Messy Jesus Business

Episode 91 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. In this episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh, FSPA talks with Michael Poffenberger about activism, contemplation, interiority, right relationships and the true self, vulnerability and control, transformation, wholeness, and much more. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More A transcript of the show is available. "Transformation happens not because of our force of will to change ourselves. It happens because of our capacity to witness ourselves with honesty in prayer and then be healed by God." -Michael Poffenberger Michael Poffenberger ABOUT THE GUEST Michael Poffenberger holds the tension of the and. As the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC)’s executive director since 2014, Michael sees CAC as uniquely positioned to support inner work for those seeking to build a more just and humane world. A graduate of Notre Dame, Michael served previously as the executive director of Resolve, where he worked alongside religious and civil society leaders to build peace and aid war-affected communities in Central and East Africa, and co-founded the Crisis Tracker. He believes that transforming consciousness can solve many of today’s challenges, and seeking that truth in his own life led him to the work of CAC. Michael lives this mission beyond CAC as the board chair for Invisible Children, in supporting movements for peace and collective liberation, and as a dad to his daughter Madeleine. In his contemplative practice, he asks himself, “What can the world look like when love is awakened?” That’s the vision he holds for all touched by CAC— that love is both who we are and where we are going. MESSY JESUS BUSINESS is hosted by Sister Julia Walsh. Produced and edited by Colin Wambsgans. Email us at messyjesusbusiness@gmail.com BE SOCIAL: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Twitter: @messyjesusbiz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/messyjesusbusiness SUPPORT US: https://www.patreon.com/messyjesusbusiness

A Special Episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More After chatting with Lisa Hendey at RE Congress, Sister Julia had impromptu short interviews with some Congress attendees who passed by the FSPA booth. We heard a few of these voices last week, and this mini special episode has six more. Sister Julia and Doctor Peter Jones You'll hear from Robert Ellsberg, Andrea (from Ontario, California), Dr. Peter Jones, Janice England, Father Tony Ricard, and Sister Rose Elsbernd, FSPA. Check out our archive of podcasts here! MESSY JESUS BUSINESS is hosted by Sister Julia Walsh. Produced and edited by Colin Wambsgans. Email us at messyjesusbusiness@gmail.com BE SOCIAL: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Twitter: @messyjesusbiz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/messyjesusbusiness SUPPORT US: https://www.patreon.com/messyjesusbusiness

Episode 88 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. In this episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh, FSPA talks with Rev. Ricky Manalo, CSP, about faith and culture, vocation, liturgical music, what worship is, AI, what it means to be human, and polarization and unity. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More A transcript of the show is available. I define [worship] as any kind of response that we might have to something or someone holy....worship could take place anywhere. It could take place when I'm going for a walk in Manhattan or I'm in the subway and I notice someone who's in need of help." -Rev. Ricky Manalo, CSP Rev. Ricky Manalo, CSP ABOUT THE GUEST Rev. Ricky Manalo, CSP, Ph.D. is a Paulist priest, a composer, theologian, and author. He is the recipient of the 2020 Distinguished Catholic Music Composer of the Year Award by the Association of Catholic Publishers, and the 2018 Pastoral Musician of the Year Award by the National Association of Pastoral Musicians. He studied composition and piano at the Manhattan School of Music, theology at the Washington Theological Union (WTU), and liturgy, culture, and sociology at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), Berkeley, CA. Currently, he is serving as Chairperson of the Paulist Initiative on Polarization. MESSY JESUS BUSINESS is hosted by Sister Julia Walsh. Produced and edited by Colin Wambsgans. Email us at messyjesusbusiness@gmail.com BE SOCIAL: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Twitter: @messyjesusbiz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/messyjesusbusiness SUPPORT US: https://www.patreon.com/messyjesusbusiness

