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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox 

12/17/2024

As the results of the election ripple out, learn the deeper stakes involved. Get your copy of Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election today! Choose your format in the book block below. 

And the prelude to that arrival of enlightenment is an honoring of the dark (Advent). Sometimes that darkness is a gentle or tender darkness such as Rilke sings about:

You darkness, that I come from:
I love you more than all the fires
That fence in the world,

“Unlocking Dreams: Kislev & Hanukkah Insights” – Rabbi Cat Zavis of Beyt Tikkun: A Synagogue Without Walls

For the fire makes
A circle of light for everyone,
And then no one outside learns of you.
But the darkness pulls in everything:
Shapes and fires animals and myself,
How easily it gather them!—
Powers and people—
And it is possible a great energy
Is moving near me
I have faith in nights.

Wisely does Rilke talk of our origins as “darkness” that we come from. We all come from nine months of darkness and contentment in our mother’s womb. And that womb speaks of compassion as our origin. 

Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha: ‘Humanity is under the rubble.’ FRANCE 24 English

Both Hebrew and Arabic connect the words “womb” and “compassion” in their languages. Would that connection were being heeded and practiced even more in Palestine and Sudan and Ukraine and around the world today.

A second dimension of darkness as our origins is the nothingness that precedes our existence, how we come from non-being. I recommend this practice: Add one year to your age and meditate on that time, a time when you did not yet exist. We come from a holy nothingness and Advent reminds us of that.

So too do the findings today about dark matter, dark energy and black holes from which so much evolves in the universe. 

Yes, it is good to “have faith in nights” and to recognize the power of darkness as a source for existence. And to move beyond the fear of the dark which helps move people from ignorance and racism as well.

Besides a gentle darkness, there is also a strident one. Black holes certainly demonstrate a wild fierceness that refuses to be tamed. And what the mystics call the “dark night of the soul” names fierceness we are all feeling today. Angst, fear, even doom. Such psychic realities match cosmic realities. 

Today we rightly talk about the “dark night of society” (Heschel) and the “dark night of our species” (myself) that all of humanity finds itself in. Advent and the mystics invite us not to run from such fierce darkness but to stick around and learn what it has to teach us.  

“The Fallen Church.” Collage by Daniel Arrhakis on Flickr.

Not least of which is that nothingness is a prelude to a Great Coming. 

As Eckhart tells us, I once had a dream. Though a man, I dreamt I was pregnant, pregnant with Nothingness. And out of that Nothingness God was born. Thus it is that Advent (the via negativa) leads to Christmas (the via creativa) and on to the via transformative (compassion and justice).

Astronauts who tell of how the great darkness and silence of space brought the mystic alive in them. Practitioners in AA and other addiction groups say the same thing. All learn to have faith in nights.

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Original Blessing, pp. 148-172.

See also Fox, Meditations with Meister Eckhart, pp. 35-64.

Banner Image: Twilight mist in the Dalby Forest, Yorkshire. Photo by Rosie Sun on Unsplash

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Queries for Contemplation

Do you have faith in nights? How does that sustain you and even energize you during trials of personal or political dark nights?

Recommended Reading

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality

Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story

Meditations with Meister Eckhart: A Centering Book

A centering book by Matthew Fox. This book of simple but rich meditations exemplifies the deep yet playful creation-centered spirituality of Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart was a 13th-century Dominican preacher who was a mystic, prophet, feminist, activist, defender of the poor, and advocate of creation-centered spirituality, who was condemned shortly after he died.
“These quiet presentations of spirituality are remarkable for their immediacy and clarity.” –Publishers Weekly.  

Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election

Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.

For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE. 

To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE. 

To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.

Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.

The Return of Father Sky: A Cosmic Mystery for Kids of All Ages

The second book in the Father Fox’s Fantastical Fables series, The Return of Father Sky helps boys and girls to celebrate a new relationship with the masculine by way of Father Sky, whose return excites joy and wonder and possibility that enlarge the soul to welcome others and all creation. Written in a rhyming Dr. Seuss-like style, this full-color, beautifully illustrated book, written by world- renowned theologian Matthew Fox weaves together modern science and classic spirituality in a whimsical, entertaining format to illustrate important truths to readers aged 4 and up. With artwork curated from illustrators around the world, this book expresses the joy and wonder of all peoples and cultures, planting seeds of respect, cooperation and hope to work together for the healing of our planet.

UPCOMING EVENTS

See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE

MONTHLY: Join Matthew Fox, Mariko Middleton, and Skylar Wilson of the Order of the Sacred Earth in a free virtual meeting for connection and networking with other mystic warriors. Last Tuesday of every month, 4:00-5:00pm PT. 
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Learn more at www.orderofthesacredearth.org

Creation Spirituality Conversations

Hear a conversation between Matthew and Ana Otero of The Desert Rose Mystery School in "Mystical Pathways. A Sacred Talk with Matthew Fox, founder of the Creation Spirituality Movement."

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