It is summer in Chicago, and our migrant population is no longer huddled in tents outside police stations. Yet, housing insecurity is still a reality, and many develop their own outdoor circuits to escape overcrowded shelters, to entertain their children, to sell chicle and earn their daily bread. On a recent Saturday afternoon, I saw…
When I was new to religious life, I sat through so many workshops about transition that the beautiful life cycle of a butterfly became cliché to me. I heard that once the caterpillar becomes a pupa, it basically turns into caterpillar soup: a mush of cells digesting themselves. I vaguely remember reflection prompts from this…
With my knife I slash open the plastic bag, and the smell of the mulch hits me: damp cedar, fungal spores, moss, creosote. Something flashes, and for a moment I’m not planting boxwood with my family. I’m in Michigan, working as a landscaper. It’s never quite warm enough. I smell the green exhalations of reedy…
“As a result of Israel’s siege, Gazans’ access to water from all sources, including desalination and external Israeli sources, quickly dropped by 95 percent after October 9. The United Nations estimates that the average Gazan is living on only 3 liters of water per day for all needs—well below the United Nation’s emergency standard of…
Episode 72 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More “We have to understand the environment and appreciate it, both aesthetically and scientifically –as well as historically. And so it means taking all of the modalities of exploration and understanding that God has given us and bringing those together.”…
Episode 71 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More “There’s always a freedom, though, that I feel… even if I was totally wrong about everything, I have full faith that Christ and God still love me and are still there.” -Molly Burhans IN THIS EPISODE This episode of…
Most of us are familiar with the story of Jonah and the whale. God tells Jonah to warn the people of Nineveh to repent, but the prophet, instead, runs away, taking passage on a ship. So God sends a storm after him, and Jonah implores the sailors to save themselves by throwing him overboard. A…
“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” (Matthew 10:16) These are not the most comforting words of Jesus, yet I have returned to them often over the years and offered them to those confounded by injustice, hate, aggression. Play it…
Images by Julius Scholsburg, courtesy of Kino Border Initiative I recently moved to the borderlands. It is a graced, gritty place — far away from the snow-covered landscape that is lit up so beautifully this time of year; the landscape that I left behind about a month ago. I am now centered in Ambos Nogales…
Episode 70 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More IN THIS EPISODE In this episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh, FSPA, enjoys a conversation with Kerry Alys Robinson, CEO and President of Catholic Charities USA, who shares that witnessing the joy and faith of Catholics…
I remember once when I was younger, our parish priest returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and brought olive wood rosaries for all the students in my Catholic grade school. I enjoyed holding that rosary in my hands and breathing in its earthy smell. It reminded me of my grandpa’s shop where he…
Episode 69 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More IN THIS EPISODE In this episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh, FSPA, talks with Mary J. Novak, executive director of NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice in Washington, D.C. Mary shares life experiences that proved her…
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