The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz Podcast

There’s no other way to say it: these are dark days here in America. And this lack of light has nothing to do with the orientation of the planet and everything to do with the trajectory of our nation. Outside of a very select few who are benefiting from the discord, no one is particularly festive right now and for good reason. We’d be foolish not to feel the tension we’re sitting in, not to see th...

If irony were deadly, JD Vance would have expired this weekend. The Vice President stood on a stage at Turning Point USA’s annual conference, and without an atom of sarcasm (and even less self-awareness), boldly declared to a crowd of white Christian nationalists, knuckle-dragging MAGA cultists, and career racists that "In the United States of America, you don't have to apologize for being white a...

In my travels across this country over the past decade both in person and virtually, I’ve often asked people a simple, elemental question: What kind of person does the world need right now? Regardless of their political affiliation or religious tradition, there has always been great commonality in their answers. People invariably use words like compassion, kindness, generosity, and courage. They a...

Here in America, the days are rapidly getting shorter, the temperatures are dropping precipitously, and the calendar has been reduced to just a handful of days. It will soon be Christmas here, and frankly, the timing ain’t great. Honestly, many of us here feel ill-prepared or perhaps altogether unfit for the requisite joy of the season. More than any time in recent memory, we sit in the profound t...

Words are my life’s work. They have been for a long time now. Every day over the last fifteen years, I’ve positioned myself in front of a stark white gleaming rectangle, stared at a steadily blinking cursor inviting me forward, and done my best to make sense of the moment in front of me; to say something meaningful, something that might reach from my hands and into the hearts of another human bein...

Every allegiance has a cost. There is a price tag to irrational fidelity. Passionate devotion to something always comes at the neglect of something else, or sometimes even its total disregard. Exactly 13 years after the horrors of Sandy Hook Elementary, Conservative America’s abnormal adoration of guns continues to kill our children. Seeing petrified Brown University students crammed into utility...

Dear Donald, I am an American citizen. I am a taxpayer. I am a person of faith. I am a father and husband. And I am a dissenter. I wanted to state that clearly for the record, so that there can be no mistaking where my allegiances lie. They are to the Constitution, and to the Rule of Law, and to the teachings of Jesus, and to my conscience, and these things place me in direct opposition to you and...

Have you ever felt like something was off, something you couldn’t quite place but you were sure of just the same; that despite all the trappings of normal and appearances of routine, there hovered a subtle but very profound not-rightness ? Well, something is not right within me these days, and I know it. I’m not sure how to describe it other than to say that lately, something is missing. I think i...

I’ve been around a long time. Over the last forty years, I’ve worked as a freelance illustrator, an art director, a working musician, and a published author. During that time, I’ve watched the sad and slow erosion of appreciation for creative human beings and for the work of their hands. I could nuance the language and wordsmith the delivery to make it more palatable, but the naked, unadorned trut...

Christian, I’m trying to reconcile two things I’ve seen this season, maybe you can help me make sense of them… On one hand, I’ve seen your house, meticulously strewn with glowing lights announcing peace on earth, goodwill toward men. I’ve seen the outward displays of fervent religion in cards you’ve sent me and in heavily filtered Instagram posts that fill my newsfeed. I’ve seen your performative...

This is not about politics. I wish it were, though, as that would be relatively easy to navigate. We are not a nation, as we’ve often thought, simply positioned on either side of the aisle working to craft reasonable, good-faith compromise somewhere in the humane middle. Sadly, that ship left the port a long time ago. (Or maybe, it descended a gold escalator.) The prevailing narrative of the last...

American Evangelicals’ annual campaign against the supposed “War on Christmas” began early this year, with the White House promising the apparently perpetually oppressed faithful that with Donald Trump in office, we can once again be a nation that says “Merry Christmas.” And his mindless church-going cult members have responded with performative social posts effusively thanking him for releasing t...

Best-selling author and self-help guru Mel Robbins recently posted a New York Times Op-Ed called Life Is Too Short to Fight With Your Family leading into the Thanksgiving weekend. In the piece, Robbins warns against the dangers of distancing ourselves from those whose beliefs differ from our own. She warns that in the long run, creating relational and physical proximity between ourselves and loved...

The frigid air was thick was the smell of damp straw and animal dung. The newborn was wrapped tightly to shield him from the unrelenting wind, while his exhausted mother pressed him close to her chest. The man tended diligently to the fire beside them; the only way he could feel useful in the midst of such scarcity and lack. This was not how he had hoped this would unfold. A weathered feeding trou...

This is a message to all the brave, exhausted soldiers out there doing battle right now, t hose waging a silent, internal civil war. I’m calling out to you who stand on those perilous front lines, pressed up hard against the fight, in the brutal and bloody trenches of conflict. I’m reaching out because of the urgency of the moment, because of all that is being lost, because I look around and the v...

On Thanksgiving, Donald Trump served up a rambling, sarcastic, wildly incoherent social media word salad of grievance aimed at immigrants, foreigners, Democrats, and pretty much the idea of America as it has existed for two hundred and fifty years. (You know, the bright beacon of refuge for the world, welcoming the poor, tired, freedom-starved masses?) In his latest vicious holiday diatribe (which...

The heralds of disaster are hard at work right now. They’re prowling social media with dire prophecies, wielding megaphones in ramped-up rally crowds, and forecasting doom in sweaty Sunday sermons. They warn us that a civil war is coming. Such threats are empty salvos made of hollow words, the toothless bluster of paper tigers. They are the last refuge of terrified bullies, realizing that they are...

‘Tis the season to be struggling… For many of us, this season feels more like a wound than a gift, pressing on grief we’ve tried to bury, reminding us of people who are missing, exposing fractures in our families, our faith, and our sense of safety in the world. The holidays have a way of shining a big, bright spotlight on all the things that aren’t okay: The distance in our families. The tension...

In case you haven’t been following closely lately, we’re currently in the “let’s attack a decorated war veteran and retired astronaut” portion of the collapse of Republican morality. And in this latest round of collective Conservative cultism, the Right Wing outrage machine is breathlessly targeting Senator Mark Kelly, a man who tangibly embodies what it means to be a patriotic American. For corre...

It’s tempting to view gratitude only through the filter of what’s pleasant, as if only comfort and ease are worth appreciating. Today, here are a few surprising places you might look for unexpected abundance; some terrible things to be thankful for… GRIEF. This is the necessary tax on loving people and being loved by them. The magnitude of our mourning is proportionate to the depth of connection w...

(Warning: Satire… NSFW or sensitive constitutions.) On Friday night, as part of the Remove the Regime rally weekend in DC, I was asked to give an opening blessing for a gathering called Comedy Church. It was a night of subversive anti-Christian nationalism, pro-democracy stand-up featuring Cliff Cash , Father Nathan Monk , and Larry Fulford held at a beautiful downtown sanctuary. I told the 600 pa...

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...

Some days, I’m afraid that I’m losing faith in Faith. I look around at the damage done in the name of God, and the grief comes like a flood. As a deeply spiritual person, lately I find that I persist almost defiantly, all the while pushing back the nagging questions always nipping at my heels of my belief: Isn’t spirituality supposed to be a balm for humanity? Isn’t God supposed to be that beautif...

Every church welcomes everyone. Just look at their website, it says so, clear as day. Every church is an “all-people church”. There it is on massive LED screens in their pristine lobby as proof. Every church loves its neighbors. It’s in vibrant bold type on their volunteer t-shirts, so it must be true. There isn’t a Christian faith community in this country that doesn’t profess to be committed to...

The 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 r...