This can be a weekly abstract of the earlier week’s Day by day Meditations. Some are written by Matthew Fox (MF), and a few by his colleague, Gianluigi Gugliermetto (GG). You’ll be able to click on on the title of a DM as a way to view the unique piece in its entirety. Additionally, please be aware, we are going to proceed to supply a video instructing by Matthew every Monday.
February 2, 2026: Extra Classes From Soviet Occupation Re: Authorities Violence in Minneapolis (MF)
Adam Bucko* grew up in Soviet-occupied Poland. He writes in regards to the horrors, the killings, the worry. Then he suggests: …Contemplative prayer issues, however solely once we perceive it rightly….We pray…in our worry, our grief, our anger, our confusion, and we convey all of it into stillness. To take a seat in contemplation is to open ourselves to the Residing Presence on the coronary heart of every thing, a quiet however insistent motion towards wholeness, towards justice, towards communion.…These clergymen I bear in mind from my childhood (who had been killed by the Soviet regime)understood this intuitively.…They grew to become a part of prolonged households, helping households damaged by violence….They understood that social change occurs not because of lone heroes, however from communities and actions appearing collectively over time.
February 3, 2026: Bearing Up Whereas Preventing the Good Combat (MF)
St. Paul instructed us to “struggle the nice struggle.” What are some methods to remain grounded within the struggle? Take note of excellent news alongside the unhappy. Take walks in nature. Work together with mates and family members. Respect good individuals. The monks strolling for peace are an exquisite instance. (See associated DM right here.) Additionally inspiring are the 1000’s of Minnesotans who present up, in arctic temperatures, to protest and work to impede ICE. Search for allies, like Rachel Maddow on MSNOW. Discover inspiration in individuals like John of the Cross, who modeled easy methods to survive darkish nights of the soul and society.
February 4, 2006: God (GG)
Gianluigi has seen that when he speaks as a theologian, he has to keep in mind that individuals can undertaking every kind of issues on the phrase “God.” Typically even GG has to confess that God is troublesome to outline. Matthew, in his ebook Naming the Unnameable: 89 Fantastic and Helpful Names for God… Together with the Unnameable God, gives some sensible recommendation. Who is that this, what is that this, that’s and not using a title and whom we will by no means title? He says: How keen we’re to grab and to carry and to call and to categorize and to field up into ideas after which guidelines after which doctrines after which dogmas.…Phrases fail us within the face of thriller.… Maybe, as Matthew says, we have to stop naming and projecting with regards to Divinity.
February 5, 2026: Thriller (GG)
The deepest realities of life can’t be fully understood with our mind. However that doesn’t imply they need to be rejected. There are, as an example, “on a regular basis mysteries,” such because the marvel of being alive, the portal of “Sister Dying,” and relationships with beloved people and pets. After which there may be God, the thriller of mysteries. In his ebook, Naming the Unnameable, Matthew says: What’s thriller could be very shy round phrases and namings. Thriller doesn’t need to be named. It needs to stay hidden. The individuality of the Divine, the immensity of the Divine, renders it an important thriller that might be with none title.
February 6, 2026: Silence (GG)
Silence and silent meditation are amongst essentially the most valuable human actions. As Matthew Fox writes: Thriller invitations silence…. and Stillness results in an encounter with the Divine. Usually the encounter is way past phrases.… Mind researcher Andrew Newberg demonstrated that in deep states of meditation we transcend thought and drop into an “expertise of boundlessness…” Psychotherapist and mystic Estell Frankel tells us: “Evidently, our brains are hardwired to expertise the paranormal state of oneness we name ‘God’ and Kabbalists discuss with as ayin or Ein Sof (actually, ‘With out Finish’). Ein Sof is the boundless and transcendent side of divinity that’s past all kind…. What sort of society might we germinate if we cultivated such habits reminiscent of stillness and mindfulness?
February 7, 2026: Leonard Cohen on Saintliness
Buddhist and Jewish musician and sage Leonard Cohen asks the query: What’s a saint?* He solutions his query: A saint is somebody who has achieved a distant human chance….I believe it has one thing to do with the vitality of affection. Contact with this vitality leads to the train of a type of steadiness within the chaos of existence. Matthew says: A saint takes us to the sting of what it’s to be human, a saint doesn’t reside safely in a field. He provides: There’s something edgy or “distant” or wild or completely different or excessive about saintliness.…Love is on the middle….Within the streets of Minnesota and past.
*Adam Bucko, “They Killed Him in Public and Referred to as It Order: On Practising Contemplation When the State Kills,” Contemplative Witness with Adam Bucko on Substack, January 25, 2026.
Banner picture: The peace, the silence, and the great thing about falling snow. Picture by Cynthia Greb. Used with permission.
Associated Readings by Matthew Fox
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Imaginative and prescient For a New Era, Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul & Society
Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ
Naming the Unnameable: 89 Fantastic and Helpful Names for God…Together with the Unnameable God
Prayer: A Radical Response to Life
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
A Option to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey
