Shows
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe People Who Really Piss Me OffThere is no shortage of people to be enraged about right now.I’m angry at this vile, repugnant, cognitively-addled despot urinating on our Constitution and driving our nation into the moral abyss.I’m furious with his complicit collaborators in Congress who could have so easily prevented this at any time, including this one.I’m sickened by genuflecting media members, gutless public servants, and God-forsaking pastors who’ve trafficked in fear on his behalf.I’m disgusted by a legion of strangers who’ve spent the last decade in sycophantic...
2026-01-3003 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastA Letter to Those Who Still Give a DamnIt’s exhausting to give a damn, isn’t it?To be a person of compassion in a time and place when compassion is in such great demand?To wake up every day in days like these, and push back against predatory politicians, toxic systems, human rights atrocities, acts of treason, and spiritual leadership failures?The volume and the relentlessness of the threats can be wearying.You may have noticed.But it’s more than that.You’re not only burdened with these sprawling systemic sicknesses and politica...
2026-01-2904 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastIf Your Heart is Breaking... (A Video Message from John)Transcript: Hey my friends,I wanted to come on here and just share a few thoughts about the days in which we find ourselves.You’re obviously heartbroken right now. You’re grieving. You’re frustrated. You’re angry. And all of that can lead you into a place of despair, hopelessness, resignation.Now, I know that because I’m in the same boat. I’m feeling all the same stuff that you’re feeling.I wake up on many days and don’t recognize the country that I live in anymore...
2026-01-2703 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastI Get it. Hope Feels Stupid Right Now. Choose it Anyway.Things are terrible right now: objectively, historically, inarguably, breathtakingly terrible.In fact, the list of atrocities, offenses, and abominations in front of us is too lengthy to document, even if we made that our exclusive waking work (and some of us have been).But does that all mean that hope at this moment is unwise, a fool’s errand, downright stupid?I guess it all depends on how you define hope.I don’t see hope as toxic optimism, an ignoring of the data in front of us; not a burying of o...
2026-01-1604 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastDear Concerned Friend, You're F*ckin' Right I'm Angry... and I Wish You Were.Dear Concerned Friend,Thank you for your kind note letting me know that you’re worried about me, and you wonder if I realize I’m coming across as angry lately.Your assessment is correct, and yes, I do realize it.I am angry.I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry for that.I understand your discomfort, as I can imagine I’m not all that fun to be around right now, and that from time to time my words may come across as combative or abrasive or unhelpful. I’m probably more than a...
2026-01-1404 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastGood People, It's Time for Intoleranceus There’s a tiny prayer tucked away in the recesses of my heart for the year laid out in front of us; a modest aspiration for myself and for the sleep-deprived, emotionally dysregulated remnant of compassionate humans still inhabiting the place I’ve called home for the entirety of my journey.I don’t stretch wildly for the unrealistic, grandiose goals of fascism’s defeat or the driving out of despots or for the crafting of some impossible Utopian land freed from the malignancies of prejudices and ignorance that have been baked in since our birt...
2026-01-0204 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastWe Shouldn't Be Grieving Like This, AmericaI miss ordinary grief.My father died ten years ago, and lately, I grow nostalgic for the less complicated days when the only mourning I needed to contend with was his loss, when I could dwell solely on adjusting to the scalding pain of his absence.It was difficult enough back then, marshalling all my energies to bear the weight of that single, catastrophic passing and how different everything now was. At least then I could focus and attempt to wrap my mind around the unthinkable attrition I was experiencing. As formidable a...
2025-12-3104 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Epstein Files Have Fully Exposed the Right.The Jeffrey Epstein files, once fully released, will expose Epstein, detailing his prolific atrocities once and for all.They will expose the monstrous human beings who collaborated with him in doing irreparable harm to untold numbers of girls and young women.They will expose a sprawling network of perverts and deviants who used their collective influence and wealth to violate humanity in ways that are unthinkable to decent human beings.They will expose President Trump, whose ubiquitous presence in the files is the reason we have received only the mockery of pages of...
2025-12-2403 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastI Spoke on the National Mall. Here's What I Said About the Cancer of Donald Trump...Over the weekend, I gathered with thousands of people from every corner of this nation for ‘Remove the Regime,’ a rally calling for the impeachment, conviction, and removal of Donald Trump.If you couldn’t be with us, you can see the full event here:Here are the words I shared from the podium…Good afternoon, America. My name is John Pavlovitz, and I come to you from Raleigh, North Carolina.I’m grateful to be here today, but I need to tell you that I am not well...
2025-11-2406 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Pig President and His Swine SupportersThe President of the United States called a woman a pig.Can we all just take a minute and try to let that sink in?I know we’ve all gradually been desensitized over the last ten years, grown accustomed to his repugnant, sneering vulgarity; so used to his prolific indecency that it almost becomes white noise.But we need to remind ourselves of how very abnormal this all is. Faced with a question regarding one of the most expansive human trafficking investigations in our nation from a respected journalist, America’s Co...
2025-11-1904 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Christians Who Defend PredatorsSurveying my social media feed this week, the questions swirl like a storm inside my head as a former pastor:How does someone end up here?What happens in the journey of a soul that brings it to such a barren place?How does a human being reach this kind of moral wasteland? How do millions of professed followers of Jesus reach a point where they collectively harbor predators, willfully abandon survivors, and so easily redact the truth in order to shield the monsters from the raking light of accountability?
2025-11-1303 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastTo The People I've Lost Over PoliticsDear Friend,There’s a good chance you won’t see this, as at some point over the past year or so you either unfriended, unfollowed, or physically disconnected from me, or I from you. There may have been a decisive severing or a slow drifting apart, but the resulting space between us is the same. Still, I’m hopeful that somehow these words will reach you, because there are some things that you need to know; things that I need to say, if for nothing other than my own sanity.The fi...
2025-11-0804 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastStaying Human in Inhumane TimesI may not know you, but I think I know something about you.I know you’ve felt something break inside lately, an invisible fracture that only you’re fully aware of.I know the way you walk away from conversations with people you once relied on for wisdom and clarity and compassion, doubting your own sanity because you no longer recognize those things in them.I know the way you feel internally estranged from the friends, coworkers, family members, and neighbors you used to find affinity with—and you wonder if you’re losin...
