The phrase Introduction means Coming. Introduction is a time of ready for an important Coming.
Even earlier than Christians used the time period in reference to the Coming of the beginning of Jesus, indigenous cultures eagerly awaited the Solstice season when the darkest day of the 12 months—December 21—would yield to a turnaround with the solar rising extra totally, come December 22 and onwards.
Cosmology and the marvel of the altering seasons was celebrated with its reminder of how farming and wholesome crops crucial for survival was integral to the explanations for celebrating. With longer days comes primary hope for fuller harvests. Pagans and later Christians had been attuned to uniting Father Sky to Mom Earth, and vice versa.
The Newgrange monument in Eire (that’s older than the pyramids) and Stonehenge in England had been wonderful architectural achievements, that pre-historic individuals erected as facilities for rituals that acknowledged how the very survival of communities trusted important passages of the solar and the seasons.
Cosmological consciousness was a survival mechanism. Thus, rituals. Can the brand new cosmology additionally reward us with an consciousness and rituals that in flip result in human survival at the moment?
Dropping the birthday of Jesus into this age-old consciousness was made official by Pope Julius, across the 12 months 350. This declaration of the beginning of Jesus on December twenty fifth coincided with the Emperor Constantine’s conversion and his efforts to make the empire Christian. So a value was paid for this timing of Christmas and Empire.
Pope Julius was not unaware of the Hanukkah season, or of the solstice occasion and celebrations. Each honor gentle in a time of darkness. And Hanukkah’s miracle of sunshine story includes liberation from oppression, and has a political dimension to it. Ritual is each cosmological and political and carries a stress between them.
Rabbi Cat Zavis of Beyt Tikkun in Berkeley just lately spoke about Chanukah 2024: Chanukah is for everybody—and this 12 months, it feels particularly resonant.
As we replicate on a 12 months full of liberation struggles, non secular searching for, and challenges to justice and peace, Chanukah gives a singular alternative for connection and reflection. This vacation, rooted within the story of a Jewish nationwide liberation wrestle, carries classes that talk powerfully to our occasions.
Whereas the Maccabean revolt is remembered for its struggle in opposition to oppression, it additionally reminds us of the risks of violence and chauvinist nationalism. The rabbinic custom reframed Chanukah as a vacation of non secular renewal involved concerning the risks of revolutionary challenges to the oppression of empires. As we rejoice, we goal to uplift the spirit of liberation whereas exploring nonviolent paths to freedom.*
To be continued.
*See rabbi@beyttikkun.org.
See Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ.
And Fox, “Father Sky: The Cosmos Lives!” and “Sacred Marriages: The Sacred Marriage of Masculine and Female” in Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 3-18, 221-248.
To learn the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click on HERE.
Banner Picture: Antiochus’ decree to the Jews, which led to the Maccabees’ rise up to protect Jewish faith and tradition. Portray by Wojciech Stattler, from the Nationwide Museum in Kraków. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you acknowledge liberating and political dimensions to this season as does Rabbi Cat Zavis? And combined messages relating to the official declaration of Christmas by Pope Julius on the time Christianity emerged from being oppressed by an empire, to changing into an empire? And the ability of a brand new cosmology to help the survival of humanity and the planet at the moment?
Beneficial Studying
In what could also be thought-about probably the most complete define of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the style by which the spirit of Christ resurrects by way of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the younger, the rebirth of efficient types of worship—all of those mirroring the continuing blessings of Mom Earth and the restoration of Eros, the female facet of the Divine.
“The eighth marvel of the world…convincing proof that our Western spiritual custom does certainly have the depth of creativeness to reinvent its religion.” — Brian Swimme, creator of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
“This e-book is a basic.” Thomas Berry, creator of The Nice Work and The Dream of the Earth.
The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he finds ten metaphors, or archetypes, starting from the Inexperienced Man, an historical pagan image of our basic relationship with nature, to the Non secular Warrior….These timeless archetypes can encourage males to pursue their greater calling to connect with their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Each man on this planet ought to learn this e-book — to not point out each lady who needs to grasp the struggles, typically unconscious, that form the lads they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, creator of The Left Hand of God
