Black Hole
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me
Even the night shall be light about me…
The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee.
Psalm 139:11-12
At this auspicious time of Halloween, Samhain, the Day of the Dead, Diwali, All Saints/Souls Day, the end of daylight savings time, and of course leading up to the election on Tuesday, it may be a time for deep reflection and a reassessment of life on our fragile blue ball. The image above of a black hole may be a symbol of all of our fears associated with being swallowed up by the extreme gravitational pull…of the possible triumph of darkness over light of evil over good. And, of course this is what is celebrated at this time…the eventual triumph of light…of goodness over evil symbolized by the Hindu/Jain/Sikh holiday of Diwali. At the same time it is the end of the harvest season in the northern hemisphere and the ushering in of the darker part of the year…perhaps a time of greater introspection. Through the lens of our upcoming election, I, for one, would like to believe in the triumph of good over evil…light over darkness, but no matter what happens, it seems to be a time of reckoning with our past and making sense out of an uncertain future.
The Psalmist says the darkness and the light are the same to God…to our Creator who indeed created both light and darkness. Looking at the black hole above, we are told that it is the gravitational pull that draws light into the darkness of the ‘hole’. Although this sounds ominous, astrophysicists tell us that we are not in danger of falling into one of these dark holes. Still, as the photograph from the Webb telescope attests, the dark hole is real.
I’ve been reflecting at what seems to be a profoundly pivotal time, the dialectic of light and dark, good and evil while reading Matthew Fox’s most recent book entitled, Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ. I have to admit, I initially shied away from reading this book because of the overly Christian language. And actually, Fox himself was at first reluctant to address this. But as the pressure mounts in the days before this election, I felt it was probably important to read. Fox wrote the book after seeing a painting at a church in Orvieto, Italy entitled, The Antichrist. He was so struck by the painting that he hurried home a wrote a book very quickly. It turns out that Fox was not the first one to be struck by this painting. Sigmond Freud, who described religion as an illusion, was also struck by it. A biographer states that this encounter awakened Freud’s sense of his own oppression as a Jew, though he was always ambivalent about identifying as a Jew. Freud is said to have gone back to Orvieto several times to view this work of art and would call the artist, Signorelli, his favorite artist. This is deep!
In his book, Fox sets the stage for this discussion so well. He begins by talking about the focus in traditional and also fundamentalist Christianity on sin…on individual failings that can be trivialized, when the more important discussion of sin…of evil is reflected in the entire history of humanity. Fox acknowledges that this is difficult for us as Americans to talk about…something that the MAGA movement is fighting against. The movement does not want this shameful history to be part of the America they envision…though a continuation of this evil is part of the plan for the future. Fox acknowledges that it is not easy to talk about our nation being built on the back of enslaved people brought here in chains. It is not easy to talk about what happened after that 200-year episode, with a Civil War and then a re-enslavement of African-American citizens, as well as others the results of which are still felt today, both personally and institutionally. It is not easy to talk about a country that was built on the dispossession of indigenous people of their land and everything that followed and still is being uncovered today. And, of course, it is also not easy seeing our own complicity, for example, in the funding of the war on Gaza.
Fox then goes on to discuss the archetype of Christ as seen in Christianity and beyond. He sees this archetype as standing for the Good, biophilia, compassion, justice, peace and truth. Pointing out that it can operate as a projection for these realities as well, he sees it as an aspiration…the best of ourselves…in the words of Abraham Lincoln, our better angels. He reproduces Hildegard of Bingen’s vision of the man in sapphire blue…a study in compassion.
This is a good symbol for the archetype of Christ as the compassionate hands extended to do the work of the all-pervading presence. Hildegard says, “to be foolish is to lack motherly compassion. Whoever lacks this dies of thirst.”
Fox goes on to describe, then the archetype of its opposite, the Antichrist. Calling it the incarnation of evil, that speaks universally to all humans, Fox says that it has the power to grab us…and seize us from a very deep place. Speaking of this danger of the negative archetype, Jungian scholar, Edward Edinger warns that “archetypes live themselves out in whatever psychic stuff they can appropriate, they are like devouring mouths – finding little egos they can consume, and the living out of those egos.” This seems to be describing what is happening today. Fox points out that given today’s politics, we can see why this archetype has returned. Perhaps to show us what is happening anyway slightly beneath the surface. And Fox makes this evidence explicit in his 18 signs of the Antichrist in our time that reminds me of a YouTube video entitled the 10 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency by Robert Reich. Among the signs Fox listed were: A countless stream of lies, Project 2025, 2020 elections, denial of climate change…etc.
Fox wraps up his consideration by consulting Hildegard again. Now, as many of you know, Hildegard was not only an artist, scientist, musician, author, healer, but also someone who waged battles against evil in her time. She also dealt with the archetype of the Antichrist in a vivid painting that depicts the Antichrist seemingly being birthed from a woman (Mother Church?) Fox sees this bold imagery as an indictment of the Antichrist as patriarchy.
So, Fox wrestled with the topic that has been just beneath the surface of my own mind and soul. He helped me to better understand the anatomy of the issues facing us. Through this timely consideration of our current situation, I feel better equipped to walk in the light of the all-pervading presence…the light represented by the celebration of Diwali…the celebration of our ancestors…the celebration of the Christ in us that is not only capable of overcoming this so-called darkness, but of finding the message within it to continue, in the words of Dr. Howard Thurman, to live effectively in the chaos of the present the high destiny of a child of God. May we walk in the light of divine presence, radiating from all of creation, despite the reality of evil in our time.
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