The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox |
Witness & Response to the Rampaging Evil in American Society By Matthew Fox 1/26/2025 |
The purpose of our Daily Meditations, as laid out in our opening meditation seven years ago, is to assist one another “to pray the news” and not just watch it. |
This seems an appropriate goal, as we are not just receivers or passive citizens, but people with values and opinions and experiences worth sharing, people with minds that make judgments and decisions and people with responsibility to ourselves, our planet, our societies and communities where we dwell. And to future generations not yet born. This past week has hosted a torrent of news, much of it especially ominous. Following are just a few headlines: |
A protester putting his convictions on the line during the Minneapolis protest of January 23, 2026. Photo by Fibonacci Blue. Wikimedia Commons. |
‘I’m witnessing a Lot of Emptiness’: How ICE Uprooted Normal Life in Minneapolis: WIRED talks to a postal worker, a teacher, two US citizens detained by federal agents, and six more Minnesota residents about life in an occupied American city. Yes, occupied by troops sent by the
federal government, thanks to $74 billion voted on by a Republican congress. |
|
| “‘Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6,’ former special counsel
Jack Smith tells House panel,” read another headline. Smith said, “We followed the facts and we followed the law—where that led us was to an indictment of an unprecedented criminal scheme to block the peaceful transfer of power.” Another headline reads: “We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the U.S.” The article begins this way:
Legal residents of the United States sent to foreign prisons |
without due process. Students detained after voicing their opinions. Federal judges threatened with impeachment for ruling against the administration’s priorities….Marci Shore, Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley, all professors at Yale and experts in authoritarianism, explain why… they are leaving the United States to take up positions at the University of Toronto. Said Professor Stanley: “I want Americans to realize that this is a democratic emergency.” Professor Shore: “We’re like people on the Titanic saying our ship can’t sink. And what you know as a historian is that there is no such thing as a ship that can’t sink.” Professor Snyder, author of On
Tyranny, left to join his wife who got a job in Toronto, but he too warned about the elements of tyranny now becoming embedded in the US body politic. Mike Brock from Notes From the Circus wrote an article entitled: “The Evil Man and the Empty Congress.” It begins this way: Evil, as I use the term here, is the systemic use of power to dissolve the
constraints that protect human dignity and law, while demeaning deference to the very crimes being committed…. This is an absolute emergency….Corporate America, sitting in silence. You have made your calculation. You believe you can wait this out….offend no one in power… We have an evil man in the White House and an empty congress that will not
confront him. That is the situation. It is not a drill. It is not hyperbole.. |
The
author believes that “the institutions have failed” and “the cavalry is not coming.” And that citizens must act. He salutes “the people in the streets of Minneapolis” for doing exactly that. Great praise and thanks is due those who marched in the bitter |
Dozens of Anti-ICE protesters arrested at freezing Minnesota airport. Video by Diario
AS. |
cold of Minneapolis on Friday and shut down businesses and schools to do so. They are a living witness to what it can mean for citizens who care for one another and the future of this country to act. And this included the clergy, many of whom traveled to the area to protest non-violently
and over 100 were arrested for doing so. The clergy included Catholics, Protestants, rabbis, imams, indigenous leaders and others. Praise to them for reminding all Americans that conscience matters, and that the rights and dignity of all human beings matter. And praise too to the three American cardinals who, with the
urging of the first American pope, Pope Leo XIV, spoke out about the sacredness of all peoples, and the purpose of obeying good laws that assure the common good and disobeying those that do not. In the dark mist and maze of Christian nationalism and sycophant religion, it is a moment for decent religion to raise its voice,
speak out for truth and justice, and pray with its feet. |
Banner image: Minnesotans turn out in force, despite subzero temperatures, for a general strike against ICE occupation, January 23, 2026. Photo by Lorie Shaull. Wikimedia
Commons. |
Queries for Contemplation Are you inspired and emboldened to hear these statements and actions on behalf
of values you believe in? Do you sense that solidarity is increasing in this current emergency of American democracy? |
|
| To view today's video, please click the image. You will be taken to today's post on the Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox
website, where you can see the meditation in a larger version and also view and post your Comments. In the sharing that follows, a kind of community is developing around the DM. If you can't reach today's post on the website directly, click HERE. If you can't reach Matthew's video on the website, try his Vimeo channel HERE. |
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! CREATION SPIRITUALITY CONVERSATIONS |
Podcaster Jon Wilson speaks with Matthew Fox about Creation Spirituality: how Matthew became a Dominican priest; his studies in Paris, Original Blessing versus the Fall-Redemption tradition; the Four Paths; mystics Meister Eckhart, Carl Jung, and Otto Rank; Eros, ritual and how ‘this is
wisdom to love life’. Listen 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. |
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: |
|
|
|
