The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations
with Matthew Fox |
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On Praying the News in Times of Danger and Darkness
2/13/2025 |
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. |
The
purpose of our daily meditations have been, from the beginning, to assist one another to pray the news. Not just watch the news. Or avoid the
news—which is certainly a temptation at this moment in history when there is such an overload of bad news every day. |
One must protect oneself from too much news and too much bad news even as one does pray the news. Two days ago, someone thoughtfully sent me this prayer and thought I would appreciate it—which I do. So I want to share it with you readers of our daily
meditations. It comes from Rabbi Irwin Keller and was composed in 2016. It is called: A Prayer Before Reading the
News My God, the soul you have placed in me is pure and vulnerable.
I am afraid that looking at today’s news will be painful. |
Doomscrolling: a parade of dire headlines. Screenshot of a Bluesky feed. |
Encircle me in a robe of light
so that I can witness the wounds of the world
without being wounded myself.
Let me learn what I need to know in order to be of my greatest use,
without being overwhelmed by despair.
I feel your protective light now as I open myself to the world’s suffering
and the world’s joys. Amen. |
Study: Constant news obsession yields mental and physical health problems. KXAN | I appreciate what Rabbi Keller is reminding us of: How the News bring
pain and wounds and suffering with it—the Via Negativa on steroids–and sometimes triggers overwhelming despair. |
So we should admit how vulnerable we are and encircle ourselves in a robe of light as we “witness the wounds of the world.” A good practice indeed. That is how we should read the news. And to know that we are not alone. And look too for the news that announces the “world’s joys” as well as the world’s sorrows. Pay attention (Mary Oliver’s definition of prayer) to the goodness and joy in the news as well as the suffering. The Via Positiva invites us in if we allow it to. |
This includes good people trying to do good things. The good creation blessing us daily from the rising of the sun to the silent mystery of the moon. The good and beautiful creatures that befriend us on a daily basis. The prophets or spiritual warriors who remind us how |
One website addressing the grief of our times with stories and resources. |
generous and
light-filled we humans can be. Those doing good work. This too is being circled in a robe of light, it is God-among-us, as the Psalmist tells us in his creation story of Psalm 104, “God comes robed in a robe of light.” |
See Matthew Fox: Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Faith Traditions.
And Fox, Skylar Wilson, Jen Lustig, Order of the Sacred Earth: An
Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action.
Banner image: Distressed by the news. Image by StockSnap from Pixabay | For a list of organizations helping those affected by the devastating LA
wildfires, please see this article from ABCNews HERE and the evolving AltadenaStrong hub page HERE. |
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 find Rabbi Keller’s prayer useful at this time of stressful news when one is tempted to either run from it all or to collapse under the weight of it all? How do you “pray the news” and stay grounded and brave and connected to joy?
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Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South
American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality
and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
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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 |
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A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew
Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our
deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
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The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors,
or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that
shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God |
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One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more
than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully
express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit |
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Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
By Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jen Listug
In the midst of global fire, earthquake and flood – as species are going extinct every day and national and global economies totter – the planet doesn’t need another church or religion. What it needs is a new Order, grounded in the Wisdom traditions of both East and West, including science and indigenous. An Order of the Sacred Earth united in one sacred vow: “I promise to be the best lover and defender of
the Earth that I can be.”
Co-authored by Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jennifer Berit Listug, with a forward by David Korten, this collection of essays by 21 spiritual visionaries including Brian Swimme, Mirabai Starr, Theodore Richards, and Kristal Parks marks the founding of the diverse and inclusive Order of the Sacred Earth, a community now evolving around the world.
“The Order of the Sacred Earth not only calls us home to our true nature as Earth, but also offers us invaluable guidance and company on the way.” ~~ Joanna Macy, environmental activist and author of Active Hope. |
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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. |
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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. |
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UPCOMING EVENTS See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE |
Join Matthew Fox as he discusses his book, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice, in an online Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat. Thursday, February 20, 4:00pm-5:30pm PT. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox as he discusses his book, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth, in an online Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat. Thursday, March 20, 4:00pm-5:30pm PT. Register HERE. MONTHLY: Join Matthew Fox 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 |
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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Inspired by this post? Share your insights on BlueSky, Instagram, Universeodon, or Facebook using the hashtag #RevDrMatthewFox and tag Matt with @RevDrMatthewFox FOLLOW MATTHEW FOX: |
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