Welcome to the Harbor Unitarian Universalist Congregation

ORIGINAL BLESSING
August 22, 2004

I have just returned from a two-week vacation in the Upper Peninsula. I drove north, crossed the Mackinaw Bridge and turned right. Then I followed the coastline around the U.P. I ate lunches sitting in parks looking at the waters of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. I took boat rides through the Soo Locks and past the Painted Rocks. I walked nature paths and drove (very slowly) through the Seney Nature Preserve and the Presque Isle Park. It was sunny, then cloudy, sometimes rainy.

And it was incredibly beautiful. The Lakes were blue and turquoise and calm and stormy. The trees were tall and majestic, and short and wind-twisted. Some beaches were sand and some, near Copper Harbor, rocky. There were wildflowers everywhere; Queen Anne's Lace, Sunflowers, purple flowers and white, golden flowers and pink. Some were large and flaunted their petals, some small and shy.

I saw wild animals. In addition to the deer I told the children about, I saw a cougar! It loped across Route 26 in front of my car. I'm not sure of the difference between cougars and mountain cats. Let's just say this was the largest tan cat I ever saw that was not behind bars.

The experience reminded me again of how very beautiful this world is. It reminded me that we often stop seeing the beauty around us. It reminded me of why I could not ever believe the doctrine of original sin. The world is instead, an Original Blessing to humanity.

What would your life be like if you had grown up believing in your heart that you were blessed by Creation? What would your life be like if you had been taught from infancy that your body, and all its parts, was good and beautiful? What would our lives be like if the entire culture in which we lived believed that the world was a beautiful gift, that all creatures that lived in it were sacred, and that our task was to care for its treasures?

This is the vision that Matthew Fox brings to religion, specifically to Christianity. Fox was a Dominican priest when he wrote Original Blessing, and other books. You noted the past tense. His writings so challenged the Vatican that they censured him, and he was dismissed from the Dominican Order. He is now an Episcopal priest and founder of the University of Creation Spirituality in California. He was the keynote speaker at the Heartland District Annual Meeting last year.

I believe that Fox's teachings can inform we who are liberal religionists. We have a tradition of learning from nature. We affirm that we are part of the interdependent web of existence. We celebrate the beauty of the natural world, even as we recognize that we cannot control its winds, we cannot make rain fall in the desert, nor stop its descent when our basements are flooded. Let us hear what Fox has to say.

His aim, he says is to deconstruct the fall/redemption theology that has dominated Christianity for centuries, and reconstruct creation spirituality, which he says precedes Christianity, and can be found in the teachings of Jesus.

Fall/redemption spirituality is based on the doctrine of original sin. It is symbolized in Christianity by the fall of Adam (who stands for all men) into the sin of disobeying God. He, of course, blames Eve, who blames the serpent. In the Christian script, mankind was only saved from this sin by the grace of God, who sacrificed his only son, Jesus, that we sinful beings would have the opportunity but not the guarantee, to be saved from eternal torment.

For almost 2000 years this has been the founding myth of our culture. … It is a pretty depressing myth. Many of us have rejected it. Some of us do it by rejecting the whole idea of God. Some of us do it by saying that we are misunderstanding God, who really intends that all shall be saved. Some of us do it by re-framing the idea of divinity in different terms, perhaps feminine terms, or more inclusive, non-gender specific spiritual terms.

Fox rejects it also. He says that, rather than original sin, creation gifted us with original blessing. And he has resurrected esteemed mystical writers from antiquity who shared this idea of creation. He uses the work of the Jesus Seminar to claim that this was also Jesus' view of humankind's condition. I am not addressing the question of Jesus' view directly today, but I commend Original Blessing and other of Fox's books to those who wish to further explore that aspect of his work.

A caveat before I proceed: as I quote Fox today and work with his ideas I will be using the metaphor God. I encourage you to think of this word as a metaphor for that which you hold in your heart and mind as most valuable and meaningful in the Cosmos.

Fox says: "Since 'blessing' is the theological word for 'goodness,' original blessing is about original goodness. The forces of fear and pessimism so prevalent in society and religion need to be countered by an increased awareness of awe and goodness. This goodness is inherent in the beauty, wisdom, and wonder of creation." (Fox, Matthew, Original Blessing, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York, 2000, p. 7.)

This is the basic teaching of creation spirituality. Creation is Good. This does not mean that hurricanes, fire and earthquakes do not cause damage, nor that some people do not do evil. It does mean that basically, creation, which includes humankind, is good.

