♪♪ (upbeat music) [ music ] good morning, and welcome to mosaic. i would like to greet you all with a quote from hildegard, a saint way back in the 12th century who said all of creation is a symphony of joy and jubilation, and i feel a great deal of joy this morning. first i would like to welcome my community, united methodist church where i have been serving going on five months. it was five weeks when i

greeted you last, and it is still a joy. and also it is a joy to welcome one of my friends and colleagues who is one of the leading theologians in the country for the last 30 years as he's written a lot on theology and religion and spirituality, my good friend doctor matthew fox is with us. >> always good to see you. >> you have another book out and this is on hildegard, tell us why? >> the catholic church just canonized her a saint in october and made her a doctor of the church, and there have only been three other women named doctor of the church. that is a big deal. >> that is more so than a saint. >> it carries special energy with it. what they're saying is this is some of the study. i find this ironic, because the

current vatican is not exactly what you would say a supporter of women or women's issues and for them the name her doctor of the church is thoroughly ironic. and as you know, last chapter is called is hildegard a trojan horse, and i think she is, because she is shaking up the church. today just as she did in her day. because she does bring in the divine feminine, something that the pope is not at ease talking about. >> the subtitle is a saint for our times unleashing her power. she has all of this power. she is a marvelous musician, genius in music, she wrote the first opera by 300 years older than any other opera in the west. >> and she wrote over 10 books, she was a scientist. she was a healer and she wrote books on healing. there is a healing center in

southern germany based entirely on her teachings that's been going for over 30 years run by doctors, and obviously they are healing people or they wouldn't be in business. >> so the question is, why did they wait so long to canonize her? >> i think for one thing, when she was 81 years old, she was excommunicated or what they call interdicted. she and all of the nuns. she was a benedictine abbott. they were orbiting to sing the office for a year because the archbishop didn't like the fact that she had buried a young revolutionary on her property and let them steal the body back. so they have a fight for a year and she wrote a letter saying you have silenced the music on the rhine meeting her music, and she said all profits need music, david made music, but you silenced music, and she signed the rudder at the end, she said now she said those who silence music in this lifetime

will go to a place in the next where there is no music, that was her definition of . she said heaven is where there's music and is no music. so she told the archbishop in a creative way, he's going to help. i think this is one reason they postponed canonizing her. >> i thought what martin luther said, he didn't want to go to heaven if there is no laughter, so laughter and music. >> good for him. his first follower said that hildegard was the first protestant. that is quite amazing since she was 400 years older and was a benedictine abbott as. she wrote fierce letters to the pope and bishops and she preached all over germany and switzerland and her main theme was corruption of clergy and how justice was being ignored. >> i thought it was interesting that she preached at that time.

>> the irony, here is a papacy that doesn't allow them to preach. >> they are storing nuns under the bus in north america but they don't have a clue what they've done. that's why i call it a trojan horse in unleashing the amazing figure for people to pay attention to. >> i've been excited about this. i had it ordered a week ago and i read it in a week because it's so compelling, the information you have. >> we will talk more in future segments and make reference to some other books. please join us with doctor tthew fohe on

welcome back to mosaic. you see the title, hildegard avenging, way back in the 12th century, a great saint and we've been talking to doctor matthew fox in his book. you have written many books on her. >> i wrote two previously, one is on the paintings. the paintings were amazing based on her visions because she was a visionary and she had visions that really healed her. and they heal us, they wake us up, many of them are men dollars. i did a book on that with commentary which, what she says

about them. >> she was a painter and a musician. >> and she was an architect. she designed the two monasteries she started. she started life in a male celtic monastery that was women at one end and men at the other, after getting famous with the first book which the pope endorsed, more and more women came to study with her so she took the women and dowries, and they left and she started her own place and she designed it as an architect. nothing daunted hildegard. >> when you talk of her being recognized now, the elimination is sometimes what people always talk about first. that's what i hear. again, paintings. >> paintings and they came in visions and dreams. and with words very often, the figures in the paintings speak

to her. in one of them, i begin the book with this, it's a beautiful young lady and she says i am the creator of the world, my name is love and i've created the world and everything in it, everything in it is good and beautiful including human beings. to me it is a pure passage of what i call original blessing, the goodness of the creation and of course theologically, it is wisdom. so hildegard was this wisdom figure speaking through her in the 12th century. >> is the first time i've come across original wisdom. that is her phrase. she talks about original wisdom. and life's journey and as she pictures it inthe paintings as a tent that we are born with as a baby and life's journey is setting up the tent which will be a home where wisdom can set, but she gets that from john one, wisdom comes to set up its tent in

