February 17, 2025: Alexei Navalny: More Courage, Sacrifice, Conscience, Spiritual Warriorhood
We are all called to be both prophets and mystics. The mystic is the lover in us; the prophet is the defender of what one cherishes. The mystic says “Yes” to Life; the prophet says “No” to injustice which is the greatest threat to life, love and community. Among the many from whom we can find inspiration is Alexei Navalny. In spite of being tortured during his incarceration, he never stopped fighting against Putin’s oligarchy. Yesterday was the first anniversary of his murder. Let’s remember Jesus’ words: Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.…Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
February 18, 2025: Evil on the March, Resistance Too?
We celebrate the courage of Alexei Navalny and those who continue to speak of him and fight against tyranny. Meanwhile, there are some examples in the U.S. of the opposite of courage, which is bullying. Police in New York charged five men with torturing a trans person for several months and then murdering him. Three Rochester city council members report that hostility toward transgender people is rising. This does not sound like a “land of the free or the home of the brave.” Singling out trans people—a minority of a minority—hardly seems like a brave thing to do. It’s what bullies do—pick on those they think no one else will support. Fortunately, in the face of this hate, resistance against our own fascist regime is rising.
February 19, 2025: When Presidents Celebrated the “Advancement of Human Nature”
Recently JD Vance visited Germany and, turning his back on his back on the duly elected premier of Germany, made a show of instead visiting the neo-Nazi party leader of AfD, a far-right political party. In an article in The Bulwark*, William Kristol writes: There have been plenty of presidents with whom many of us have disagreed…but there’s been nothing, at least in my experience, that’s challenged our basic pride in our own government until now. He cites Abraham Lincoln’s eulogy of Senator Clay, given in 1852, where he praised Clay for championing the “advancement…of human liberty, human right and human nature.” We need to tap into our moral outrage, exercise our conscience, and stand up and protest in whatever ways we can. In essence, we must advance human nature.
February 20, 2025: Imam Muhsin Hendricks & Other Spiritual Warriors Among Us
Fortunately, along with the rise of rightwing fascists and oligarchs, we also have many examples of courageous spiritual warriors. One is Muhsin Hendricks, a gay imam who ran a mosque in Cape Town as a safe haven for gay and other marginalized Muslims. Sadly, he was shot to death recently. In a documentary in 2022, when asked about the threats he faced, he responded this way: “The need to be authentic was greater than the fear to die.” How similar that is to something MLK, Jr. once said: “One must love something more than the fear of death if he is going to live.” A parallel story of courage is unfolding in the U.S. as dozens of competent civil servants in the DOJ and other departments are quitting the current administration rather than violate the oaths they made to the Constitution.
February 21, 2025: Governor Pritzker Speaks Truth to All Americans
Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, gave a powerful State of the State address recently. Pritzker, who is Jewish, spoke about how the Holocaust began with “a seed of distrust and hate and blame.” And he sees that seed in our own country right now when, for instance, the president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac and suggests—without facts or findings—that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems. If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this: It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. He ends his speech thusly: Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the ‘tragic spirit of despair’ overcome us when our country needs us the most.
February 22, 2025: What If We Had Not Just a King But a Mad King?
Recently, the man who sits in the Oval Office referred to himself as a king. What if he were not just a king but a MAD king? Would a mad king, for example, declare that Ukraine started the war with Russia (even though Russia invaded Ukraine)? Would a mad king end all environmental protections, further endangering the planet that he and the rest of us live on? How do we fight such madness? First, organize and protest. Phone your representatives and senators. Demand town halls. Second, stay grounded spiritually. Read the news but not overly much. And take care of yourself. Live and breathe and pray and meditate and get outdoors and practice kindness and learn from the mystics. Third, find allies, find community.
*William Kristol, “A Patriotic Opposition,” The Bulwark, February 18, 2025.
Banner image: “Take Courage.” Photo taken by S Khan on Flickr.
Recommended Reading
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
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
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Authors Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox encourage us to use our talents in service of compassion and justice and to move beyond our broken systems–economic, political, educational, and religious–discovering a spirituality that not only helps us to get along, but also encourages us to reevaluate our traditions, transforming them and in the process building a more sacred and just world. Incorporating the words of young activist leaders culled from interviews and surveys, the book provides a framework that is deliberately interfaith and speaks to our profound yearning for a life with spiritual purpose and for a better world.
“Occupy Spirituality is a powerful, inspiring, and vital call to embodied awareness and enlightened actions.”
~~ Julia Butterfly Hill, environmental activist and author of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods
4 thoughts on “Week of 2/17-22/2005: Evil vs Courage & Spiritual Warriorhood”
A Protest Poem: Worship through Action
Worship through Action
As crises pile up threatening to
shatter heart and soul,
we are not helpless.
We can love and support each other in
our primary communities –
friends, neighbors, coworkers, volunteers,
classmates and congregations.
As we knit ourselves together with love,
we can find ways to help –
physically, economically, emotionally, spiritually,
politically, personally and mystically.
Rumi said,
“Let the beauty we love
be what we do.
There are a thousand ways to
kneel and kiss the ground.”
May we kneel on Creation’s sacred ground and
discern a thousand ways to
worship through action.
Thank you.
Therese of Lisieux said things like ““Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.” “It is true that Love knows no such word as ‘impossible,’ for it deems ‘all things possible, all things allowed.”
We can do what seem like little things, such as a simple kindness, and can do what may be bigger things, like contacting those who are supposed to represent us. We can join/support the organizations that work for justice in our communities. But act we must.
Thank you for your poem.
God’s Spirit of Love, Truth, Wisdom, Peace, Justice, Strength, Healing, Transformation, Compassion, Loving Diverse ONENESS… within, through, among Us will Prevail in the Sacred Process of the Eternal Present Moment!!!