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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1/09/2025

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. 

Having grieved those anniversaries, having dealt with the anger that grief awakens and the sorrow that it brings, many Americans have now undergone a kind of kenosis or emptying as a prelude for what comes next. One carries anger, sorrow and grief with one as we 

Democrats are prepared to protest President-elect Donald Trump before and during his inauguration, although opposition is muted compared to the 2017 protests. The Washington Examiner.

prepare to struggle and resist in the awareness that in less than two years there will be a new election, and until that time arrives there is much work to do.

Mahatma Gandhi taught that spirituality and politics go together and those who do not recognize that do not know what religion means. He criticized Augustine’s dualism between religion and politics this way according to Gandhian scholar Raghavan Iyer, author of The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi: "The Augustinian contrast meant that the political order could never be elevated but could only be endured."

Is politics something one endures–or is there another option?

Geoff Bennett of PBS and journalist Kara Swisher discuss the impact of reader backlash and high-profile staff departures at the Washington Post under oligarch Jeff Bezos’ leadership. PBS NewsHour

Gandhi recognized another attitude toward politics, that of the non-dualist Thomas Aquinas who, “unlike Augustine, stressed the vital role of the political order as necessary for the attainment of the highest earthly good.”  

If the political order is vital for the attainment of “the highest 

earthly good,” moral outrage is indeed in order when a fascist project like Project 2025 lurks on the horizon and oligarchs and their corporations line up to render offers and beseech favors at Mar-a-Lago.

As Thom Hartmann puts it, “the oligarchs are no longer just at the gates,” but are “moving into the White House.”

Latin American liberation theologian Jon Sobrino reminds us how we enter a process of “history as salvation.” And today’s science, as Brian Swimme reminds us, culminates in a new creation story centered entirely on history also—the history of our universe of which our species is a recent arrival, though our origins go back to the fireball 13.8 billion years ago. 

A new word has been coined to name that reality: Cosmogenesis. The history is one of birthing, of calling forth our own evolution. The Via Creativa moves center stage. "History as creation, creation as history.” With genesis at its center, history, genesis and 

Meditations on cosmic birthing: “Serie Cosmogenesis.” Photo and art by mixed-media artist Claudio Tomassini on Flickr.

creation become central.    

The ruptures occurring today in politics and human consciousness as a whole can be preludes to a new future. But survival requires that our future tackles “selfishness, greed and apathy,” as environmentalist Gus Speth observed in yesterday’s DM. 

These are spiritual issues and science and gee-whiz technology cannot solve them alone. Spirituality and spiritual warriors are part of the required medicine. And that means all workers and all citizens.  

To be continued.

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality, pp. 132-157, 156f., 277ff.

See also: Jon Sobrino, “Christian Prayer and New Testament Theology: A Basis for Social Justice and Spirituality,” in Fox, ed., Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes, pp. 76-115.

See also, M. D. Chenu, “Body and Body Politic in the Creation Spirituality of Thomas Aquinas,” in Fox, Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes, pp. 193-215.

See also: And Fox, “Spiritual Warriorhood,” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths, pp. 404-422.

And Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision For a New Generation.

Banner Image: People power, reclaiming human waste: A volunteer team builds a composting outhouse at Parc y Dderwen permaculture smallholding, Pembrokeshire, UK. Photo by Permaculture Association on Flickr.

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

We are told by Gandhi that politics and spirituality together provide “an attainment of the highest human good.” How is that going for us? How can we unite to make it better? How does a new creation story that emphasizes cosmogenesis contribute to enabling the spiritual warrior in us all to contribute to greater unity?

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

Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes

In this book, Fox gathers scholars from various cultures and traditions such as Helen Kenik, Jon Sobrino, Nicolas Berdyaev, Rosemary Ruether, M. D. Chenu, Mary Jose Hobday, Ronald Miller, Monika Hellwig, James Kenney, Justin O’Brien and others to approach creation spirituality from many traditions and many angles. 
“An exciting and important book…a pleasant alternative to the oppressive burden of the fall/redemption tradition.” ~ New Review of Books and Religion 

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

Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation

Authors Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox encourage us to use our talents in service of compassion and justice and to move beyond our broken systems–economic, political, educational, and religious–discovering a spirituality that not only helps us to get along, but also encourages us to reevaluate our traditions, transforming them and in the process building a more sacred and just world. Incorporating the words of young activist leaders culled from interviews and surveys, the book provides a framework that is deliberately interfaith and speaks to our profound yearning for a life with spiritual purpose and for a better world.
“Occupy Spirituality is a powerful, inspiring, and vital call to embodied awareness and enlightened actions.”
~~ Julia Butterfly Hill, environmental activist and author of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods

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

Learn more at www.orderofthesacredearth.org

Join the Creation Spirituality Communities Education service as they host guest speaker Matthew Fox in an overview of Deep Ecumenism and its relevance today in the first class of a course, “Deep Ecumenism: Exploring Spiritual Identity” by Instructor Roxanne Whitelight.  Matthew Fox’s lecture: Jan 15 - 4:00pm PT

Course runs Wednesdays, January 15– February 19, 2025.

Register HERE.

Join Matthew Fox as he discusses his book, co-authored with Rupert Sheldrake: The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm Where Science and Spirit Meet, in an online Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat. Thursday, January 16, 4:00pm-5:30pm PT. Register HERE.

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."

View this post, video, and more on our website

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