Creation Spirituality and the Celebrating & Healing of Mother Earth & Ourselves - A 4 Session Online Lecture Series with Matthew Fox - Wednesdays January 14, 21, 28, February 4, 2026

4:30pm PT / 5:30pm MT / 6:30pm CT / 7:30pm ET

FREE ONLINE ZOOM EVENT - PRESENTED BY THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF WISCONSIN AND THE MATTHEW FOX LEGACY PROJECT

YOU WILL RECEIVE A ZOOM LINK PRIOR TO THE EVENT

YOU WILL RECEIVE A RECORDING LINK AFTER THE EVENT

January 14 - Creation as an Original Blessing and the Springboard of Awe and Wonder

January 21 - Sacred Mother Earth: The Holiness of Creation and Recovering the Cosmic Christ  

January 28 - The Cosmic Mass, and the Stations of the Cosmic Christ: Reinvigorating Liturgy and Rituals

February 4 - Jesus as a Teacher of Democracy and the Renewal of Education and Values through the “10 C’s”

Creation Spirituality and the Celebrating & Healing of Mother Earth & Ourselves

Jesus taught that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. Are animals and soil and forests and water our neighbor? How can we love our  human neighbor—or even our children and grandchildren and selves and others—if we don’t love the Earth that makes life possible and gifts us with food, medicines, air, beauty and materials we depend on to eat and survive? 

St. Hildegard of Bingen shouts: “The earth must not be injured, the earth must not be destroyed, for contained in her are the seeds of all.”

Global warming is a canary in the mine born of taking earth for granted and abusing her from lack of gratitude and appreciation for the very creation of which we are a part and that sustains us. It is therefore a religious problem since gratitude lies at the core of healthy religion. “Eucharist” after all means “to give thanks” and St. Thomas Aquinas defines religion as “supreme thanks and gratitude.”

In this four-part series we will explore the following themes.

1.    Creation as an Original Blessing and the springboard of Awe and Wonder

The Bible begins by insisting on the “goodness and “very goodness” of creation (see Genesis one). Honoring creation is the first lesson in the Scriptures and the first article of faith, but since the bubonic plague of the 14th century, western religion has usually begun with messages about sin and redemption and even original sin rather than original blessing, “original goodness” (Aquinas) and “original wisdom” (Hildegard). We cannot be empowered to do something about human malfeasance if we don’t first learn empowerment and agency that comes from falling in love with the world, what the mystics call the Via Positiva.

We will explore how great mystics such as Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart and Julian of Norwich put the joy and grace of nature first and we can do the same, especially given the findings of the new cosmology of cosmogenesis, Webb Telescope, etc. Aquinas: “Revelation comes in two volumes: Nature and the Bible.” And Eckhart says: “Every creature is a word of God and a book about God.”

2.    Sacred Mother Earth: The Holiness of Creation and Recovering the Cosmic Christ  

The modern era accomplished a lot of things when it developed science and the rights of the individual. But it also tended to denigrate mystery and lost touch with the mystic or lover in each of us and cut us off from the holiness of creation. Eco-prophet Thomas Berry says that only a sense of the sacred will save us.

The primary archetype in Christianity for the sacredness of all things is that of the Cosmic Christ. We will explore mystical writings of St. Paul and poet Mary Olver, farmer Wendell Berry and mystics Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich and scientist-mystic Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry.  The Cosmic Christ teaching re-sacralizes the way we see and interact with the world, not only the creativity of Earth but our own role in co-creation, celebration and healing.

3.    The Cosmic Mass, and the Stations of the Cosmic Christ: Reinvigorating Liturgy and Rituals

"There is no community without ritual," says African ritualist Melidome Some. True ritual, as psychologist Otto Rank maintains, always connects the human psyche to the cosmos and vice versa. With a new creation story from science today that is encircling the earth, and with a return of the experience of the Cosmic Christ and new post-modern art forms like dance, dj, vj and rap poetry and more, we are invited to an ever-deeper experience of worship and celebration. We will explore the experience of renewing Christian Liturgy by way of the "Cosmic Mass" which has been celebrated over 130 times in North America and at four World Parliament gatherings. Including is the Aramaic Our Father that Jesus actually taught us.

Also, the practice of the Stations of the Cosmic Christ nurtures us with an ever-deeper taste of that presence in our lives. This practice grounds us in the 7 “I am’s” and the 9 events in Jesus’ life that underscore the Cosmic Christ reality and experience.

4.    Jesus as a Teacher of Democracy and the Renewal of Education and Values through the “10 C’s”.

Do Jesus and the Christian mystical tradition have something to say about democracy? Indeed, they do. We will explore that.

The Dalai Lama has said that “education is in crisis the world over” and he is correct. We will explore how creation spirituality can assist us to renew education. I have worked with designing educational programs for adults and children for the past 45 years including inner city teenagers and suburban children.

How to renew education? How to move from mere knowledge factories to wisdom schools? From finding a job in a man-made work world to discovering our place in the universe? We will discuss such matters in this final gathering and how to bring values alive in public education by way of the “10 C’s.” (See Matthew Fox, The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human.)

REGISTER NOW AND YOU WILL RECEIVE A ZOOM LINK AND REMINDER 24 HOURS PRIOR TO THE EVENT