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Relating Creation Spirituality
to Lutheranism
~Doctorial dissertation by Marilyn E. Jackson
II. CREATION SPIRITUALITY ACCORDING TO MATTHEW FOX
Background on Matthew Fox’ Development of Creation Spirituality
What is Creation Spirituality? Matthew Fox has used this term from a
Christian perspective but by itself, the focus on Creation spans and
unites more religions than just Christianity. It includes any religion
that holds earthly creation to be a dynamic, creative subject of our
spiritual belief. I associate the term with Matthew Fox, who developed
this philosophy as a Catholic priest, partly in response to the popularity
with others his age to Eastern religions in the 1960’s. A graduate school
teacher in France, Pere (Father) Chenu, named the "creation centered" vs.
"fall/redemption" spiritual traditions for Fox, who developed an institute
for the study of Western Spiritual traditions that has taken a few
different forms over recent decades.
I must admit that when I first took a class from Matthew Fox having to
do with spirituality, I didn’t know what spirituality meant, as it had not
been something I had learned much about in my 20 some years of active
Lutheran church-going, a religion major and 1.5 years as a lay minister.
The exact meaning of spirituality may be open to interpretation. A quick
search on the internet did not lead me to a complete definition, though if
you asked religious clergy or spiritual leaders of any faith, they would
surely have a definition. It might be an interesting study to seek the
origin of the term. Spirituality is a religious term which I associate
originally with Catholics and which has become popular by other
denominations within western Christianity in recent decades. One often
thinks of Eastern religions as having spiritual teachings.
Spirituality is a religious term for the ways we each relate to and
are nourished by the spiritual realm in our personal as well as social
lives, an experience which crosses religious and denominational
boundaries. Mysticism is a similar word, which I define religious
experience occurring in solitude or with others or expressed through one’s
actions in society. Matthew Fox expanded the definition of this kind of
experience to include art as meditation, seeing the ongoingness of
creation through creativity and artistic endeavor. The use of the word
Creation in conjunction with Spirituality is a twist not to
be confused with the Biblical answer to evolution, Creationism. It not
only has to do with the origins of life, but being aware of our historical
and present spiritual connection to the universe and beyond.
Fox’s book, Original Blessing, emphasizes that we are born with
original blessing, rather than original sin, which is most commonly
associated with Christianity. He outlines four spiritual paths, an
alternative vision to the dualism in western European and American society
of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, etc. He names these four paths with
Latin terms: 1) Via Positiva, the positive way; 2) Via Negativa, the
negative way; 3) Via Creativa, the creative way; and 4) Via
Transformativa, the way of transformation.
ICCS
At the Institute for Culture and Creation Spirituality (ICCS), we were
lectured by Matthew Fox in core classes, on his then recent book,
Original Blessing. There were many subthemes to study as well.
One class I took was led by Starhawk, described in recent pages as well
as a class in women’s spirituality. The women’s spirituality movement goes
beyond neopagans and can be reached from any discipline. It has been
greatly motivated by the feeling of feminists that if we hold a symbol of
women to be sacred in our religious life, women will be treated better and
more highly respected in society than they have been for centuries in most
civilizations. The various goddesses and other female role models give
women something to look up to for affirmation of their innate intelligence
and value. This movement has been a philosophical/cultural inspiration for
women in recent decades who have taken on more and more roles in our
society. The whole neopagan movement, as I have mentioned earlier as well,
has also been motivated by a concern for nature in an era of environmental
destruction, with the idea that by reviving nature religion, we will
counteract the disrespect of nature characterized by western
industrialized society.
ICCS also invited Native Americans into their dialogue, who also
acknowledge the natural environment. From this and other experiences of
Native American worship, I appreciate that indigenous cultures make a
point of praying out of doors and include symbols of the natural world in
their worship. This seems to be a valuable resource to learn from for
postmodern culture where people spend most of their time indoors and where
the environment is steadily being degraded.
At ICCS, we had weekly worship experiences. Each was created and
planned anew by different groups of students and they were usually a
combination of different religions, though primarily Christian. Physicist
Brian Swimme taught about the spiritual revelation of modern science and
physics, representing a movement among modern physicists who realize that
a spiritual force is active behind the scenes while they study scientific
phenomena. Another theme was art as meditation classes where we learned
about our own participation in the process of creation through art
classes. The creation of art is seen as a way to learn about spirituality
and life.
When I was a child, participating in church seemed to be the norm, and
to do anything else was not even considered. Then through the decades that
followed, all the norms seemed to come into question. Matthew Fox heralded
this questioning from a Catholic Christian perspective. When I was a
youth, there was a poster in the church basement which said that when
given lemons, make lemonade. Fox metaphorically made lemonade by
creatively developing Creation Spirituality as a positive outlook from the
Roman Catholic tradition.
