{"id":24818,"date":"2025-02-25T09:40:28","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T14:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=24818"},"modified":"2025-02-25T10:53:23","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T15:53:23","slug":"24818","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=24818","title":{"rendered":"Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Preacher"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lead, Kindly Light by Audrey Assad w\/lyrics\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/piUDbCtgymw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Theologian Matthew Fox introduces the life and teachings of German mystic Meister Eckhart:&nbsp;<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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\u2026. He teaches that <strong>spiritual awakening is to lead to justice-making and compassion in the world. He practiced what he preached\u2026<\/strong>. Two examples of this are his support of the Beguine movement which was the women\u2019s 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 \u201cconfusing the simple people\u201d by telling them that they were all \u201caristocrats,\u201d or \u201croyal persons.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this is precisely the heart of Eckhart\u2019s teaching and the heart of the biblical tradition of creation spirituality: That<strong> humans are blessed with divine powers and beauty but also with responsibilities of justice-making and compassion that characterize all royal personhood. <\/strong>How do we get to such deep self-esteem and to such deep acceptance of our responsibility?\u2026.&nbsp;<strong>Our awareness is everything; our waking up is everything. We need to move from the superficial or \u201couter self\u201d to the true self or \u201cinner self.\u201d <\/strong>Who is this inner self? Eckhart answers this question in his treatise \u201cOn the Aristocrat,\u201d or \u201cOn the Royal Person.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Fox presents Eckhart\u2019s teaching:<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>The<strong> 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\u2014the seed of the divine nature\u2026. <\/strong>This is the<strong> 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\u2026.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The seed of God is in us. <strong>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,<\/strong> 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\u2026. While this seed<strong> 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.<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Fox concludes:<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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. <strong>Our spiritual journey consists in nourishing and watering and caring for this God-seed that is in all of us.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">God\u2019s Temple Expansion Project<\/span><\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"auto\" height=\"15\" src=\"https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/87188c8737bc50c1a2fb8e2c9\/images\/b66516eb-1f2d-8d90-0e02-d4223f78f6f7.png\">     <strong>Failing to read the creation chapters in Genesis as temple narratives means that we will probably interpret them with another, less accurate, len<\/strong>s. For example, I thought of Eden as a divine zoo when I was young. It\u2019s where God set up a comfortable habitat to watch his naked human creatures frolic without a care in the world. <strong>Like most modern Americans, my understanding of paradise was defined by leisure.<\/strong> In this way, the Garden of Eden seemed more like a hippie commune to me than anything resembling a temple. <strong>Viewing Eden as an all-inclusive resort or a human zoo presents God as a puppet master and reduces humanity\u2019s purpose to just divine amusement. <\/strong><br><br>This, of course, is a terrible reading of Genesis.If we properly understand Eden as a temple where the heavens and earth overlap, and the humans as priests called to care for this bridge between God and his creation, then the <strong>garden becomes a collaborative environment where the Creator and people work together for a common goal<\/strong>. That goal becomes clear when we combine the seven-day temple inauguration account in Genesis 1 with the garden-temple narrative in Genesis 2-3. After creating his image\/idols in Genesis 1:26-28, God instructs the man and women to \u201crule\u201d over the earth on his behalf and cultivate order, beauty, and abundance everywhere. They were to \u201cfill the earth and subdue it.\u201d This is the very first command given in the Bible.Theologians refer to this verse in Genesis 1 as the \u201cCultural Mandate.\u201d Nancy Pearcey, in her book&nbsp;<em>Total Truth<\/em>, explains why:The first phrase, \u2018be fruitful and multiply,\u2019 means to develop the social world: build families, churches, schools, cities, governments, laws. The second phrase, \u2018subdue the earth,\u2019 means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, and compose music.<br><br> This passage is sometimes called the Cultural Mandate because it tells us that our original purpose was to create cultures, build civilizations\u2014nothing less.Moving into the next chapter about the garden with this in mind, rather than a zoo created by God to contain humans it\u2019s evident that Eden was intended to be a base camp to launch this shared God-human project. <br><br>The man and woman were never supposed to remain in the garden. Instead, they and their descendants were to cooperate with God to&nbsp;<em>expand<\/em>&nbsp;the garden\u2019s order, beauty, and abundance to fill the earth. In other words, God\u2019s goal was for his temple to grow and encompass the whole world and everyone in it.<br><br>As we continue through the Bible, it\u2019s this temple-expansion mission that will explain God\u2019s calling of Abraham and his descendants (Israel), the arrival of Jesus, his death, resurrection, and ascension, the purpose of God\u2019s multiethnic community (the church), and the vision we see at the very end the Bible of God dwelling with all of his people in a renewed earth full of his glory. And, more immediately, it will help us make sense of humanity\u2019s rebellion against God and their expulsion from the garden-temple. <br>Stay tuned.<br><br>DAILY SCRIPTURE<br><a href=\"https:\/\/withgoddaily.us2.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=87188c8737bc50c1a2fb8e2c9&amp;id=6966502909&amp;e=f52fc38132\">GENESIS 1:26-29<br>PSALM 8:3-8<\/a><br><br>WEEKLY PRAYER.    from Clement of Rome (d. 99)<br>May God, who sees all things, and who is the Ruler of all spirits and the Lord of all flesh\u2014who chose our Lord Jesus Christ and us through Him to be a peculiar people\u2014grant to every soul that calls upon His glorious and holy Name, faith, peace, patience, long-suffering, self-control, purity, and sobriety, to the well-pleasing of His Name, through our High Priest and Protector, Jesus Christ, by whom be to Him glory, and majesty, and power, and honor, both now and forevermore.<br>Amen.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Theologian Matthew Fox introduces the life and teachings of German mystic Meister Eckhart:&nbsp;&nbsp; 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, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24818"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24818"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24823,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24818\/revisions\/24823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}