Fox believes, and has staked his life on this belief, that: "When creation becomes the starting point of spirituality once again, then hope will return also. We will see everything differently, including Divinity itself. This blessing awareness will motivate us to hopeful--and generous--actions. This issue at stake is nothing less than biophilia vs. necrophilia." (Ibid.)

That is, the issue is love of life or love of death. Do we embrace life and creation, or do we embrace death and despair? We need only look at contemporary events to grasp that this question is central to our lives, even to our survival. Fox says that it will not be easy to unlearn the lessons of the fall/redemption spirituality that has dominated our culture.

"It will," he says, "mean meditation and cleansing our perception in order to see the world differently. It will mean learning and celebrating the new creation story from science. It will also mean detoxing our souls of necrophilic tendencies derived from toxic religious teachings and ideologies." (Ibid.)

Fox understands that many religious traditions, both antique and contemporary, embrace a form of creation spirituality. It has a pre-Christian tradition, and a muted Christian tradition. And it exists in many aboriginal cultures. However, he calls for adapting these teachings in light of the teachings of science and the lessons learned through feminist and other liberation movements.

Fox gives us several reasons why he believes "the creation-centered tradition offers a new and needed paradigm for wisdom and human survival today. (Fox, p. 12.) First, he says, we face two critical crises--the ecological crises, which includes nuclear war, and the unemployment crisis. It is clear that the widespread adoption of creation spirituality would bring a change in how we view the earth and her gifts. If we truly regarded the earth as an original blessing, pollution would not be a problem. If we regarded humans as holding the spark of divinity within them, nuclear war would be unthinkable.

The crisis of unemployment is worldwide. When this book was written, it was less critical in the United States than it is now, but we are beginning to learn what Third World citizens have lived with for many years.

It is the legions of unemployed young men who form the armies of fundamentalist Islam, just as they have formed armies of aggression throughout history.

Fox believes that, "When the human race wakes up to see that it has outgrown war, it will realize that to put our energies of people, knowledge, talent, and capital to work to feed, educate, heal, and house the human community would provide work and more than enough work for everyone."

Fox believes that the new learnings of science call for integration with creation spirituality. The deep space astronomers who scan the skies beyond our sight have discovered more about our cosmos than we could ever have imagined twenty-five years ago, or even ten years ago. Newtonian physics, which many of us learned in our youth, is no longer valid. Our understanding of the world has changed and calls for a new spiritual understanding also.

Creation spirituality can help foster a global ecumenism that reaches far beyond Christianity. It fosters an understanding of our interdependence that will make us more reluctant to draw arms against our brothers and sisters.

"Creation spirituality is a justice spirituality," says Fox. (Fox, p. 17.) He cites such mystics as Hildegard of Bingen and Meister Eckhardt, who have been ignored or mistranslated by fall/redemption theologians until rescued by feminist writers only recently. Justice and liberation are concerns of those who embrace the goodness of creation.

Fox acknowledges that creation-centered spirituality is feminist, but has been shunted aside for almost 3500 years. "Wisdom and Eros count more than know-ledge or control in such a spirituality," he says. And he adds, "Not only was the prepatriarchal period feminist, but the postpatriarchal period will be as well--provided patriarchy, in its deep pessimism leaves us a world to play on and work on and celebrate." (Fox, p. 18.)

Fox points out that with a doctrine of original sin, "one is old before one comes into the world." (Ibid.) Thus, hope is difficult to find. Pessimism and cynicism are marks of a society that embraces original sin. Creation spirituality brings hope to a world hungry for it. (Ibid.)

One of the functions of religion is to transform the world. Fox asks, "How is religion to be an agent of transformation if religion itself is not transformed?" (p. 19.) He continues, "We are victims of a cosmic loneliness and an anthropocentric isolation from creation that we bring upon ourselves. Reclaiming our original blessing and integrating it into our religions will bring transformation.

Part of that integration should include the products of the right brain, art, music and meditation. The heart and right brain need to be included, as well as left brain linear thinking. "For wisdom," says Fox, " does not proceed from either right or left brain, but from the happy marriage of the two, functioning well as equal partners in search of truth." (Fox, p. 24.)

Creation-centered spirituality is a solidly prophetic tradition, according to Fox. Reclaiming our pre-Christian celebration of the wonders of creation, including humanity, could do much to balance the fundamentalisms that threaten to destroy our culture, if not our world. The vision offered by creation-centered spirituality will do much to bring hope and renewal to human beings today. It is an adventurous journey, one that brings us into deep community with our fellow travelers. It promises to bring us a new and stronger life urge. (Fox, p. 25.)

