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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox 

10/3/2024

PLEASE NOTE: 

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Today we are being told that it may be months before Asheville, North Carolina and many other towns and cities and farms on the path of Helene will have running water again. 

Mni Wiconi banner at Oceti Sakowin/All Nations camp, Standing Rock, ND, thanking the thousands of people who came from around the world to protect the water of the Missouri River and Ogallala Aquifer. Photo by Becker 1999 on Wikimedia Commons.

Maybe this forced fasting will teach us all the great mystery of the original blessing that water is. Then we can start over again. We can become mystics again, that is to say, lovers who do not take for granted healthy water or healthy air or healthy soil or healthy food or healthy bodies or healthy relationships. And the rest. 

“All our relations.” That is what original blessing means: Not to take for granted the sacredness of our existence and Mother Earth and Father Sky that make it all possible. “Not to take for granted” is one of my working definitions for mysticism.

Of course, a large part of the damage of Helene was due to floods—an excess of water. Water can be destructive. One fireman once told me that water is more destructive than fire itself. Water is powerful and overpowering and much, much bigger and more powerful than us tiny and fragile humans. 

Ecosystem devastation in the wake of Helene. Photo by Asheville resident Skylar Wilson, co-director of The Cosmic Mass and the Order of the Sacred Earth. Used with permission.

Buck Ghosthorse, when praying and leading in sweat lodges, used to call us humans “ants.” It was uncomfortable to hear, but he was teaching an important lesson. In the context of the great creation, we are tiny and fragile and not awfully enduring—in fact, far less enduring than ants as a species.

In writing on Evil in the DM lately, I have shared my insight that I learned from researching for my first and longest of three books on Evil: That the opposite of Evil is not good (bad is the opposite of good); the opposite of Evil is: The Sacred.

Maybe our days or weeks or months without regular water can awaken us to the Sacred, just as Buck said it can. 

Maybe re-learning not to take for granted is the beginning that our country and our species needs to light a fire in us that changes our ways so that we can get over our politicians' and media’s lies and silence about climate change and address it more directly.

Maybe the same can happen with our media which loves to be on the spot when hurricanes are coming and after they leave their chaos behind, but who rarely if ever speak the truth of the cause of global warming: Human greed. Corporate greed. Politicians' greed. 

U.S. Army aviators in the Georgia Army National Guard load pallets of water into a helicopter to provide response and recovery support to areas impacted by Hurricane Helene. U.S. Army National Guard photo by Spc. Katlynn Pickle on Flickr. 

The exact greed that Hildegard equates with the value system of the antichrist.

Is it possible that the Scream of Helene can finally, finally, finally, finally, finally get the media and the politicians to tell the truth? If so, its destruction will have been worth it. 

If not, there will be more, many more events, like Helene.  And Creation—Sacred creation—will move from order to chaos the world over.  And our species and millions of others will go extinct. 

Doom, gloom and despair will mark our future. The promise of grace, of justice and peace that “flow like a river,” of a coming of a kingdom of love, justice and kindness born of our co-creating, will disappear down the drain.  

To be continued.

If you would like to help the survivors of Helene, these organizations are among the many providing assistance on the ground:

• American Red Cross
• World Central Kitchen
• United Cajun Navy
• Local Resources for North Carolina aid 

See Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.

And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.

And Fox, Trump & MAGA as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.

And Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance.

Banner Image: Banner from Youth Climate Strike, 2019. Photo by Fabrice Florin on Flickr.

Statement of Solidarity with Israel/Palestine.

Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, or read other comments and enter into dialog, please click HERE to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field.

Queries for Contemplation

Do you agree with Buck Ghosthorse that going without water for three days can teach you the sacredness of water? What follows from that? What other ways are there for recovering a sense of the sacred?

Recommended Reading

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them. 
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science.  A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics

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

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 Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
 “This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.

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. 
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88665302478  
Meeting ID: 886 6530 2478

Learn more at www.orderofthesacredearth.org

Free Virtual Event: Join Matthew Fox and the Creation Spirituality Communities' Global Kinship monthly Zoom meeting on Thursday, October 3, 1:00-2:30 PM PT. Matthew will discuss a Call To Action regarding his new book, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election. In this lecture, discussion, and Q&A, together we will brainstorm about how to use this book to keep Trump out of the White House, and put Harris/Walz in. Call will be recorded. 

Register HERE. 

Creation Spirituality Conversations

Bannon, former Trump advisor and former Executive Chairman at Breitbart News. He explains how Cardinal Burke and other neofascists in the Catholic Church opposed the Second Vatican Council, which sought to update the Catholic Church. He then explains how both Leonard Leo (co-chairman of the Federalist Society board of directors, who drew up lists of potential conservative judges who were then appointed to the Supreme Court) and Kevin Roberts from the Heritage Foundation, share a right-wing Catholic ideology.

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