2025-11-0204 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastTrump Supporters Are Miserable People. Let's Not Become Like Them.Miserable.Every time I see them, this is the word that prevails.Whenever I encounter a supporter of Donald Trump on social media now, or scan the crowds at his propaganda rallies, or see his surrogates bloviating on talk shows or pounding upon pulpits, I am left with the same conclusion: they are a people bereft of joy.There is so little happiness, so little benevolence, so little kindness.The emotional deficit is continually on display:In their contorted, sneering countenance; in their so readily brandished middle finger; in...
2025-10-3004 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastLooking for Hope? Try here...Running low on hope these days? You’re in good company, friend.For many of us, it’s been a tall order to try and fend off the discouragement that seems unrelenting right now; too much bad news for our battered minds to contain, too much sadness for us to bear. Sleep and rest have been hard to come by. Joy seems in short supply. I get it.If your eyes are tired from scanning the horizon, straining to see something good off in the distance, in the face of all this not-so-goodness in f...
2025-10-2404 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Demolition of the East Wing, and AmericaThis is painful to witness.Watching the White House’s beautiful East Wing being leveled by bulldozers, seeing decades of our nation’s rich history crumbling in a few senseless seconds, it’s impossible not to see it as a microcosm of what has been happening for the last ten months, and really the past decade.Trump is doing to it what he has been doing to America: tearing down generations of progress and possibility, disfiguring and erasing the work of so many who have come before him, and rebuilding it into his own bloated, garish...
2025-10-2303 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastA "Christian" Pride Festival protestor stopped me in the grocery store... They're worse than you think.Our town recently celebrated its second annual PRIDE Festival. It was, by all accounts, a joy-filled, loving celebration of our diverse community, marred only by the presence of a group of professed Christians who attended with the sole intention of making people feel unwelcome, unloved, and unsafe, and I wrote as much here.A couple of days later, I was in the grocery checkout line when a man behind me said, “Excuse me, are you John Pavlovitz?”I recognized him immediately.”I am,“ I responded.”I follow you on Twitter”, he said. ”Awesome,” I replied, shaking his hand...
2025-10-2007 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastCongratulations, Trump Supporters, You've Owned the LibsWell, Trump Supporters, as a member of the woke, radical Left, it kills me to say this, but you win.It’s not easy to admit you’ve been beaten, but there’s no hiding or denying it at this point.You’ve certainly owned the Libs this time…I mean, sure, food prices are through the roof, as are costs for healthcare and just about any goods or services you can name.And yes, our Military is being helmed by a fragile, incompetent news show host who intends to ignore the Geneva...
2025-10-0302 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastConservative White Christians Will Worship Anyone But JesusI’d like to say I’m shocked.I’d like to say this is an aberration.I wish I could tell you that the Conservative Christian canonizing of Charlie Kirk was unexpected; that the hundreds of thousands of professed followers of Jesus pouring into churches, local parks, football stadiums, and social media to engage in performative histrionics are temporarily caught up in some cultic fervor that will soon lift. Yet, as someone who pastored in predominantly white churches in the South for nearly three decades, this is all sadly on brand.To a...
2025-09-2104 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz Podcast'The Christian Left' Conversation With Bishop Talbert SwanReflection Questions:Bishop Swan says that progressive Christianity has “failed to confront the concept of whiteness, of power, of empire, and it has not confronted them with the boldness of the prophets that we read about.” Do you agree with him? If so, why do you believe this is the case? Where do you see that confrontation happening?When you hear Bishop Swan say that Christianity is “a sacrificial walk,” that “there are some things we're going to have to be willing to give up, and here's a level of comfort that we're going to have to be willing to give up...
2025-09-1834 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastWrite Your Eulogy TodayOne time, after we lost a family member, my wife and I were talking about funerals, and she asked me who I’d want to give the eulogy at mine. I jokingly said, “It doesn’t matter, I’m writing it myself, so they just have to read well.”We laughed, but as with all humor, there was a touch of truth buried there.I think most of us would probably like to write the story that people tell about us after we're gone.Anyone who's ever had the task of cr...
2025-08-0404 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastSunday Mourning (A Letter to Religious Prodigals and Church Orphans)The calendar can be cruel sometimes.There is a rhythm to our lives; a muscle memory that develops over time as we live and develop patterns of being. The consistencies in our schedule become stabilizing beams that help us feel secure and safe when everything around us seems uncertain: meals with our families, nighttime routines with our children, daily early morning rituals, weekly meetings with a group of friends, yearly holiday gatherings.We rely on this regularity to give us some feeling of comfort or control in the ever-present chaos, and when we lose those...
2025-08-0203 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastAmerican Eagle's Sydney Sweeney Ad Reveals White America's RacismRacists always out themselves.American Eagle’s campaign featuring white, blond, blue-eyed actress Sydney Sweeney with the tagline SYDNEY SWEENEY HAS GREAT JEANS, has triggered explosive national conversations on race, with assertions made by many that the ads elevate whiteness as an ideal and center Nazi eugenics.This morning, a post sat atop my X feed, featuring a white man’s commentary on a video posted by a black woman claiming that she is not welcome at the store.What followed was a swift and fierce parade of ignorance and bigotry by white comm...
2025-07-3004 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Conservative, "Pro-Life" Christian Love for AR-15sYesterday, a man walked into a Manhattan office building with an AR-15 and murdered four people before turning the gun on himself.I’m writing and recording this piece the morning after, knowing full well that soon this story will have vanished from the news and slipped from public consciousness. In a matter of days (if that), it will be replaced by yet another mass murder, the specifics of which will shift to one degree or another: the details of the shooter, the location of the horror, and the names and faces of the victims. In very sh...
2025-07-2904 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Epstein Files Have Already Exposed The RightThe Jeffrey Epstein files, if and when released, will expose Epstein, detailing his prolific atrocities once and for all.They will expose the monstrous human beings who collaborated with him in doing irreparable harm to untold numbers of girls and young women.They will expose a sprawling network of perverts and deviants who used their collective influence and wealth to violate humanity in ways that are unthinkable to decent human beings.But until that day comes, the Epstein files have already exposed so much more.They have exposed Attorney General Pam...
2025-07-2404 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastConfessions of a Radical, Woke LeftistWhew, this is a tough one to write, but I’ll try to get it out if you’ll bear with me.For the past couple of months, I’ve been doing some serious soul-searching, have spent hours in quiet reflection, and faced some hard truths.I need to come clean now and get this all out in the open.Man, I gotta admit those MAGAs in my mentions have been right all along: I am woke.“How woke?”, you ask.I hope you’re sitting down.I'm so woke...
