“Real Men” vs. Gladiators; Underhill; Juneteenth

Week of 6/15-20/2026:

“Real Men” vs. “the Gladiators,” Evelyn Underhill, Juneteenth
By the Daily Meditation Team

This is a summary of the previous week’s daily meditations. Some are written by Matthew Fox (MF) and some are written by his colleague, Gianluigi Gugliermetto. (GG)

June 15, 2026: A Time For Interference from the Mystical/Prophetic Body of Christ (MF)

For some time, the Christian Church has talked about itself as “the mystical body of Christ.” Matthew believes it’s time to expand its self-definition. He proposes its fuller vocation is to be a mystical/prophetic body of Christ.

Matthew says: In my first book on spirituality, I define prayer as “a radical response to life” and I stand by that definition today, 54 years later. He adds: We are all called to be mystics or lovers of life who respond to life with a deep Yes.

And we are all called to be prophets who respond to injustice and other forces that endanger life with a deep No. Rabbi Heschel, in his iconic book The Prophets, summarizes the primary work of the prophets as interfering. And is that not what we are called to do at this time when evil doings are on the rise?

Jeremiah the prophet in jail. Art by Hamid Soufi. Wikimedia Commons.

June 16, 2026: On Distractions, Gladiators & Corruption on the White House Lawn (MF)

Corruption ruled the day in Sunday’s birthday party for Trump in the form of a UFC cage match on the White House lawn, where sponsors used the hallowed symbols as a backdrop to make money.

It is against the law for federal landmarks to be used for private profit, yet corporations–including Monster Energy drink, Bud Light, Polymarket, MiracleGro, and UFC–eagerly peddled their wares, with the White House prominently in the background.

The cage match on Sunday was the American equivalent of coliseum gladiators. Can we get our nation back? Can democracy resurrect and throw off the rule of autocracy? Can we become a nation of, by and for the people? The 2026 election will surely be decisive in answering that question.

June 17, 2026: Cage Matches, Real Manhood, Senatorial Debates in Texas (MF)

Following the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fight on the White House lawn, political columnist Alan Elrod called it the perfect culmination of MAGA fascism—a violent, misogynistic, and boorish display of contemptuous politics….

A national poll revealed only 16% of Americans approved of it happening on the White House premises. In contrast to this violent sport and the toxic men who celebrate it, James Talarico talks about what it means to be a “real man.” A man takes responsibility. A man upholds his commitments to his family and his neighbors. A man does what’s right, even when no one is watching.

And here’s what real men don’t do. They don’t lie and cheat their way through life. They don’t sell their soul to the highest bidder. They don’t steal from other people in order to enrich themselves….

Adds Matthew: Real men take responsibility for their own wounded masculinity….They do not project their shadows onto others or run from self-criticism or self-knowledge.

June 18, 2026: Evelyn Underhill: a quiet revolutionary (GG
)
The 85th anniversary of the death of Evelyn Underhill passed this week without much fanfare, which she would have disliked anyway. She believed in less noise, less activity, less ego claims. These are lessons which the Western industrialized world needs badly.

GG regards Underhill as a precursor to Matthew’s theology and likes her for the following reasons:

1) After years of public malignment, she made mysticism sound like a good thing.
2) She democratized mysticism, maintaining that everybody is a mystic.
3) For her, spirituality was primarily about one’s experience with God, not necessarily about theology or the Church.
4) She saw Jesus as a mystic.
5) She was socially engaged, experimenting with both Christian socialism and Christian pacifism.

GG especially likes her quotation: “Mysticism is the art of union with Reality.”

June 19, 2026: Juneteenth 2026 (MF)

News of the Emancipation Proclamation was, supposedly, slow to reach some of the frontiers of rural Texas. But on June 19th, word finally arrived and enslaved people, at long last, became free.

At this sad time in American history, the so-called Supreme Court has had the audacity to gut the civil rights laws of 1965. Matthew’s thoughts go to Howard Thurman, as well as Luther E. Smith Jr.’s book, Howard Thurman: The Mystic as Prophet.

There, he explains how a society can claim itself Christian and be racist at the same time. Thurman says: What a man has to say about the meaning of God when he lives in a society which he largely controls and in which he is accepted may be quite different from what he has to say about the same God if he lives in a society in which he is always marginal and of no account….

Juneteenth Celebration at Emancipation Park in Houston’s Fourth Ward, 1880. Wikimedia Commons.

June 20, 2026: Father’s Day 2026 (MF)

In Matthew’s book on The Hidden Spirituality of Men, he speaks about fatherhood as one of the most foundational of the ten archetypes of the sacred masculine.

It can make a world of difference to both boys and girls as to what kind of fathering they experienced as children. Think of the impact Hitler’s abusive father had on him. Or the fact that Trump’s father was a rabid capitalist as well as a member of the KKK.

On the other side of the coin, Jeffrey Masson writes in his book, The Evolution of Fatherhood: A Celebration of Animal and Human Families, that fatherhood is “the greatest joy and the greatest expression of love of which the human male is capable.” A fatherly heart is the opposite of a distant heart, an absent heart, a cold heart, a heart unwilling or unable to communicate.

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

Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ

Prayer: A Radical Response to Life

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