This previous yr has been significantly transferring for me relating to the deaths of many fantastic folks—I might even name them saints—whom I’ve recognized or labored with through the years. It started with the demise of Buddhist trainer and activist Joanna Macy.
I invited you, DM readers, to develop a observe of meditating on the goodness and even holiness of individuals in your lives. It’s wholesome to honor the greatness of our ancestors, together with these close to to us. As one will get older (I will probably be 85 subsequent month), one should anticipate increasingly more of 1’s contemporaries, co-workers, and associates to go on.
Perhaps that is one cause we historically anticipate some knowledge from our elders–that they’re nearer to demise themselves and in addition to demise round them. The purpose being that demise can—no ensures—put perspective on life. And all of us can use perspective on life and its which means and goal at no matter age we’re alongside the journey, whether or not in our twenties or mid-age or retirement/refirement time or past.
I used to be reminded of this fact once more this weekend when taking part in a Celebration of Life Ceremony for Aeesha Clottey on the Episcopal All Souls Parish in Berkeley, California. Many individuals who knew her, together with a few of her remaining siblings, had been in attendance. She was the youngest in an African American household of 12 youngsters who grew up in a small city in Louisiana throughout the pre-Civil Rights period of deep segregation. I used to be struck to study that every one 12 youngsters went to varsity, and she or he bought a full scholarship to the College of California in Berkeley.
Aeesha was on my board on the College of Creation Spirituality and was a particular advisor to me on many events. She was a fierce champion of our Cosmic Mass and supporter of our YELLAWE program for interior metropolis youngsters. She and her husband Kokomon, who was a long-time drummer from Ghana, served their group in West Oakland in some ways. They found the work of Jerry and Diane Jampolsky, generally known as Attitudinal Therapeutic Connection, and created the Middle for ArtEsteem, which introduced creativity and the humanities to excessive colleges all around the Bay Space. Their daughter, Anna Harris Leamy, creator of books on superheroes, which encourage lots of the applications for youth, runs that spectacular group now and gave a eulogy on the service.
Aeesha and Kokomon wrote two books collectively based mostly on ideas from the Attitudinal Therapeutic Connection, together with Shade Concept: Race is a Highly effective Phantasm and Everlasting Quest for Happiness, and so they directed therapeutic applications, together with Aware Drumming Circles, Racial Therapeutic Circles, The Good Neighbor Venture, and Unleashing the Human Spirit Retreats.
Every Martin Luther King Feast Day, the College of Creation Spirituality (UCS) would hyperlink up with the Taylor Memorial Church on 12th Avenue in West Oakland and blend the church congregation and our college students, school, and employees. It was a holy and particular vacation for us all and infrequently included a visitor speaker and native musical expertise. The joyful and uplifting celebration was adopted by an exquisite sit-down lunch ready by church members, the place a number of interplay occurred. In a few my temporary talks on MLK day there, I composed some rap poems that I shared with the attendees and reproduced in my autobiography, Confessions: The Making of a Submit-denominational Priest.
When UCS ended, Aeesha and Kokomon generously and courageously carried on the MLK venture for a number of extra years, and so they particularly celebrated the youth by creating awards every MLK day to honor younger highschool leaders in Oakland excessive colleges. Aeesha was at all times enthusiastic about methods to serve the youthful technology. To be continued.
Banner Picture: Matthew Fox with Aeesha Clottey, November 16, 2019. From Matthew Fox’s photograph archive.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you agree that demise provides us an necessary perspective on life? How do you match that perspective into your on a regular basis decision-making and residing of life? How do the ancestors and deceased family members encourage you?
Associated Readings by Matthew Fox
Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest, pp. 332f., 353-359, 405-416.
The A.W.E. Venture: Reinventing Schooling, Reinventing the Human
Authentic Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Items for the Peoples of the Earth
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Consciousness with Social Justice
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Imaginative and prescient For a New Era by Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox
