As I was driving in the Central West End this afternoon, I realized that I had not asked a friend to do a Share the Wealth with us this weekend. Then, knowing that Christmas is this Friday, I happened to remember a passage from spiritual theologian Matthew Fox’s introduction to Meister Eckhart, a medieval Catholic mystic and preacher. Upon coming home, I looked in Fox’s book and found the passage—
“What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace and if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his/her Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.”
This birthing theme has been on my mind recently because I’ve had the good fortune to Zoom with four dear friends, all in their thirties, all doctors, who are now raising very young children—Neil Munjal and Neeta Shenai, and their daughter Gia (born this summer), as well as Matt Miller, Nima Sheth, and their son, Moksha (born September 2019).
Here are a couple more selections from Meister Eckart for your reflection—
“People ought to think less about what they should do and more about what they are. For when people and their ways are good, then their works shine forth brightly. If you are just, then your works are also just. Works do not sanctify us — but we are to sanctify our works. Holiness is based on being, not on a single action. If you wish to explore the goodness of actions, explore first the nature of the ground of the works.”
“The seed of God is in us. Now the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree; and a hazel seed grows into a hazel tree; a seed of God grows into God.”
A couple weeks back, I was rereading a book I first encountered in 1983, Erich Fromm’s To Have Or To Be? (I was also becoming acquainted at this time with John Kavanaugh’s book, Following Christ in a Consumer Society.) Here’s Fromm on Eckhart: “…being is life, activity, birth, renewal, outpouring, flowing out, productivity. In this sense, being is the opposite of having, of egoboundedness and egotism. Being, to Eckhart, means to be active in the classic sense of the productive expression of one’s human powers, not in the modern sense of being busy.”
All this, then, relates to Share the Wealth because I thought, why not invite friends to share what they have been giving birth to, or what birthing they want to be part of, or tell us stories of outpouring, flowing out, and renewal.
So join us this Sunday 27 December at 7 pm Central Time if you’d like to be part of this gift-giving-and-receiving. Email me for the Zoom link.
Mark
