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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox 

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1/14/2025

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. 

Let us consider, for example, this teaching from the Zohar, a Jewish medieval mystical work that instructs us:

Now since a person’s real work in this world
is the work of the Blessed Holy One,
he or she must be as strong as a lion on every side
so that the Other Side will not overpower him or her
or be able to seduce him or her.

Prophetic action, almost 20 years ago: activists raise a protest banner during the Climate Change Camp 2007 at Heathrow Airport in London. Wikimedia Commons

Notice the phrase, our “real work in this world.” There is work and there is real work. The latter is what counts. Perhaps this hints at the distinction I make in my book on The Reinvention of Work between a “job,” which is what we do for a paycheck, and “work,” which is what we are on the Earth to accomplish. Our vocation therefore. It may be our work as citizens, as (honest) politicians, as parents, grandparents, artists, teachers, healers and first responders, as mechanics, etc. 

What is being said is that our “real work” is that of the Blessed Holy One, i.e. we are the hands and mind of God, the Compassionate and Holy One. We are here to do the divine work on Earth in this time and place. 

“Bayview Hunters Point residents step up legal battle over development of superfund waste site” (2023). After decades of community activism, federal agencies reached an agreement to clean up the site in November 2024.

BUT to do this work takes strength—the strength of the lion. “Being strong as a lion on every side” means we hold an inner strength inside us around truth and beauty and constancy that mark qualities of the divine and mirror the goodness of the divine. How are we doing? We cannot implement these virtues and powers without a lion’s strength.

Many young people today seek something to live for, something to give their lives for. The illusory goals of shopping and making money will not cut it with most people of conscience, young or old. There must be something more to life than the trivializing of it that consumer capitalism sells ad nauseam.

A good example of a spiritual warrior with a heart of a lioness was Sister Dorothy Stang who served the peasant farmers and the Amazon rainforest and who paid for it with her life. She died a martyr 20 years ago this March, laying down her life defending the forest. “We cannot live without it,” she declared.

This weekend her brother Tom Stang was present in Rome for a ceremony in honor of present-day martyrs and presented to the group sponsoring it a vial of her blood and the soil she died on mixed together.  

Recording of the public ceremony in Rome honoring Sr. Dorothy Stang as a modern martyr. Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur

Sister Dorothy was from a large family in Ohio and her martyrdom is a reminder of the courage we all carry within us. The spiritual warrior dwells within us all. She was a student in our Creation Spirituality program which impacted her considerably—including introducing her to Hildegard of Bingen with whom she created a powerful bond. She honors the sacredness of creation by her sacrifice.*

* Cindy Wooden, “U.S. sister killed in the Amazon honored at Rome ‘new martyrs’ shrine,'” Catholic Star Herald via Catholic News Service, January 13, 2025.

See Matthew Fox, Confessions of a Post-denominational Priest, pp. 341-343, 433, 448.

Matthew Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths, pp. 404f.

And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.

And Fox, The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time.

And Fox, Hildegard of Bingen, a Saint For Our Times: Unleashing Her Power for the 21^st Century.

Banner Image: Sister Dorothy Stang, Memorial, photo by Roberto de Vasconcelos on WikiMedia Commons.

For updated lists of organizations helping those affected by the devastating LA wildfires, please see these article from the LA Times HERE, and from the New York Times 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

Are you “strong as a lion on every side” and do you recognize your work as the Work of the Blessed Holy One?  And do you recognize the lion and spiritual warrior in Sister Dorothy Stang’s work and martyrdom?

Recommended Reading

Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest (Revised/Updated Edition)

Matthew Fox’s stirring autobiography, Confessions, reveals his personal, intellectual, and spiritual journey from altar boy, to Dominican priest, to his eventual break with the Vatican. Five new chapters in this revised and updated edition bring added perspective in light of the author’s continued journey, and his reflections on the current changes taking place in church, society and the environment.
“The unfolding story of this irrepressible spiritual revolutionary enlivens the mind and emboldens the heart — must reading for anyone interested in courage, creativity, and the future of religion.”
—Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self

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

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

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

Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint for Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century

Matthew Fox writes in Hildegard of Bingen about this amazing woman and what we can learn from her.
In an era when women were marginalized, Hildegard was an outspoken, controversial figure. Yet so visionary was her insight that she was sought out by kings, popes, abbots, and bishops for advice.
“This book gives strong, sterling, and unvarnished evidence that everything – everything – we ourselves become will affect what women after us may also become….This is a truly marvelous, useful, profound, and creative book.” ~~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism.

The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood For Our Time

Thomas Aquinas said, “To live well is to work well,” and in this bold call for the revitalization of daily work, Fox shares his vision of a world where our personal and professional lives are celebrated in harmony–a world where the self is not sacrificed for a job but is sanctified by authentic “soul work.”
“Fox approaches the level of poetry in describing the reciprocity that must be present between one’s inner and outer work…[A]n important road map to social change.” ~~ National Catholic Reporter
 

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.

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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