I like what Matthew Fox shared in “Creation Spirituality“.
1. The universe is fundamentally a blessing. Our relationship with the Universe fills us with awe.
2. In Creation, God is both immanent and transcendent. This is panentheism which is not theism (God out there) and not atheism (no God anywhere). We experience that the Divine is in all things & all things are in the Divine.
3. God is as much Mother as Father, as much Child as Parent, as much God in mystery as the God in history, as much beyond all words and images as in all forms and beings. We are liberated from the need to cling to God in one form or one literal name.
4. In our lives, it is through the work of spiritual practice that we find our deep and true selves. Through the arts of meditation and silence we cultivate a clarity of mind and move beyond fear into compassion and community.
5. Our inner work can be understood as a four-fold journey involving:
– awe, delight, amazement (known as the Via Positiva)
– uncertainty, darkness, suffering, letting go (Via Negativa)
– birthing, creativity, passion (Via Creativa)
– justice, healing, celebration (Via Transformativa)
We weave through these paths like a spiral danced, not a ladder climbed.6. Every one of us is a mystic. We can enter the mystical as much through beauty (Via Positiva) as through contemplation and suffering (Via Negativa). We are born full of wonder and can recover it at any age.
7. Every one of us is an artist. Whatever the expression of our creativity, it is our prayer and praise (Via Creativa).
8. Every one of us is a prophet. Our prophetic work is to interfere with all forms of injustice and that which interrupts authentic life (Via Transformativa).
9. Diversity is the nature of the Universe. We rejoice in and courageously honor the rich diversity within the Cosmos and expressed among individuals and across multiple cultures, religions and ancestral traditions.
10. The basic work of God is compassion and we, who are all original blessings and sons and daughters of the Divine, are called to compassion. We acknowledge our shared interdependence; we rejoice at one another’s joys and grieve at one another’s sorrows and labor to heal the causes of those sorrows.
11. There are many wells of faith and knowledge drawing from one underground river of Divine wisdom. The practice of honoring, learning and celebrating the wisdom collected from these wells is Deep Ecumenism. We respect and embrace the wisdom and oneness that arises from the diverse wells of all the sacred traditions of the world.
12. Ecological justice is essential for the sustainability of life on Earth.
Ecology is the local expression of cosmology and so we commit to live in light of this value: to pass on the beauty and health of Creation to future generations.
I think Matthew Fox’s outline of the creation spirituality provides hope and vision for humanity to work together to heal divisions and bridge differences between one another as well as take concrete actions to conserve the environment. When more and more people realise that we are all connected, we will all commit to live in the light of our ecological and cosmological interconnectedness, and so pass on the beauty and health of Creation to our future generations. I like what he shared in the quote below.
“There’s no such thing as a Jewish ocean and a Lutheran sun and a Buddhist river and a Taoist forest and a Roman Catholic cornfield. Once you move to the level of creation, you’re into an era of deep ecumenism, and I think for Mother Earth to survive we need this awakening of wisdom from all world religions, and not just the five-thousand-year-old patriarchal ones, but the goddess religions, the religions of the native peoples of America, Africa, and Asia, and I think this and this alone is going to awaken the human race — this combination of mystical wisdom — to its own salvation.“
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- Meredith Murphy -Orienting Transmission From The Omni Mind Of Creation – 25 November 2012 (lucas2012infos.wordpress.com)
- Moving Beyond a Cross Fetish: The Empty Tomb and Creation Spirituality (tikkun.org)
- Universe… goes on forever… (thedailysisterhood.wordpress.com)
- Orienting Transmission from the Omni Mind of Creation (theonenesschannelings.wordpress.com)
Nature and Us 