The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
Watch for Matthew Fox's
video meditation — now appearing every Monday! As beloved teacher Joanna Macy lingers at the gateway of transition, Matthew will honor her on Saturday, 7/12, in a lecture on The Work That Reconnects and the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality. See Upcoming Events,
below. |
Mark Day, Thomas Merton, California Missions & Genocide By Matthew Fox 7/12/2025 |
In
his book, Reimagining the California Missions: A Former Franciscan Friar’s Search for the Truth, award-winning journalist and ex-Franciscan Mark Day has composed a valuable, readable, succinct but substantive summary of much of the rich scholarship that has emerged in our time to tell the truth of the California Missions. |
This truth has been covered up to serve the interests of those making money on the tourist postcard version of history propagated by capitalist propaganda, religious lies and dangerous theology. Day draws on a mountain of |
Indigenous people flee Franciscan friars in this anonymous image from “The Canonization of Junipero Serra” by Vision Maker Media |
evidence from serious sociologists, historians, fact finders and leaders of the California tribes to tell the authentic and tragic story of the Missions. Day offers many concrete ways that non-Indians can support the Indian cause, including asking them to take over the missions so that the truth
can finally be told and sentimentalisms be put to rest. He publishes Governor Newsom’s public apology to the native peoples for this “genocide, pure and simple.” All Californians and indeed all Americans should know the truth and the price paid for the colonization that the mission system wrought. Someone once said, “only
the truth will make you free.” Let us learn from the sins of our fathers in order not to repeat them. The late contemplative and prophetic monk, Thomas Merton, who most likely died a martyr, had plenty to say about the genocide toward indigenous peoples in America—and the friars’ role in it
all. |
On June 18, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom issued an Executive Order formally apologizing for atrocities committed by the State of California against Native Americans in the early days of statehood. Governor’s Office of Tribal Affairs | Genocide is a new word. Perhaps the word is new because technology has now got into the game of destroying whole races at once. The destruction of races is not new—just easier. The year he died, 1968, Merton wrote a major poem, The Geography of
Lograre, where he spoke of |
Redneck captains with whips Fire in their fingers. And this: Friars behind every rock every tree
Doing business
Bargaining for our souls
Book burners and hangmen. In his book, Ishi Means Man, which included a forward by Dorothy Day, Merton celebrates the wisdom of the indigenous peoples including their ceremonies of Sun Dancing, fasting and vision quests. And how their ceremonies celebrate the full integration “into a cosmic system which was at once perfectly sacred and perfectly worldly…that taught people a kind of ‘self-realization’” that consisted not of ego dominance but of a “network of relationships in which one had a place in the mesh.” Where “one fell in step with the dance of the universe, the liturgy of the stars.” |
He criticized the “reservation existence” which Native people were subject to as being “as close to non-existence as we can get him without annihilating him altogether.” Colonialism teaches that native peoples are “squatters on land which God had assigned to us.” Merton gets to the heart of
the matter when he reports that |
The Viejas Reservation, created by executive order in 1934 for two bands of Mission Indians after the El Capitan Reservoir submerged the habitable land in their prior reservation to provide water for San Diego. Photo by Ken
Lund on Flickr. |
“we
have not understood their playful modes. We have fought Eros.” Yes, Western culture and religion have been fighting Eros forever. It is afraid of the Via Positiva, forgetting that our Bible defines wisdom as Eros– “This is wisdom, to love life.” (Eccl. 4:12) Patriarchy and capitalism indeed fight
Eros reducing Eros to pornography, carrying on sadism and cruelty such as current campaigns, rounding up immigrants of color and dumping them in Dachau-like containment camps in Florida. And God knows where else now that a supine Congress has passed a bill promising $45 billion for more such detention camps. Sort of
déjà vu, isn’t it? |
See Matthew Fox, A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, pp. 195-200.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024
Election.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A
Primer in Creation Spirituality.
Banner Image: Indigenous People’s Day, 2020, Mission San Rafael Arcángel: local Coast Miwoks and allies rallied in front of the statue of Junípero Serra at Saint Raphael’s Catholic Church in Marin County, CA, calling for the removal of the statue and acknowledgment of Serra’s brutal legacy. Photo by Peg
Hunter on Flickr. |
Queries for Contemplation |
Does your spiritual practice culminate in “falling in step with the dance of the universe, the liturgy of the stars”? Do you sense that much of today’s politics nationally and internationally is one of “fighting Eros”? Do you agree with the biblical teaching that wisdom means loving life (and Jesus: “I come that you may have life and have it in abundance”)? |
Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, or read other comments and enter into dialogue, please click HERE to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey
In A Way to God, Fox explores Merton’s pioneering work in interfaith, his essential teachings on mixing contemplation and action, and how the vision of Meister Eckhart profoundly influenced Merton in what Fox calls his Creation Spirituality
journey.
“This wise and marvelous book will profoundly inspire all those who love Merton and want to know him more deeply.” — Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism |
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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.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil
are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
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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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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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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UPCOMING EVENTS See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE |
Join Matthew Fox in a new 6-month program of mystical wisdom for a new world.
In this 6-month immersion program with Matthew, you’ll explore what it means to be a modern mystic and prophet, integrating this sacred knowledge into your life through the authentic teachings of Jesus and other wisdom keepers. This journey births what Matthew calls Christianity 2.0 — based not on dogma, but on a spirituality that recovers the sacred sense of original goodness. By Application only - apply HERERegister for a free information session HERE |
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Join Matthew Fox as he explores the profound connections between Creation Theology and cosmological insights. Hosted by Global Ministries University. Friday, July 11, 7:30am – 9:00am PT Join Zoom Meeting HERE. Meeting ID: 871 3467 8090 Join Matthew Fox as he offers an online lecture to the Work that Reconnects Network on The Work That Reconnects and the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality. Saturday, July 12, 10 am-12 pm. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox as he discusses his book, Letters to Pope Francis: Rebuilding a Church with Justice and Compassion, in an online Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat. Thursday, July 17, 4:00pm-5:30pm PT. Register HERE. Join Matthew Fox as he lectures on The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm Where Science
and Spirit Meet, hosted by The Fintry Trust Summer School, UK. Friday, July 18, 11:30am PT (7:30pm UK)
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 HERE, Meeting ID: 886 6530 2478 Learn more at www.orderofthesacredearth.org |
Creation Spirituality Conversations "On Forming a Unitive Consciousness." (To listen, click on the photo below.) |
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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