Violence, Evil, and Resistance

Week of 6/30-7/5/2025:
Violence, Evil, & Resistance

June 30, 2025: More Ways to Resist the Billionaire Welfare Bill & Honoring Bill Moyers (MF)

In what ways can we resist the current regime and all its evil behavior? We all know about contacting our congresspeople, but we can also contact our clergy. Are they protesting? Are they demanding to visit ICE centers? If not, why not? This is especially important in the LA area. Also, we can contact our media. We can demand that they cover the protests and the illegal and horrific actions of ICE agents.

Speaking of the media, let’s remember and honor a beloved and very fine journalist, Bill Moyers, who died recently. His dialogues with Joseph Campbell on the Power of Myth reached many people hungry for the spiritual.

The Eternal Principle

Bill Moyers interviews Joseph Campbell about the “eternal principle” in The Power of Myth TV series (1988). Video by the Joseph Campbell Foundation.

July 1, 2025: When Animals Pass On: A Rare Gift from Andrew Harvey (MF)

As was mentioned in a recent DM, spiritual luminary, Andrew Harvey, recently lost most of his possessions as well as a dearly beloved cat in a fire that erupted in his apartment. An animal communicator friend was able to touch base with Jade, on the other side. The wisdom and love that came through is profound.

First, Jade assured Andrew that she did not suffer. She also spoke of her great love for Andrew and how it was an honor to embody the sacred feminine as his companion. She also said that the fire came, not as destruction, but as a cleansing, a restart, a consecrated moment of passage…. She said that the sacred White Lions are with her now and that she will remain by Andrew’s side.

July 2, 2025: The Great Tragedy of Humanity (GG)

We continue to explore the concept of evil, which is clearly so present in our world right now. GG defines evil as “violence carried to the extreme.” Are human beings violent by nature? Piero Giorgi, research affiliate at the National Centre for Peace & Conflicts Studies, believes it is not.

He is convinced that the species Homo sapiens has not always been violent and, therefore, can return to being nonviolent. It is likely, he concludes, that Homo sapiens lived without violence from its inception as a species, around 300,000 years ago, to about 6,000 years ago. The invention of violence can be called the great tragedy of humanity, but it need not be considered fixed and immutable.
Jody Williams on whether human beings are violent by nature

Nobel peace prize winner, Jody Williams, on whether human beings are violent by nature. The Nobel Prize

July 3, 2025: Violence and Human Nature (GG)

GG reports that “in Europe we are still reeling from the shock of all the EU governments but Spain’s bowing to Trump’s demand of doubling their military expenses.”

Pope Leo immediately responded with: How can one continue to betray peoples’ desires for peace with the false propaganda of rearmament, in the vain illusion that supremacy solves problems instead of fueling hatred and revenge?

Piero Giorgi, a neurobiologist, explains: During the early childhood the newborn constructs his own brain to become a human being, that is, establishes the basic nervous circuits to walk, talk, use hands and interact empathically with other human beings.

That predisposition for empathy can change if children are deprived of loving touch in the early stages of life, or if they are later taught to be competitive and suspicious of others.

July 4, 2025: Fourth of July, 2025 (MF)

Today is a complex holiday indeed. One wants to celebrate America’s independence, but the reality is that many are grieving today. As Matthew says, “Much of the American government has been hijacked by forces utterly contrary to democracy.”

The undemocratic horrors include, of course, the big, bad budget bill, shamefully passed on July 3rd. Other authoritarian actions include the daily terror ICE inflicts on our Latino brothers and sisters—a situation bound to get worse considering the $170 billion allocated in the bill to new funding for immigration enforcement and detention.
We are also horrified by the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz,” which Thom Hartmann calls “a political prison engineered not merely to detain but to humiliate and broadcast terror.” One thing is sure: these horrors will continue to inspire us all to resist until this regime finally falls.

A tattered American flag hanging on a fence. Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash.

July 5, 2025: The Scope of Our Hope (GG)

Early in his career, Matthew Fox named one “unholy” trinity made of competition, compulsion, and dualism, all virulently opposed to compassion, which is the true name of God.

Creation Spirituality, under Matthew’s leadership, has consistently sought to address and redress this situation at its root. Overcoming dualism includes the overcoming of competition and compulsion.

Matthew insisted early on that we humans as mammals have the possibility to be compassionate instead of being hostile, because the portion of the brain that is overly developed in mammals is naturally geared toward compassion.

Piero Giorgi, as a neurobiologist, confirms that hostile behavior is connected to certain neurological circuits which are being built in the very first years of the infant’s life. A lack of maternal love can initiate this hostility. Patriarchal norms and dysfunction can further trigger these violent responses.

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Recommended Reading

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics

The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine

To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” 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