Music & Beauty; Good Ecological News

God as Freedom

7/12/2026

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)

July 6, 2026: Robert Thurman & Brendan Doyle, continued (MF)

Brendan Doyle, who recently passed, was a proponent of Creation Spirituality. One winter he taught a course entitled “Three Mystics: Mozart, Schumann and Chopin” and students responded by demanding another and still another course from him.

Matthew asked him why his teaching gets people so excited about classical music. He responded: It’s very hard to separate the composer from the music. So I recommend that the people learn something about the composer. He says:

Music is a language. Musicians are talking to us…. Doyle criticized current liturgical music for lacking imagination and mystery.

Liturgical music needs some of the mystery that we experience in Gregorian chant…So much new music…is missing mystery.

Bless The Lord, O My Soul (S. Rachmaninoff “All-Night Vigil” / Vespers, op. 37, 2.)

“Bless the Lord, O My Soul,” Psalm 103 in Russian from Rachmaninov’s Vespers, Op. 37, 1915. Video by Music Speaks.

July 7, 2026: Amidst MAGA’s Bad News, Some Good News on the Ecological Front! (MF)

Our current president continues to call climate change a “hoax.” He promised favors to the oil industry in exchange for a donation of 1 or 2 billion dollars to his election campaign.

And just this past weekend, he pardoned eleven violators of the Clean Air Act. But outside the executive office, there is some good news. China has developed a solar-powered desalination process that will bring potable water to arid regions across the world.

And, in a powerful win-win initiative in the Southwest, irrigation canals will be covered with solar panels. The panels will eliminate much evaporation, resulting in saving over 63 billion gallons of water annually. Meanwhile, instead of diesel generators, the power generated by the solar panels will propel the water.

July 8, 2026: God as Freedom (GG)

Along with the flourishing of mysticism in the late Middle Ages, came increased persecution. The first official Inquisition occurred in 1184. Also in the Middle Ages was a movement related to freedom and the Holy Spirit.

This stemmed in part from St. Paul, who claimed repeatedly that the believer is not chained anymore by obedience to rules and authorities, but by the goodness which flows naturally from the heart.

Take, for example, Beatrice of Nazareth, a 13th-century Cistercian abbess in Flanders. Said her biographer: She had arrived at such freedom of spirit, such constancy of heart, and such purity of conscience… that, in all her deeds and thoughts, she never feared nor was in awe of man, nor devil, nor angel, nor even divine judgment.

July 9, 2026: Liturgical Music – part 1 (GG)

Music runs in GG’s family. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all church musicians. His brother is a professional singer and GG is a classical pianist. GG agrees wholeheartedly with Brendan Doyle when he writes: So much new music is missing mystery. The music is so obvious. There are no secrets to be revealed.…

GG believes people think that by modernizing their worship music, new people will flock to their church. GG has not found this to be the case. When GG has experienced this kind of music, he has found it impossible to sing because it changes all the time, it is not easy to learn, and most importantly, it was written for a solo, not for a large group. Most importantly, it has no soul.

July 10, 2026: Liturgical Music – part 2 (GG)

Gianluigi expounds upon his distaste for contemporary liturgical music. He says: Of course you can take “secular music” and turn it into “sacred music,” but how do you do it and for what purpose and with what knowledge of the psycho-spiritual effects?

Music, says GG, is “primarily sensation,” like “the physical effect in your belly of the deepest organ pipes.” But it’s also feeling—“the uncovering of emotions that you don’t even know you have.”

Ideally, music is something you are immersed in. Beats and sounds… involve the body immediately and speak to the soul in non-linear and non-rational ways. Church music must be mystical and prophetic, just as the church should be.

Paul Vasile leading What We Need Is Here

“Paul Vasile leading What We Need Is Here”: Music that Makes Community is an attempt to make music together, including everybody. Even though it is “new music” it is simple to sing, soulful, and deep. It works best when you are participating, rather than a listener.

July 11, 2026: Art & Beauty in a Time of Evil & Ugliness (MF)

Matthew has often said that if we can reinvent work, education, and ritual, we can have a non-violent revolution that amounts to a new renaissance of humanity. It is necessary work if we are to combat the ugliness and evil in our world.

Matthew’s mentor, French Dominican Pére Chenu, said to Matthew the very last time he saw him as they were saying good-bye: Never forget: The greatest tragedy in theology of the last 300 years has been the divorce of the theologian from the artist, the musician, the poet, the sculptor, the dancer and the filmmaker!

Art as Meditation was born of that admonition. We cannot have a prophetic spirituality without the artist.