israel. so she knew the bible very well being a benedictine, she sang the psalms several times a day every day of her life. so she is imbued with the wisdom literature of the bible which scholars today agree was the tradition of jesus, the historical jesus, he was steeped in the wisdom as well which is creation centered just like you started out, the joy and jubilation of creation, that is her entire worldview, that's why she's so pertinent today, we have to fall in love with creation all over again is obviously we are treating it very badly. and >> other thing you say, you mentioned love, but also mention word and light that is so much in her. can you say a word about those? >> that is the cosmic christ, in the beginning was the word, those come from wisdom literature. so that is sophia. that's wisdom. and that's where love, light

comes in. one of my chapters is on howard thurman meeting hildegard and he has a very important distinction between the god of religion and the god of life. and he says unfortunately, they sometimes get separated. and they do, you have to turn to the god of life. and hildegard has the same teaching, she says oh, trinity, you are life, you are light, and you resurrect everything that is, and she goes on and on, she is very ecstatic in her language. and in her spirituality. just like the quote you started with. she is full of joy. >> and thurman talks a lot about that life being alive. >> that's what i love. and thurman i like a lot, that's so powerful, he says the real amazement is that life itself is alive. and we can take that for granted. and you can just tell thurman is getting high on life.

and that's, and one should. among the mystics, hildegard is one and aquinas, they say god is life, thomas aquinas said god is life. so the gift of life is extraordinary. >> the section on thurman i appreciate that you had mentioned that doctor martin luther king jr. read jesus in the disinherited. >> you said you took him with you to jail every time he went to jail 39 times. >> it is such a powerful book. it's one of thurman's earlier books. but in it he really critiques christianity think the church betrayed jesus. he wrote that before the civil rights movement was gathering steam, but king was powerfully influenced by thurman. in the 1930s with his wife, he went to india and met gandhi and

brought home the nonviolent method from him. so thurman was really the spiritual genius, and the elder. he was the elder behind the civil rights movement, but he was criticized for not being in the streets enough. that is not the elder's role. the elder is to hold it together and make sure that the values and spirituality is imbued through the movement. i think history will demonstrate that thurman played an absolutely essential role to king, himself, when he was stabbed at the book signing, he asked for one person at the bed and that was howard thurman. so king was very close to thurman. >> that is a great history. i think how you link that the hildegard and the influences is tremendous. hildegard again, what would you say some the issues outside of the ecology and environment and

justice that she emphasized? what other things do you think she would be addressing these days? >> corruption in the church. she wrote the pope. >> >> let's come back to that next section. >> okay. please join us as we speak of hildegard doctor matthew fox.

welcome back to mosaic. you see these pictures here? i mentioned hildegard at community united in my church in fairfield, one of my members was in germany a couple weeks ago. she is the chairperson of our worship committee. she said i was just there. so i thought it was providential that she share these pictures with me just a couple of days ago. so i thought should i bring

them here to you, this is sunday morning. you see the pictures and at the end, it will be a picture of the abbey representing where she did a great deal of ministry. so i'm thankful for that, karen. >> perfect timing. >> synchronicity. >> someone said it was ironic or coincidence and i said it was providential. >> some synchronicity, yes. >> there is a picture indicated on the book we showed earlier. >> the artist in this picture is, i think, trying to show this none, this half is the none with the habit, but this is meant to be a modern woman with the hair and all. and i think they're trying to say this woman should not be locked up in a monastery, we need to bring her wisdom, unleash her power for today. >> and she said one point that ote nearthend of her life, she told her

sisters that she wanted to be useful and remembered. and what's interesting is her monastery, those nuns kept her from all of her work in pristine condition for 800 years. the paintings, the letters. the 10 books, all of it. and the music. all of it right up to 1944, because being in her town, it is on the rhine american bombers were coming toward germany and they said, we have to pack these up and make them safe, they photographed everything. then they pack them up and they moved for safety to dresden. where of course they were firebombed and destroyed. so what we have is the first generation copies. they kept them, imagine that, pristine for 800 years. >> that is something. >> and it makes me think, how many other women's writings have been lost in the centuries because they didn't have a monastery preserving them for 800 years. because she was not that well known really until recently.

