In our times a new creation story and a new cosmology have vastly expanded
the meaning of flesh. No previous generation has been taught that
the universe is hundreds of galaxies large and still expanding. Ernesto
Cardinale, in his poem on the new cosmology, celebrates that the news of
the expanding universe is the "most important discovery of the twentieth
century." If the universe is expanding, so too is flesh, for the universe
is fleshy. Flesh is matter, and matter is flesh. This insight is implicit
in Einstein's establishing the interchangeability of matter and energy
(isn't flesh energetic matter?), just as it is explicit in Thomas Aquinas's
definition of spirit as élan
or vitality.
The news from today's physics is not just that matter expands but that
matter is intrinsically energetic, vital, organized and organizing, busy,
dancing, vibrating, seeking, moving, and finding order in the midst of
chaos. All things in motion -- isn't this Aristotle's definition of soul,
as that which produces locomotion from within?
The boundary between animate and inanimate, like so many other boundaries
today, is rapidly fading. Medical doctor and scientist James Lovelock
writes that "there is no clear distinction anywhere on the Earth's surface
between living and nonliving matter. There is merely a hierarchy of
intensity going from the 'material' environment of the hierarchy of the
rocks and the atmosphere to the living cells." Recently a car mechanic
told me this story: He was depressed at work but stuck with his job because
of family responsibilities. Then he encountered a Sufi teacher who said to
him, "Each time you turn the ratchet as you repair a vehicle, speak the
word Allah." The mechanic did so, and his whole life changed, the
whole relation with his work changed. "Now," he said, "I love my work. I
love cars. They are alive. It is a mistake to think of animate versus
inanimate. A car will tell you, if you listen deeply enough, whether it
wants to be repaired or whether it wants simply to be left alone to die."
In the context of evolution, all things have animate-like qualities.
Mountains grow and shrink in the context of aeons of time. Soil breathes
and rises and falls, as do entire continents and the sea with its tides.
Cosmology fascinates us and restores awe and excites us. The earth context
-- the animals and plants, the flowers and forests, the fauna and
landscapes, the birds and fishes, the creepy-crawly things that burrow in
our gardens and compost piles -- fascinate us and bless us. They too have
something to tell us, indeed something to reveal to us about our failures,
about our sins, and about our capacity for beauty and blessing.
Our own bodies, with their 15-billion-year histories (they carry hydrogen
atoms that were birthed 14 billion years ago), with their stunning
achievements of eye and ear, of heart and lung, of bladder and liver, of
sexual organs and larynx -- our bodies too have something to reveal to us
about beauty and reverence, gratitude and awe, and their opposites.
The proper context for talking about sin is cosmology, the evolution of our
world, indeed the evolution of flesh. For the evolution of the world
is the evolution of flesh. Flesh, we now know, has a history. (Not
long ago we were taught, á la
Aristotle, that species were eternal.) For most people, the blessing that
flesh is and has been constitutes the ordinary entry into wisdom and into
the temple of the sacred. As Ricoeur puts it, humanity "first reads the
sacred on the world, on some elements or aspects of the
world, on the heavens, on the sun and moon, on the waters and vegetation.
Spoken symbolism thus refers back to manifestations of the sacred, to
hierophanies, where the sacred is shown in a fragment of the cosmos...
First of all, then, it is the sun, the moon, the waters -- that is to say,
cosmic realities -- that are symbols." As our biblical ancestors knew
well, the universe is God's temple, and the temple is a microcosm of
the universe depicted in cosmic terms that recall the language of creation.
"He built His Sanctuary like the heavens, like the earth that He
established forever" (Psalms 78, 69). Our bodies are also temples, as
Paul insists. Through the temple of the body celebrating in the body of
the temple, chaos becomes creation, and evil is transformed into order.
The purpose of Part I of this book, "Blessings of the Flesh," is to get us
to accept the awe of our 15-billion-year-old fleshy universe more fully.
This universe so deserving of praise comes in at least three layers: the
cosmic flesh, the eco-flesh, and the human flesh.
It is striking that the most ancient creation story in the Bible, Psalm
104, so full of praise of the fleshy creation of God, in celebrating the
same for 34 verses, only at the 35th verse, and only in the context of
praise and joy, raises the question of human sin.
I will sing to the Lord as long as I live
all my life I will sing psalms to my God.
May my meditation please the Lord,
as I show my joy in him (her)!
Away with all sinners from the earth
and may the wicked be no more!
Bless the Lord, my soul
O praise the Lord.
In putting praise before sin and blessing before curse and flesh before
sins of the spirit we are following in this ancient tradition.
Related Links
Reinventing Worship
Creation Spirituality founder Matthew Fox challenges you to choose
appreciation over information.
Living in the Spirit
Matthew Fox, renowned theologian and author, talks with Alan Jones about
the challenge of distinguishing between spiritual fad and divine wisdom
while walking a modern-day spiritual path.
Matthew Fox: Spirituality for the 21st Century
Recovering our reverence for the earth is essential for a healthy
spirituality, says Matthew Fox.
