CREATIVITY
Where the Divine and the Human Meet
by Matthew Fox

"Creativity, when all is said and done, may be the best thing our species has going for it. It is also the most dangerous."

Thus begins Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet (a Tarcher/Putnam hardcover, October 1, 2002, US$21.95/Canada $31.99), the extraordinary new book by Matthew Fox. An Episcopal priest, radical theologian, and author of Original Blessing, Fox explores the powerful connection between creating and communicating with the Divine, whether one is composing an opera, writing a report, parenting, making love, or simply having a conversation.

Drawn from Fox's sermons and lectures, which have inspired and electrified audiences everywhere, Creativity gets to the heart of what it means to create:

*How essential is creativity to our human nature?

*Where does creativity come from?

*What is the "divine imagination," and how can it take us into our creativity?

*Is the capacity for evil in our species so profound because our creativity is so deep?

*How can we direct our creativity toward positive ends?

*What do the Adam/Jesus Christ myth and the Prometheus/Hercules myth tell us about the consequences of creativity?

*How can we tap more fully into our creative power?

*How can we bring creativity to bear on education, politics, spiritual worship, relationships, and everyday life?

Fox offers specific advice on enhancing our creativity: using pain, disappointment, and suffering in our creativity; studying and learning; honoring the child within us; staying close to the pre-rational; calling on our muses; practicing intimacy, praise, and gratitude; and more.

"When we consider creativity we are considering the most elemental and innermost and deeply spiritual aspect of our beings," writes Fox. "Imagination brings about not just intimacy but a big intimacy, a sense of union with the cosmos, a sense of belonging and being at home, of our knowing we have not only a right to be here but a task to do as well while we are here."

At once profound and practical, Creativity will challenge, nurture, and excite the creative spirit within all of us.

About the Author
Matthew Fox has devoted his career to unleashing the suppressed mystical and life-affirming traditions within Christianity and other faiths. His theology of Christian Spirituality-the belief that we are born in "original blessing"-earned him the headline-making censure of the Vatican, which officially "silenced" Fox in 1989 and precipitated his dismissal by the Dominican Order in 1993. Now an Episcopal priest, Fox is the author of more than twenty books. He lives in California.

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