Episode 86 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. In the return of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh, FSPA talks with Fr. James Martin, SJ about his vocation, the raising of Lazarus, pilgrimages and Jesus' parables, and Fr. Martin's experience at the Synod. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More A transcript of the show can be found here. Oftentimes people think [a call to vocation] really needs to be this kind of dramatic, you know, falling on your knees and having this light from heaven, you know, like Saul on the way to Damascus... But I think that the more common way that it happens is that it's an understanding a desire that is within you that that is a holy desire, to be coming from God. -Fr. James Martin, SJ Fr. James Martin, SJ ABOUT THE GUEST Father James Martin, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America, consulter to the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication and author of many books, including the New York Times bestseller Jesus: A Pilgrimage and The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything. He is the founder of Outreach, a Catholic news and opinion site for LGBTQ Catholics. Father Martin's latest book, Come Forth will be released in paperback February 2025. MESSY JESUS BUSINESS is hosted by Sister Julia Walsh. Produced and edited by Colin Wambsgans. Email us at messyjesusbusiness@gmail.com BE SOCIAL: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Twitter: @messyjesusbiz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/messyjesusbusiness SUPPORT US: https://www.patreon.com/messyjesusbusiness

Episode 85 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More "Sometimes [conversion] just felt so hard to do. I had so many questions and I had so many doubts and it was conveyed to me by more than one person that It shouldn't be this hard, but I look back and I'm actually really grateful for it, for how much I had to wrestle with my adoption and my parents language and what liturgy means now and with our embrace of death. All these things that I carried with me culturally as the daughter of Chinese immigrants had to be reexamined in my conversion. They didn't fit into what my life as a Catholic was turning into. I would do these things that felt antithetical to the way my parents raised me...And I had to maybe not revise those things of my past and those things of how I grew up, but I had to, I guess just reconcile them in a different way and say, yes, where I come from makes me who I am today. It all comes with me, but I can look at it differently." -Melody Gee Topics Discussed: Immigration experience Conversion to Catholicism Ritual, routine, and liturgy Discomfort The messiness of prayer and community Embodiment of faith Balancing different cultures Embracing conflict Resisting perfectionism Name Drops: Jesus Thomas Merton Ronald Rolheiser Oliver Burkeman Greg Boyle Saul/Paul Books Mentioned: the Bible We Carry Smoke and Paper New Seeds of Contemplation Melody Gee ABOUT THE GUEST Melody S. Gee is the author of We Carry Smoke and Paper: Essays on the Grief and Hope of Conversion (University of Iowa Press, October 2024), which explores the cultural costs of religious conversion. She is also the author of three books of poetry: The Convert’s Heart is Good to Eat, The Dead in Daylight, and Each Crumbling House. She is the recipient of Kundiman fellowships in poetry and fiction, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, and an Artist Support Grant from the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis. Born in Taiwan and raised in Cerritos, California, Melody is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of New Mexico. She has taught writing at Purdue University, Southwestern Illinois College, and St. Louis Community College, and currently works in renewable energy communications. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband and daughters. MESSY JESUS BUSINESS is hosted by Sister Julia Walsh. Produced and edited by Colin Wambsgans. Email us at messyjesusbusiness@gmail.com BE SOCIAL: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Twitter: @messyjesusbiz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/messyjesusbusiness SUPPORT US: https://www.patreon.com/messyjesusbusiness