The Development of Creation Spirituality Theologian, Matthew
Fox
Matthew Fox grew up in a large family in Wisconsin. His father was
Irish Catholic. His mother was of English and Jewish descent and was
raised Episcopalian (Fox, Confessions 1996, 44). His learning about
ecumenism, politics and inter-cultural issues began early. As his older
siblings went off to college, his parents took in student boarders from
other countries, so the family would have international conversations at
the dinner table (1996, 49) As a teenager, he sold newspapers at a stand
in front of church, and went back and forth between mass and the
newsstand. When people came out of church to buy a newspaper, he naturally
engaged in conversations about religion and politics (1996, 56).
While Fox studied for his bachelors degree and to become a Dominican
priest, Pope John XXIII was launching a revolutionary Second Vatican
Council. They were allowed to cease courses held in Latin and go into the
vernacular (1996). While earning a masters degree in the 1960’s, he became
the editor of Listening magazine, which brought together issues of
religion and culture. The magazine commented and critiqued subjects from
the Viet Nam war to Playboy magazine. The popular forces in culture and
society entered his consciousness through the folk music of the 1960’s.
Catholics traditionally would have spoken of the relation of culture to
religion as contemplation and action. Later, Fox would call it mysticism
and prophecy (1996, 38-39).
Though his masters studies were Biblically based, he connected prayer
and spirituality to culture and to time and place. In his dissertation he
wrote,
The prayer of Jesus and the prayer of the early Church makes it clear
that authentic prayer seeks to change the People of God in a particular
time in history and in a particular culture. It is this time and this
culture with its victories and its failures that must be the guiding norm
for authentic prayer." Jesus’ culture was that of a Jew at a particular
moment in the history of the Roman Empire. …Our mysticism must also
reconnect to the Jewish spiritual consciousness even while we struggle for
spiritual survival in the American empire.
Fox felt a need for studies in spirituality and the Christian mystics.
He talked to school officials about this need and said, "My generation is
going to be more interested in spirituality than in religion." He urged
them to send someone in that pursuit and he was more than happy to go on
this quest himself. "Where do you think one should go to study
spirituality?" they asked. Fox wound up writing to the well-known priest
an author, Thomas Merton. Merton’s reply appropriately directed his quest.
He suggested studying at the Institut Catholique in Paris, France. Merton
wrote,
I am glad you are going to work on spiritual theology. The prejudice in
some Catholic quarters against mysticism is a bit strange, when outside
the Church there is such an intense and ill-regulated hunger for and
curiosity about spiritual experience (what with LSD and all that). I do
think we are lying down on the job when we leave others to investigate
mysticism while we concentrate on more "practical" things. What people
want from us, after all, is the way to God. (1996, 41)
So off to Paris he went to continue to develop the study of culture,
religion and spirituality. Fox writes that his one pressing and urgent
question upon coming to Paris, was to understand the relationship between
prayer and social justice. Though he became immersed in French culture, he
was well aware of the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War
protests his generation was living through back in the U.S. He wondered
where culture and spirituality or culture and healthy religion met (1996,
65).
One teacher, Louis Cognet, commented that Karl Marx had a great
influence on religion in the nineteenth century and urged them to go
beyond the pessimism of theologians such as Augustine. Cognet said the
"death of God" theologians were asking the basic spiritual questions of
our time. He cited Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a Lutheran who lived in Germany
and resisted the Nazis) for his emphasis on the essential role of justice
in our spirituality, thus putting an end to pietistic religion." Cognet
said that "God becomes engaged by creation—not just by the incarnation,"
and this became a dominant theme in Fox’s development of creation
spirituality (1996, 67).
In Cognet’s final lecture, Fox’s exemplary notes quote:
All we know is that there’s a real drama going on and we’re in it and
so is God—we don’t know how it will turn out. The reign of God is already
here since salvation is not somewhere else. Terrestrial values are real
values—justice, generosity, kindness are already salvation. The Beatitudes
are right now; justice has to be reached on this earth. To work for it is
the church’s duty. There must be a vertical as well as a horizontal
relationship to God for these things to happen, say what you will. The
task can fail-evolution can contradict itself. The risk is real.
According to Fox, much of his work has been in response to Cognet’s
challenge in that lecture. (Ibid.)
