa, as well as the wisdom and prophetic traditions of Jewish scriptures. Creation Spirituality is also strongly aligned with ecological and environmental movements of the late 20th century and embraces numerous spiritual traditions around the world, including Buddhism, Judaism, Sufism, and Native American spirituality, with a focus on "deep ecumenism." Fox has written 35 books.

THERE IS ONE VOCATION: LIVING IN GOD’S PRESENCE

“One cannot think of swimming without thinking of the medium, water. Thus describing prayer as swimming implies immediately the indispensable reality of the field of God’s Love…. The water is always there for the fish; it just surrenders to the water.”

PANENTHEISM IN THE BIBLE

The classic panentheistic texts: “Reality, presumed in all prayers, is the field where we all ‘live, move, and have our being.’ (Acts 17:28). It is the active, real love of a living God who is ’over all, works through all, and is in all.’ (Ephesians 4:6 )” ¡Ephesians 4:6 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.¡Acts 17:28 28'For in God we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are God’s offspring.’

PANENTHEISM, THEISMAND EXPERIENCE

Understanding prayer as swimming “is historical since it was used not only by the early Christians but was a favorite among mystics through the centuries who spoke of the ‘immersion’ into Christ and of the ‘floods and seas’ of God’s love for us.

But these are metaphors. “The fact that panentheism is first of all an experience must be guarded at all times. Theism, on the other hand, can easily fall into projections and object-making for projections. p. 147

FOX’S FIRST BOOK: ON BECOMING A MUSICAL, MYSTICAL BEAR: SPIRITUALITY AMERICAN STYLE

Contrast the panentheism of a creation-centered spirituality vs. a fall/redemption religious ideology:

Creation-centered spirituality:

“Humankind’s relationship to God is primarily horizontal and concentric in meeting places. God is all in all and all is in God. God is panentheistic.”

A fall/redemption religious ideology:

“Humankind’s relationship to God is primarily vertical: God is up, Humankind below.” p. 147

AWARENESS OF GOD. THE DEMOCRACY OF GOD AND THE DEMOCRACY OF SOULS

¡Institutional religion often keeps people from their own God-experience by serving institutions of academia and churchliness. It also often psychologizes God as a person who IS personal with personal interest in people and whose “psychology” is not narrowly human.

1. Panentheistic consciousness demands more of our powers of awareness – we see God in a grain of sand, in a towering mountain, in an act of love and in a tragic happening. Believing in a living God, a God living everywhere.

2. Panentheism also calls for “the democracy of it all. A God who is everywhere is everybody’s. A truly democratic God. Available to the least as well as the greatest.” Following such a path leads us from “I” consciousness to a “We” consciousness.. All of the pieces of the world are manifestations of God. No religious superiority complexes, which provoke war and even terrorism.

GOD IS NOT JACOB’S LADDER BUT SARA’S CIRCLE

We are the fish. God is the water. We breathe God in and out all day long. We are in God and God is in us….We do not have to look up to find God. We need simply to wake up to the truth that God has been here all along and very likely our consciousness was blocked up and lacked the simplicity of waking and seeing.

So panentheism is not a nest for private revelations from the Divine, but a spring one returns to for the energy to carry on the battle, for living out the love of God found in all things. P. 154