Finding Resilience and Joy

Week of 1/12-17/2026: Finding Resilience & Joy even in Dark Times

By Matt Fox and the Daily Meditations Team

This is a weekly summary of the previous week’s Daily Meditations. Some are written by Matthew Fox (MF), and some by Gianluigi Gugliermetto (GG). You can click on the title of a DM in order to view the original piece in its entirety. Also, please note, we will continue to offer a video teaching by Matthew each Monday.

January 12, 2026: Keeping Our Hearts & Souls Alive, Fresh, Young, Green & Inspired amidst Dark Times (MF)

How do we keep inspired in the face of such dark times? One way is to pray. For Matthew, that means to respond deeply to Life, the good and the bad of it, the joy and the sorrow, the ecstasy and the pain of it.

Practicing gratitude is another very important tool. One can also enter into the silence. Entering into suffering and darkness, grief and loss, is an especially deep prayer.

Rather than try to escape the grief with various addictions and distractions, we can ask: What do you have to teach me, my broken heart? Our creativity can also be deeply transformative.

January 13, 2026: Resilience, Resistance, Interfering & Practicing Our “No” as a Prayer (MF)

As we explore ways to survive these days of darkness, let’s also remember the power of the Via Transformativa. It, too, is a “radical response to life.”

When we follow the Four Paths—the Via Positiva, Negativa, Creativa, and Transformativa—the mystic is alive in us, allowing us to taste the Divine. “The prophet is the mystic in action,” as William Hocking puts it. Growing spiritually means being true to both our mystical and prophetic vocations.

We need to “pray with our feet,” as Rabbi Heschel explained to his daughter after returning from marching with Martin Luther King and others.

This may mean protesting ICE’s deplorable actions in Minneapolis. To protest is to pray; to resist is to pray; to say “No!” in the most creative and effective ways possible is to pray.

January 14, 2026: Overcoming Divisions (GG)

More than a century ago, some enlightened individuals understood that the conflicts among Christians were a horrible counter-witness to the message of Jesus Christ.

Today, churches celebrate the Week for Christian Unity, starting every year on January 18. More recently, the day of Jewish-Christian friendship, observed on January 17, was established. But by and large, these celebrations have become devoid of passion.

Often, once a passionate project is taken over by institutions, they suffocate it. In this spirit, how can we find common ground with people who believe some of the things that the evil people in power espouse? It’s up to those of us capable of recognizing our common humanity to become a beacon of hope in these days.

Pastor Talks with Pagan Gay Daughter

A father and daughter sit down and talk about how differences in religious beliefs have affected their relationship. Homesick Productions

January 15, 2026: Enjoyment in Troubled Times (GG)

GG highly recommends Matthew’s WHEE! We, wee: A Guide to Sensual, Prophetic Spirituality. He says, “It’s not everyday one encounters a theologian who identifies ecstasy as the center of spiritual experience.”

Pleasure and enjoyment are very important to Matthew because they represent a forgotten or repressed element of Western spirituality. If God creates the universe and rejoices in all creatures, the creatures themselves must share in such divine enjoyment.

Spiritual ecstasies are not islands of joy in a ocean of suffering as long as we are able to weave a tapestry with them. Passionate conversations, silent contemplation, nature, deep artistic experiences, loving sacred sex, folk dances, poetry, music, sacred rituals, etc.—all can help save us and keep us truly alive.

January 16, 2026: Our Wee-ness (GG)

The rise of Nazism and the evil of the Gestapo is horrifyingly evident in the violent and racist actions of ICE. It is quite clear that ICE’s intent is to terrorize, and the point-blank shooting of Renee Good escalated this terror. What can we do in times like these in order to not lose hope?

Matthew wrote way back in 1976: We are small, truly small, before Chartres Cathedral or… a ripe sunset over the sea; and we are small, also, standing on the soil of Dachau, hearing of … presidential abuse of the people’s power, or… when hearing of the assassination of a beloved leader….

We are, in a word, wee-ful folk. Then, as well as now, the answer is not falling into despair because of our wee-ness, but opening ourselves to the vastness of love and pain, remembering what a miracle it is to be human.

January 17, 2026: Minnesota Bleeding (MF)

With the killing of Renee Good in broad daylight, ICE has unleashed even more terror and violence in the streets of Minneapolis than before. And, now the man behind it all is talking of sending the military into the blue cities of America. Yes, only into the cities of those who didn’t vote for him.

Matthew has a soft spot for Minnesota, and now Minnesota is bleeding. At 4 in the morning, this poem came to him:

Minnesota Bleeding, Democracy reeling, Justice receding, Necrophilia feeding, Fascism succeeding, SCOTUS achieving, Antichrist seeding, Reptilian brain achieving, Patriarchy preening, Violence screaming, Lies & untruths beaming, Humanity needing. Hearts cold? Or feeling?