Wed, 24 Apr 2024 17:05:25 -0700WeeblyTue, 22 Oct 2019 05:12:13 GMThttp://kindnessalert.co/blog/matthew-fox-creation-spirituality-and-salvationFor lessons in cosmic kindness, the contribution of Hildegard of Bingen, and daily meditations, please visit this Matthew Fox website centered in Creation Spirituality: 

The following is an excerpt from https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/about/

It ends with the first five of forty-eight contrasts he makes between the two traditions, Fall/Redemption vs. Creation Spirituality. How ironic that "salvation", or saving grace, might be found more profoundly in creation spirituality.
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​CS is in active dialog with scientists about the new cosmology and much more. Thomas Berry writes: “An absence of a sense of the sacred is the basic flaw in many of our efforts at ecologically or environmentally adjusting our human presence to the natural world. It has been said, ‘We will not save what we do not love.’ It is also true that we will neither love nor save what we do not experience as sacred….Eventually only our sense of the sacred will save us.”*
*Thomas Berry, “Foreward,” in Kathleen Deignan, ed., Thomas Merton Writings on Nature: When the Trees Say Nothing (Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2003), 18f.

Creation Spirituality in Contrast to the Dominant Religious Paradigm (Fall/Redemption Religion)
In my book Original Blessing, published in 1983, I offer a list that contrasts the two traditions of Fall/Redemption Religion and Creation Spirituality. Just recently I met a forty-something man who told me that “those four pages from your book totally changed my understanding of Christian history and they should be made available to everyone.” So I went back and re-read them. I agree. Thus I offer the contrast here in a slightly updated rendition.

Fall/Redemption Religion           Creation Spirituality
Begins with sin                         Begins with Dabhar, God’s Creative energy
Emphasizes original sin          Emphasizes original blessing
Faith is “thinking with assent” (Augustine)     Faith is trust
Patriarchal                                Feminist and Gender balanced
Ascetic                                      Aesthetic
  


]]>Sun, 20 Oct 2019 20:08:42 GMThttp://kindnessalert.co/blog/listening-connecting-accepting​Overwhelm and mistrust is everywhere. I wonder if a national conversation about the impact of technological change might be helpful. So many stressful situations and conditions blamed on others, on "them" (ranging from immigrants to liberals to wealthy business owners), have unfolded in the context of technological change. It’s an elephant in the room moving at the speed of light.
Though it is not the whole story, and the impact varies, the experience of change is one we share. When our stress response kicks in, the thinking part of the brain has less power to direct and manage our thoughts, feelings, and actions. 
While you laugh at this idea, please take it seriously: Imagine people gathering in person or online to share their stories, to listen to each other, fully present, without judgment.
In this context, we could stand on common ground and experience our common humanity, maybe even moments of comic relief, a known stress reliever. Given the power of song, it might help to add music to the mix.
This holiday season, what if we shared our stories with the other, with each other? Even a 1% feeling of connection could provide the seed for more caring, more unity. Thank you for your kind attention.

For your viewing pleasure, or visual shock, is this chart showing the number of years until that technology was used by 1/4 of the American [assume U.S.?] population after it became commercially available. Grab your hat. Of the seven technologies shown, note the contrast between electricity, year 1873/46 years, and the web, 1991/7 years. 
"The Rate of Technological Change is Accelerating" from Singularity.com:
 https://image.slidesharecdn.com/thebestapproachtoinvestingtimeinnewsocialnetworks-150216150252-conversion-gate02/95/slide-3-1024.jpg

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