2025-07-2003 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Fascists Are Trying to Break You, Good People. Don't Let Them.Hey, good human, I wanted to remind you of some things that you might have lost sight of lately:The exhaustion you feel right now?The heavy sadness that you can’t seem to shake? The sense of dread that hovers over you like a drone?The Resting WTF?! The Face you walk around with every day?The scalding rage bubbling just beneath the surface?This is all by design.This is intentional.This is the fascists’ master plan.The entire point of the chaos they are manu...
2025-07-1704 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Pathetic Weakness of MAGA MenAs I watch men on the Right arguing against the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, I am reminded again how weak they all are, what a pathetic joke MAGA manhood is as an idea.Despite all their performative Don’t Tread on Me bluster, they are morally impotent in the moments that truly matter.When the opportunity arrives for them to put their money where their mouths are and make a courageous stand, they’re suddenly struck by performance anxiety.Given the choice between exposing reprehensible men who have committed unspeakable violence agai...
2025-07-1604 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe I.C.E. Atrocities Should Be the Final Straw for Decent Human Beings.This should be the final straw for us, America.Compassionate human beings should not tolerate this.People who claim to be pro-life should be brought to tears.Those espousing family values should be fully incensed.Anyone with children of their own whom they love should be sick to their stomachs.Men and women of every faith should be unequivocally condemning this.People of conscience and morality should be unable to sleep.Good people ought to be fully heartbroken.This is a sharp line...
2025-07-1504 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Republican Need for Stupid PeopleThe Republican Party is destroying the Department of Education because it needs stupid people. They are its lifeblood.Trump and his career sociopaths know that as the world shrinks, technology improves, and human beings evolve, they cannot survive as an entity without a steady stream of people who have been weaned on a contempt for knowledge, people who never develop the ability to think critically; people who mock Science, abhor Medicine, and despise expertise. Such people are easily fooled, easily distracted, and ripe for indoctrination into a miserable and violent death cult.By dismantling the...
2025-07-1504 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastIf the President is a Pedophile...Dear Republican Voters, Trump Supporters, White Evangelicals, and MAGA Faithful,I’d like to ask you some questions, and I’d like to hear your honest responses…If the President is a pedophile, don’t you want to know?If the person in the highest seat of power in our nation is a serial predator, isn’t it important to bring that truth into the light?If our Commander-in-Chief committed sexual abuse of minors for years, doesn’t that matter to you?You see, I know how you might ha...
2025-07-1304 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastCall It What It Is: A Death CampWords have incredible power.They can create narratives, perpetuate myths, and amplify propaganda. They can twist the truth, bury it altogether, or shout it through a bullhorn. They can appeal to our better angels or conjure the worst of our demons.And in these moments when our Republic is teetering precariously on the edge of a moral abyss, words can pull us back from a free fall from which we can never return. We need to call this chain link Florida abomination what it is: a death camp.It...
2025-07-1203 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastAmerica is Losing Its Soul in Brown-Skinned Screams and White-Skinned SilenceAmerica is dying.I’m not referring to the systemic collapse of our Republic or the slow suffocation of Democracy here, though these are certainly not unlikely outcomes at this point. This is far deeper than the seats of power or a congressional alignment, more than the structural implosion of this nation.The greatest, most grievous failure of America in this moment isn’t legislative but moral.The soul of this place is dying in screams and silences.The brown-skinned screams rise from our collective home:The angu...
2025-07-1104 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastConservatives Hate Superman Because Goodness is Their KryptoniteSo, MAGAs are angry at Superman now.Well, more accurately, they’re angry at director and DC Studios head James Gunn for accurately saying of the film’s titular character that he is an “immigrant that came from other places,” and that some may take offense to the film because the film centers on “human kindness.”And, well, the rank-and-file of Trump’s perpetually offended misery movement didn’t need any more prompting than that to enter into a full-on fascist freakout, with Fox News branding the film "Superwoke” and Right-Wing social media threatening a boycott, lest thei...
2025-07-0903 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastI Miss Having a Human PresidentI can remember when we had a human president. It was only a few months ago, but it may have been a lifetime.Watching President Biden at the memorial service for Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, who were murdered in their homes by a Conservative Christian zealot, my heart broke open again at the sight of a leader of empathy performing the greatest act of leadership: being human.I realized that amid the unthinkable criminality, staggering overreach, and human rights rollbacks we’re living through, perhaps the most tragic lo...
2025-06-2803 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastI Don't Grieve His Hatred, Trump Supporter, I Grieve Yours.Trump Supporter, this isn’t about him. It never was.My sadness has nothing to do with him, despite what you think.I know who he is—and more accurately, I know what he is.From the very beginning, he’s just been a spotlight.He has simply revealed the disfigured ugliness of the place I call home and the people I live alongside—and that is the thing I grieve over. And this is not the mourning over a singular loss; it is a daily, recurring grieving.I grieve w...
2025-06-2803 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastZohran Mamdani's Win is Bringing a Renaissance of Republican Islamophobia.Move over, Queer People and Immigrants, Islamophobia is back on the GOP Menu!Over the past couple of years, Republicans have spent so much time in breathless histrionics over supposedly predatory transgender folks lurking in our public bathroom stalls and alleged drug-peddling Mexican gang members picking our strawberries, it’s been easy to forget how prevalent their Islamophobia is and always has been. Zohran Mamdani’s surprising New York City Democratic mayoral primary win has been a sickening reminder that Republicans have hated Muslims for a long time, and are ready to put that ugliness back...
2025-06-2704 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe GOP's Big, Beautiful BombsThe middling fireworks had barely fizzled out in the sky over Trump’s empty, energy-impotent, failed birthday ego event in DC, and you just knew something was coming, you just couldn’t be sure what it was.He was embarrassed, infuriated, and publicly humiliated, and something would need to be manufactured to steal the world’s gaze from the optics of No Kings Day’s glorious, exuberant outpouring and his limp, lifeless wannabe dictator farce…Ah, Iran… And there it was.And in the whirlwind of social media in the wake of Trump’s u...
