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) You can click on any title to view the DM in its entirety. Also, remember that each Monday DM continues to include a video teaching by Matthew Fox. Thank you for your loyal readership.
March 9, 2026: Oligarchs & MAGA Minions Busy Emasculating American Media (MF)
Today we reflect on how the current regime and a wealthy right-wing few are buying out and coopting the news media. Trump has cut federal funding for NPR and PBS, while one billionaire family has bought CBS and is preparing to buy CNN. Our media are fast becoming propaganda tools for the right. The Washington Post, bought by Jeff Bezos, appears to be following suit. It is estimated that 82% of the media is owned by right wing forces. In six weeks, Stephen Colbert and the Late Night Show will also be off the air thanks to CBS selling its soul to MAGA oligarchs. Fascists, you see, have no sense of humor. ABC caved at first to similar pressures as CBS when they fired Jimmy Kimmel, but protesters brought him back. A small victory in a bleak media landscape.
March 10, 2026: “A Crime Against Humanity” – How Sacred is the Air We Take For Granted? (MF)
In the wake of Netanyahu bombing oil depots in Iran, The Guardian wrote: Thick black smoke was…rising in the sky, soot covered the streets and cars, balconies filled with black gunk and the toxic air…filled the lungs as Tehran woke up after a night of airstrikes on the city’s oil depots….* Does this not make perfectly clear that the stated aim of wanting regime change because we care about the people is a lie? One citizen of Tehran, an activist and former political prisoner, said, “This is truly a crime against humanity.” Says Matthew: “Air is sacred. Period. An original blessing. We cannot take it for granted.” There are things more evil than the doubling of oil prices being brought about by this Netanyahu/Trump/Hegseth War. There is the poisoning of holy air.
March 11, 2026: The Role of Crackpot Christianity in the Iran War & Defense Department (MF)
There is such a thing as Crackpot Christianity. America currently has a director of the Defense Department, now called the War Department, who is very much immersed in Crackpot Christianity. Pete Hegseth has been called “a very dangerous person” who “revels in the carnage of Iran War.” The Guardian described Hegseth at a recent Pentagon press conference as “brash, bellicose” and sounding “more like a cartoon bully than a sombre statesman” who “bragged about death and destruction from the sky all day long….”** Hegseth promised “to dispense with ‘stupid rules of engagement”—rules designed to restrict attacks on civilian populations. Clearly, Hegseth doesn’t understand true Christianity.
March 12, 2026: Crackpot Christianity in MAGA Defense Department, continued (MF)
Crackpot Christianity is dangerous in the hands of Pete Hegseth. Says one Marine Corps veteran: “I can’t even muster the words to describe his self-adulation, matched only in scope by his apparent moral depravity.” He is “an embarrassment.” Once, when drunk at a bar, he repeatedly shouted “Kill all Muslims!” No wonder he is getting high on this Iran war. When Trump tried to pass off this war as a means to bring on the apocalypse and the second coming of Christ, hundreds of service members complained to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Chenu said that theology tends to imitate “an aristocratic old lady.” Matthew agrees, saying: It prefers to stay quiet when Evil looms, not unlike many churches in Germany in the 1930s.
March 13, 2026: Diary from the Italian Countryside, part 1 (GG)
GG tells us that he recently moved to a remote Italian village, with a population of twelve residents. He concedes it feels fairly isolated. However, it is also a retreat. Contrasting with the war and chaos reigning in the larger world, his home is immersed in nature and peace. He said that it is so silent that he becomes attentive to the tiniest bodily sensation, to the faintest birth of a thought, to the smallest stirring of the soul. Thomas Aquinas said that the human soul is capable of containing the whole universe. GG believes that strongly. He feels connected to nature, to people whose books he has studied, and to their living thoughts. He feels connected to the people dying for the greed of others in Gaza, Iran and Israel, and to the people being born. But from now on, says he: I will attempt to feel the universe from my tiny special spot where my soul has called and settled me.
March 14, 2026: Diary from the Italian Countryside, part 2 (GG)
Serendipitously, a job became available for GG in a nearby city. It entails spending time with high school students who are “suspended” from their classes due to misbehaving. Instead of staying at home for two days, they will spend those days with GG. He reports: The amount of pain is excruciating. One girl lives with two mentally ill parents; another girl has many siblings and nobody notices whether she gets home or not at night. One boy cannot sit in class for more than 10 minutes, and another talks incessantly about his dead parents. Many of GG’s colleagues believe that the suspension program should be understood as a punishment. They want from these students only obedience and adherence to the rules. But no effort is made to understand the students or why they are breaking rules. Adultism is rampant. Cynicism and hypocrisy rule the day. Fortunately, there are good people are trying to do something good, often without knowing how.
* Deepa Parent, “‘Dark, like our future’: Iranians describe scenes of catastrophe after Tehran’s oil depots bombed,” The Guardian, March 8, 2026.
** David Smith, “‘A very dangerous person’: alarm as Pete Hegseth revels in carnage of Iran war.” The Guardian, March 8, 2026.
“No war.” Photo by Kevin Dooley on Flickr.
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation, by Adam Buck and Matthew Fox
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality, ed. Charles Burack
The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
1 thought on “Week of 3/9-14/2026: War, Propaganda, & Adultism”
So glad that GG is back.