Welcome to the Harbor Unitarian Universalist Congregation

The sermon today is part of an occasional series based on Matthew Fox's book, Original Blessing. Fox is a former Catholic priest who believes that the church erred when it embraced a fall/redemption theology. That is, that humankind is fatally flawed and that only belief in the Risen Christ can bring salvation. I heard him speak at the Heartland District conference last April.

Fox believes in a creation-centered theology. He centers on the Genesis story that envisions God creating each thing, and pausing to say "It is good." Creation is good, says Fox. And humans are a part of that goodness.

He divides his thinking into four paths: the Via Positiva, Via Negativa, Via Creativa and Via Transformativa. In an earlier sermon I talked about the first path--the Via Positiva. It is an easy subject to address, for the Via Positiva is fun! It calls upon us to look upon creation as good and it examines panen-theism, the idea that God is present in nature, but that there is also something bigger. It talks about our royal personhood, for we are all children of the Holy. The Via Positiva celebrates the power of erotic love and advances the idea of cosmic hospitality.

These are all very positive images. Today's topic is more difficult: the Via Negativa, or Befriending Darkness. It is easy to encourage you to celebrate earth's bounty and the power of love. It is more difficult to encourage you to claim the dark side of our humanity, and to befriend it.

Classic Christian theology, which Western Civilization has inherited from the Catholic Church, and the Protestant Reformation embrace a limited vision of what we call the Via Negativa. It is a path marked by ascetic practices. It taught that one must use "will power to overcome one's feelings." (Fox, Matthew, Original Blessing, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin Putnam, New York, 2000, p. 129.)

Instead of meditating, practices of mortification were encouraged. Gritting one's teeth to resist temptation was the practice. It is no wonder the Via Negativa did not become popular.

However, ignoring the dark side is not wise. The Via Negativa is basically a path that acknowledges that darkness exists, and that is contains lessons we must learn. It is ultimately good, and we ignore it at our peril.

It runs contrary to our culture. Our tendency is to push it down, ignore it, deny that it really exists. The Via Positiva represents joy and erotic love, all that is good about creation. Until we are faced with a truly painful situation, it is easy to stay on the positive side.

My own introduction to the Via Negativa came when my oldest daughter was murdered. Although I had already experienced difficult situations in my life, this event brought me face to face with evil and deep, almost unbearable pain. I did not have then the language of theology, but somehow found my way through the pain and into a life worth living. Eventually I learned the language to name the path I traveled--the Via Negativa.

I hope none of you learn this path in such a painful way. However, to be human is to know that one must die, to be human is to experience the loss of love; to be human is to experience pain as well as joy.

Walking the Via Negativa teaches one necessary lessons, and leads to a greater appreciation of the gifts of the Via Positiva. Let us learn from Matthew Fox some of those lessons and gifts.

Fox was a Catholic priest, and remains a devout Christian. His language reflects this background. His ideas are far broader than traditional Christian theology allows, which is why he is a former Catholic priest. For today, I ask you to allow the term God stand for that which is best, brightest and most holy in your understanding of the Cosmos.

Fox tells us that there are four themes to be found on the Via Negativa. The first is: Emptying: Letting Go of Images and Letting Silence be Silence. Each theme is preceded by several quotations that represent an aspect of the path. I will share one of those quotations from each theme with you.

The first is Meister Eckhart's words, "God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by the process of subtraction."

