The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
Resilience, Resistance, Interfering & Practicing Our “No” As a Prayer By Matthew Fox 1/13/2025 |
In Saturday’s DM, we reflected on “Keeping the Heart Bright in Times of Heavy News,” and in Monday’s DM and video, we considered how to “Keep Our Hearts & Souls Alive, Fresh, Young, Green & Inspired amidst Dark Times.” In doing so, we shared practices of responding to life by way of the Via Positiva, Negativa, and Creativa. |
Today, let us consider how the Via Transformativa is our prayer also, for it too is a “radical response to life,” and is born from our depths and ground. The VT gathers, of course, the previous three paths of Joy and Gratitude, silence, emptying, and entering into grief and loss, and our creativity. |
A community gathering in grief: a large vigil for Renee Good in South Minneapolis on the evening of her death. Photo by Chad Davis on Flickr. |
All four paths constitute a radical response to life and, taken together, are the response we give on encountering the “Ground of being” and the “Ground of our own being.” Meister Eckhart tells us, “God’s being and mine are the same”: in encountering one, we encounter the other. All this is the mystic at work in
us; we taste the divine—sometimes as Light and sometimes as Darkness. The darkness names not only pain, suffering, and grief but also the mystery and silence and apophatic divinity–a “superessential darkness” so deep that it “has no name and will never be given a name.” (Eckhart) We bring all these experiences with us to the Via
Transformativa, which names the prophet coming to birth in us. “The prophet is the mystic in action,” as William Hocking puts it. The prophet is “one who interferes,” as Rabbi Heschel put it. |
Supporters welcomed the monks in Blythewood, SC, as they shared messages of silence, peace, and respect for all cultures. News 19 WLTX | All of us are meant to be prophets, just as all of
us are meant to be mystics. Growing up spiritually means being true to both our mystical and our prophetic vocations. It is in our prophetic vocation that we “pray with our feet,” as Rabbi Heschel explained to his young daughter after |
returning home from marching with King and others at Selma. Praying with our feet is what the nineteen Buddhist monks currently trekking for peace on their 2,000-mile march from Texas to Washington, DC, are doing. Praying with our feet includes marching in memory
of Renee Good and protesting against ICE, who are disrupting our communities and murdering our citizens in a wild spasm of deporting citizens and non-citizens alike. |
Praying with our feet also means walking into the library to learn more about protest and non-violence in American history, past and present. Praying with our feet also means to run for office from school boards, to mayorships, |
Communal study at the New York City Library. Photo by Jorge Royan on Wikimedia Commons. |
to Congress and Senate—and supporting those who do and holding them to account for values that matter, such as respect, justice, truth-telling, compassion, non-violence, and kindness. And what an oath to support the Constitution means. Praying with our feet means to make incarnate the son and daughter of God found
in all of us to bring about a new kind of “kingdom” or democracy that actually works for all and not just the richest few. A government, therefore, of, by, and for the people, where “people” does not mean just the two-legged people but all God’s people, all creatures with whom we share this planet Earth, our common home. |
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks at the Resist Fascism Rally, October 27, 2024. Wikimedia Commons. | To protest is to pray; to resist is to pray; to say “No!” in the most creative and effective ways possible is to pray. It is to say “thank you” for the earth and air and soil and sunshine we have by defending it. Our “No!” comes from a very deep place. It calls for courage and bravery, and |
community sharing, from which we get ever more strength and courage to take on powers that be, and speak truth to power. A Catholic sister I know told me her most profound prayer was being carted off to prison for protesting non-violently at a nuclear weapons factory. The Via Transformativa comes from a very deep place–as do the other three paths. It is just as much prayer as contemplation. And just as demanding. In dark times like ours, one does not have to invent ascetic practices in the basement. Just to stand up and be counted is demanding enough to bring the depths and Ground out of
oneself. |
Banner Image: Some of the signs seen from the street at the Palm Springs rally of 1-11-26 against ICE and their tactics against immigrants. Photo
posted by Don Barrett on Flickr. |
Queries for Contemplation How do you resist and interfere and practice your “No!” as a
prayer? |
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. Books and More by Matthew and Friends! Be sure to check out Matthew's new store at MatthewFox.org, now offering books, recorded courses old and new, and special events... and don't miss our growing collection of books endorsed by Matthew on Bookshop.org! |
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| Counterpoint: A Response to Peter Thiel’s Antichrist An Important Conversation with Matthew Fox and Gil Duran Did you miss this two-session series with its powerful counter-narrative rooted in wisdom, justice, and |
authentic spirituality? This is your
chance to add it to your library of classics to be watched, re-watched, and contemplated. Fox explores the archetype of Christ and Antichrist as it plays out in our world today but also in artists of old. He draws from the teachings of Jesus and Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Carl Jung, and other mystics and visionaries, illuminating the stark contrast between life-giving and life-destroying spiritual energies. Purchase HERE. |
UPCOMING EVENTS See Matthew Fox's full calendar HERE |
Join Matthew Fox in a free 4-session Online Lecture/Discussion/Q&A event, “Creation Spirituality and the Celebrating & Healing of Mother Earth & Ourselves,” co-presented by the Episcopal Diocese of Wisconsin and Matthew Fox Legacy Project. Wednesdays, January 14, 21,28, February 4, 2026, 4:00pm-5:30pm
PT January 14 - Creation as an Original Blessing and the Springboard of Awe and Wonder January 21 - Sacred Mother Earth: The Holiness of Creation and Recovering the Cosmic Christ January 28 - The Cosmic Mass, and the Stations of the Cosmic Christ: Reinvigorating Liturgy and Rituals February 4 - Jesus as a Teacher of Democracy and the Renewal of Education and Values through the “10 Cs” 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 |
Awakening the Divine Human: An Immersion in the Living Wisdom of Creation Spirituality …a week-long retreat in Sardinia, Italy, May 25-30, 2026 Join us on the sacred
island of Sardinia for a deeply immersive 6-day retreat rooted in the teachings of Matthew Fox, C.G. Jung, and the ancient wisdom of the land. Set along the turquoise shores and among the Neolithic sites of this timeless Mediterranean island, this retreat invites you into a transformative journey of reconnection—with Earth, Self, Gender, and the Divine. Learn more HERE. |
Creation Spirituality Conversations |
Join Matthew Fox in a 6-Class Course: The Great Christian Mystics, exploring some of the richest and most inspiring mystic-prophets in the Christian lineage, including Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Thomas Aquinas,
and Meister Eckhart. Course includes six modules of pre-recorded lessons. Sign up HERE. |
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