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Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox 

 By Gianluigi Gugliermetto

10/25/2025

For the past two weeks, after forty years, I have returned to high school in Italy, this time as a teacher. My first impression is that very little has changed, and the changes have been for the worse. Bureaucracy dominates; nobody who is there gives the impression that they want to be there, and the bathrooms have not been refurbished since then, or earlier.

There is a lot of anxiety among teachers about their mission as educators, and a lot of anxiety among students about performing. The system of evaluation is strict, and the curricula are the same ones I knew as a student, 95% at least.

My students are wonderful, budding human beings. From my vantage point, I can surmise a lot of their curiosities, fears, and inner conflicts. They look very transparent to me.

But what can I teach them? And what can they learn? 

Students in class. Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.

They are forced to stay in class seven hours per day, sometimes nine hours, seated at their desks, with two short breaks. They are fed an They are fed an enormous amount of information from a dozen different subjects. When they get back home, after 3 pm, they are supposed to read, study, and memorize. They are always tired.

Their environment outside of school has been transformed into a vanity fair of opinions. Truth has been thrown out of the window, and nobody cares about real expertise on any subject whatsoever. Their school environment is the opposite. Truth is given to them pre-packaged, and their opinion is never asked. Nor does anybody seem to care about their feelings or intuitions — the system simply is not built to accommodate those.

Gabe Dannenbring asked his audience of over 2 million U.S. educators why teachers are leaving the profession. Here is what they told him.

Can anything but a schizophrenic mindset be produced by such a situation? And who is profiting from it except the neo-fascist tendencies in society, who thrive on confused citizens? The sad irony is that the official guidelines say that teachers are supposed to 

collaborate in the formation of “participatory active citizens.”

 Many decades ago, Marie-Dominique Chenu spoke of “exhausted pedagogy,” an expression that perfectly fits my experience at the moment. His student, Matthew Fox, answered to Chenu’s call for a deep change with his A.W.E. proposal — meaning Ancestral Wisdom Education — which is light-years away from the situation I find myself in.

What can I do? I am just at the beginning and I will keep my readers posted, but in the meantime I have come up with three ideas: (1) I am trying to teach my students the inner workings of the disciplines I teach — history and philosophy — and not just what historians and 

 Matthew Fox and Professor Pitt demonstrate a new approach to teaching through multi-media. professorpitt

philosophers have said through the ages; (2) I proposed a workshop for teachers on the topics of empathic communication; (3) I am trying to get a rapper invited to the school who works with high school students to help them express their fears and hopes.

The fact that I recently met by mere chance a rapper who does that — just as Matt Fox met Professor Pitt years ago doing the same thing — is one of those coincidences that look rather like a synchronicity.

We need wisdom schools and not just knowledge factories! * Thanks Matt! That’s my new mantra!

* Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest, p. 356.

Banner Image: A tired teacher at her desk. Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Queries for Contemplation

What similarities and differences do you find in your school experience? What can you do to improve the way in which knowledge is transmitted and wisdom is reached?

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.

Recommended Reading

The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human

Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest

Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet

The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ

Critical Conversations for Our Time

The Antichrist Playbook: 

Peter Thiel & Silicon Valley Apocalypse Hype

Matthew Fox is a guest on The Nerd Reich with 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 spiritual pioneers Dr. Matthew Fox and Rev. Cameron Trimble for “In Search of a New Story: Reimagining What Comes Next,” a timely and transformative 4-part series featuring conversations with some of the most compelling wisdom voices of our time: Carolyn Myss, Diana Butler Bass, Luther Smith, and Ilia Delio. Thursdays, October 23, 30, and November 13, 20, 4:00pm-5:30pm PT

Register 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 HERE

Register for a free information session 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  

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