Blog Archive
Contemplating the messiness of Christian life
The Messy Jesus Business Blog is an ecumenical Christian gathering of musings about what it means to live the Gospel today. A variety of contributors offer prayer, poetry, book reviews, creative nonfiction and prose about what it means to live a life of faith in our complex, modern times.
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The Necessary Mess of Community Building
It was gorgeous, warm Spring weather here last Saturday and my restless body was ready to soak in the sun, to explore the woods and search for opening buds. Yet, I sat inside a stuffy dining room at a community meeting most of the day to prepare for our upcoming assembly (a significant meeting for…
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Alternative Economics: Take Some, Leave Some
“People always treatin’ me like a trash can.” This was a common chorus of a friend of mine, Crete, before his death a couple years ago. His life told the story of a kingdom of God that upended the dominant logic of the American dream – dressed in all its individualism and fragmentation, the stingy…
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Feeling my way into fasting
Fasting is a pillar of Lent whose challenge I’ve long avoided. It is mid-January and I’m crossing through a busy, crowded airport. With my duffle bag hanging on my shoulder, I sweep my white cane side to side and walk with a wheelchair attendant who pulls my suitcase. As we cross through the terminals, he…
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Lent…again
It’s Lent in the Catholic world. Prayer, fasting, almsgiving. I love Lent. It’s my favorite liturgical season. I think it’s because I’m action-oriented and Lent is about changing behaviors and seeing how that impacts both us and others for the better. Whether I’m fasting, giving, or praying, the whole season seems to say to me,…
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Don’t close the door on hope!
Am I the only one who feels dizzy from daily news slaps? Minneapolis. Venezuela. Greenland. Last year we had a solid alternative vision. Pope Francis declared 2025 as the Jubilee Year of Hope and we were all pilgrims, journeying together in faith. I grasped that proclamation like a lifesaver. It anchored me as I watched…
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Manna in this Desert Time
I sit at my desk, gazing out the sliding glass doors as snow falls in large, deliberate flakes — like manna falling from heaven, I think. In a moment that feels like a meandering journey through an unforgiving desert, the image of nourishment is welcome, even if it’s only enough for today. Open and face-down…
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Prayer in a Time of Chaos
I can’t anymore. Sometimes urgently, sometimes softly but persistently, several times a day these words echo in my brain. They seem like an interruption and they need to be heard. I can’t anymore. In a world on fire, I am exhausted. As a spiritual director, I am a professional listener. Everyone I listen to right…
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The power of love in the face of evil
Since the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents on the streets of Minneapolis, I have found myself in some grim conversations with people I care deeply about. Jesus said, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny themself, take up their cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save their…
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Scapegoating Eve
I’ve been thinking about misogyny and the church even more than usual. A week ago, an ICE agent shot and murdered a woman named Renee Good, without reason or provocation. Days later, men who identify as Christian continue to defend the murderer, mock the victim, make jokes about her death, and say that she was…
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‘Save the ArQ’ in Jerusalem is a story of nonviolent resistance
In the walled-in Old City of Jerusalem, in the Armenian Quarter, sits a large pile of rubble with an Armenian flag planted at the top. This pile of rubble, the flag, and the Armenian Quarter itself all tell a story of resistance and nonviolence. This past October, I traveled to the West Bank with a…
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Christmas and the work of women
Even today in households where division of labor is not definitively gendered, women do the work of Christmas: To stretch the dollar to make a feast or to fill Santa’s sack, To soothe agitated family relationships or countless other ongoing worries, To accept the duty left to them to carry forward family traditions, To maintain…
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