For all these reasons, Matthew Fox celebrates and promotes creation-centered spirituality. It will bring, he says, nothing less than a "Copernican revolution in religion. Copernicus moved people from believing that Earth was the center around which the universe revolved to believing that Earth moved about the sun. In religion we have been operating under the model that humanity, and especially sinful humanity, was the center of the spiritual universe. This is not so. The universe itself, blessed and graced, is the proper center for spirituality. Original blessing is prior to any sin, original or less than original." (Fox, 26.)

With the rejection of Fall/Redemption theology, and its well-entrenched practices in Western Civilization, how do we move to Creation Spirituality? How can we re-shape the language and practices of religion to embrace a life-affirming theology? Fox offers four paths, which he explores in some depth. At this time I will give you only the basic ideas. If you wish further information, I encourage you to acquire his book, Original Blessing.

The first path is called Befriending Creation, the Via Positiva. This path affirms life and awareness and Eros. "The Via Positiva," says Fox, "represents a new power, in the sense that it has been forgotten; the power that pleasure is and wisdom is. …The Via Positiva is a way of tasting the beauties and cosmic depths of creation, which means us and everything else. Without this solid grounding in creation's powers we become bored, violent people. We become necrophiliacs in love with death and the powers and principalities of death. With the Via Positiva, all creation breaks out anew." (Fox, p. 34.)

Following the Via Positive is the Via Negativa, or Befriending Darkness, Letting Go and Letting Be. This path affirms that life contains pain, which can be experienced, and then let go. One need not wallow in the pain, but it must be acknowledged. "We learn," says Fox, "that we are cosmic beings not only in our joy and ecstasy but also in our pain and sorrow." The Via Positive and Via Negativa are deeply connected, and we cannot experience the one without the other. (Fox, p. 130.)

The third path Fox names Befriending Creativity, Befriending Our Divinity: the Via Creativa. One cannot create unless one experiences joy and rapture, and also pain and suffering. The wonders of creation inspired poets such as Mary Oliver. However, the depths she reaches would not be possible unless she had also experienced suffering. "Creativity," says Fox, "is a cosmic energy; it is the cosmos birthing itself. And creativity cannot happen where true nothingness is not allowed and where the fear of the dark dominates over a reverence for the dark and what can be birthed in the dark." (Fox, p. 176.)

And the fourth and last path is named Befriending New Creation: Compassion, Celebration, Erotic Justice, the Via Transformativa. The fourth path critiques the journeys of the first three. The aim of creation spirituality is compassion, so the Via Transformativa tests the products of creativity to meet the test of compassion and justice. Fox points out that "Our creativity in all instances is to be put to the use of compassion. When it is not, then racism and sexism, militarism and giant capitalism will co-opt the image of God in people and use creativity not to return blessing for blessing with but to curse and destroy. Much creativity, after all, went into Hitler's ovens for efficient human extermination at Auschwitz, and an immense amount of creativity and skill goes into building a Triton submarine today. This is creativity but it is not new creation." (Fox, 247.)

From the Via Transformativa, the spiritual traveler revisits the Via Positiva, for the journey is a spiral journey in which one goes forward even as one circles among the four paths.

For many of us creation spirituality is a new term; but part of its practices have been with us for many years. At least since Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau opened our eyes to the wonders of the cosmos we have celebrated the joys of creation. We hold within our ranks people who call themselves pagan, and base their spirituality in the natural world. Recent theologians have explored panentheism, the theology that says that creation is sacred, AND there is something larger we may not be able to name. And process theologians affirm that life and divinity are part of a continuing stream of development.

However, I think we can learn from the four paths Fox names. I think we are loathe to affirm that the Via Negativa is also necessary to embrace. It is far less comfortable for most of us than the Via Positiva. And the remaining two paths, the Via Creativa and Via Transformativa are also deserving of study.

I celebrate the emergence in our time of a spirituality that is creation centered, especially one that comes from the single most established religion in Western Civilization--the Roman Catholic Church. It was so threatening to them they found it necessary to expel its author. However, his ideas continue to educate and inform. I hope many more people will embrace them.

Creation Spirituality is a source of hope in a world wracked by war. It is a source of hope for those who suffer hunger and disease. It is a source of hope for those of us who, while blessed by good fortune, feel compassion for those who suffer.

Creation is good. The world is good. Humanity is good. We have been gifted with Original Blessing.
Amen.
Blessed Be.
Shalom.
Saalat.