Another influential teacher was Pere (Father) Chenu, who named the
"creation centered" vs. "fall/redemption" spiritual traditions for Matthew
Fox, and "scales fell" from his eyes, Fox remembers. This now gave a
religious context to his most pressing question, "How do mysticism and
social justice relate?" as well as the issues of dualism and the demeaning
of the body and nature.
Three-fourths of Chenu’s students were from Latin America, as a result
of his work in the worker-priest movement in the forties and fifties when
he gave support to the development of liberation theology’s base community
movement. Chenu was an advisor to the Vatican Council and was the original
author of their document, "Church in the Modern World," though it
apparently was edited down a bit from his original. Chenu reminded his
students that it was lay movements which had sparked the church renewal in
the twelfth century, "the only renaissance that succeeded in the West,"
because it came from below, not above. Laity would lead in this century as
well (1996, 69-70).
Pere Chenu, said one day, "Remember, the greatest tragedy in theology
in the last three hundred years has been the separation of the theologian
from the poet, the dancer, the painter, the dramatist, the potter, the
filmmaker." Fox, who had stopped writing poetry when he entered higher
education, found in Paris permission to be an artist. He learned that art
is not about getting a degree or being a genius, but a way to see the
world and to let it see us (1996, 63).
During the seminar with Chenu in the spring of 1968, all of Paris was
paralyzed by student riots and strikes of civil workers. Chenu shut his
notebook at the end of one class and said, "We have been talking about
twelfth-century history—here is your chance to make some history. Go out
and join the revolution! Don’t come back next week, come back in two weeks
and tell me what you have contributed!" Fox writes that Chenu was
seventy-three at the time (1996, 71). As the sixties reached a crescendo,
the modern age was crumbling and something new yearned to be born. Fox was
aware that the Catholic church and all of Christianity were being awakened
by John XXIII and the Vatican Council, and society was being awakened by
youth revolts in Europe as well as at home in the U.S. "The Vietnam War,
the civil rights movement, assassinations…all this was searing our hearts
and souls, pitting father against son and brother against brother and
daughter against mother" (1996, 71).
At home in Chicago, during the Democratic Convention, a close Dominican
friend and young priest was attacked by police while demonstrating against
the Viet Nam war, while a figurehead/leader of the Dominicans sat in Mayor
Daly’s box. The young man left the priesthood within two years (1996,
72).
After completing his Ph.D. in Paris, Matthew Fox found opportunities to
teach as a priest at Catholic colleges in the Midwest. He developed the
concept of teaching extrovert meditation (as opposed to introverted
prayer) which he came to call art as meditation, in workshops. Over
time he uses the word mysticism more and more interchangeably with
spirituality. The development of art skills teach about meditation
and spirituality as an illustration of how we are co-creators with God and
how the spirit works through us to build our world the way artists are
guided to create art. One can do art as meditation alone, in secular
groups or it can be applied to spiritual worship (1996, 103) For Fox, this
way to practice spirituality is a skill and an art. If it works right, we
will experience God, not just hear or talk about God (1996, 102).
In Becoming a Mystical Musical Bear, though the word
mystical is in the title, Fox prefers the word "spirituality" in
the book, though he didn’t like its "overly introspective and navel gazing
connotations." A Lutheran pastor who read it commented that "Spirituality
is where the action is in American religion, but Lutherans have never even
used the word" (1996, 95). In Fox’s Whee! We, wee All the Way Home…A
Guide to a Sensual, Prophetic Spirituality, he focused on his theories
of the practical side of how art is a meditation.
Before his vision for a spirituality institute became a reality,
Matthew Fox had some key awakening experiences. After a serious auto
accident, he was able to function but was in a lot of pain. During his
long recovery, he happened upon an essay on Meister Eckhart, a German
priest born in 1260. It startled him to find entire sentences in Eckhart’s
work that were in his book, Whee, We, wee, All the Way Home…. He
found in Eckhart a rich treatment of the theological concept of
"compassion." "Compassion means justice," Eckhart wrote, teaching from the
Jewish biblical tradition "Compassion is about our shared
interdependence...when we struggle for justice and...healing and we are
compassionate when we celebrate." Eckhart put it, "What happens to
another, whether it be a joy or a sorrow, happens to you." Fox was amazed
at how little the subject of compassion had been developed by Christian
theologians (1996, 106).
While studying Eckhart’s writings on compassion, Fox found an answer to
his question since before going to Paris, on the relation between
mysticism and the world. He says that in summary to his teachings on
compassion, Eckhart quotes Psalm 85:10, "Justice and peace have kissed."
(Fox 1980, 436) Fox interprets this to mean that "In compassion, peace and
justice kiss," (Fox, Confessions 1996, 106), thus relating mysticism
(peace) with justice in compassion.
