Theologian Matthew Fox introduces the life and teachings of German mystic Meister Eckhart:
Of all the mystics of the West, it is difficult to find anyone who more profoundly articulates the journey we make into the divine and out in the world again than Meister Eckhart. His is a spirituality of passion and compassion. Eckhart, a Dominican friar and preacher, lived from 1260 to 1329…. He teaches that spiritual awakening is to lead to justice-making and compassion in the world. He practiced what he preached…. Two examples of this are his support of the Beguine movement which was the women’s movement of the fourteenth century. And another is his support of the peasants. Indeed, half his sermons were preached in the peasant dialect of his day, and at his trial he was accused of “confusing the simple people” by telling them that they were all “aristocrats,” or “royal persons.”
But this is precisely the heart of Eckhart’s teaching and the heart of the biblical tradition of creation spirituality: That humans are blessed with divine powers and beauty but also with responsibilities of justice-making and compassion that characterize all royal personhood. How do we get to such deep self-esteem and to such deep acceptance of our responsibility?…. Our awareness is everything; our waking up is everything. We need to move from the superficial or “outer self” to the true self or “inner self.” Who is this inner self? Eckhart answers this question in his treatise “On the Aristocrat,” or “On the Royal Person.”
Fox presents Eckhart’s teaching:
The inner person is the soil in which God has sown the divine likeness and image and in which God sows the good seed, the roots of all wisdom, all skills, all virtues, all goodness—the seed of the divine nature…. This is the good tree of which our Lord says that it always bears good fruit and never evil fruit. For it desires goodness and is inclined toward goodness….
The seed of God is in us. If the seed had a good, wise, and industrious cultivator, it would thrive all the more and grow up to God whose seed it is, and the fruit would be equal to the nature of God. Now, the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree, a hazel seed into a hazel tree, the seed of God into God…. While this seed may be crowded, hidden away, and never cultivated, it will still never be obliterated. It glows and shines, gives off light, burns, and is unceasingly inclined toward God.
Fox concludes:
It is our task to cultivate this seed and give it nourishment so that the divine image in us can grow and thrive and prosper. This is what the spiritual journey is all about. Our spiritual journey consists in nourishing and watering and caring for this God-seed that is in all of us.
Reference:
Matthew Fox, Passion for Creation: Meister Eckhart’s Creation Spirituality; Selections from Breakthrough (Doubleday, 1995), 1–3. Fox’s full translation is in Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart’s Creation Spirituality (Doubleday, 1991), 510–518.
Image credit and inspiration: Augustin Fernandez, Untitled (detail), 2020, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. With the Rhineland mystics, we share the ability to gaze with love at the plants of the earth, appreciating the food we eat, and across time and place, we are invited to step through the doorway into the Great Mystery.
Story from Our Community:
After my husband, Doug, had a stroke, he became less able physically, and his speech was limited. He began to spend hours sitting in silent prayer and had a sense of peace and contentment. Doug had spent his life working with people who had been pushed to the margins of society. As a physician, he never turned anyone away and insisted that they call him “Doug,” not doctor. His funeral was attended by hundreds of people of many backgrounds, religions, and cultures whose lives he had impacted. If being a mystic means living from the piece of God that dwells within us, then Doug was a true example.
—Ann F.