2025-06-2404 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastDonald Trump is at War With the WorldDonald Trump bombing Iran without Congressional approval is not shocking. Since January 20th, he has rendered our Constitution virtually irrelevant, ignoring every policy, precedent, and channel designed to prevent a maniacal individual from operating unilaterally and endangering our people.However, his decision to declare war on Iran right now is surprising. He’s currently already at war with three other nations.Over the last five months, Trump has worked incessantly to ensure that Ukraine is fully delivered into Putin’s hands, attempting to publicly humiliate and vilify Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, spinning this as a...
2025-06-2203 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastHey, America, You Look Like You Need a HugMy country is hurting.We the people, are hurting.The hurt shows up in so many ways, ways that surprise and distract and confuse us, ways that don't always look like hurt from where we're standing, ways that don't seem like pain from a distance:Quick impatience with strangers in the checkout line.Emotional outbursts at people we love.Venomous, hateful, bitter social media tirades.Polarizing partisan rhetoric.Burning buildings and hurtful words and severed ties.Self-medication, self-harm, and self-destruction.These terrible, grief-worthy things are indeed exactly that: terrible and grief-worthy...
2025-06-2103 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Minnesota Shootings Reveal MAGA America's Moral Brokenness.Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were brutally murdered in their homes early Saturday morning. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also shot and seriously wounded in their homes and are both currently hospitalized.It would soon be revealed that the suspect in these shootings was an anti-abortion, Trump-supporting, evangelical Republican who also had eleven other Democratic officials on a list of intended targets.It is the kind of heinous violation of humanity that should have generated bipartisan outrage and condemnation; an act of violence that disgusted all decent...
2025-06-1504 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Right Doesn't Want Legal or Documented Immigrants, It Wants White OnesLet’s be honest, when it comes to human beings entering this country, Republicans, Evangelicals, and MAGAs don’t give a damn about documentation. It’s all about pigmentation.If all the immigrants were white, the violent and illegal I.C.E. abductions would suddenly cease.Conservative talk shows would magically stop declaring a "national emergency" at our southern border.There would no longer be talk from our MAGA neighbors of the lawless streams of bad people currently “overrunning" us.Republican politicians wouldn't be continually working to create connections between exhausted, desperat...
2025-06-1203 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastHey MAGAs, the Crisis in L.A. is Your FaultHey MAGAs, let’s be honest about what’s been happening this week in Los Angeles: this is your fault.This whole crisis exists because on the campaign trail, Trump promised you mass deportations, knowing that would swell your loins and tickle your racist fancies. He ran on a bigot’s fever dream of driving out tens of millions of supposed “illegals,” and that was all you needed to hear. The problem is, of course, is that he lacks a qualified Cabinet, an adult human attention span, and any kind of plan to vet millions of cases...
2025-06-1104 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastWe're Not Meant to Grieve This WaySo much suffering.So much death.So much sorrow.So much waste.We're not built for this. The days we find ourselves in are emotionally unsustainable.Our bodies and minds aren't equipped for this kind of protracted pain, this prolonged period of elevated urgency, this perpetual cumulative loss. That’s not how grief is supposed to work.Normally, we grieve over a moment. When someone we love dies, they die one time and we spend the rest of our lives processing that singular event—but this is a da...
2025-06-0303 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThis Pride Month Requires Stronger LGBTQ AlliesTo all those who imagine themselves to be friends, allies, and advocates of the LGBTQ community,As we enter PRIDE month, I think it’s important to say something to all of you, from someone who also aspires to be a support to queer human beings.This is not the PRIDE you have experienced in the past. There’s no way it can be.This is more than parades, rainbow flags, and memes.This is bigger than t-shirts and drag shows.This is about enlisting in a...
2025-06-0104 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Cure for the Male Loneliness Epidemic in America is Not Raising Them MAGALately, I’ve been reading and hearing a great deal about a supposed “Male Loneliness Epidemic in America.” My social media feed is filled with news stories, think pieces, and video commentaries lamenting the apparent pervasive sense of isolation young men here are afflicted with; the absence of deep friendships with other men and meaningful connections with women, and the higher rates of self-harm and suicide.And while the idea of a male loneliness epidemic itself feels a bit like a media fabrication, I will say that if such a debilitating emotional malady is indeed afflic...
2025-05-3103 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastDonald Trump is an Insult to Those Who Died Serving This NationPicture someone you love who died serving this nation, or even someone you’ve never met.Imagine them wherever they took their final breath on this planet: jumping into churning, frozen foreign seas in a screaming storm of artillery fire; shivering in a filthy trench in the terrifying blackness of an insect-blanketed jungle floor; jumping from a fire-engulfed plane into a disorienting maelstrom of explosions; crouched in the blazing sun within the crosshairs of a sniper perched a 500 meters away; withering away from malnutrition in anonymity and solitude.Try to place yourself in the company of...
2025-05-2504 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastPresident Biden's Health Announcement and the Cancer of TribalismThere are moments when you’re reminded just how far people around you have drifted from the plot of humanity, when you realize how poisoned by politics your family members, friends, and neighbors have become; the capacity for cruelty of those you share a country with.As President Biden and his family revealed the grim details of his Stage 4 metastasizing prostate cancer diagnosis, they came flooding from the virtual woodwork, rushing to add their grotesque insults to his grievous injuries—and it’s something that would have never happened ten years ago.A moment that in any...
2025-05-2003 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastYou Raised Me To Be A Good Person. Now, You Support Donald Trump.To My Loved Ones,I'm writing to let you know that I'm aware of what you think of me, either because you've told me during combustible room-clearing conversations, over terse cold war text exchanges, or in second-hand words passed through the people who now serve as the sole messengers between us.You believe I've changed.You think I've become radicalized by the Left, that I'm a woke bleeding-heart Liberal, that I'm an anti-Jesus, anti-American baby-killing heretic, determined to destroy the fabric of this nation with socialism, homosexuality, and wide-open borders.You...
2025-05-1503 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastFor Those Who Hurt on Mother's DayMother's Day.For many people, that means flowers and handmade cards and Sunday brunches and waves of laughter. It means celebration and gratitude and warm embraces and great rejoicing. It means resting fully in loving and being loved.But not for some people.For some, it only means tears.For some, it just hurts.In the hearts of many, this day is a bitter, unsolicited reminder of what was but no longer is, or a heavy holiday of mourning what never was at all.Maybe it is...
