Connections: Welcome!

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This series of three events over two days can be attended in part or in its entirety. Register to attend as your schedule allows.

Christian Spirituality for the 21^st Century
Friday, January 25

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Lecture at 7:30 p.m.
Lewis and Clark Junior High Auditorium, 6901 Burt Street

The modern age developed knowledge, but at the expense of wisdom. The result has been ecological disaster and destitution for indigenous peoples as well as a loss of meaning and shared values in our lives. Creation spirituality can help us move to hope by awakening us to our divine origins and to the wisdom and nature-based mysticism that the historical Jesus lived and preached. A renewed Christianity can teach the wisdom of the mystics and prophets and bring alive the mystic and prophet in us all.

Sacred Earth, Sustainable Lives:
Becoming Spiritual Champions for Earth
Saturday, January 26•Workshop from 9:00a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Lewis and Clark Junior High, 6901 Burt Street
Doors open at 8:30. Lunch is included.

How will our species survive without bringing out the best in ourselves at this critical time in human and planetary history? The ecological crisis is in many ways a spiritual and cosmological crisis—it is caused by the anthropocentric way in which western culture (including religion and education) sees the world. This workshop will show how we can move from indifference and couch-potato-it-is to energetic defense of the earth by lifestyle changes and by spiritual practices in which we rediscover and nurture a sense of the sacred in self and nature.

Cosmic Circle: The Search for the Universal Sacred
Saturday, January 26 at 7:00 p.m.
Sokol Auditorium, 2234 S. 13th Street

Using ancient ritual, dance, and 21st century media, immerse yourself in the insights of Matthew Fox as he leads us in a celebration of the universal sacred.

Fox is a well received lecturer who has spoken around the world. Fox’s books have received numerous awards and he is recipient of the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award

of which other recipients have included the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa and Rosa Parks.

Fox calls God “Mother”; prefers “original blessing” to “original sin;” calls God “child”; associates closely with Native Americans and people of the wicca tradition and does not condemn homosexuals. He has replaced the naming of the spiritual journey known as Purgation, Illumination and Union with the four paths of Creation Spirituality: The Via Positiva (joy, delight and awe); the Via Negativa (darkness, silence, suffering, letting go and letting be); the Via Creativa (creativity); and the Via Transformativa (justice, compassion, interdependence).

He has led a renewal of liturgical forms with “The Cosmic Mass” that mixes dance, techno and live music, dj, vj, rap and contemporary art forms with the western liturgical tradition.

Fox believes that by "reinventing work, education and worship we can bring about a non-violent revolution on our planet." He resides in Oakland, California.

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