While leading a retreat with feminists, Fox was moved by the experience
of dancing and singing "We are dancing Sarah’s circle" to "We are climbing
Jacob’s Ladder." He found the circle to be more pan-en-theistic
theme (God within) rather than theistic (God is up). The circle is not
competitive; there is always room for more. A ladder sets up more of a
hierarchy "Compassion is passion ‘with’ and requires a different kind of
energy." (1996, 107) In the book, A Spirituality Named Compassion,
Fox brought in the theme of cosmology, being struck by the psalmist’s
poem, "God’s compassion is over all that he/she has made (Psalm 145:9)
(1996, 109)
He became more aware of his body while healing from the injury and his
soul’s relationship with his body. His dog, Tristan, taught him about
friendship with animals, leading to an essay in the compassion book,
"Spiritual Lessons Animals Teach Us." In this essay he anticipated this
theme for his book, Original Blessing, when he wrote, "Animals have
a sense of their own worth and dignity—a pride at their own unique
existence that subtly suggests that no one ever preached to them about
original sin" (1996, 110).
He relates compassion to the new science and cosmology in this book,
writing about moving from a mechanistic piecemeal universe to an organic
and interdependent one. Both compassion and the new science are about
interdependence. It would not be long before science became part of the
ICCS curriculum. In speaking about creativity and compassion he urged
moving from a "fetish" with the cross to an exploration of the empty tomb"
(Ibid.).
Fox found in the book by the potter, M. C. Richards, Centering,
the term, art as meditation, which later became a main part of the
ICCS program. His study of Otto Rank’s work, connecting religion,
psychology and art, further developed the theme of art as meditation as a
spiritual experience (Ibid.).
ICCS was first manifest at Mundelein College in Chicago in 1977. It
came to embody Fox’s philosophies in art as meditation. There was also a
compassion practicum where students went out into the community to connect
their spiritual experiences to real life problems. Faculty included a
Catholic priest from Harlem, one who liked to portray himself as a
spiritual fool, a scientist, psychologists, therapists, feminists, Native
Americans, neo-pagans, a Yoruba (Voodoo) priestess who taught African
dance as well as a Biblical theologian who interpreted the creation
centered history in the Jewish tradition and Christian scripture. There
were weekly rituals planned by the group as well as visiting speakers,
artists, etc. Robert Bly came once a year for awhile, when he was
into the Eastern mystics, before the men’s movement (1996, 116). )
Matthew Fox moved ICCS to Holy Names College in Oakland, California in
1983 and published Original Blessing, a Primer in Creation
Spirituality (1996, 130).
Meister Eckhart, the Beguines & More
Before Original Blessing was published, Fox developed his
concept of four spiritual paths while studying Meister Eckhart. Eckhart
named the Via Negativa but Fox, a creative thinker connecting the dots,
found in his writings the concepts which he named the Via Positiva, Via
Creativa and Via Transformativa. Fox published a small book about Eckhart
in 1982. Fox wondered where Eckhart got all this "good stuff." He studied
women mystics of the 12th century and came upon Hildegard of Bingen,
a Benedictine Abbess, a true Renaissance woman and genius at music, art,
healing and intuition. He found "Deep resonances with Eckhart’s work,
especially her sense of cosmology and earthiness and body (1996, 125).
Lutherans should take note that Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1329)
influenced John Tauler who Martin Luther was an admirer of, several
centuries later. Many other European mystics are suspected of having been
influenced by Eckhart, including the anonymous author of The Cloud of
Unknowing in England and Fox presents a case for influence on Teresa
of Avila and Saint John of the Cross and even early Marxist thinking (Fox
1980, 1-2)
In his Book, Breakthrough, Meister Eckhart’s Creation Spirituality
in New Translation, Fox writes that Meister Eckhart was steeped in
Biblical and Jewish thinking. He had a theology of the blessing of
creation, but he suffered accusations of heresy by those Fox says were
"overly saturated in Scholasticism and Augustinianism" (1980, 24). Eckhart
preferred to begin and end his theological writings with authentic
biblical categories. Eckhart put compassion ahead of contemplation as the
basic goal of spiritual journeying, which Fox says is profoundly Jewish
and Biblical.
Fox writes that Eckhart was most influenced from the Bible by the
writings in wisdom literature, including, Psalms, Wisdom, Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes…and the prophets, especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos. He
was influenced by Thomas Aquinas and the Dominican spiritual movement,
which is characterized by a way of life actively involved in the world
(1980, 25-26). Fox writes that Eckhart follows Aquinas’ belief that "being
is radically relational…. Aquinas speaks of the unity of the cosmos…or the
universal harmony of all things. Eckhart says that ‘all things are
connected.’" (1996, 28).