Fox begins with these words:

The Enlightenment--the en-light-en-ment--has rendered all of us who live in Western civilization citizens of the light. And of lights. Questers after left-brain--which is light oriented--satisfaction. The invention of the light bulb and electricity and neon lights and handy light switches was a marvelous outgrowth of the Enlightenment's technological achievements. And with the light bulb there came also the radio, so that now not only were our eyes attracted to what is outside of us but our ears were as well. With television we experienced a new kind of light machine--one that combines eyes and ears, light and radio, to allure us out of ourselves. Then came color tele-vision, whose light is a bright, bright light of rainbow varieties, ever more alluring and more demanding. Religion too has become very light-oriented in the West….And the sentimental hymns that ignore the dark or reduce it anthropomorphically to human sin and therefore to salvation contribute to the excessive lighting of our world. (Ibid. 134)

As a result, we are afraid of the dark. We are afraid of no-light. Afraid of silence, of image-lessness. When I walk into a room, the first thing I do is flip on the light. If there is no switch by the door, I am uncomfortable until I find one and turn it on. And I turn the radio on when I enter the kitchen to start making tea and breakfast. Many of us turn the television on automatically, just to have some company or sound.

I did not name this light-switch habit as fear of the dark. I now think that is an accurate analysis. How can we control our path, if we cannot see? Don't we need to know where we are going? And does not our fear of the dark repre-sent our fear of death--the final darkness?

Let us look at some positive images of darkness. "Our bodies," Fox reminds us, "are filled with darkness." All its parts, heart, liver, brain, intestines, the circulatory systems work on day and night, day after day, in the dark. Isn't it a small miracle that each part of our body cooperates with the other parts, and that all work together to keep us alive, and walking, talking, thinking and loving?

Fox points out that, more than likely, we all began in darkness. "Our loving parents presumably conceived us in the dark nights of their lovemaking. We ought to celebrate that dark sacrament of marriage's most intimate moments much more sensually and honestly than we do. Furthermore, we lived appar-ently quite contented lives for nine full months in the dark. The womb was dark and not fearful." (Ibid, 135)

Seeds must go into the dark earth before they can sprout and grow. There is much mystery in our living and our cosmos, which thrives in the dark. To walk the Via Negativa, we can meditate on positive images of darkness.

Fox tells us, "In addition to meditating on our very real relationship to darkness and to its ever-present companion, mystery, we also need to let go of all medi-ations, all images, all likenesses, all projections, all naming, all contact with isness." (Ibid. 136) This is a radical demand. Fox is a great believer in medi-tation, and uses Buddhist and other practices. He recommends Zen and Yoga, and talks of "following the breath."

This is much harder for some of us than others. I have a very difficult time emptying my mind. I almost get there and then something like "Am I doing this right?" will surface. Fox calls for "a radical letting go of language." (Ibid.) For those of us who are chronically busy, always dashing to the next appointment, forever planning the next event, this request is daunting. Nevertheless, I believe it to be healthy, and necessary for an effective treading of the Via Negativa.

Letting go of busyness is a true challenge for many of us. Fox coins an arresting term in the following quotation: "If it is true that the ground of the soul is dark, then the human race cannot continue to afford to flee the dark-ness and to embrace an Enlightenment that does not include an Endarken-ment." (Ibid. 139) Western Civilization has embraced the Enlightenment for the last several hundred years. While it brought many blessings to our society, it also presents challenges. Let us allow the idea of Endarkenment to mellow in our minds, to stir our hearts, to inform our actions, and to bring balance into our living.

The second theme Fox proposes for the Via Negativa is: Being Emptied: Letting Pain be Pain. Hear the words of Mechtild of Magdeburg: "From suffering I have learned this: That whoever is sore wounded by love will never be made whole unless she embrace the very same love which wounded her." (Ibid. p. 140)

This is perhaps the most difficult of the themes on this path. Letting pain be pain goes against our societal norms. We are a nation of drug addicts--Valium and Zoloft, as well as cocaine and heroin, alcohol and smoking. Do you feel bad? Take a pill. Are you depressed? Here's a prescription. Tired at the end of a stressful day? Have a martini.

