And Mathew Fox exclaimed: “The warrior leapt into the doomed land”!
A short, punchy piece on America as Addict, and our choice to intervene.
We must all be warriors now.
Occupy.
America’s Dark Night of the Soul
May 10, 2012
by Julia Dalton
Sunday morning (December 11th, 2011) I awoke to 30-degree temperatures here in New York City and did not want to get out of bed let alone walk 16 blocks to go to church. Now I love my church, Unity of New York, it’s progressive, caring, enlightened, inclusive, musical and fun.
I knew we had a guest speaker, Matthew Fox, a Catholic priest who was excommunicated after 34 years for being, as our pastor Paul Tenaglia remarked, pro women, pro gays, pro choice and pro God. It doesn’t get much better than that.
So I bundled up and decided to brave the cold and I’m so glad I did.
In our seemingly crazy world when you hear the truth you know it. It’s like a cool sip of pure, clean water that quenches your thirst.
Matthew Fox is an amazing presence for good and peace on the planet. He’s written some 30 books and won such awards as: the Abbey Courage of Conscience Peace Award (other recipients include the Dali Lama, Mother Teresa, Ernesto Cadrenal and Rosa Parks), the Gandhi King Ikeda Award, the Tikkun National Ethics Award to name a few.
His talk was titled “Are We Birthing Christ — The Real Meaning of Christmas.” The concept that struck me the deepest was his understanding of the dark night of the soul, which many experience, myself included, but some choose not to learn from and instead hightail it out of town or disappear into addictions for fear of facing the truth. It takes a warrior to face the truth head on.
He spoke about how out of nothingness God is born.
“What is nothingness?” he asks. Where is it found? It’s found in the stillness and silence of meditation. It’s found in the breath, which is spirit. A place where there is no monkey mind and where we do not look at the earth as an object to be mined or people as objects to be used.
The second place to find nothingness is in loss. It’s found in 9/11. We call it ground zero. It’s found in joblessness where we feel we’re no longer needed or wanted. It’s found in grief and in letting go.
The third place where nothingness is found is in moral nothingness. He used the example of Bernie Madoff a sociopath without conscience or guilt who could deceive his friends, family and the charities that depended on him and still somehow manage to look at himself in the mirror. He spoke of Wall Street as part of this nothingness and the nothingness of consumer capitalism, which does not serve us.
Many addicts do not find redemption until they bottom out and find themselves in AA or some other 12-step group and our culture is bottoming out to get rid of the useless junk that no longer matters in order to birth the Christ within us all.
Christianity caught fire because of the morally bankrupt Roman Empire and Occupy Wall Street is the response to our morally bankrupt institutions. When the perplexed exclaim, “But what are their demands?” Fox continued, “OWS’s message is much deeper than that.” OWS is bearing witness. They are calling to us all to roll up our sleeves and do something. They have caught the fire of moral outrage. They are warriors.
Time to become one with love. Listen to the silence and catch the fire. A lover and a prophet will interfere with that which interferes with love and justice. God is the denial of denial and we must move beyond our collective denial.
America’s become a horrible addict. She’s addicted to oil, war, murder, TV, mindless entertainment, hatred of the other, violence, junk food, gambling, porn, sex, drugs, alcohol and greed. Did I leave anything out? She’s out of control, living in denial and on borrowed time, as all addicts do, and needs an intervention. That’s where we come in.
Our political system is broken.
Our healthcare system is broken.
Our energy system is broken.
Our corporate media is just a propaganda machine shilling for the corporations and the 1%.
It’s not easy nor is it for the faint of heart but we must all be warriors now. We must all get involved and roll up our sleeves and get to work rebuilding our broken systems to work for us all not just the 1%. We deserve a healthy planet filled with love, compassion and justice. We must rebuild.
Fox exclaimed, “The warrior leapt into the doomed land.”
And there is hope but “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.” David Orr
After the service I wept with joy at the compassion, insights and hope from this great man of God.
Get involved.
Our time has come.
We are the change we’ve been looking for.
We have a choice. We can hightail it out of town, drink ourselves into oblivion or roll up your sleeves and get to work.
Time to occupy.
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