{"id":1194,"date":"2011-12-12T23:11:02","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T04:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/carlgregg\/?p=1194"},"modified":"2014-12-29T21:45:31","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T02:45:31","slug":"the-artist%e2%80%99s-way-for-advent-matthew-fox%e2%80%99s-via-creativa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/carlgregg\/2011\/12\/the-artist%e2%80%99s-way-for-advent-matthew-fox%e2%80%99s-via-creativa\/","title":{"rendered":"The Artist\u2019s Way for Advent: Matthew Fox\u2019s “Via Creativa”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
\nWhich shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
\nThe lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
\nWith a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
\nAnd we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
\nAnd the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away \u2014
\nOr as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
\nAnd the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
\nAnd you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
\nLeaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
\nOr when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing \u2014
\nI said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
\nFor hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
\nFor love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
\nBut the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
\nWait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
\nSo the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.<\/p>\n

T.S. Eliot, \u201cEast Coker,\u201d Four Quartets<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This sermon marks the third leg of our four-part pilgrimage toward Christmas. Our intrepid guide for this \"\"<\/a>journey is Matthew Fox, the Episcopal priest and author of the book Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality<\/a>. To briefly review where we have traveled so far, on the first Sunday of Advent our focus was the Via Positiva<\/em>, the \u201cPositive Way\u201d of befriending Creation. <\/strong>And we considered how we might conceive the task of befriending the full expanse of Creation, which extends back 13.7 billion years and includes more than 100 billion galaxies.<\/p>\n

Last week, we reversed that trajectory to explore the Via Negativa<\/em>: the \u201cNegative Way\u201d of befriending darkness, letting go, and letting be<\/strong>.\u00a0In contrast to the Via Positiva<\/em>\u2019s way of addition and ever-expanding concentric circles of inclusion, we were invited to move in the opposite direction: the Via Negativa<\/em>\u2019s way of subtraction, of finding God by saying \u201cno\u201d to everything that distracts us from \u201cGod Alone.\u201d In Fox\u2019s words, \u201cwhile the Via Positiva<\/em> teaches us the cosmic breadth<\/em> of living, of our holy relationship to stars and atom\u2026and to blessed bodiliness, the Via Negativa <\/em>open us to our divine depths<\/em>\u201d (130).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We need to spend time on both<\/em> paths<\/em> to different extents during different seasons of our lives. As scripture says, \u201cFor everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven\u201d (Ecclesiastes 3:1). We need to learn to practice the Via Positiva <\/em>during the proverbial summers of our life: times of light, heat, sweat, activity, and lush greenness. <\/strong>Typically the Via Positiva<\/em> comes first \u2014 growing, connecting, forming your identity and building your ego strength \u2014 which is why the \u201cPositive Way\u201d is the first of Fox\u2019s four paths. But in most people\u2019s lives, metaphorical winters also come: times of darkness, cold, shivering, stillness, and barrenness.<\/strong> If we are to grow and mature, we must learn to let go of our need for control, learn to trust others and God, and give ourselves permission to float down the river of the Via Negativa<\/em>. As we heard in the song from Peter Mayer last week, we must learn that, \u201cGod is the river\u201d in which our lives are immersed, so we must \u201clet go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toward the end of last week\u2019s sermon, I gestured briefly toward the third path of the Via Creativa<\/em><\/strong>. On the other side of winter, just when we think new life will never come again, a season of unexpected spring begins to bloom. Fox calls this hopeful path the \u201cCreative Way\u201d of befriending creativity and befriending our divinity.<\/strong> Transitioning out of the Via Negativa<\/em>, we are invited to learn to \u201clet go even of our letting go\u201d (172). During the metaphorical seasons of spring in our lives \u2014 the times of dawn, warmth, exuberance, dancing, and blossoming \u2014 <\/strong>we are invited to allow the creative impulse at the heart of the universe to be channeled through us. <\/strong>We are invited to partner with God the Creator in co-creating the future.<\/p>\n

Those last few lines may sound a little abstract, absurd, or even arrogant, so allow me to elaborate. I invite you to remember the section from the sermon two weeks ago in which talked about the wondrous (even miraculous) story of \u201cemergence\u201d: how our Universe evolved over the course of 13.7 billion years through stages of increasing complexity \u2014 \u201cpre-atomic, atomic, molecular, unicellular, multi-cellular, vertebrate, primate, and human.\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n

