TECHNO COSMIC MASS CIRCLES OF LIFE - CELEBRATING OUR INTERCONNECTEDNESS with Matthew Fox and Friends of Creation Spirituality Sunday October 25, 1998 7:00 to 9:30 PM University of Colorado Memorial Center - Glenn Miller Ballroom Co-sponsored by Common Spirit and The Naropa Institute This free event is supported by your generous donations. The Techno Cosmic Mass is a revolutionary new form of worship that invokes the sacred
into body, mind, heart and spirit. It blends Western liturgical tradition and Eastern and indigenous spiritual elements with multi-media imagery, ecstatic music and dance to create an interfaith, multi-cultural and intergenerational celebration.
Techno refers to the sacred use of technology in our worship. Using computer generated art, multivision projection and sound systems with digitally composed and mastered music, participants celebrate with dance and other forms of personal expression. Cosmic refers to cosmology, the sacred connection of all creation as described by ancient wisdoms and the new science. The Mass brings a community together to experience a common story, to bring praise and thanksgiving to the Creator, and to offer spiritual sustenance for works of compassion and justice in the world.
Guiding Principles of the Techno Cosmic Mass
The Techno Cosmic Mass is created by community for community. Together, we create liturgy (work of the people), which is a communal outward-flowing prayerful expression. The process of creating ritual and sharing it with our community brings renewed spirituality into our daily lives and community and helps us become stronger, clearer vehicles for Divine presence in our world.
Our theme, Circles of Life - Celebrating Our Interconnectedness, will explore our interrelationship with the Divine, with nature, and with each other. Our intention is to deepen our understanding, enlarge our perspectives, and fuel our passions and creative expressions of celebration, compassion and justice.
Each Techno Cosmic Mass is an experiment in bringing together people of diverse ages, faiths and cultures in shared prayer, while holding true to our ancestral traditions, respecting and honoring our differences, and highlighting our common bonds. In the Mass, we move through the four paths of the spiritual journey as articulated by Creation Spirituality: Via Positiva - the paths of awe, wonder, joy and gratitude; Via Negativa - the path of darkness, silence, grief, pain and letting go; Via Creativa - the path of renewal, rebirth and creative expression; and Via Transformativa - the path of compassionate action, justice-making and celebration.
Experiential -- The Techno Cosmic Mass is a communal prayer experience. Ritual leaders facilitate the divine experience through communal chant, song, dance, spoken word and silence. Use of spoken and written word is de-emphasized. In egalitarian style, the Mass is always celebrated in circle form; the center signifying the heart, womb, universal core from which all is birthed. You may participate at whatever level you feel most comfortable.
Diversity -- The Techno Cosmic Mass recognizes itself as a vehicle for transformation in our lives and times. At the heart of the Techno Cosmic Mass is the desire to participate in the dissolving of boundaries that divide humanity from each other and other forms of creation. The Techno Cosmic Mass is intentionally ecumenical, multi-cultural, gender-inclusive and intergenerational.
Deep Ecumenism -- While the Techno Cosmic Mass is rooted in the ancient Judeo-Christian form of worship, it values, learns from and participates in the wisdom and spiritual practices of other traditions. The Mass honors our ethnic, cultural and religious differences and celebrates our common bonds; creating a sacred space for all to come together in shared prayer.
Youth -- The Techno Cosmic Mass is an intergenerational form of worship and is particularly inspired by the leadership, wisdom and language of youth. Electronic music, environmental lighting, trance dancing, rap, multi-media imagery, computer-generated art and video are some ways in which young people and the Techno Cosmic Mass are expressing the sacred today. Trance dance, a free expression dance form in the Rave culture, is a primary vehicle for prayer in the Mass.
Please respect our policy of no drugs, alcohol or tobacco use. About Matthew Fox...
Matthew Fox, a postmodern theologian, has been an ordained priest since 1967. He is founder and president of the University of Creation Spirituality based in Oakland, California, Editor in Chief of Original Blessing, A Creation Spirituality Network Newsletter and author of 21 books, including the best selling Original Blessing, A Spirituality Named Compassion, Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart’s Creation Spirituality in New Translation, Confessions, Natural Grace (with Rupert Sheldrake), The Reinvention of Work and The Physics of Angels. In addition to his work as writer and teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area, Fox is a lecturer whose travels throughout North America, Europe and Australia have brought his message of ecological and social justice, mysticism and blessing to eager and ever-growing audiences.
If you would like more information, please contact Edina Preucel from Common Spirit at 303.666.9415 (Epreucel@aol.com), Betsy Gill at 303.245.4500 or Penelope Voekel at 303.938.0992 from The Naropa Institute. Donations may be sent to Common Spirit, 1540 Kalmia Ave. Boulder, CO 80304. Interested volunteers may contact Avis Rich at 303.443.3255
