Dear Friends,
As we announced in Sunday’s DM, we are beginning the eighth year of Daily Meditations this week and celebrating seven years of bringing our “pray the news” reflections free to the public. Today and tomorrow, we will be reminding you about this anniversary and inviting your donations to help keep the DM serving others.
Thank you in advance for any donations you can offer! They are tax-deductible. To donate online, click HERE; or you may send a check to PO BOX 424533, San Francisco, CA 94142.
Join us in June (date to be announced) for a celebration of the online DM community.
When I was first asked to become part of the DM team as a text author I was deeply honored but also a bit unsure, as I have never thought of myself as a writer nor have I derived great pleasure from writing. Teaching, especially leading seminars, has always been my knack. Looking at somebody in their eyes, watching their demeanor, hearing their tone of voice when posing a question or offering a comment has always been my “igniting factor”—i.e. that which brings out my best teachings.
Writing instead meant a virtual audience, and that almost frightened me, or at least did not excite me enough. Besides some scholarly articles, I have published only two books in my life, in 2020 and 2024 — that is, in my 50s — which is definitely substandard for an intellectual living in a context marked by the infamous slogan “Publish or Perish” which ravages the lives of many people trying a university career.
So when Matthew Fox asked me to join in I was both elated and worried. Yes, I was a good choice as far as intimate knowledge of his works, in both breath and depth, but I was also definitely not a writer! And most definitely not a writer of short pieces.
Now, more than a year later, I can say that Matthew made a wise choice. Besides times when I was sick, or moving, I was able to provide what has become almost a regular column, even though I hope it keeps being consistent with the mandate of presenting Matthew’s work and commenting on the news from a spiritual perspective.
Preparing and polishing each Meditation is real work, of course. It can be tiring and take longer than expected (sorry, team!) but it is also for me an occasion of deep reflection. I have the sense that you, as a community of readers, have caught very well that nothing of what you read in my DMs was not sifted and cooked beforehand in my own soul.
This work, in the end, is deep and joyful. It has also become a way to keep spiritual connections and forge new ones through your comments which I read constantly. You and Matthew made of me a writer of sorts, and I am deeply grateful for that.
Banner image: “Work day.” Photo by Adolfo Félix on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
Can you think of a situation in your life when work became transformative of your identity?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood For Our Time.
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations.
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance.
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths.
Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest.
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings in Creation Spirituality.
6 thoughts on “Transformation Through Work”
For me, the most transformative work has been twofold: 1) keeping a diary and 2) living as fully as possible. The rationale behind the diary is the Socratic principle that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” and the rationale behind living as fully as possible is that the not-fully lived life is not worth examining.
Then comes a time when fire takes over as the most transformative medium, fire applied to the diary, and Fire to the diarist.
As we will celebrate the Pentecost next week, Eliot’s fiery words come timely:
“The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.”
Thank you Gianluigi for your writing and for the photograph of your writing corner draped in stellar wallpaper.
Grateful that you agreed to contribute, GG! I have very much enjoyed reading your reflections and insights. Your message today is also very relatable for me — I recently participated in a four week creative writing “class”, just a small online community where the facilitator offered prompts. I have always been a musician but not much of a “writer”, but I have found the process to be transformative to my identity. It is helping me trust myself more. It is helping me notice more things in my life– through lines, synchronicities, etc.
Thank you GG for your spiritual, personal, and honest reflections this past year as part of the DM team! Your queries for contemplation are also very spiritually stimulating.
My spiritual journey of being a psychotherapist for forty years due to the influence of the depth psychology of Carl Jung until my retirement in 2015, and since then as a spiritual guidance counselor based on Contemplative~Creation~Incarnational spiritual traditions have been and continue to be personally and communally transformative for me as my Unique Soul’s sharing of Loving Diverse Oneness with-in Sacred Mother Earth and Our evolving Cosmos….
GG, you’re wrong! You most definitely are a writer. I love your meditations.
I’m retired now, but I used to be an administrative judge for the Social Security Administration. Most of my work involved adjudicating appeals of disability cases. It was a dull, bureaucratic job, but there were moments when I think I made a difference in some people’s lives. I would sometimes find cases where a person who was definitely disabled had been incorrectly denied benefits. I was able to fix those errors and get benefits to people who needed them. When I could correct an incorrect denial of benefits, I felt as if I had won a small victory for justice. So, although I didn’t have a glamorous job, I look back and feel good about my career. God gave me meaningful work to do, and for that I am truly grateful.
Congratulations on the significant anniversary of now seven full years of daily meditations. I still remember Dennis telling me of this bold move to do the daily meditations and I’m so glad that you’ve been able to complete now 7 full years.
Gigi congratulations on your new home and I know you’re gonna have a great class in Sardinia! I very much appreciate what you’ve contributed to the daily meditations.
But I reserve my greatest gratitude to the whole team at Matthew Fox Legacy Project— especially Matt —who come together to give us this Daily gift. Thanks for your dedication, persistence, and consistency.
And thanks for the presence of Wisdom in our midst! So very needed in this time
If you looked only at my Mystical Experience, you might think I led a marvelous life.
But that was just the background to the daily life I led.
After a rather sad childhood, I ended up taking care of my first two kids through multiple, horrible difficulties, then I took care of my dying parents at home, including all their legal finances, then a bit later tried to handle a spiraling downward daughter while a husband became abusive and decided to divorce me so he could go a-larking, while I also began seriously going near-deaf.
It has been…really difficult.
I see my whole life as being a tapestry, including delightful joyous parts but also some really grim, difficult times where everything seemed to spiral downward. Seeing it all as a whole, which the Mystical Experience teaches, helps — at least sometimes, when I’m not giving in to the frustration and sadness of daily life.
I’m not a “professional meditator” like the monks, so I’m not one of the few “masters of divinity” listed so frequently here.
But I try my best.