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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Advent: watchfulness, waiting and wanting
In Psalm 130, we are taught to pray: “ I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord, more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.” When I pray this psalm, my imagination takes me to a…
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We need each other, not more consumption
Every year around this time, companies ramp up marketing campaigns that do their best to connect contentment with consumerism. Feeling lonely? Buy a candy cane latte. Feeling grief? Buy more holiday decorations. Feeling afraid and anxious as you watch the daily news in a world plagued by family separations, endless wars and mass shootings? Buy…
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Meat
When I walked the Camino de Santiago, I survived on a steady diet of ham sandwiches and beer. I subjected my body to a pack that weighed more than was healthy for my frame, moved my feet over miles of terrain, felt my muscles fatigue and my flesh blister and bleed. Every day, somewhere along…
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Beyond thank you
What is it about the nature of human gratitude that propels us to make offerings and manifest our feeling in the material world? Why do we tend to create and extend more goodness to others as a way to express our appreciation? Lately, I am marveling in the mystery of human goodness and how it…
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What it takes to see God’s reign
This coming Sunday is one of my favorite feasts in the Church year: the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. It is also known as the Feast of Christ the King. On this feast I celebrate something I believe, deeply: from the macro of the cosmos to the micro of our…
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Openness to the mystery of other people
Gazing toward the brightly lit horizon the other day, I noticed an expansiveness, an opening. Beyond what I could see was a mystery. Bigger than the dances of shadows and light, the frozen November snow and the clouds hanging out their hues of pink and gray, was the power of possibility, the rise of potential.…
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At a table with other sinners, the Eucharist unites
The first person who taught me eucharistic theology was my Lutheran grandmother. Although I have no memories of her ever uttering the words “eucharistic” or “theology,” she taught me in the way that the best teachers do: by being a living example. Grandma’s house usually smelled like freshly baked bread. Her counter was often dusted…
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Encouragement when the world feels like a mess
If you’re like me — and most people I know — the world feels like a mess. Maybe you’re heartbroken and horrified by the latest news coming out of Syria, by the continued slaughter of human life. Perhaps you’re worried about loved ones impacted by the fires in California — or you are one of…
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Finding the faces of God in the dark
Lately, a memory keeps surfacing. I am struggling with my mental health and, almost before it begins, I am having a particularly hard day. Sitting in my chair, trying to get started, I call my counselor for help. I tell him, “All I have on my schedule today is an appointment with my psychiatrist. That’s…
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Missed connections and lonely souls
Once, while traveling home alone from a conference, I went to the airport early. I had some free time, and I was hoping to catch an earlier flight home. It didn’t work out that way. Instead, I spent most of the day walking up and down the terminal, watching people and trying out different corners…
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Book review: “A Riff of Love”
The Gospel calls us to conversion. Jesus invites us into ongoing repentance that involves receiving a new vision of belonging. In the life of discipleship, we are constantly receiving new eyes to see the world around our neighbors and ourselves in deeper reality and truth. The book “A Riff of Love” activates imagination for creative…
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We are endangered species, but Franciscan values could save us
At my new home in Chicago, I can visit the shore of Lake Michigan, and I like to go there to pray. From my spot on a concrete slab, all that is visible to me that is “natural” is water and sky. Everything else — the concrete, the fence, the shoreline — has been constructed…
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