Founders Week Activity

Founders Week Activity

Matthew Fox Speech

On Tuesday, February 9, 2016, I attended a talk by Matthew Fox in the chapel. During this talk Matthew talked about how he came to meet Sister Dorothy Stang and how that impacted his life. Matthew Fox’s talk started off with talking about how you can’t base religion off of sin. He also went on to talk about how he became interested in the church and how his life changed from there. He had a dream that his mother was dying and when he awoke and realized his mother wasn’t dying he realized that his dream was a bigger message for the dying of Mother Earth. From then on he became an influential person in the church and decided to help give back to the community. One of the things that Matthew talked about and that really spoke to me was about his journey to the Amazon. He talked about how the people inhabiting these areas wanted to save the Amazon forest and he wanted to help with the efforts of the Amazon much like Dorothy Stang wrote about in her book. He specifically talked about the lessons of the Amazon and how place symbolized the the chapel: the tree in the backyard and how many indigenous people died trying to protect the Amazon forest.  When he talked about how many people died trying to protect the forest that really spoke to me because the people who grew up and lived their whole lives in the forest were now having their homes taken away but also their lives taken away as well. This talk was very influential and made me think about my life and how thankful I am to live where I do. But it also made realize how different things are on other sides of the planet and how we need to help them against the people who are trying to hurt their homeland. Therefore, it brings awareness to the people here at NDNU and they can share these stories with other people.