Matthew Fox - A Way to God: Thomas Mertons Creation Spirituality Journey

Praise for A Way to God

This wise and marvelous book will profoundly inspire all those who love Merton and want to know him more deeply.

ANDREW HARVEY, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism

A Way to God inscribes a profound intersection of lives Merton, Fox, and more in the history of Christianity, Catholicism, and the emerging Creation Spirituality so relevant to our globes current cultural evolution. Perhaps Mertons lament on the lost art of listening can be assuaged significantly by the profound potential impacts of this new book.

KURT JOHNSON, PHD, coauthor of The Coming Interspiritual Age

The changes to the Earth community that will take place during the twenty-first century will surpass in magnitude anything that has happened in all of human history. It is impossible to be optimistic about the extent of the destruction that will be brought down upon humanity and life as a whole. The future of Christianity itself will depend upon its ability to reinvent its forms and practices so that it might become a mutually enhancing presence within the dynamics of life. Among current spiritual theologians, no one has a more comprehensive vision of the necessary changes that must take place than Matthew Fox. In A Way to God he shows how Thomas Mertons work can be understood as a powerful current within the Creation Spirituality tradition that is so essential for this reimagining of Western religion.

BRIAN THOMAS SWIMME, professor of cosmology, California Institute of Integral Studies

Books by Matthew Fox

Stations of the Cosmic Christ (with Bishop Marc Andrus)

Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Warrior for Our Times

Letters to Pope Francis: Rebuilding a Church with Justice and Compassion

Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation (with Adam Bucko)

Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century

The Popes War: Why Ratzingers Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and What Can Be Saved

Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations

The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine

The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human

A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality & the Transformation of Christianity

Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet

Prayer: A Radical Response to Life (formerly On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear)

One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Lessons for Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

The Physics of Angels (with biologist Rupert Sheldrake)

Natural Grace (with biologist Rupert Sheldrake)

Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life

The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time

Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

Meditations with Meister Eckhart

A Spirituality Named Compassion

Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominational Priest (revised and updated)

Hildegard of Bingens Book of Divine Works, Songs & Letters

Whee! We, Wee All the Way Home: A Guide to Sensual, Prophetic Spirituality

Religion USA: Religion and Culture by Way of Time Magazine

Manifesto for a Global Civilization (with Brian Swimme)

Passion for Creation: Meister Eckharts Creation Spirituality (formerly Breakthrough: Meister Eckharts Creation Spirituality in New Translation)

In the Beginning There Was Joy (childrens book)

Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes (editor)

Copyright 2016 by Matthew Fox

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Permission acknowledgments on are an extension of the copyright page.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Fox, Matthew, date.

Title: A way to God : Thomas Mertons creation spirituality journey / Matthew Fox.

Description: Novato, CA : New World Library, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016006215 (print) | LCCN 2016008302 (ebook) | ISBN 9781608684205 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9781608684212 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Merton, Thomas, 19151968. | Fox, Matthew, 1940 | Eckhart, Meister, 1327. | Spiritual lifeCatholic Church.

Classification: LCC BX4705.M542 F69 2016 (print) | LCC BX4705.M542 (ebook) | DDC 271/.12502dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016006215

First printing, May 2016

ISBN 978-1-60868-420-5

Ebook ISBN 978-1-60868-421-2

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

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of consciousness than that of a horizontal movement across the surface of life. A special memory to three Mertonphiles in my life, Michael Toms and Dan Turner and Thomas Berry. And I thank Tom for the honor of interacting with him in the way I have in this book, even as I praise him for his deep and generous gifting, his mystical and prophetic gifts that keep on giving after all these years.

I am glad you are going to work on spiritual theology.I do think we are lying down on the job when we leave others to investigate mysticism while we concentrate on more practical things. What people want of us, after all, is the way to God.

THOMAS MERTON, letter to Matthew Fox, January 23, 1967

Contents

I n 2015, I was invited to speak at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of Thomas Mertons birth. In a very auspicious decision just one year before his untimely death at fifty-three years of age, Merton chose to leave his papers and documents at Bellarmine. Mertons death on December 10, 1968, occurred in an annus horribilis: it was the same year that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were gunned down. December 10 was also the date of Mertons entrance, in the winter of 1941, into the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, located just a few miles from Louisville.