It is a weekly abstract of the earlier week’s Day by day Meditations. Three of them are penned by Matthew Fox (MF), and three by Gianluigi Gugliermetto (GG). You may click on on the title of a DM in an effort to view the unique piece in its entirety. Additionally, please word, we’ll proceed to supply a video instructing by Matthew every Monday.
August 18, 2025: Wholesome & Unhealthy Disgrace and Wholesome & Unhealthy Masculinity (MF)
Matthew continues the dialog that GG started about disgrace. He explored the subject in his ebook Hidden Masculinity. In a examine in regards to the murders of black males, largely by different black males, we discover that in jail, “the meanest rise to the highest.” One convicted killer says, “Violence defines you as a person.” The significance of belonging is essential. Disgrace happens when one feels one doesn’t belong. How can this be resolved? The killers say {that a} mentor may need made all of the distinction. Matthew interviewed Mark Nicholson, a therapist who grew up in England within the shadow of the First and Second World Wars. One other side of poisonous masculinity is that males are sometimes shamed for grieving. Thus studying to grieve will help to heal the disgrace.
August 19, 2025: Disgrace, Fascism, Wholesome & Unhealthy Leaders & Father Figures (MF)
In our tradition, males are taught to really feel disgrace in the event that they search assist from others. As an alternative, the best is the rugged individualism of somebody like John Wayne. Dr. James Adams lived by Hitler’s fascism, A long time in the past he predicted the rise of fascism in America. He warned of an all-knowing father who would preach resentment and aggression and wrap it in faith. Conversely, A wholesome fatherly determine encourages belonging. An unhealthy one derides and assaults the stranger or underdog, sowing seeds of hatred and division.
August 20, 2025: Prayer as Openness to Life (GG)
How do you outline prayer? To GG, it’s the acutely aware effort to be in relationship with the Divine current in the whole lot. In his ebook, Prayer: A Radical Response to Life, Matthew defines prayer as a radical “sure” to life — which incorporates additionally the prophetic “no” to injustice. Matthew factors out that, too usually, fashionable consciousness has handled the soul-God relationship as a subject-object relationship. These of us who wish to preserve utilizing the title “God” should perceive that God doesn’t “exist” like objects exist on this planet. Matthew shares a sentence by Tolstoy: To know God and to reside are one and the identical factor: God is life. Due to this fact, at its core, prayer is a form of openness to life.
August 21, 2025: Praying with Queen Esther (GG)
On this time of rising fascism and cruelty, it may be offensive to see individuals dancing and having enjoyable whereas persons are being kidnapped and deported or despatched to camps. Within the biblical ebook of Esther we learn the equivalent story: the highly effective determined a date by which all Jews have to be gone from the Persian empire, or else they’d be slaughtered. (Esther 3:7) Queen Esther responded by instantly starting to quick and foregoing all pleasures. Esther dangers her life by interfering with the king’s resolution of expulsion/extermination. By way of skillful diplomacy and sheer luck, she is pivotal in reversing the scenario and saving all of the Jews. Can we be taught something from Queen Esther’s brave instance?
August 22, 2025: Ecstasies (GG)
There was a resurgence of curiosity relating to the consequences of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on the mind, and significantly on its reference to spirituality, prayer, and mystical experiences. On August 21, Matthew addressed this matter within the on-line journal Progressing Spirit. He urges us to distinguish between pure ecstasies from tactical ecstasies. Pure ecstasies embody: Nature, artwork, music, examine, friendship, lovemaking, sports activities, journey, and so on. Tactical ecstasies represent extra elaborate practices, that are ways in which human tribes have discovered for facilitating transcendent experiences—together with the usage of LSD. Matthew first urges us to make use of pure ecstasies. If we select to strive tactical ecstasies, he urges us to contemplate the dangers. Matthew, in his essay, provides a cautious blessing on the regulated use of LSD in religious settings, primarily as a result of individuals appear to essentially want it right now. You may learn his essay HERE.
