Dear Friends,

 We hope that you are safe and well!

In our Meditation today, Matthew Fox wonders what it would have been like if a Creation Spirituality (and not a redemption spirituality) had accompanied the European explorers coming to the New World. If we had seen ourselves as grateful guests of God and Nature, would we have avoided genocide of indigenous people, slavery and ecocide?

Thinking of myself as a guest of nature, a guest of life, a guest of God, a guest of love helps me be more mindful not only of my hosts, but also of the other guests. Our mission is to take care of each other and Mother Earth.

We invite you to join us as we commit ourselves to working tirelessly to end systemic and structural racism in our society, in healthcare, in the workplace, in the Church--wherever it shows up so that everyone may come to have more abundant life. May this meditation nourish our contemplative-active hearts and sustain all of us in action.

In the spirit of our philosophy of co-creating community and our awareness that the Spirit speaks through each of us, we invite you to share your meditations with us as well. We truly believe that in God’s economy of abundance, when we share our blessings, our thoughts, our feelings, we are all made richer.

We hope and pray that you and your loved ones experience genuine peace of mind and heart, and remain in good health during this challenging time.

As Summer unfolds, may you find peace, healing, hope, and the infusion of joy in your life!

With our love and care,

Ron & Jean

MEDITATION 390: In contemplating Juneteenth and Creation Spirituality, Matthew Fox reflects on being grateful guests.

Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox

Juneteenth National Holiday, 2021

June 20, 2021

This weekend we celebrate the first national holiday of Juneteenth, the culmination of the freedom of slaves in the USA (on paper at least). It is a holiday and holyday long overdue in the larger community, commemorating a keystone in Black American history.

Juneteenth is to that community what the Exodus from Egypt was and is for Jewish people. A day of victory, celebration and remembrance of a great liberation. Just as Exodus has inspired enslaved people of many diverse cultures and periods throughout history, here’s hoping that Juneteenth does the same.

I search for the reasons behind slavery and behind genocide toward indigenous peoples in the Americas and beyond and I think the themes we have been following recently in our Daily Meditations hold a key to it all.

Blinded by hands of adultism, a girl grasps the globe, which is suffocating in plastic wrap. Photo by ArtHouse Studio from Pexels.

Let us not forget the enslavements we call speciescide or ecocide that our culture is involved in even today insofar as we deny climate change and our moral obligation to take responsibility for the extinction spasms that are happening all about us in the oceans, forests, soil, rivers, lakes, and among so many species whether four-legged, winged, finned, insects or birds.

Is there a common denominator to these tragic stories of genocide, slavery, ecocide, and extinctions? Sadly, I believe there is. It is our neglect of the sacredness of nature—human and other-than-human.

Is this not what all creation stories are in essence telling us? That we did not make nature; nature made us. Nature preceded us, we now know, by 13.8 billion years. We are nature’ s guest. Have we been good and grateful guests? Or have we been punishing our host/hostess, nature, for inviting us here? Have we projected onto nature our own self-hatred in place of awe, wonder, reverence, and gratitude?

If humans think we are #1 and that the rest of the earth creatures are here is to serve us, feed us, make our industry prosper or entertain us, that is the beginning of the downward slope. But the creation stories of the world do not tell us that this is the case. Rapacious stories of the unfettered marketplace and empire-making and unfettered ego and greed sell such stories and values as these.

A vulnerable person, subject to the pollution of an unfettered marketplace. Photo by Jawadur Rahman Srijon from Pexels.

The truth is this: Slavery was an economic thing but it was also a bad religious thing, it was the “discovery doctrine” from 15th century popes that encouraged Christian kings and queens to take what they wanted from African peoples because they were not “redeemed by Christ”; and from the American lands and peoples because they were not knowledgeable about salvation from Christ, etc.

Slave trade in Africa, via Wikimedia Commons.

Behind slavery and genocide is not only advanced armies and military but also a religious consciousness that leads with redemption and not gratitude for creation.

Creation Spirituality leads with creation and says all peoples grateful for existence want to thank the Creator. Thanking is very different from conquering in the name of redeeming.

How might history have been different had a creation spirituality accompanied 16th century European explorers and missionaries?