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.

  • Who will save the hunger striker?

    “Eternal God…You know that these men have testified falsely against me.  Would you let me die, though I am not guilty of all their malicious charges?” This week the daily mass readings begin with the cry of Susannah, unjustly accused by corrupt officials, sentenced to death in the presence of the people.  We read that

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  • Becoming a new fruit and fertilizer

    By guest blogger Amy Nee On Ash Wednesday in 2012 I heard: “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” – Isaiah 43:19 Last year, when I heard these words at the start of Lent I felt as though God was proclaiming them directly to me. Holding

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  • God-centered mundane matters

    God is the center of my life. Really, I mean it. God is my life.  God consumes my life. Most of my time, thoughts, and tasks have to do with God. I wish I could tell you it’s completely great. Many mornings, as I hit the snooze button on my alarm, I think ‘God! Already!?” Then I

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  • Downward Mobility

    by Guest Blogger Emily Dawson I am writing this in a laundromat. I used to have my own wash machine and dryer, house and garage and lots and lots of counter space too–used to. Basically, life happened. And I will say that while washing, drying and folding your intimates in the privacy of your own home is

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  • lent: divorcing our bad habits

    I’m going to flip a song over on its head. I want to offer a spiritualization of something that probably was supposed to be completely secular. Lent, by British indie-pop band Autoheart, is totally onto something. I got absorbed into the song’s catchiness the other day, and I naturally found myself thinking about the love of

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  • Refresh and restart

    It’s been nearly a week since we started all this. With ashes smeared upon our foreheads, we committed ourselves to new disciplines. Our motives are good: we have dreams and desires to refresh our relationship with Jesus. We’re in the desert to detoxify and prepare for the joy of that great Sunday, the holy day of Easter. We’re trying

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  • love at the life lines

    I am Pro-Life. I tweeted this to the world a couple of weeks ago: I am #prolife! I want abortion, war, executions, gun violence, discrimination, poverty, hunger and euthanasia to end–honor all dignity! Also a couple of weeks ago a few of my students participated in the March for Life in Washington, D.C., a peaceful march protesting

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  • We are the Body

    Guest blogger: Sarah Hennessey, FSPA Photo by Chandra Sherin:  http://chandrasherin.wordpress.com/ “She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.” – Mark 5:29b I’ve never noticed this phrase before. But a few days ago during Mass these words shouted at me. The woman with the hemorrhage reached out bravely to touch just the hem of

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  • closets of conversion and compassion

    Last summer I was invited to join a group of Christian bloggers who occasionally review Christian media.  After I agreed, opportunities came!  The first book that intrigued me is a story of radical solidarity, compassion and good ol’ fashioned Christian conversion, The Cross in the Closet by Timothy Kurek. The following video nicely introduces you to the

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  • Pentagon reflection: black hoods, white faces and the enemy within

    by Guest Blogger Amy Nee Walker (with Witness Against Torture this week) I am in D.C. again, continuing the tradition of gathering each January with men and women of the community called Witness Against Torture. The group gathers each year, and works throughout the year, toward the closure of Guantanamo, appropriate legal trials for those

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  • Two worker houses: where ‘stranger becomes neighbor’

    Guest blogger, Amy Nee One evening in May I sat on windowsill in the room I’d recently moved into at New York’s Maryhouse Catholic Worker. With legs folded into the frame, I watched a little window of sky that subtly made the dramatic shift from pale yellow to blazing pink without comment.  I was sitting with

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  • alive in the studio

    Trying to be a faithful Christian sometimes feels like living in God’s limitless art studio. God is the Great Artist who is always at work creating us anew.  We get to co-create and this communion brings us closer to God. Since ending my ministry at the high school my creativity has been slightly out of

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