in germany, she was recognized as a holy woman at all that, but beyond germany, you can hear of her and even i met a lot of german people that it never heard of her until they started reading my books. >> before we took a break, we mentioned you made a passage, just as i think it was. >> she is so fierce about justice and here is just one statement she wrote to the pope, himself saying the catholic chair of peter will be shaken through erroneous teaching, the vineyard of the lord smolders with sorrow. the injustice of the clergy will be recognized as a really despicable, and yet, no one will dare to raise a sharpened assistant call for repentance. she is writing about this in the 12th century, but this kind of thing is what people are feeling today over the pedophile scandal and cover-up among the hierarchy and the pope and the church today. and in another place, she says she wrote to the pope and said

you are surrounded by men who are so fearful that they cackle like hens and keep themselves awake at night cackling like hens because they are afraid of themselves. and i said wow, this is a description of today's curia and bureaucracy surrounding the pope today. so she doesn't take any prisoners. she's very strong. she wrote to the emperor, barbarossa and said you are acting like a baby, man up. the bottom line is justice. she says to the pope, you are surrounded with evil men and ignoring justice, she wrote to the king with letters like that in the emperor. at that time. it's not like she has an army backing her up, just her visions. but some people asked me, they said why wasn't she silenced in her lifetime? i think frankly, they were afraid of her.

they felt that the visions were coming from a source that was deep and profound and authentic. and they were afraid. >> and she was pretty hard on clergy and call them lazy. >> that was the main complaint, they weren't prophetic enough. and she says that. she says you are too comfortable and lazy and she says wake up and how can we live without blood and without passion? she's very passionate about justice and she says how can you see the poor and so forth and not the disturbed? and do something and so forth? she has a marvelous balance of the mystical and the prophetic. and that is one more reason why she speaks loudly to us today. she is a contemplative and an activist. and i think that is what we need today. >> i remember toward the end of

the book, you talk about the main street and wall street. >> and how she would probably be prophetic and that. >> i think she would have some words for wall street. there is a passage in here about greed. she goes after greed and i think that names a lot of wall street. and she is absolutely fierce. and she says that greed and overabundance, it pleases no one. you always want more, you always want more. >> you are bored. >> that's right. >> she says greed creates boredom. so i mean, and in that way, you can see she analyzes human nature. she goes through all the virtues and vices and tries to match them against each other. and that is part of her healing, her work as a healer and in that way she is like a therapist or something but kind of a moral therapist saying we go over the edge with our addictions and the greed and

the rest. >> an amazing woman. >> when i was reading this book , as you y it, i was underlining it. >> i just stopped on every single page. it was just so compelling. >> and her language is so alive. she grabs the with her language. >> the joy, the light, the justice. the daughters of justice. >> the divine feminine is there pasley, she says god is a circle and we are embraced by the arms of the mystery of god. very maternal. >> it is always inclusive. >> well we will come back to the end of this and i hate to see it come to an end. >> i do too. >> thank you for being with us and joining us in the last segment with doctor matthew fox.

i hope you have been with us, because we have really been inspired intalking about hildegard in the last few minutes. say to us, doctor fox, how you make the connection with hildegard and thurman and einstein, mary oliver? >> i'm trying to bring her into the 21st century and it came to me, why not have her on the same page with einstein. hildegard meets the cosmic christ. i think that's a great way to bring her into our time. it's amazing how her ideas do

match some of einstein's questions, for example, consciousness and the world is a big question in science, how much consciousness is there in the world? >> einstein had an answer on light. einstein said all i wanted to do my whole life was study light. hildegard was struck by light on a regular basis and light literally talk to her and she answers the question saying there is no creature that lacks an interior life in other words, every stone and star, every galaxy has an interior life, that is her position and it's worth considering. that is very buddhist. >> even the stones talk. but you have to be patient. it takes 10,000 years to speak one word i've been told, but in a sweat lodge, they talk much faster. [ laughter ] >> that is really good. >> it is fun to t hein the

room with these 21st century souls. and i think that belongs. >> i know that you have 30 other books we could've talked about, but i'm sure we will invite you back because you are always writing. and i'm not sure what the next one. >> and you are always reading. [ laughter ] >> when it comes out, i will be right there. >> i think the last time, you are in rome and doing a book tour or something because they had translated your book into italian as well as german your think original blessings in the pope swore, so i was able to get you this time. so thank you for coming. >> i've enjoyed it much as always. >> we have been blessed to have doctor matthew fox who lives here in the bay area because he travels and and parts of the

country and different parts of the world. as we were talking, i felt i thought of doctor king, one thing he says is that everybody do isserve. , yohato you don't want to have to have your subject match your verb to serve. all you have to have is a art a generated by grace. so we hope that you go forth and be persons of grace and love in doing the justice and doing mercy loving mercy and kindness and walking humbly before god.

live from the cbs bay area studios, this is kpix 5 news. >> right now on kpix 5 and streaming on the cbs bay area app, the bay area is coming back to life this weekend. but when it comes to the pandemic, is this really the end? the doctor will weigh in on where we are in the fight. the recall election for several members of the san francisco school board is right around the corner warning about