Prayer
Prayer is the heartbeat of the messy, faithful life. Whether you come to it with confidence or doubt, with eloquence or silence, with a rosary in your hands or nowhere near a church — these posts are an invitation to show up anyway. From ancient practices to honest lament, from the Examen to poetry to prayers stitched together from the wreckage of an ordinary day, Messy Jesus Business writers explore what it means to speak, listen, and sit with God in the midst of a complicated world.
Blessed by our brokenness
We’re all broken. Broken by our pain and suffering, broken by injustice, broken by the Truth. The activities of Lent help me encounter my brokenness…
Lent is my restart button
Some days, I feel like I just want a restart button. At times, I even feel this way about my life. And then, when I…
Ashy Remembering
Black falls off my fingers. A dark coat of Truth covers me, my hands, all dirty. I am Too messy for this: the sacred Marking…
Street violence and holy darkness
This past Monday one of my former students was shot and killed on the streets of Chicago. Advent is a time of darkness. Sometimes it is…
Craving a countercultural Christmas
My Christmas Every Day experiment is starting to get awkward. Advent hasn’t even started yet, but Christmas’ crazed and over-weight relative Consumerism is already in town, on…
By the book
I remember when and where I first learned the word. I was 18 and sitting on a folding chair among a crowd in an enormous gymnasium-converted…
A great big exciting God question
A vivid memory has been speaking to me all summer: a sunny spring day, as the fourth period of the school day began, a few…
disturbed in the desert
It’s Lent. I am a disciple, trying to fast and pray in the desert. I’m getting hungry for some great elation, getting worn out from discomforts. I…