Fox goes on to say that though Eckhart relied on Aquinas, he was an
original thinker with a different style. Aquinas was more of a teacher and
Eckhart, more of a preacher. He found the Scholasticism of his day too
confining and became one of the creators of the German language, helping
to shape and mold it from peasant dialects (1980, 29). It is interesting
to note that Martin Luther advocated printing the Bible in German so the
average German could read it for themselves.
Fox believes that Eckhart was influenced by the pre-Christian Celtic
nature based religion which originated in the area of Germany where
Eckhart lived (1980, 30-35). In my readings of Eckhart’s sermons in
Breakthrough, there are often references to pagans, not to condemn
(as Christians have been known to do) but to quote their sayings on
spirituality and life. For instance, in a sermon on God’s love for all
creatures equally, Eckhart is quoted:
We find this attitude among the pagans, people who came to this sense
of love-filled equanimity through the knowing faculties given them by
their basic human nature. It is a pagan teacher who tells us that a human
being is an animal which is naturally gentle (1980, 92).
The Eastern (Orthodox and non-Roman) Christian church was another
influence, Fox writes:
Celtic Christianity was far more dependent on Eastern than on Western
spiritual theology…. In many respects—in [Eckhart’s] emphasis on creation
and creativity, on divinization, on his down-playing of original sin, in
his sense of cosmic grace, in his facility with the via
negativa—Eckhart follows this same Eastern Christian spiritual
tradition, as did his predecessors in creation spirituality in the West
such as Irenaeus, Benedict, Cassian and John the Scot. Indeed, the most
substantial work published on Eckhart’s theology until now has been that
by a theologian of the Eastern church, Vladimir Lossky (1980, 34).
Fox says the Beguines, a lay women’s religious movement, also
influenced Eckhart. Only those from the noble class who could pay a dowry
could be nun.
These were groups of women who banded together to live a life of
dedication to spiritual development and to ministering to others but who
were not recognized officially as "religious" or nuns. They did not take
formal vows and thus were free of church authorities… (1980, 37).
"Meister Eckhart preached to Beguines and apparently learned as much
from them as they learned from him" (1980, 35). Mechtild of Magdeburg
wrote a book, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, employing the term
"Godhead," in common with Eckhart, as well as
images of sinking, dancing, of God’s delight, of growth, of awakening,
of letting go, of compassion, of God as a flowing stream, of the dialectic
between isness and nothingness. Her work deeply influenced German
mysticism and Eckhart in particular (1980, 36).
"Eckhart’s is not a spirituality of contemplation but of compassion."
Fox writes that the influence of Augustine on Eckhart has been exaggerated
and led to a distortion of his spiritual theology by those ignorant of
creation-centered theology. Though Augustine was the chief authority in
his day of Western theology and theologians were expected to refer to him
as Eckhart did often. However, Eckhart’s spirituality is not dualistic and
preoccupied with original sin as was Augustine or Augustine’s apparent
preoccupation with making it to the next life. "Augustine remarks that
‘man but not woman is made in the image and likeness of God’…Eckhart says
the reason Eve was created from Adam’s side was to demonstrate the
absolute equality of woman to man." (1980, 40-41)
Augustine wrote as the Roman Empire was collapsing around him and
Eckhart as the unity of Western Christendom was doing the same. Augustine
betrays his pessimism toward human nature while Eckhart chose a "more
hopeful and grace-centered response, emphasizing the divine potential
humanity possesses for creativity, compassion, and deification itself."
(1980, 42)
Hildegard Of Bingen
In 1985 Matthew Fox published a book about Hildegard of Bingen
(1098-1179) who was a Benedictine abbess living in the Rhineland valley in
Germany. She was a preacher, doctor, scientist, artist, poet, composer and
author of books on theology, medicine, science and physiology as well as
several poems. She had visions which she painted and called
"illuminations," several of which are portrayed in his book,
Illuminations. They are intricate and many are mandala like
inspirational pictures describing Hildegard’s spiritual awakening with
images portraying the interaction of spirit with creation. Chapters
describing these pictures include "The Man in Sapphire Blue: A Study in
Compassion," "Hildegard’s Awakening: A Self Portrait," "Viriditas:
Greening Power," "Egg of the Universe," "The Cosmic Wheel," The Human as
Microcosm of the Macrocosm," "Cultivating the Cosmic Tree," "The Creator’s
Glory, Creation’s Glory," "Sophia: Mother Wisdom, Mother Church" (Fox
1985).
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