Letting Our Light Shine an interview with Matthew Fox by Jane Lister Reis Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, what are you not to be? Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." — Nelson Mandela (inaugural speech, 1994) I don’t know if Nelson Mandela has ever met Matthew Fox, but I know they’d like each other. Theologian, educator, and prolific author, Matthew Fox has spent a lifetime letting his light shine and teaching a theology called Creation Spirituality. For those not familiar with the term, Creation Spirituality is, according to Matthew Fox, the oldest spiritual tradition in the Bible. It is a feminist tradition, and includes the wisdom literature of Israel (a tradition Fox believes Jesus, as well as the mystics of the Middle Ages, knew about). According to Fox, creation spirituality is a mystical tradition that honors nature, science, women’s experience and wisdom, and has a strong dimension of ecological and social justice. In short, Creation Spirituality is the opposite of Christian fundamentalism. The focus of my interview with Matthew Fox was to gain insight into how to live a light-filled life, the kind of life Nelson Mandela mandates in his speech. Certainly we’ve all heard about living with an open heart and loving the earth, our bodies, and even our shadows, but how do we hold the light when the powers that be around us are not receptive to the light we are shining? "The whole subject of evil has to be looked at anew." Certainly this was the case in Matthew Fox’s life. When he began to teach Creation Spirituality, Matthew Fox fell out of favor with his boss: the Vatican! How does one continue in the face of such great opposition? This was what I sought to discover in my interview with this quiet yet intensely honest man. Where did his courage come from? What is the wisdom he knows from over fifty years of a priestly path? From a fascinating half-hour conversation, I have highlighted four of his key points, which I believe provide cornerstones for those of us who are desirous of letting "our light shine and being liberated from our fear." 1. Identify what is good in your life. When I asked Matthew Fox about how he had the courage to speak out and teach about Creation Spirituality during a time when the Vatican was not happy, to say the least, with his viewpoint, his response was so simple it surprised me. He said that what he taught brought such goodness into people’s lives that he knew that it held validity. "For one thing," Fox said, "I had been teaching Creation Spirituality for years, and writing books, so I knew how important it was to people. It was a lifesaver for many people in terms of their own spiritual journeys. So many people said this validated their experience; this was the wisdom they had come to, but they hadn’t had anyone articulate it before, especially anyone within the church tradition! "But it was really the result of seeing people grow in courage, creativity, and youthfulness. People would often come into the program at one age and leave at another — about twenty years younger! So I had no doubt about trusting my senses when it came to knowing what was good." 2. Give goodness a form. Approximately two years ago, Matthew Fox opened the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland, California. As he talked about this program and his newest "baby," (the Naropa Institute of Oakland, a Buddhist school in Boulder, Colorado, has opened up a master’s degree in Creation Spirituality in their same building in Oakland), his voice was excited. "I oversee the [master's] program and teach in it. It’s a coming together of Buddhism and Christianity. At the University of Creation Spirituality, our Doctor of Ministry program focuses on bringing spirituality into the workplace. It’s the only program of its kind that has opened to people of all professions. In two years, we have almost three hundred students!" When I asked him about how his school came about, he told me that it came out of his book The Reinvention of Work. "Good work is a ministry," he said. "There’s a need right now to reeducate ourselves, to bring the spiritual dimension and the new cosmology into our lives. Our program is designed so that people don’t have to leave their work. They just come in for one- or two-week intensives, a few times a year, and then they go back and feed this information right into the bloodstream of their profession. I really feel this is how we’re going to change culture by changing our professions. That’s really where the power lies." 3. Take seriously your power of choice, for within choice is our capacity for evil. Evil: now, there’s a subject not many people talk about. But we did. Matthew Fox told me that his newest book, The Sins of the Spirit, The Blessings of the Flesh, came out the very week of the Columbine murders. "The whole subject of evil," he said, "has to be looked at anew." "As we close out the most violent and destructive of all centuries, I think it is really important that we develop a language about evil. M. Scott Peck says that our language about evil is still at a primitive stage. What I tried to do in this book is to come up with a language about evil, because the problem is that on the one hand, religion has been so sin-obsessed that it has tended to trivialize humanity’s potential for evil. By talking about sin so often, and in detail, it’s really turned us off to facing the issues of evil. On the other hand, we have a secular culture that often builds itself on the sins of greed and resentment. "It’s precisely in our creativity," he said, "that we humans make a mess of things. Thomas Aquinas said that one human being can do more evil than all the other creatures put together. Why is it that we’re so powerful? It’s because of our creativity and our capacity for choices. I think it’s important that we examine our powers of creativity and take them back. We’ve turned so many of our powers over to big corporations, government, media. That itself sets us up for real evil. We have to take the power back and honor our creativity and power." 4. Dance and celebrate life. We concluded our talk together by his sharing about something in which he is very interested: Techno Cosmic Masses. "I’m involved in reinventing forms of worship. I am now freer to do more creative things." Sound wild? Perhaps, but fifty-plus-year-old Matthew Fox, excommunicated Dominican priest turned Episcopalian priest, now dances and celebrates life. He is a living example of a light shining bright. I can’t say whether Matthew Fox looks twenty years younger, but he sounds happy, creative, and fulfilled, and that's more than good enough for me! Matthew Fox will be at Seattle Unity Church October 15 and 16 to talk more about Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh. The Techno Cosmic Mass will be held Saturday evening at Bellevue Community College. For ticket information, call Seattle Unity, (206) 622-8475. For information about the University of Creation Spirituality, call (510) 835-4827 or visit <http://www.creationspirituality.com>.