Week of 6/3-6/8/2024: Survey, Teilhard de Chardin, the Nobility Inside

June 3, 2024: The DM Survey & Modest Changes to the DM Entering into its Sixth Year
Thank you to our readers who participated in a survey marking five years of bringing you Daily Meditations. We are gratified that you find these meditations helpful. Moving forward, we have decided to make a small change in order to help free up some time and energy for Matthew so that he can focus on writing some more books. He will continue to write three new DMs per week and we will continue to feature the index/weekly summary each Sunday. For the other three days of the week, we will feature some of the 1,800+ DMs from our archive. While the Daily Meditations have always been, and will continue to be, free to all, they do involve a significant investment of time, energy, and money on our part. If you have the means or inclination to help support this endeavor, we’d be grateful. You can make a tax-deductible donation HERE. 

June 4, 2024: A Good Film on Teilhard de Chardin Now Available
Recently, Matthew watched a new movie on Teilhard de Chardin.  It was very well done and devoted a lot of time to the important relationships he had with women in his life. It also explored how much he suffered from his censure by Rome and his Jesuit Order, which included forbidding him to publish any of his books in his lifetime. Prior to his death, he wisely left his manuscripts to a lay woman. As a result, his first book was published just four months after his demise, shortly thereafter followed by twelve others. The movie also explores his long exile in China, during which he worked with paleontologists who discovered the Peking Man. Over time, in spite of his censure, he became recognized as the great scientist, mystic and soul that he was.

June 5, 2024: More Stories and Teachings from Teilhard de Chardin
In the PBS movie, Teilhard: Visionary Scientist, Matthew was interested to note that Teilhard first got in trouble with the Vatican for a modest article he wrote about original sin. Of course, Matthew’s book, Original Blessing, discussed the same topic and also got him in hot water with Rome 65 years later. Teilhard believed that “matter is energy and energy is spirit. Therefore the universe is a spiritual universe.” This is Creation Spirituality. It is easy to see Teilhard as a key figure in the Creation Spirituality movement and lineage. 

June 6, 2024: The Nobility Inside
At a conference on The Hidden Spirituality of Men, a Native American gentleman told Matthew that he had been a chaplain in a state prison for men for 12 years and that Matthew’s book “was the first book he found that got men to look inside and find the nobility inside.” A recent study found that boys are more likely to act out their depression than girls and so the early warning signs of depression in boys are often missed, leading to a misdiagnosis as a conduct disorder or attention-deficit disorder. Young men in the U.S. are committing suicide on an average of three per day – which is five times the rate of women. The authors conclude: Depression in males of all ages is a public health crisis that must be addressed. To do so, we must redefine healthy masculinity…. And that is one thing Matthew and Creation Spirituality are committed to.

June 7, 2024: Meister Eckhart on “The Nobility Inside”
We cannot explore the topic “the nobility inside” without mentioning Meister Eckhart, who devotes an entire treatise to the “Noble” or “Aristocrat” that resides in each of us. We all have within us an outer person, or a false self, as well as an inner person, or true self. Scripture calls this inner person “a new person, a heavenly person, a young person, a friend, and a royal person.” Eckhart’s entire spirituality can be seen as a spirituality of the emergence of the royal person in us.  A noble person is responsible for preserving the gift of creation and such a person is committed to fighting for justice. 

June 8, 2024: Scripture on “The Nobility Inside”
In Israel the king is responsible, above all, for justice and therefore the survival of the community. Christians believe that such a royal person occurred in the person of Jesus, who teaches about both love and justice. Both the psalmist and Jesus remind us of our royal personhood—both our dignity and our responsibility. The Good News that Jesus brings is that all are considered royal persons by God. We all have rights and divine dignity. Jesus is sensitive to the challenges of the oppressed, but He insists that no one can rob them of their divine and royal dignity.

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Banner image: Woman with drum in forest. Photo by petr sidorov on Unsplash

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The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

In what may be considered the most comprehensive outline of the Christian paradigm shift of our Age, Matthew Fox eloquently foreshadows the manner in which the spirit of Christ resurrects in terms of the return to an earth-based mysticism, the expression of creativity, mystical sexuality, the respect due the young, the rebirth of effective forms of worship—all of these mirroring the ongoing blessings of Mother Earth and the recovery of Eros, the feminine aspect of the Divine.
“The eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our Western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.” — Brian Swimme, author of The Universe Story and Journey of the Universe.
 “This book is a classic.” Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work and The Dream of the Earth.

Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest (Revised/Updated Edition)

Matthew Fox’s stirring autobiography, Confessions, reveals his personal, intellectual, and spiritual journey from altar boy, to Dominican priest, to his eventual break with the Vatican. Five new chapters in this revised and updated edition bring added perspective in light of the author’s continued journey, and his reflections on the current changes taking place in church, society and the environment.
“The unfolding story of this irrepressible spiritual revolutionary enlivens the mind and emboldens the heart — must reading for anyone interested in courage, creativity, and the future of religion.”
—Joanna Macy, author of World as Lover, World as Self

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

Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart

Matthew Fox’s comprehensive translation of Meister Eckhart’s sermons is a meeting of true prophets across centuries, resulting in a spirituality for the new millennium. The holiness of creation, the divine life in each person and the divine power of our creativity, our call to do justice and practice compassion–these are among Eckhart’s themes, brilliantly interpreted and explained for today’s reader.
“The most important book on mysticism in 500 years.”  — Madonna Kolbenschlag, author of Kissing Sleeping Beauty Goodbye.