As one theologian has written, we humans are,<\/p>\n

Stardust now evolved to the place that the stardust can think about itself!\u00a0\u2026We are the universe becoming conscious of itself. We are stardust that has begun to contemplate the stars. We have arisen out of the dynamics of the Earth. Four billion years ago, our planet was molten rock, and now it sings opera. Let me tell you, this is good news!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Fox talks about the Via Creativa<\/em> as an invitation to \u201cbefriend our creativity and befriend our divinity,\u201d these are the sorts of mind-blowing insights from which he is speaking. Fox, myself, and many other proponents of views similar to Creation Spirituality believe that God isn\u2019t \u201cout there\u201d someplace watching us from a distance. Instead, God is intimately within<\/em>, compassionately with<\/em>, and transcendently beyond<\/em> all parts of the more than 100 billion galaxies in our universe, and that God has been so for all the 13.7 billion years of the Universe Story.<\/strong> So when Fox speaks of \u201cbefriending our creativity and befriending our divinity\u201d he means getting in touch with and partnering with that aspect of God that is with, within, and beyond each one us. He is calling us to be as creative as God and to be creative just as every aspect of the Universe is called to be creative. Through engaging our creativity, we are invited to play our small part in that evolutionary process that has led over the course of 13.7 billion years to stages of progressively complex emergence. <\/strong>Fox writes that through science, \u201cWe now have an inkling of the unbelievable fertility of the universe, of the constant birthings of atoms and molecules, eggs and spermatozoa, of cells and living organisms in water and on land\u2026\u201d (181). And scientists are discovering increasing numbers of Earth-like planets out there.<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago our scripture reading was from Thomas Merton\u2019s poem \u201cHagia Sophia,\u201d which also speaks about creativity brimming in all of Creation. Merton writes, \u201cThere is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all.\u201d Imagine the Via Creativa<\/em> flowing through you when you hear Merton\u2019s words \u2014 perhaps regarding his own inspiration for his poetry, writing, and drawing \u2014 that,<\/p>\n

There is in all things \u2026a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator\u2019s Thought and Art within me\u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Our creativity is a microcosm of the creative impulse at the heart of the universe.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The groundbreaking American modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham (1894-1991), who was deeply in touch with the Via Creativa<\/em> said it this way:<\/p>\n

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Accordingly, when we deny our creativity during the seasons in which God is calling us to walk the Via Creativa<\/em>, we cut ourselves off from at least one-fourth of ways we are able to experience God through our humanity.<\/p>\n

Fox cites a troubling and, I fear, all-too-accurate study about citizens of the United States that says, \u201c80 percent of six-year-olds but only 10 percent of forty-year-olds were creative. Thus, between six and forty creativity is killed in our culture\u2026\u201d (176). I remember a college trombone teacher telling me a few years ago that when he taught general music classes to young children, almost 100 percent of them could easily and naturally swing and dance to the beat of almost any song he play. But shockingly high numbers of students in his undergraduate general education music course were stiff and seemingly unable to move their bodies to the beat of the music. This is a tragic example of an atrophied Via Creativa<\/em>. Without belaboring this point, anytime you hear a call to cut funding for arts education in our public schools, the deep truth, joy, and life of the Via Creativa<\/em> is being denied. And when I say art, I mean art in the broadest possible sense: painting, pottery, sculpture, design, crafts, weaving, photography, video, filmmaking, architecture, music, theater, dance, and so many others. We need more of all these aspects of the Via Creativa<\/em> in all parts of our society from the public square to the sanctuary. Generally the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have gotten this right more than Protestants in the religious sector: from soaring gothic cathedrals to statues of saints, to much more embodied worship practices involving lighting votive candles, praying the stations of the cross, making the sign of the cross, dipping your fingers in holy water, and kissing icons. In contrast, many Protestants grew up worshipping in brightly lit sanctuaries with stark, blank white walls, although this trend is thankfully starting to change.<\/p>\n

There is a deep need in our souls to make, to craft, and to co-create with God. One theologian has said that, \u201cGardening is an active participation in the deepest mysteries of the universe\u201d (189).\u00a0Gardening connects you to the passing of time, the seasons, and the source of your food. This impulse is what led Gandhi to champion the \u201cDo-It-Yourself\u201d method of using a spinning wheel to make your own clothes in an age in which many of us are deeply disconnected from the sweatshops where so much of what we wear is made (191). Growing our own food, cooking our own meals, sewing our own clothes, and creating art are all some of the many life giving practices we can learn if we embrace God\u2019s call to explore the Via Creativa<\/em> during those springtime seasons of our life.<\/p>\n

Even more forcefully, the musical Rent<\/a>, which is all about artists and the creative life, proclaims that, \u201cThe opposite of war isn\u2019t peace, it\u2019s creation.\u201d <\/strong>And perhaps there is some truth here that reclaiming the Via Creativa<\/em> could help reduce war. However, perhaps the more important claim is that what our souls deeply long for as an alternative to violence is not a peaceful passivity, but time and space to create in partnership with God, connecting us to that creative impulse at the heart of the 13.7 billion year evolutionary process.<\/p>\n

As this sermon draws to a close, the question before us this morning, as it will be throughout Advent, is for each of us to consider, \u201cWhat season of life am I currently in?\u201d Or \u201cWhat season of life am I transitioning out of or moving toward?\u201d Is God calling you this morning more toward the Via Positiva<\/em> of befriending Creation or the Via Negativa <\/em>of letting go? Or have you felt God stirring within you this morning \u2014 luring, prompting, and encouraging you \u2014 to exploring the path of the Via Creativa<\/em>: the path of partnering with God to co-create a more hopeful, just, and beautiful<\/em> future?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Further Study<\/strong><\/p>\n