This is a weekly summary of the previous week’s Daily Meditations. Some are penned 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.
September 29, 2025: Original Blessing as Pronoia: The Antidote to Paranoia (MF)
Rob Brezsny wrote a powerful book called Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia. Brezsny defines pronoia as “the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to shower us with blessings.” Matthew says, “This sort of sounds like ‘original blessing’ to me.” He writes: I am rattled. I am aghast. I am in grief about the mayhem and atrocities that the Trump administration and its allies have unleashed upon the world. MAGA is a terrorist theocratic sect. ICE is a secret police force conducting ethnic cleansing….America has been invaded and occupied by a hostile oligarchic death cult. He says that despite these horrors, he is still “a passionate devotee of pronoia.” Pronoia is not denial. It’s not naïve optimism….My pronoia is rowdy, muscular, and complicated. It recognizes the grief and the terror, the corruption and the cruelty—and still insists on seeking out the currents of benevolence flowing all around us. Matthew says that Brezsny sounds “like Meister Eckhart and Julian of Norwich rolled into one. Original Blessing is everywhere.”
September 30, 2025: Creation Spirituality vs. the Outlawing of Diversity (MF)
At the heart of ICE thuggery perpetrated by masked soldiers on our streets, at the heart of $150 billion in the new Republican budget dedicated to erecting concentration camps for immigrants, lies the issue of diversity. Matthew continues: As a spiritual theologian, I have to say, loud and clear, that Diversity Matters. Diversity matters. In theological language, it’s the way God made us. And the rest of creation. Creation is very diverse. Is the current war on DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—any different from the Nazis’ insistence on a “pure” Aryan race? (Which, not incidentally, does not exist and never did.) Otto Rank criticized Americans for confusing the line, “all men are created equal,” to mean “all men are created the same.” There is so much to learn from one another and the multiple identities we carry within us, the multiple cultures manifesting and shining through us.
October 1, 2025: The Sumud Flotilla as a Sign of Hope (GG)
About 50 ships are sailing across the Mediterranean—filled with food, medical supplies, diapers, formula, and volunteers/activists—and heading toward Gaza. Sadly, Israel has already attacked them with drones, which damaged some of the ships. Spain, Italy, and Turkey have sent military vessels to accompany the nonviolent fleet. However, Gianluigi says: The flotilla…has already won. The courage of the people embarked has already impressed the world, highlighting the reality of Gaza in an unprecedented way and especially showing that acquiescing to violence and despair is not the only option. The people on the flotilla represent the hope of the humanity. They show that courage still exists.
October 2, 2025: Yom Kippur 2025 (GG)
David Adler is a young Jewish man embarked on one of the vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla, heading toward Gaza with much-needed aid. He wrote an open letter on X regarding Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. He said: How can we possibly take seriously our mandate to heal the world when the State of Israel is so determined to destroy it? Then David mentioned that his grandfather once joined the Parisian resistance against the Nazis. David said that the same genocidal rage that targeted my ancestors is now taken up by its principal victims. Yom Kippur is a day of fasting, but David cannot forget that the Palestinians of Gaza are forced to fast. Yom Kippur is a day of atonement, but David reminds his readers that atonement means action; it does not mean fasting in comfort while starving your neighbors.
October 3, 2025: Two Truths and Sadofascism (GG)
The prime minister of Israel has declared that the deadly attack in a synagogue in Manchester was caused by “weakness” in the face of terrorism—as if he did not order bombs dropped on civilians for two years, killing many thousands. In addition, Israeli minister Katz has just declared that those civilians who do not leave Gaza City in the next few hours will be treated as terrorists, i.e., summarily executed—even though many Gazans have no means to leave. This would amount to planning the worst mass murder of modern times. Netanyahu, Blair, Trump, Katz, and so many others would have no power at all if large enough masses did not agree with them. And who are these people? Gianluigi suggests “passive agents of sadofacism” —people who have little power, but are either locked inside their little unfeeling worlds or are lashing out all the time at the people around them.
October 4, 2025: Jane Goodall, A Creation Spirituality Saint for Our Times, Dies at 91
This week, the world heard the sad news that beloved Jane Goodall had died. She was in the midst of a speaking tour in California, still working hard to make a difference. Matthew met her once and was struck by her calmness, her joy, and her humility. At her death, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that “she is leaving an extraordinary legacy for humanity and our planet.” He thanked her for her lifelong commitment to environmental protection efforts. The International Animal Welfare Protection Coalition (IAWPC) described her as one of “the world’s most inspiring voices for animals” whose “message was always rooted in hope, that even the smallest actions, when multiplied, can bring about great change.” In 2024, she warned of the “sixth great extinction” that is happening and spoke about protecting the forests. She herself planted over two million trees. May we all heed Jane Goodall’s call to compassion for our holy Mother Earth.
Banner image: “diversity.” zhrefch on Flickr. Public domain.
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
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
2 thoughts on “Week of 9/28-10/4/2025: Gaza, Yom Kippur, Pronoia, Diversity”
Thank you for your educational and inspiring DM’s, that give me some hope in the midst of utter depravity.
“I have been working with non-physical partners, beings living in the subtle realms of our world for over fifty years. If there is one thing I have learned, it is how deeply they desire partnership with those of us who are incarnated in the physical world in order to advance the presence of Light and love on our challenged planet. They can shower us with blessings, but unless we discover our own capacity to generate and bring our own Light into the world, they are limited in what they can accomplish.
My work has largely been to explore just how we can safely and effectively partner with the subtle worlds in order to jointly bless and heal this planet, thereby opening the doors to the promise of “a new heaven and a new earth.” Incarnational Spirituality has emerged from this work in collaboration with both physical and subtle partners. It has evolved as a worldview and as a training in personal development with the possibility of working with the subtle dimensions of our world in service, collaboration, and blessing… “
— David Spangler (lorian.org) in Foreword to Timothy Hass’s recommended book, “The Wonder-Full World of the Home” (2020).