Lowdy Brabyn, a UK-based friend of Faith and Money Network, gave this spoken reflection at a contemplative gathering on New Year’s Day and generously agreed to allow us to share it here.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about matter.
Matter as in stuff.
Matter as in ‘what really matters?’
Matter as the fundamental expression of the divine: our material existence as the creative outpouring of divine essence; the created world, heaven on earth, heaven AS earth; spirit breathed into matter. And the holy paradox of this incarnate life, where we are called to reconcile in our hearts the irreconcilability of matter and spirit… to find a way of living well with the dance between these opposites. Gravity and Grace.
Matter as deriving from the Latin word mater (mother). Thus, matter as Mother Earth. Sensing the mystery that our bodies, our flesh, may be human expressions – or extensions – of Mother Earth.
Then there’s the double entendre of mater and martyr. Let’s not make a martyr of our mater with our extractive ways.
And I thought about the role of matter at Christmas and how getting too caught up with it can tip into rampant consumerism, which actually cuts us off from divine matter, and from what truly matters.
And that led me to think about the difference between natural matter (earth, water, plants, trees, creatures, our own bodies – everything of the natural world, and all of which decomposes quite naturally) and manmade matter (nearly all the ’stuff’ we buy in shops, often full of plastics, synthetic fibers and chemicals, most of which litters our planet because it cannot decompose). It seems to me that the former connect us with the sacredness of life and the latter tend to cut us off from it.
I’ve been thinking about how we so easily move from one air-conditioned bubble to another, encased in our well-heated houses and cars. Yes, we need protection from the harsher elements of nature but, taken too far, do we risk excluding ourselves from their holiness? Getting cut off from relationship with them? And without relationship, might it become easier to be complicit in their (actually our) demise? And to be part of the extractive, objectifying, destructive system where we unthinkingly, even unknowingly, contribute to the pillage of our Great Mater, our Mother Earth, to feed our consumptive habits?
What matters? How can I be in right relationship with matter? How do I give generously and receive graciously without harming our Great Mother Earth by supporting yet more extraction, manufacture, distribution, consumption, disposal? I don’t know the answers, but these are some questions I’m taking into this year.
I’ve also been considering how consumption isn’t always all bad. It is in nature’s blueprint. When I look at logs burning on a fire, I see spirit consuming matter in a holy way. I see spirit dancing with matter. Spirit transmuting matter. The logs are consumed: in relinquishing themselves they give out light and warmth. During their life as trees they consume and transmute the fire of sunlight. Their ash creates rich compost to feed the earth and nourish new growth. It’s a gorgeous cycle of matter and spirit creating life to nourish and feed ALL life. What a miracle!
What can we learn from this loving death embrace of (safely contained) fire? From wood yielding to flames, the ease of the death, the letting go of matter?
May we let go of matter which does not matter, and let the fire release our spirits to fill space and time with warmth and light, with goodness and sweetness.
May the burning up of our pain help us let go of dense certainty, to yield to the crucible of life, to dance with the mystery. Perhaps a part of our purpose in this incarnate adventure may be to burn in the fire of loving one another, to transmute our pain, so that we can do things together in the material world that really matter.
So I’m inviting us in a moment of shared silence at the beginning of this new year to consider our place in this great cycle of matter. What do I take from it? What do I contribute to it? What really matters? And as we sit, I invite you to think of the great mass of matter beneath us. Our Great Mater/Mother, our Mother Earth, right there, holding us so quietly, so sweetly, so patiently. How can we honor her? How can we re-find our holy relationship to her?
And I bow to each of your bodies, the material forms which are the traveling temples of each of your own holy spirits.
Lowdy Brabyn | January 2025
Lowdy Brabyn is a UK-based psychotherapist and friend of Faith and Money Network.