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! |
Week of 7/7-12/2025:
Evil, Genocide, & Goodness By the Daily Meditations Team 7/13/2025 |
Please note: The Daily Meditations are now authored by both Matthew Fox (MF) and Gianluigi Gugliermetto (GG). The Monday video teaching will continue to be created by Matthew.
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July 7, 2025: The Banality of Evil 2.0 (MF)
Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt started a philosophical free-for-all with her reportage on the trial of Adolf Eichmann 61 years ago, proposing that he was not so much an evil person as a humdrum bureaucrat who went along with an evil system. But that did not in any way excuse his actions. Matthew
believes evil can be both/and—both born from radical hatred and sadism, or banal. Today we reflect on whether those who passed the horrific budget bill are radically evil or banally so. And does it really matter if the consequences are the same? It seems very little has been learned from the banality of evil 1.0. But our job is to resist, tell the truth, and offer alternatives to the banality of 2.0. |
July 8, 2025: Catholic Bishops & Other Faith Leaders Condemn MAGA Budget Bill (MF)
Before the passing of the MAGA budget bill, 20 Roman Catholic bishops signed an interfaith letter stating that its “passage would be a moral failure for American society as a whole.” The letter was also signed by various other faith leaders. They wrote: There is nothing less Christ-like than cutting healthcare and food stamps for the poor…. The ICE detention budget alone is ballooning from $3.4 billion to $45 billion. [It] will create a
self-perpetrating deportation industrial machine similar to our private prison system and military complex.… (Also, as a result of cutting $1 trillion from Medicaid) nursing homes and hospitals will shut down.… From our various faith perspectives, the moral test of a nation is how it treats those most in need of support. July 9, 2025: Satan, Divided (GG)
Hearing about Elon Musk launching his own political party made me think at once that a division in the
U.S, electorate oriented toward the right can only bring victory to progressive candidates everywhere in the country. Consider the Gospel adage “If Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come.” (Mark 3:26) Satan brings chaos whereas God, the Creator, brings order out of chaos. The intensity and magnitude of the forces which are targeting the most vulnerable make one think of one single wicked mind. This is probably how the idea of the devil as a “prince” dominating
the entire world came to exist. Many of us are convinced that only by an alliance among different religious traditions might we hope to get out of the horrible mess into which we have fallen. |
“Satan Fell like Lightning.” “The seventy-two came back rejoicing. ‘Lord,’ they said ‘even the devils submit to us when we use your name.’ He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Detail from a lacquer screen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. Posted by Fr Lawrence Lew, OP on Flickr . |
July 10, 2025: One Year Ago in Orvieto (GG)
One year ago, Matthew and GG were in Orvieto looking at a painting of the
Antichrist when Matthew exclaimed, “It feels like Donald Trump!” In the book Matthew immediately started to write, the emphasis was on both Trump and the MAGA movement. This is relevant because the point is not attacking your enemies, but recognizing how evil plays so subtly within society. In the Afterword of the book, Andrew Harvey wrote: The authentic Christian mystical tradition of which Matthew Fox is our living elder statesman has the starkest and most realistic awareness of
evil, a realism that the other traditions would be wise to integrate immediately. July 11, 2025: The Core of
Goodness (GG)
Two great 20th-century thinkers have surpassed all others in the depth of their reflections on evil: Hannah Arendt and Paul Ricoeur. Arendt is especially remembered for her phrase “the banality of evil” while Ricoeur is known for his investigation of “radical evil." In spite of the fact that Ricouer studied evil
for a good portion of his life, he said: “...However radical evil may be, it is not as deep as goodness.” Over the course of about 50 years, Ricouer was a constant visitor to the Ecumenical Monastic Community of Taizé in France. Two aspects of the community impressed him: 1) the way people interacted with each other, and 2) the kind of meditative prayer that was offered. About the first, he said: At times I have the impression that…everyone obeys without anybody giving orders. This creates an
impression of joyful service, …which is the complete opposite of submission.... It surely would have looked like a miracle for somebody steeped in the study of evil. |
July 12, 2025: Mark Day, Thomas Merton, California Missions & Genocide (MF)
Matthew tells us
about the book, Reimagining the California Missions: A Former Franciscan Friar’s Search for the Truth, by award-winning journalist and ex-Franciscan Mark Day. Day draws on a mountain of evidence from serious sociologists, historians, fact finders and leaders of California tribes to tell the authentic and tragic story of the Missions on the indigenous people of California. Thomas Merton 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.” Not just Californians, but all Americans, need to understand the impact colonization has had on the First Peoples of the continent. |
Banner image: Fighting evil requires constant vigilance. Sign at an immigration rally in 2017. Photographer: Victoria Pickering on Flickr. |
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. |
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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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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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 |
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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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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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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 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.) |
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