The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz Podcast

This one hurts like hell. This planet has lost so much with the passing of Dolly Parton that it’s difficult to even find a foothold for the grief, a place to begin to process all that she was and all that she gave us. In the coming days, there will be countless, well-deserved tributes devoted to her seismic songwriting and singing career, her formidable business acumen, her indefatigable optimism,...

Some days I wonder if this nation can be saved. I know what I’m supposed to believe. I’m supposed to believe that America is still in its infancy, that it is a beautiful but complicated idea, that we simply haven’t become what we can and will become. I’m supposed to remember that history is cyclical, that all barbaric regimes are temporary, and that every evil empire invariably falls. I’m supposed...

Friends, these days will kill you if you’re not careful. As we find ourselves fully engulfed in the Category 5 s**t storm that is a second Trump term, two things are irrefutably clear: it’s much worse than we thought it would be, and it’s gonna get much worse before it gets better. At this point, even the most pessimistic post-2024 election predictions have woefully underestimated the scope and ve...

The Christian Right has been right. For decades they tried to tell us that the sky was falling, that devils and demons were walking among us, that the end of all we love was so very nigh. For decades they lamented our imminent moral devastation, trying to prepare us (as good prophets do) for the quickly encroaching enemy coming to enslave decent people to their sadistic religious perversions. They...

Ignorance is not a compelling argument at this point. We’ve all heard the theories for the last ten years: people still supporting Donald Trump are unwitting victims of the partisan media and Evangelical alternate reality that they’ve been raised in and are still captives of. We’re told that they’re continually surrounded by bad theology, fake news, and endless conspiracy, and so they aren’t bad p...

To the Ministers in America, I’ve been where you are. For nearly 30 years, I stood in the pulpits and on the platforms where you now stand. I know the difficulties of the work you do that many people don’t think about: the collective expectations of the people you serve, the incredible pressures that come from both above and around you, the number of opinions you have to respectfully sift through....

Dear Karoline, Well, here we are, or more accurately, here you are. I’d like to say I’m surprised, though that would be a lie. We all saw this coming for you (well, those of us not indoctrinated into a treasonous predator’s mindless death cult). Like Pam and Tulsi and Kristi, and countless women before, you were destined to find yourself here. This was always how this was going to end: with you fi...

This should be easy. We are now two years into the most openly corrupt, inept, and relentlessly predatory presidential administration in our nation’s history. We have watched an extremist minority commandeer Congress, the Justice Department, our Military, and the highest court in our nation, mounting an unprecedented repeal of the rights of women, of environmental protections, of voting rights, of...

A full decade into one of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history, white people in this country need to be honest about something: White Christians ruined everything. Over the last ten years, self-identified followers of Jesus have almost singlehandedly destroyed all that was good and decent and beautiful in America by hitching themselves to a monster and refusing to let go, no matter how unr...

“So, this is what it’s like to feel normal.” As I sat in a small cafe overlooking a sun-dappled Florentine piazza, that thought floated in with the evening breeze, bringing a protracted exhale that surprised me, as if I’d suddenly remembered how to breathe again. It had taken me nearly five full days away from America to begin to realize how very unwell I’d been, how physically and emotionally dep...

Recently, I was on a Zoom call with some of my Substack subscribers. We were processing the state of our nation, which we all agreed was somewhere between sky-is-falling and Armageddon. The conversation turned toward the alleged bright spot found in the reality of many of Trump's supporters joining the Leaving MAGA movement; finally being roused from the ten-year stupor of cultic adoration enough...

“I never wished for someone to die before. I’ve been suicidal many times in my life—but I’ve never been homicidal.” So began the tearful confession of a middle-aged woman who approached me after an event in Lincoln, Nebraska. She paused for a second, exhaled loudly, and then continued, her voice shaking: “I’m ashamed to say that I find myself wishing these terrible people would just... disappear ,...

America 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. T...

All over America, MAGA Republicans will stream into churches this Sunday. They will do so joyously. They will do so confidently. They will do so believing they are righteous. It will be another hollow procession of fervent disciples of a felon-predator who have again spent the past week applauding the abuse and degradation of the poorest and most vulnerable among us. They will proudly carry their...

I’m just gonna come right out and say it: I’ve had it with people right now. OK, it’s probably not particularly healthy to have a grievance with an entire species, so let me narrow that down a bit… I’m angry with everyone who isn’t angry. I’m having a really hard time with the unbothered people, the “everything is gonna be fine” people, the people who are acting as though they are above those of u...

Hey. I may not know you but I know what you’re thinking. I know you feel something breaking 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 and worry you may be overreacting. I know...

This President has been many things since descending an escalator a decade ago: a national embarrassment, a global punchline, an environmental disaster, a divider of people, a prolific murderer of the English language, not to mention countless human beings. But he’s also been a floodlight. He’s fully exposed millions of people who’d kept themselves carefully concealed, many of whom I thought I kne...

It feels like a good portion of this nation is on death watch right now. My social media feed is filled with photos and videos gleefully documenting the markers of his physical deterioration, with rising hope as his public appearances grow more sporadic, with almost giddy prognostications of his departure date from this place. People are posting their plans as if preparing for New Year’s Eve or a...

Republicans are telling us something right now, America: They know they can’t win in November. They’re shouting with absolute clarity that they know they can’t. They’re declaring it through their unceasing attempts to gerrymander millions of people’s voices out of the political process. They’re confessing as much through nonsensical word salad press conferences, condemning mythical past election f...

Growing up in the Church, I was taught that the worst thing one could be was a non-believer; that nothing was as tragic as a damned soul that condemned itself by rejecting God. The religion of my childhood drew a sharp, clear line between the saved and the damned. All that mattered was making sure someone found themselves on the better side of this line, and the Atheists, Humanists, and Democrats...

This mess we’re in? It has nothing to do with politics. The current President is a court-adjudicated rapist who recently paid nearly 6 million dollars in damages for sexual assault and defamation. His name appears tens of thousands of times in the Epstein Files, and he has been credibly accused by dozens of women of sexual assault and harassment. He is a 34-count felon, indicted four separate time...

To Our Loved Ones, To Our Grandparents, Parents, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, and Older Siblings, We’re aware of what you think of us, either because you’ve told us during explosive, room-clearing conversations, over terse Cold War text exchanges, or in second-hand words passed through the people who now serve as the sole intermediaries between us. You believe that we’re lost. You believe we’ve changed...

Hey, good human. (Yeah, you.) 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 Face you walk around with every day? The scalding rage bubbling just beneath the surface? This is all by design. This is intentional. Thi...

Lindsey Graham is dead, and it gives me no joy. This is not a celebration; it is a lament. The moment any human being leaves this planet, it is almost always an occasion to mourn. When death arrives, it is a permanent interruption, an unexpected or unwanted end to a complIcated life in progress. There is an incompleteness that comes: work left undone, plans abandoned, journeys ceased. In nearly ev...

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. Renee Good. Alex Pretti. Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez. These are merely the murdered whose names we know, the ones they could not conceal or cover over. They are four, once-in-history, never-to-be-repeated human beings assassinated by empowered sociopaths who feel no accountability to the laws of this land or of any higher laws. And for each of these, there are thousands upon...