Extra Discuss on Ecstasies (MF)
Persevering with the dialog about LSD and different “tactical ectasies,” Matthew shares a reminiscence. Within the Nineteen Sixties, Matthew was a part of a motion of about 80 younger Dominicans from throughout Europe who gathered to critique the order. Throughout a break, a free-spirited younger Dutch Dominican stood on his fingers with a rose in his mouth. Matthew requested him if he did medication. He replied, “No. I get excessive on life.” That is Matthew’s place precisely. We’re right here to get excessive on life. One other story: A therapist who recommended youngsters about medication introduced ten of them to a Cosmic Mass in Oakland. On the way in which dwelling all of them stated to her, “That is the primary time in our life we’ve gotten excessive with out medication.”
Banner picture: Man with baby having fun with the pure world. Picture by Derek Thomson on Unsplash
Advisable Studying
The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he finds ten metaphors, or archetypes, starting from the Inexperienced Man, an historical pagan image of our basic relationship with nature, to the Religious Warrior….These timeless archetypes can encourage males to pursue their increased calling to connect with their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Each man on this planet ought to learn this ebook — to not point out each girl who needs to know the struggles, usually unconscious, that form the boys they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, writer of The Left Hand of God
Prayer: A Radical Response to Life
How do prayer and mysticism relate to the wrestle for social and ecological justice? Fox defines prayer as a radical response to life that features our “Sure” to life (mysticism) and our “No” to forces that fight life (prophecy). How can we outline grownup prayer? And the way—if in any respect—do prayer and mysticism relate to the wrestle for social and ecological justice? One in all Matthew Fox’s earliest books, initially printed underneath the title On Changing into a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Model, Prayer introduces a mystical/prophetic spirituality and a mature conception of easy methods to pray. Known as a “basic” when it first appeared, it lays out the distinction between the creation spirituality custom and the autumn/redemption custom that has so dominated Western theology since Augustine. A sensible and theoretical ebook, it lays the groundwork for Fox’s later works. “One of many most interesting books I’ve learn on modern spirituality.” – Rabbi Sholom A. Singer
Whee! We, Wee All of the Approach Dwelling: A Information to Sensual Prophetic Spirituality
Years forward of its time when first printed in 1976, this ebook remains to be daring and related at the moment. Good for anybody who thinks mysticism must get out of the top and into the physique. Matthew Fox begins the Preface to this ebook by stating, “It is a sensible ebook about waking up and returning to a biblical, justice-oriented spirituality. Such a spirituality is a method of ardour that results in compassion. Such a method is essentially one in all coming to our senses in each that means of that phrase.” One in all Matthew Fox’s earliest books, this title explores the significance of ecstasy within the religious life. Fox considers the excellence between “pure” ecstasies (together with nature, intercourse, friendship, music, artwork) and “tactical” ecstasies (like meditation, fasting, chanting); he goes on to contemplate {that a} actually genuine mysticism have to be sensuous in its orientation, so to domesticate the utmost quantity of ecstasy for the utmost quantity of individuals.
The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm The place Science & Spirit Meet
By Matthew Fox and Rupert Sheldrake
When was the final time a scientist and a theologian mentioned angels collectively? What are angels? Many individuals imagine in angels, however few can outline these enigmatic spirits. Now visionary theologian Matthew Fox and acclaimed biologist Rupert Sheldrake—pioneers in fashionable non secular pondering and scientific idea—launch a groundbreaking exploration into the traditional idea of the angel and restore dignity, that means, and pleasure to our time-honored perception in these heavenly beings.
Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had at all times shied away from utilizing the time period “Anti-Christ” as a result of it was so usually used to unfold management and concern. Nonetheless, given at the moment’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables on this ebook using the archetype for the reason for justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a second, for inspecting the archetype of the Antichrist, it’s now…Learn this ebook with an open thoughts. Good and evil are actual forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For instant entry to Trump & The MAGA Motion 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 photos, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To obtain a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for instant obtain.
