Matthew Fox spoke at Oklahoma City University, in the Bishop W. Angie Smith Chapel, this past Thursday, May 25. Fr. Fox is best known for having been censured by the Roman Catholic Church - by no less than the current pope - in the 1990s. He had been a Dominican Priest, but was dismissed in 1995. The cause for his censure was his teaching on "Original Blessing" (as opposed to original sin), and his celebration of the divine feminine. As I told many people last week, Matthew Fox was talking about the divine feminine long before Dan Brown.
The chapel is very lovely, with a high pitched roof, and stained glass patterned on Native American colors and themes.
There was a bird somewhere in the rafters of that high roof. At least one bird, that chirped throughout the evening. One of OCU's professors introduced Fr. Fox, and opened the evening with a prayer. His prayer included thanks for our unique choir.
Fr. Fox's topic was "Creativity - Where the Divine and the Human Meet", which is also the title of a book he published in 2002.
He began by asserting that the fundamental question of our time is whether humanity is sustainable. He cited a number of ways humanity has wounded the earth, ways that will be familiar to most environmentalists, progressives, and liberals. What we are currently seeing, in his view, is a crescendo of self-destruction.
Much of this is the dark side of humanity's creativity.
A beginning to the resolution to the question of humanity's sustainability is recognizing we are creative. According to Fr Fox, the anthropologists' definition of homo sapiens is "a biped who makes things". The Bible has another subtle way of stating this: when Genesis says God created humanity in God's image, it suggests that God created creators.
Matthew said that every human activity is creative. We have shortchanged ourselves by limiting the notion of "creative" to the fine arts and/or plastic arts. We must learn to honor our creativity and incorporate it into all areas of human conduct. The office worker is as creative as a painter. The garbage collector is as creative as an architect. And don't forget the art of conversation!
I would personally add that what is required for this to become true is what our Buddhist friends call mindfulness, and a degree of diligence. For example, there are moments when my desk job is more obviously creative than others. If I am to honor my intrinsic creativity, I must be diligent in seeking creative possibilities in those moments which are not so obvious.
Where does creativity come from? Fr. Fox contends it begins with our relationship with the cosmos, which is in the habit of birth, death, and resurrection. Humanity, as a species, and as individuals, is also involved in this cyclic habit.
With Newton came the notion of a clockwork universe, with God being the divine clockmaker. Note that God doesn't play a role as clock repairperson in this model. God set the perfect clock in motion, then left it alone. And the universe clicks on in mechanistic precision and regularity.
Einstein, and the quantum physicists who followed him, describe a universe that is - again - in the habit of birth, death, and resurrection. From this, Fr Fox suggests the Christ extends from one individual in history to the whole cosmos. As part of the cosmos, humanity participates in the Cosmic Christ, and participates in this cycle.
Creativity also comes from wildness, or chaos. Matthew noted most people fear chaos, but that is the source of some of the greatest works of art. And I would add that studies have shown that humans are incapable of imaging chaos. Presented with a random pattern of marbles, for example, the average person will discern an order. Another example of this is how people discern a pattern a randomized selection of music on their Ipods.
Another source of creativity is suffering. In fact, one of the sources of creativity's dark side is a person's refusal to deal with grief or suffering in creative ways. For example, if you are attacked the natural response is to attack in return. But you have the choice to engage your creative nature, and seek alternate responses.
For the shaman, suffering is not a personal wound, but is the wound of the world. This is the call of all creators: to confront our wounds, accept them as part of the world's woundedness, and seek creative responses to those wounds. All too often, we seek to be strong. We deny those dark feelings of grief or anger or distress. We deny our frustration with injustice.
Constant denial of these feelings lead to a dark night of the soul. Which is exactly where our culture is, at present - an extended Dark Night of the Soul. But the dark night is a school to purify our longings.
What are other causes for the dark side of creativity? The first, according to Fr Fox, is a lack of regard for potential consequences. I would amplify this by saying that, even at this point of our civilization, we lack the ability to accurately predict all possible consequences. For example, the man who invented the railroad thought he was doing a good thing, because he had created a means for faster travel. Environmental science did not exist to suggest that a coal-burning machine would have a negative impact on humans and other life.
So we are, to a degree, subject to the law of unintended consequences. I don't mean to suggest we give up. Divine creativity requires due diligence into possible consequences, so far as contemporary science can see. It also requires turning around when negative consequences are discerned.
Which brings us to the second cause of creativity's dark side - persisting in a project even after negative consequences have become apparent. Commonly, this persistence is based more on personal economics than ethics. Fr Fox used the example of the Los Alamos project which produced the atom bomb. One of the researchers had ethical qualms about killing so many people in one stroke, and learned that many others on the Manhattan Project shared his concerns. Why did they continue on the project? Because they had a family to feed, and a mortgage to pay.
To Fox, this confuses wealth with money. The researcher approached Fox, and asked how he could explain to the other men on the project why he was quitting. Fox reports that he quoted E.E. Cummings: "There is some sh*t I will not eat."
Money is what we require for mere survival. Wealth comes from creativity, which leads to more abundant life.
By happenstance, I already had a copy of Fr Fox's book. I had bought it a little over a year ago at a discount book store. I brought it in case he did a book signing, which he did.
He signed it: "To the joy of creativity".
Amen.
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