Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Christ Path Seminar

Home
New Visions
Spirituality: Where Seriousness and Playfulness Meet

Spirituality: Where Seriousness and Playfulness Meet

Last updated on: September 12, 2013 at 2:05 pm by Matthew Fox

Spirituality: Where Seriousness and Playfulness Meet 2013-09-12T14:05:13-04:00 Matthew Fox

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

We’ve looked at passion, practice, prophecy and purpose – all elements of the spirituality that we’ve witnessed in our interviews with 20- and 30-something members of the Occupy Generation.

Some readers have asked – how do these patterns and practices differ from those of New Age spirituality, or the embodied interspiritual practices that are shared today across the population, from teens to elder Boomers?

Our answer: For one thing, they very much include the shadow–both personal and social–while New Age spirituality is notoriously ill at ease with shadow and issues of injustice (though that movement too evolves and morphs some and is struggling sometimes to integrate the shadow into the light).

And these patterns and practices have nothing in common with those who are preaching a materialistic or ‘prosperity’ so-called gospel which, of course, ignores the shadow altogether.

But with that said, we also see these young sacred activists balancing shadow and light. As we discuss in today’s post, the Occupy Generation affirms that spiritual practices can be both serious and playful at the same time.

Song, dance, and art are all part of the Via Positiva aspect of Occupy Spirituality.

An Excerpt from Chapter 2 of Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
by Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, published by North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2013. Reprinted by permission of publisher.

ADAM BUCKO: This takes us to point number five, which is that this new spirituality includes joy, sensuality, celebration, and heartful aliveness.

MATTHEW FOX: Fun!

ADAM BUCKO: Fun, absolutely. This new spirituality celebrates life through meaningful connections, works of art, music, and all things that essentially help to grow the soul. As E.B., a 30-year-old man who participated in our study, said: “Many in my generation are wary of the terms religion and spirituality. However, I think we are hungry for something that encourages
questioning, curiosity, depth, and meaning. Our generation has the opportunity to redefine spirituality as something that is truly healthy and inclusive of things like art, science, and having fun!”

MATTHEW FOX: Exactly. And again, to invoke a concept, you are speaking of the Via Positiva—that there is a joy of life, a celebration of life that permeates and that really holds all the crises and all the breakdowns and all the chaos and all the vicissitudes that life also offers. But that fun is itself a value is something that many, many spiritualities have not taught over the centuries. We’ve skipped over the Via Positiva; we’ve kind of let it go, turned it over to secular powers, such as advertisers, to give us their pseudo definitions of pleasure and what supposedly provides profound joy. I think we have to take that back. It’s kind of like the word eros. We gave that away to the pornography industry, whereas, in fact, an erotic life is a juicy life, an alive life, and we all have a right to it.And as Audre Lorde, the New York poet, said, “I’m erotic when I
write a poem, when I make a table, when I bake bread, or when I make love”— eros is the passion for living that we bring to everything we do.

Again, I think a big part of honoring the celebrative dimension to life and spirituality is this feminist thinking. …. I think that a new spirituality that’s truly profound and grounded will again bring back the divine feminine to balance the sacred masculine. But part of that gift in the divine feminine is that the celebration of life is primary. And as I said earlier, even the struggle for justice as service is precisely so that people can celebrate life. It’s not to be right; it’s not to win in court. The point is to create a culture, a civilization, a community in which all can enjoy, for as many years as they’re on this Earth, the gifts that life has to give.

We’ll be looking next at the ways in which this holistic, joyous spiritual approach addresses social relationships and ranking, from the ranking of age to that of student-teacher relations, governmental leaders, and the other forms of authority.

In the meantime, we’d like to invite you to look at your own spiritual practice: where and how do joy and play show up? Do they? And if not, how could you bring them in? What’s stopping you?

__________________________________________________

Don’t miss the Occupy Spirituality Book Club on Patheos, September 16-30!
See when Matthew Fox and Adam Bucko will be speaking about Occupy Spirituality in your area: http;//www.matthewfox.org/calendar

Previous Post

September 6, 2013

Spirituality Combined with A Call to Action

Next Post

September 13, 2013 Occupy Spirituality: Redefining Leadership as Dynamic, Democratic and Authentic

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Andrew Harvey Christ Path program Community Creation Spirituality Deep Ecumenism Gail Ransom Gospel of Thomas Historical Jesus Matthew Fox Mysticism Occupy Generation Occupy Spirituality Phila Hoopes Sacred Activism Uncategorized Via Creativa Via Negativa Via Positiva Via Transformativa

Select a Month September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the term for the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, remembered by Christians in Lent?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Temptation of Christ Crucifixion Sermon on the Mount Transfiguration