2025-05-1102 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastMother's Day Should Be a Woman's ChoiceMother's Day should not be compulsory for any woman.It should be the yearly celebration of a decision, a moment to mark with gratitude a beautiful but perilous journey one has carefully or prayerfully chosen to traverse.It should be an anniversary of choice.Mother’s Day should not be an annual reminder of a destiny decided by strangers who will never know their names nor care about their stories nor partner with them in any way.As the Republican Party and its surrogates in the highest court here move toward th...
2025-05-1103 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastShiloh Hendrix, White Christianity, and The Reward of Racism in AmericaShiloh Hendrix, a white woman from Rochester, Minnesota, was caught on camera in a local park playground using the N-word toward a 5-year-old Black autistic boy who she claimed had taken her diaper bag.In the video, as she is confronted by the man recording the video, Hendrix throws up a defiant middle finger and joyfully doubles down with a flurry of repetitions of the racist epithet, all while holding her own child under her arm.She should have received universal condemnation.Instead, she is being rewarded.Instead of expressing contrition for her...
2025-05-0704 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz Podcast5 Ways to Give Fascism a Middle FingerFascism is here. At this point, it’s too late to prevent its arrival, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a great deal you and I can do to slow its spread, dilute its power, and derail its mission. Here are a few suggestions on reaffirming your agency and flipping off the fascists. 1) Practice empathy loudly. With a President whose tenure has been marked by such malice and in an Administration so filled with cruelty, compassion and kindness are bold acts of resistance. Step out into your local community, alone...
2025-05-0604 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Tariff on Hatred is Here, Trumpers. It's Time for You to PayIt's time to pay up, Trumpers.The deferred invoice for collectively selling your souls is here.It's time to pay for every incendiary campaign boast you cheered,every baseless diatribe you vigorously applauded,every nonsensical middle-of-the-night tweet you boosted,every dehumanizing stereotype and slur you shared,every callous rally insult you passionately amen-ed.It’s time to pay for every denial of Scientific evidence,every terminated qualified conscientious objector,every attack on factual, responsible journalism,every vicious assault on objective reality,every nepotistic Cabinet appointment,every dog-and-pony show distraction,every lazy xenophobic caricature,ev...
2025-05-0503 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastAmericans, Stop Waiting for America to Look Like What You Think Fascism Will Look LikeAmerica is tragically deceptive right now.You can go out today in your local community, and everything looks perfectly normal: the sun is shining, pickleball courts are packed, people are out on restaurant patios having lunch, and kids are playing in elementary school playgrounds.It doesn’t look like a fascist dictatorship, it doesn’t feel like a failing democracy, which is why we’re in such trouble right now.Too many people here are waiting for some horrific, visible marker that tells them authoritarianism is here: a declaration of Martial Law, tanks rollin...
2025-05-0104 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastWas This Worth It, Trump Voters?Trump Voters,Pardon me for interrupting America’s Greatness Celebration, but I was thinking about you today.I really have to wonder what story you’re telling yourself after 100 days of this person in power:The Stock Market is in a free fall comparable only to the Great Depression.Your retirement portfolio is surely circling the drain.We’re in a fruitless, completely unnecessary trade war with our allies.Prices on groceries and online products are rising exponentially.Massive layoffs are now beginning all over the country.We are rapidly approaching what appears to be...
2025-04-3003 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastCanada is Great—and Trump Has Nothing to Do With itI owe Canada an apology.Like millions of other Americans, over the past few hours, I’ve been guilty of sarcastically giving Donald Trump credit for “keeping Canada great,” in the wake of Mark Carney and the Liberal Party’s unthinkable comeback, after being down by double digits just a couple of months ago.And yes, it is true that Trump’s completely asinine and unnecessary trade wars, his nonsensical talks of annexing Canada, and his never-ending s**t stirring with our upstairs neighbors, have certainly partially fueled the election results—it would be a gross mistak...
2025-04-2903 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastIf Your Church Won't Speak Out About a Deported Father (and Thousands More Like Him)—It May as Well Cancel EasterAs a former pastor of over two decades, I could seriously throw up right now.The Trump Administration wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father of four, to a brutal prison in El Salvador and it is defiantly refusing to honor a SCOTUS ruling ordering him to be returned to his family. A flesh-and-blood human being made in the image of God (in Christian langauge) is knowingly being denied his human and civil rights by our president, separated from his family, and being traumatized in ways none of us can fathom.And in...
2025-04-1504 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastForget Anti-Christian Bias. The Trump Administration Has Anti-Jesus BiasAs Christianity’s Holy Week begins marking the final week of Jesus’ life as presented in the Bible, the State Department under Marco Rubio recently instructed all of its employees to report coworkers for ”anti-Christian bias.” The directive supports an Executive Order signed by Donald Trump in February, proposing to root out Federal employees who oppose Christianity—and it is irony of Biblical proportions.There is no anti-Christian bias in American Government. There is anti-Jesus bias in MAGA Christianity.The truth is, the Jesus of the Gospels wouldn't have stood a chance under this Admin...
2025-04-1304 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastI Just Got Back From Europe. They All Know That America's a Mess and That He's Nuts.My family and I had barely been in our Lisbon Uber for ninety seconds when our gregarious driver Nuno, recognizing our accents asked, “So… are you pro-Trump or anti-Trump?”For a split-second I froze, as two alternate scenarios played out in my head: Were we about to be warmly embraced by a kindred spirit from an ocean away, or find ourselves in the back of a Portuguese fascist sympathizer’s car preparing for an awkward conversation and early exit?Suddenly, I heard my voice clumsily blurt out: “We are… extremely not pro-Trump.” Now, unlike...
2025-04-1003 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastCongratulations, MAGAs, You Defeated Our Woke Liberal AgendaYesterday, I commented on social media about the unparalleled Stock Market free-fall we’re experiencing due to Donald Trump’s stupefyingly asinine tariff war. I noted the profound economic trauma it is causing the world and hundreds of millions of Americans, and I received a reply from a young mom from Texas with both Jesus and an American flag in her bio, similar to many I’ve gotten recently:Cry harder! You woke Leftists have lost!Wait… woke lost? Is that possible?After some uncomfortable soul-searching and a quick perusal of the news, I had to...
2025-04-0803 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastYours to Hold: A Beautiful, Messy MinuteRight now, you and I are being perpetually bombarded with an onslaught of soul-crushing news, Constitutional crises, and human rights atrocities. It is beyond what we can carry.One of the byproducts of this sustained urgency is that we can find ourselves so pulled in a million directions that we are unable to be lucid and effective.I’ve found one of the most helpful questions in these and other times of adversity to be, “What is mine to hold?”It’s about seeing the threats, acknowledging the suffering, and admitting the scale of the p...
