Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox
The Continued Call for Spiritual Warriors
1/25/2025
As the results of the inauguration ripple out, learn the deeper stakes involved. Get your copy of Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election today! Choose your format in the book block below.
January 20, 2025: Speaking of Spiritual Warriors: MLK, Jr. Day, 2025
MLK was a powerful example of a spiritual warrior who preached and lived Jesus’ teachings about “loving your neighbor as yourself,” “do this to the least and you do it to me,” and “be you compassionate as your Creator in heaven is compassionate.”
True to his vocation as a prophet, he chose to interfere with injustice. In the process, he stayed true to the principles of non-violence, which he learned from Howard Thurman and Mahatma Gandhi, other notable spiritual warriors.
What an irony that this good man should be celebrated on the same day as this inauguration day. Rather feels like both Christ and the Antichrist.
MLK Jr. speaks at the Civil Rights March on Washington. Mathew Ahmann, Exec. Director. of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, looks on. Photo from the U.S. National Archives.Wikimedia Commons.
January 21, 2025: Rabbi Heschel & Jesus: All People as Prophets & Spiritual Warriors
In light of yesterday’s inauguration of such a corrupt and morally bankrupt person, it is going to take all the resilience and spiritual strength we can muster to save our country.
Reflecting on the legacy of notable spiritual warriors can provide some much-needed inspiration for the daunting tasks at hand. Rabbi Heschel said: The urgency of justice was an urgency of aiding and saving the victims of oppression.
Rabbi Heschel reminds us that all people are to be prophets: To do justice is what God demands of every person: It is the supreme commandment, and one that cannot be fulfilled vicariously.
January 22, 2025: Buddhist Teachings on the Spiritual Warrior
At this critical time in the history of both our nation and the planet, all are called to be spiritual warriors. Buddhist teacher and activist Joanna Macy has spoken of how privileged we are to be living at this time when so much spiritual vision and strength are needed to save Mother Earth from ourselves.
Thich Nhat Hanh believes that mindfulness renders one strong and solid. Mindfulness, if practiced continuously, will be strong enough to embrace your fear or anger and transform it. We need not chase away evil. We can embrace and transform it in a nonviolent, nondualistic way.
The Shambhala Warrior Prophecy with Joanna Macy
Joanna Macy tells the 12 centuries-old Shambhala Warrior Prophecy from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Introduced by Chris Johnstone, her co-author of Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy. Purpose Guides Institute
January 23, 2025: The Demise of the Word “Obviously”
The day before the inauguration, on Fox non-News, vice president-elect JD Vance promised that pardons of the January 6 insurrectionists would apply only to those who protested peacefully. And “obviously” those convicted of violent crimes, such as assaulting Capitol police officers, “shouldn’t be pardoned.”*
Trump, himself a convicted felon 34 times over, has killed the meaning of the word obviously on his first day in office. One shudders to think what it means for the safety of our communities that people like the Proud Boys are back on our streets and empowered by knowing the president has their back.
January 24, 2025: Speaking of Spiritual Warriorhood: A Bishop Speaks Truth To Power
At a prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., one bishop showed great courage in speaking directly to Trump and Vance from the pulpit, beseeching them to be merciful to immigrants, LGBTQ+ youth, and other vulnerable members of society.
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde also preached in a gentle but firm tone that “Christian nationalism is not only a distortion of the Gospel but also a grave threat to democracy and the common good.”
Stephen Colbert, a devout Catholic, actually teared up when talking about her. It took courage to stand up there and say… something so kind, something so true to the example of Christ….And, even better, it made Trump super-uncomfortable because here’s the thing: Sermons aren’t a debate. Trump just had to sit there and listen to it.
Full interview: Rachel Maddow talks with the bishop who asked Trump directly to show mercy
Rachel Maddow talks with Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde about her words to the new White House occupant and the responses that have followed. MSNBC
January 25, 2025: Ecumenism, Spiritual Warriorhood, and Common Survival
As we face the rise of fascism and the threat of ecological collapse, we need inner strength to put conscience, the common good, Mother Earth, and future generations first. In addition to the courage of Bishop Budde, we have Cardinal McElroy, the new Roman Catholic Archbishop of DC, declaring that mass deportations are “contrary to Catholic doctrine.”
As Rachel Maddow commented this week, religion may prove to be a kind of sleeping giant, rising up as justice continues to get trampled on. Meanwhile, Daniel Pinchbeck has written the following article about Matthew’s book on Trump & MAGA as antichrist: Is Trump Literally the Antichrist?**
* Corbin Bolies, “Vance Breaks With Trump on ‘Day One’ Promise,” Yahoo! News
**Daniel Pinchbeck, “Is Trump Literally the Antichrist? Is This the Apocalypse? Enquiring Minds Want to Know!” Substack
Change.org: Stand with the bishop who stood up to Trump today
Banner image: The need to Rise Up! is even more important in 2025 than during the great Women’s March of 2020. Image by Stephen Melkisethian on Flickr.
For a list of organizations helping those affected by the devastating LA wildfires, please see this article from ABCNews HERE and the evolving AltadenaStrong hub page HERE.
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Recommended Reading
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement 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 images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each. “Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculinity,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” —Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Authors Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox encourage us to use our talents in service of compassion and justice and to move beyond our broken systems–economic, political, educational, and religious–discovering a spirituality that not only helps us to get along, but also encourages us to reevaluate our traditions, transforming them and in the process building a more sacred and just world. Incorporating the words of young activist leaders culled from interviews and surveys, the book provides a framework that is deliberately interfaith and speaks to our profound yearning for a life with spiritual purpose and for a better world.
“Occupy Spirituality is a powerful, inspiring, and vital call to embodied awareness and enlightened actions.”
~~ Julia Butterfly Hill, environmental activist and author of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods
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