I'm not talking here about the many Americans who suffer from clinical depres-sion or other mental or emotional illnesses. I am talking about numbing our senses to avoid the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. "Pain is today's unmentionable reality," says Fox, "much as sex was unmentionable in the Victorian period." (Ibid, 141)

Nor am I primarily talking about physical pain, although persistent, unending pain also becomes a spiritual concern. I am primarily talking about psychic pain, emotional pain, cosmic pain. I believe one reason we have an epidemic of depression among our people is that we are encouraged to avoid, cover up, and hide our desperate striving for meaning in our lives, our losses which fill us with grief, and our fear of death. Letting pain be pain is necessary for our emotional and spiritual health; but it is not easy.

"This is why," says Fox, "courage--big-heartedness--is the most essential virtue on the spiritual journey. But if we fail to let pain be pain--and our entire patriarchal culture refuses to let this happen--then pain will haunt us in night-marish ways. We will become pain's victims instead of the healers we might become. And eventually pain's perpetrators." (Ibid. 142) We must learn to embrace pain.

Embrace pain? This is a difficult idea. Fox offers an image that assists our understanding. "We pick up our pain as we would a bundle of sticks for a fireplace; we necessarily embrace these sticks as we move across the room to the fireplace; then we thrust them into the fire, getting rid of them, letting go of them; finally we are warmed and delighted by their sacrificial gift to us in the form of fire and heat and warmth and energy. This is the manner we can and indeed must deal with our pain." (Ibid.)

Embracing, letting go with a deliberate gesture, and being warmed by the resulting burning. Here is a model for dealing with pain that I can recommend.

What are some of the things we can learn from pain? Firstly, it can help us understand others who are in pain. "A healthy experience of letting pain be pain is always a schooling in compassion." (Ibid, 143.) Those of us who have suffered deeply understand deeply the suffering of others.

Secondly, pain helps us understand and critique pleasure. It relates back to the Via Positiva and helps us understand that beautiful roses come with thorns; that pain and pleasure are often intermixed. It sensitizes us to what is beautiful in life. It awakens us to the preciousness of life. (Ibid.)

It toughens us up. I can testify to this third benefit of pain. The old saying: "That which does not slay you makes you stronger" is really true. Fox cautions us that this is not the same as the ascetic tradition that celebrates pain as a dedication to God, "But in the natural flow of events in our lives wherein living life fully requires strength to endure pain and suffering." (Ibid, 144, 145)

Another benefit, the fourth, is that pain and suffering link us to others. All humans suffer, often in different ways, but often similarly. "All social move-ments and organizations were born of pain," says Fox. (Ibid.) The pain of being unemployed, the pain of sharing a disaster, the pain of experiencing racism, or sexism, or classism. Sharing these pains leads to movements that seek change.

And pain opens us up to others. Recognizing that each of us is a suffering creature within a universe of creatures that experience suffering opens us up to others. It moves us to understanding that we are all at home in the cosmos, and that we are all part of the web of creation. (Ibid, 146)

In this understanding of the Via Negativa, suffering is not, "as the fall/redemp-tion tradition emphasizes too much, the wages we pay for sin. … Suffering is built into the birth of the entire cosmos." (Ibid) Births are painful, but they result in new life, and increased love.

The Via Negativa's third path is: Sinking into Nothingness and Letting Nothingness be Nothingness. Hear the words of.D.H. Lawrence:

Are you willing to be sponged out, erased,
cancelled,
made nothing?
Are you willing to be made nothing?
dipped into oblivion?
If not, you will ever really change.
(Ibid, pp. 148, 149.)

"When one learns letting go and letting be, when one learns sinking, when one learns emptying and being emptied, one necessarily comes face to face with nothingness," says Fox (Ibid. 149). I think nothingness is a scary concept. I think it is difficult to grasp the idea of void. To experience it is deep, even life-changing.

Fox affirms that, "The experiences of nothingness that one might touch based on …emptying meditations…may be very quiet, a kid of blank space or empty mirror. … Or, …pain and suffering may render our nothingness experience quite hurtful, shocking, even violent." (Ibid, p. 150)

He points out that Mahatma Ghandi "referred to the political implications of nothingness on many occasions. 'True individuality consists in reducing oneself to zero. The secret of life is selfless service. The highest ideal for us is to become free from attachment.'" (Ibid)

Let us bring this difficult concept into real situations, that we may better under-stand it. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, the desert is experienced as a metaphor for nothingness. A trip into the desert is a descent into nothingness. Now, think of this--take your age--say you are 40,and try to meditate upon 41 years ago. You were then --nothing. And this is true for each of us. We all came from the dark.

An experience of nothingness you may not relate to the Via Negativa is the experience of laughter--especially deep, helpless laughter that sometimes overwhelms us. Similarly, pain and anger can overwhelm us until we lose their names--they become no thing. Fox tells us that "an experience that opens us cosmic joy and beauty also renders us vulnerable to an experience of the void." (Ibid, 153)

We must fall into nothingness before we can create. Think of the magnificent composer, Beethoven. He crafted beautiful pieces for several years as he traveled the Via Positiva. Then, he began his descent into deafness, a true Via Negativa. Yet he continued composing, bringing into our lives sublime music that speaks to human hearts.

The fourth and final theme in the Via Negativa is Sin, Salvation, a Theology of Loss. Let me share the words of Susan Griffin.

"The earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am, how we admire this strength in each other, all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know: we are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her. (Ibid, 158)

Fox says that the Via Negativa is essentially about learning receptivity. There-fore, sin "would consist in the refusal to let go, the refusal to admit the need for receptivity in our lives, and the refusal to develop receptivity." (Ibid, 159)

To illustrate this idea he cites a description of the birthing process written by a maternity nurse, who says: "(D)uring (the transition stage of labor) the mother usually notes a drastic change and may respond by getting very anxious, and if she is not properly supported and prepared, she may feel panic. As in the early stages of labor, she can assist only by relaxing. If she loses control, fights the contractions, she will increase her own fear, which in turn increases her own discomfort." (Ibid.)

Fox names clinging as another sin in the Via Negativa. Clinging to ego, control, to will power is often our reaction to the feeling of sinking into nothingness. This is, he says, sinful, for we must learn to let go, "not of things, …but of attitudes toward things." (Ibid.)

And the third sin is the sin of projection, or the refusal to let be--that is to let others be different. "It is," says Fox, "when we are so dissatisfied with being ourselves or so not at home with our deepest self that we must always be projecting onto others our ways, our attitudes, our fears, our disappointments." In this sin, I hear the basis of all the isms that plague our society. (Ibid 160)

And the last sin named is the refusal to let pain be pain. We must develop our capacities to endure pain, to embrace pain, to learn from pain, to walk through pain. In doing so we become strong.

Salvation, in the Via Negativa "is not a salvation from pain but a salvation through pain. This is not the pain of asceticism, but the pain of living life fully, the Via Negativa as well as the Via Positiva.

Salvation is not only personal, but primarily social. Fox tells us, "A personal salvation by itself is not truly salvific, for people in the deepest recesses of their personhood are social. … Relationships constitute part of the healing of every person." (Ibid, 162)

The very acknowledgment of pain and darkness brings healing. "By letting pain be pain we allow healing to be healing…" (Ibid, 163) Only by facing the truth of pain can healing occur.

"We are saved," says Fox, "by forgiveness," by forgiving ourselves and growing into forgiving others. And finally, trust heals us. "Not only the trust of ecstasy and delight as in the Via Positiva, but trust of the darkness, the sinking and the nothingness of the Via Negativa. … Trust drives out fear, and when we let go of fear we are ready to live fully, love fully, and be instruments of healing or salvation." (Ibid, 164)

These then, are the themes of the Via Negativa; Letting Go and Letting Be, Letting Pain Be Pain, Sinking into Nothingness, Sin and Salvation in this path. They are not so easy to embrace as the Via Positiva, which was full of joy. However, they are necessary themes for living in this beautiful, but flawed world. Let us embrace them for the healing and growth they will bring to us.

Amen.
Blessed Be.
Shalom
Saalat.