2025-04-0701 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastDear Jesus, Do I Really Have to Love My Enemies?"You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. - JesusDear Jesus,Today I realized something about me that makes me a bit sick to my stomach, something I’m embarrassed to admit: I may not be all that interested in loving my enemies after all.It sure sounded like a nice idea a few years ago, though. Man, back then I could drop t...
2025-03-2703 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Cure for America's Cruelty SicknessI am a collector of stories.I watch people, I listen closely to them, and I eavesdrop on their conversations in person and on social media. I look for patterns and try to understand what's happening to us as a nation.I've tried to put my finger on how I'm feeling lately, how I think so many of us are feeling out there.It isn't outrage. We've been there for a while now if we've been paying attention at all.It isn't anger. That's familiar territory for people whose eyes have been opened...
2025-03-2404 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastHey Guys, We Need to Stop Being So Mean to Elon.(Extreme Satire Warning)Hey Everyone,Enough’s enough here, OK? This has all gone too far.We all need to be nicer to Elon.Last night, I watched the wealthiest man in the world on Fox News, pouring his heretofore undiscovered heart out while lamenting the loss of a few of his scorched, overpriced metal children. I felt so profoundly sad for him.“I always thought that Democrats were supposed to be the party of empathy.” He said, clearly grieving.“ I’ve never done anything harmful, I’ve only done...
2025-03-1903 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastConfessions of a Hateful LeftistYesterday, a Trump supporter told me I was hateful.He was surprised when I agreed with him. For a long time, when confronted on social media or in person by a stranger or a family member with similar allegations, I passionately refuted them. I immediately mounted a fierce defense of my position, offering inarguable evidence proving that they'd mislabeled, misrepresented, or misunderstood me.I don't do that any longer.Now, I simply admit that they are right because they are.I am a hateful human being.
2025-03-1804 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastTo President Zelenskyy, From an Embarrassed AmericanDear President Zelenskyy,As it is likely that our paths will never cross in person, I could not let this day go by without trying to reach you here.I come to you humbly as an American citizen who is thoroughly and completely embarrassed of our leaders.For the last six years, I like many of those who call this place home have marveled at your courage, your resilience, and your dignity in the face of the unthinkable atrocities committed against you and your people by Vladimir Putin and his accomplices. ...
2025-02-2803 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastTo Hell With Your Hatred, Mr. TrumpDear Donald Trump,I grew up believing that Hell is a terrible place.It is a place where horrible things belong; where ugly, vile, sickening stuff should go and never escape from.It is a place where the violent and the predatory and the evil things of this world should forever spend their days.Hell is where hateful souls should permanently call home.It is not a place for underfed children or for terrified parents or for sick people or for those already on the margins.Hell...
2025-02-1903 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Abusive Relationship of Trump and His Supporters(Trigger warning: domestic violence imagery)It's heartbreaking to see someone you love in a toxic relationship:watching them be continually torn down and berated, treated with complete disregard, publicly humiliated over and over again—and knowing that despite how much damage has been inflicted, they will likely stay with their abuser to their own detriment.There is a unique kind of helplessness when a human being is so blinded by their past hopes about what the other person might become, that they can't see what they actually are presently; when they are so co...
2025-02-0304 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastHey White MAGA Christians, You Know DEI Was Jesus' Whole Point, Right?So, DEI is the new “woke”: MAGA America’s default boogeyman-du-jour. It’s the latest convenient catch-all for Trump and his party to invoke at every opportunity as the scapegoat for crime, natural disasters, public health emergencies—and apparently, somehow, airplane crashes.And as with every phony threat and manufactured evil spewed into the ether by Republican leaders to manipulate the ignorant and bigoted; his rabid, cultic automatons rush to mindlessly regurgitate and manifest it—allowing them to bypass objective data, complex problems, and especially their own culpability in addressing societal ills.And sadly, among...
2025-01-3106 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastPlease, Don't Normalize This MadnessSomething often happens to people exposed to repeated trauma.Gradually, they become conditioned to accept the horrors as commonplace. Time and brutality start to wear down their defenses and sap their emotional resources and they begin learn to live alongside the most malignant sickness as if it were ordinary.Slowly but quite decidedly, they grow numb to the unthinkable cruelty and the sustained violence until it all begins to seem normal. Eventually, even the most compassionate of human beings loses the ability to be outraged or to push back or to even care. Self-preservation begins...
2025-01-3004 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Subversive Activism of GratitudeThese are days when gratitude might not come easy for you.It's tempting to scan the horizon each morning and to let our gaze rest and fix solely on the things that burden us; on the sorrow-bringers and the treachery they manufacture, on the terror we are daily surrounded by because of their seemingly boundless capacity to injure and attack.We can easily allow the perpetual, urgent storm they manufacture to obscure the light from view, to fool us into believing that the night has permanently fallen on our best days.But this...
2025-01-0703 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastYes, World, it's That Bad Here in America. (Actually, it's Worse.)A friend from Australia texted me last week. He’d been watching the election news and said he wanted to check on me.We’re heartbroken to see what’s going on there. he wrote. Is it really as bad as it looks?Another sweet reader from England messaged me this morning with similar concern for me and for our nation, based on what she’s been reading and seeing in the media.Over the past two weeks, I’ve had many kind-hearted people from all over the world make similar inquiries ab...
2024-11-1704 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastWe Were Wrong About AmericaThe results of the presidential election have force-fed many of us the most bitter of pills: we were wrong about America.The fact that the results weren’t even close despite Trump’s campaign formed almost exclusively of xenophobia, misogyny, and white nationalism, is confirmation that a substantial portion of this nation is no longer accessible by reason or data or empathy.Numbed by a cocktail of optimism, ignorance, and wishful thinking, many of us imagined that the previous two elections were somehow momentary aberrations; temporary glitches in the system that would surely be r...
2024-11-1105 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastMAGAS Lost the Election, Too. They Just Don't Know it Yet.There is joy in MAGAville right now.They’re arrogantly reveling in a euphoric moment they’ve been lustfully coveting for the past four years: their mobster messiah has risen from the dead, his glorious second coming imminent, his anti-woke American kingdom come.And in their emotionally-intoxicated state they’re puffing out their chests on social media, brazenly posturing on street corners, toasting to their oppressed white victory with Solo cups filled with liberal tears. They’re wildly dancing to Kid Rock on the grave of Kamala Harris and Democrats.But their strident victory...
2024-11-0904 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastI Have Seen America: An Election Day MeditationWe're finally here.After all the work and worry and predicting and waiting we've reached this day, one that will change many so things around us.I'm pretty much physically and emotionally exhausted, as I know many of you are, but it's the good kind of tired; the sweet fatigue from working for something beautiful you believe in and want to see continue. It's the feeling of knowing you left it all out on the field, that you did all you knew to do, that you have spent yourself in the name of what you treasure.
2024-11-0503 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastWe are the Enemy WithinDonald Trump is absolutely right about us: we are the enemy within.We are the enemy within homes and family holiday gatherings, filled with people we once loved and respected; older relatives who, when growing up, told us to be good people and to live with honesty and decency, who taught us to stand up to the bullies and to make sure no one was abused for being different. We are there to make them accountable for betraying every lesson they ever taught us then, by now partnering with someone who embodies the very vicious, broken person...
2024-10-2803 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThis is Why I'm VotingThis election, I’m voting.I’m voting for my wife,for my children, for my family,for my friends,for my neighbors.I’m voting for other people’s spouses and partners,for their children,their friends,their neighbors.I’m voting for the LGBTQ community.For people of every color.For people of every faith.For men.For women.For children.I’m voting for civility.For decency.For equality.For unity.For humanity.I’m voting against bigotry.and hatred,and exclusion,and fear,and false stories,and la...
2024-10-1603 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastMAGA Can Have Their Hate Cult. They Can't Have America.It’s a cult.It’s as simple as that.For a decade now, we’ve all tried to analyze it, to explain it, to make some kind of sense of it.We’ve parsed out every voting issue, every contributing societal factor, every possible justifiable explanation. We’ve microscopically studied the theological, political, and cultural influences.We’ve tried offering a listening ear, looking for common ground, sharing our stories, providing factual information: all the methods that are supposed to help reach human beings across a divide of disagreement...
2024-10-0604 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastIf All Immigrants Coming Here Were WhiteI can’t help but believe that if all the immigrants coming into America were white, things would be very different here right now.We'd never have heard anything about building a wall during the 2016 Presidential campaign.It wouldn't have become a Republican rally chant, a Conservative hashtag staple, a MAGA t-shirt favorite, a Donald Trump fixation.Republicans wouldn't be forever declaring a "national emergency" at our southern border whenever their polls are failing.There would be no talk of the lawless streams of bad people currently "overrunning" us....
2024-09-2904 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Exhaustion of Pretend Patriotism and Phony FaithLife is exhausting these days for many of us and I think I've figured out why.I think it's the pretending we’re witnessing.You see, it's bad enough watching nearly half our nation becoming fully indoctrinated into a sycophantic cult of personality of the very worst kind of person; to see once reasonable people abandon any semblance of benevolence toward diverse humanity, to find themselves so deluded by tribalism that they declared war on vaccines and gay kids and the electoral process—all the while assuming some supposed moral high ground.And as i...
2024-09-1904 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastTrump Supporters, Don't Blame the Debate Moderators For His ImplosionDesperate Trump Supporters,This is silly.Stop complaining about the debate moderators or ABC.Donald Trump’s debate disaster isn’t their fault.Did they fill his empty head with nonsensical stories about immigrants eating pets that he felt compelled to ramble on about, despite getting immediately fact-checked?Did they prevent him from coming up with a healthcare plan over the past nine years?Did they force him to launch into an asinine rant about the size of his rally crowds?Did they fool him into trafficking in racist tropes and anti...
2024-09-1202 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastDonald Trump's Mockery of American ValorI keep waiting.I keep waiting for Conservative Americans to awaken from their Star-Spangled stupor, to find the lucidity and sobriety that see him clearly.I keep waiting for them to stop gaslighting themselves and the truly patriotic people of this nation by telling us we haven’t seen what we’ve seen and heard what we’ve heard.I keep waiting for the ceremonial tribalism of politics to burn away in the fire of a true love of country that will not be ridiculed.I keep waiting for them to admit...
2024-08-2904 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastTim Walz and The Rise of Non-Toxic MasculinityWhen Vice President Kamala Harris announced that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz would be her running mate in the coming presidential campaign, the decision was met with effusive praise from both Blue voters, as well as a disparate group of politicians and commentators.Walz’ effortless warmth, his heart-on-sleeve demeanor, and his undeniable joy for life, which have been apparent for a long time in his home state—have suddenly become a national story. In a matter of hours, millions of people fell in love with the Governor, sharing videos of he and his daughter on thrill rides at the State Fair...
2024-08-0704 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Olympics Didn't Mock Jesus. Trump and His Supporters Are.Cue the Conservative outrage machine…Social media was flooded with the performative histrionics of professed American Christians, incensed at the inclusion during the Olympics’ opening ceremony, of a drag performer parody of Leonardo DaVinci’s Last Supper, which they claim is another example of their incessant persecution.How could they mock God like this? What a brazen anti-Christian display! Jesus is weeping!These folks seem to lack self-awareness, a mirror, and a Bible, because they’ve been openly ridiculing God for nearly the last decade by passionately supporting Donald Trump and doing so quite un...
2024-07-2704 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastJoe Biden Put America FirstAfter three weeks of incessant media fixation and social media handwringing, President Biden announced that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential campaign.The beautiful irony of this act, is that by removing himself from contention for the November election, Biden reminds us once again why he was and is so deserving of leading America, and why he is the human being and leader that Donald Trump could never be.Joe Biden did something the Republican nominee forever preaches but has never once practiced in his life or his political tenure: he actually put America...
2024-07-2204 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Christians Who Hate JesusI used to think I was a Christian.I was raised in a Christian home and went to a Christian school. After a few meandering spiritual wilderness years, I attended a Christian seminary, became a Christian pastor, and have served in Christian churches for most of the past twenty-five years of my life.I've read and studied and preached the Scriptures extensively, led community Bible studies and student retreats and overseas mission trips, ministered in tiny rural chapels and massive gleaming megachurches.As a result of these decades immersed in the Christian tradition...
2024-07-1806 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastHappy Interdependence DayFreedom is a really nice illusion.The idea of individual autonomy is one fought for every single day in my country, and I suspect in yours as well. It’s the public battleground where so much blood is shed and so many hills are taken, only to be lost again.And yet beneath every moment of necessary struggle and every well-earned bit of progress toward personal liberty, there is a greater war to be won: the one to remember and honor our connectedness.We are an ever more siloed people, deeply sequestered in the pr...
2024-07-0404 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastTo the People I've Lost Over Politics and ReligionDear Friend,There's a good chance you won't see this, as at some point over the past few years you either unfriended, unfollowed, or physically disconnected from me—or I from you. There may have been a decisive severing or a slow drifting apart, but the resulting space between us is the same. Still, I'm hopeful that somehow these words will reach you, because there are some things that you need to know; things that I need to say, if for nothing other than my own sanity.The first thing I want...
2024-06-2804 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Playground Bullies Became Christian Nationalists and MAGA RepublicansI've always despised bullies.Ever since I was a young boy I could see them clearly: on the playground and in the hallways and on the street corners—the way they terrorized people while being themselves internally terrified.Even as they brutalized the other kids with words and fists, I heard the shaking of their voices and noticed their quivering hands, and I knew how petrified they were.I almost pitied them.Almost.I watched them prey upon those who were vulnerable or alone or different—not because these peop...
2024-05-2204 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastSpeaking at Your Own FuneralEvery time I attend a funeral or memorial service, I think about how powerless the guest of honor is.Conversations take place, tributes and memories are offered, events of their lives are recalled, intimate stories are relayed—and they can’t do a thing about any of it. Once someone dies they are defined and summarized without their consent.If there’s one certainty of this life, it’s that we all will surely find ourselves in a similar situation, including you.I’m sorry to remind you but there will come a day when y...
2024-05-1904 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastIt's Teacher Appreciation Week. If We Truly Appreciate Teachers, We Need to Fight For Them.We all have a story we tell ourselves: a sometimes aspirational mythology about what kind of human beings we are, about what truly matters to us, and about how we’re using the one life we’ve been given. And then, there is the unadorned nonfiction of our daily existence, the unalterable declaration we make by our presence that speaks with great eloquence who we really are.It’s Teacher Appreciation Week and many of us need to decide where we stand, both figuratively and literally.Each of us would profess gratitude for our teachers, for th...
2024-05-0704 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe United Methodist Church is Finally Repenting of Its LGBTQ DiscriminationThe United Methodist Church recently decided to reverse its ban on LGBTQ clergy.As someone who served in the UMC for 17 years, nearly a decade of those in one of the 100 largest churches in the country—it's about damn time!Traveling this country and engaging thousands of Christians every month, I encounter local faith communities both inside and outside the United Methodist Church, who claim to be LGBTQ-affirming or LGBTQ-inclusive but who want to do so with all sorts of caveats or conditions in place. They aspire to see themselves as open to di...
2024-05-0504 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastKristi Noem, Killing Dogs, and the Right's Selective Gun Violence OutrageThey say every dog has its day…There’s been a rare bipartisan outpouring of outrage in response to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s revelations in a forthcoming book, of her shooting and killing a 14-month old hunting dog: an act that she not only deemed innocuous enough to include, but one she actually manages to use as an example of her willing to do “unpleasant jobs.” In the terrifying world inside her head, Noem (a speculated Trump VP candidate) sees this as a noble act, something to engender kudos and hat tips from her rank-and-file. This isn’t...
2024-04-2703 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastAmerica Deserves Better Than ThisI love this country.I don't love it blindly, though.I don't love it unconditionally.I don't love it unreservedly.I love it with my eyes wide open, my mind fully lucid, my senses completely awake.I see well its every disfigurement and blemish, every grotesque part of its past and every ugly bit of its present.I see the crucible of colonialism it was formed in, the genocide and white supremacy it has been built upon and sustained by, and the insidious anti-Semitism and perverted Christian t...
2024-04-1205 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastThe Beautiful Exhaustion of Compassionate PeopleAre you exhausted right now?Be grateful.That is a good thing.You see, that weariness is confirmation that your heart is working properly.It is your humanity responding to so much inhumanity around you.It is evidence of your goodness still fighting to feel useful, to push back against a steady and furious stream of ugliness.Your heavy fatigue in this moment is the internal alarm that will not allow you to proceed unaffected while so many grieve here, while war rages half a...
2024-04-0504 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastNEW BOOK SNEAK PEEK!Hey Beautiful Mess Community!To celebrate us reaching 10,000 subscribers today, here’s an exclusive excerpt from my forthcoming book, Worth Fighting For, arriving April 2nd. This is called ‘Warning Lights.’Enjoy!JohnHow long has this light been on?I asked my teenage son, after tossing down the keys to the car I once owned but have since gradually been evicted from. “I’m not sure,” he matter-of-factly replied without raising his head from his phone. “So, a few hours, a day, a couple of weeks, what?” I asked, hoping elevated vo...
2024-03-2407 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastIt's Time to Say Goodbye, AmericaAmerica, we will soon say goodbye to something.One way or another this year will end with a farewell.It will either close with a glorious, triumphant blast of freedom—or with the sickening death knell of a once-great nation, gone for good.Either America will part ways with the Republican candidate for president (and his sycophantic enablers and coconspirators) or we will part ways with democracy.Those are the two choices here. There is no third option.This moment is about each of us choosing which of...
2024-03-1204 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastFacing America's Empathy PovertyAmerica is facing a growing poverty in these days.We are going broke an alarming rate and we need to do something quickly to change our collective fortunes.This is a national paucity of the gravest kind: a base level lack of compassion for the welfare of other human beings. It is trickle-down cruelty flowing from the top; an unapologetic callousness that revels in its contempt for people who are hurting or hungry or vulnerable—and it is changing us.Though they loudly claim to embrace both the Golden Rule and Je...
2024-02-2804 min
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz PodcastI Don't Grieve His Hatred, I Grieve Their HatredThis was never about him.My Trump-supporting family members and former friends think it has been but my sadness really has nothing to do with him.From the very beginning he’s just been a spotlight.Over the past few years, he has simply revealed clearly the hidden ugliness of the place I call home and the people I live here alongside and that is the thing I grieve over. And this is not the mourning over a singular political loss a few years ago, it has been a daily and pe...
2023-12-0804 min