Episode 83 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More "I think so many of us are holding anxiety and grief and despair in our bodies all the time. And we're not letting it out....We don't have spaces for rituals around grief." -Lydia Wylie-Kellermann IN THIS EPISODE In the latest episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh FSPA chats with Lydia Wylie-Kellermann, editor, activist, mother, and author of This Sweet Earth: Walking with our Children in the Age of Climate Collapse. They discuss Lydia's early influence from The Catholic Worker, and what it's like to live an embodied life of faith. "We don't know what life's going to be like for future generations," Lydia says, "but what is it that we want them to have in their bones to be able to summon when they need it?" The two also discuss the two pulls of creation and resistance, resisting perfectionism in the messiness of discipleship, and the wildness of Scripture. Lydia suggests, "Think about discipleship being committed to not political boundaries, but who are the people who are fed by the same water." Name Drops: JesusLaura AlaryDietrich BonhoefferVincent HardingThe Two Loops theory of change Topics Discussed: Catholic Workerjustice and faithstorytellingembodied faithcreation and resistanceraising childrentechnologycommunityresisting perfectionismwatershed discipleshipbeing creaturescolonialism Books Mentioned: the BibleThis Sweet Earth: Walking with our Children in the Age of Climate Collapse Lydia Wylie-Kellermann ABOUT THE GUEST Lydia Wylie-Kellermann?is a writer, editor, activist, and mother. She is the director of Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center and author of This Sweet Earth: Walking with our Children in the Age of Climate Collapse. She is the editor of?The Sandbox Revolution: Raising Kids for a Just World. Lydia’s writing has appeared in?Sojourners, Geez Magazine, and various Catholic Worker papers. She lives with her partner and two boys in Bangor, Pennsylvania. MESSY JESUS BUSINESS is hosted by Sister Julia Walsh. Produced and edited by Colin Wambsgans. Email us at messyjesusbusiness@gmail.com BE SOCIAL:https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Twitter: @messyjesusbiz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/messyjesusbusiness SUPPORT US: https://www.patreon.com/messyjesusbusiness

Episode 81 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More "A culture of encounter is something we have to be very intent on practicing, and so I'm excited about an economics that creates many of those opportunities for encounter." -Elizabeth Garlow IN THIS EPISODE In the latest episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh FSPA chats with Elizabeth Garlow, economist and cofounder of the Francesco Collaborative, which invites individuals to critique economic structures and invest using their whole spiritual selves. Elizabeth discusses her early Capuchin influences and her interest in Focolare. "I had a sort of hunger to have a different kind of conversation about who we are as human beings," she says, "how we meet our needs, what kind of systems can we create?" Sister Julia and Elizabeth talk about the damage that can be done by our current economic structures. "Our economic structures are intertwined with problems of disconnection and loneliness," Elizabeth says. Elizabeth also discusses the challenging ways we can move forward to help create a more just world. "Money in many ways is energy, " she says. "It's flow. It is not something that we are slaves to as the Gospel...teaches us." Name Drops: Natalie FosterPope FrancisMia BirdsongFr. Richard WardMarjorie KellyFr. LebrayMorgan SimonNich RomeoZacchaeus Topics Discussed: Franciscan spiritualityCapuchin communityFocolare MovementEconomy of CommunionEconomy of Francescohow we spend and investethic of enoughnessfinancial discipleshipINE Institute Books Mentioned: Laudato SiLaudate DeumThe BibleLiving City MagazineHow We Show UpReal ImpactWealth SupremacyThe Alternative Elizabeth Garlow ABOUT THE GUEST Elizabeth Garlow is drawn to the spiritual dimensions of our shared work to build a new economy. She co-founded the Francesco Collaborative, which was in part inspired by the kinds of spaces she longed to be a part of as an investor: one that invites us to show up as our spiritually rooted selves, with deep vulnerability, care for one another and a commitment to critique the structural problems of our economy and dream about our role in its transformation. Through her work, she supports protagonists of transformation drawing on lineages of faith, spirituality, and wisdom to ask questions like: “what is enough?” and “what does a practice of finance and investing fit for the needs of our time look like”? These questions are in part drawn from her formation in the Focolare Movement's Economy of Communion initiative, where enterprises seek to embody a relational economy paradigm. Elizabeth previously co-led impact investing for the Lumina Foundation, served as a policy advisor with the Obama Administration, and co-founded a Detroit- based organization, Michigan Corps, to invest in local entrepreneurs through crowdfunding and innovative forms of patient capital. She studied political economy at Kalamazoo College, completed her graduate work in public policy and economics at Princeton University, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in 2019. Elizabeth lives in Michigan, where she is enjoying getting reacquainted with Michigan’s Great Lakes and apprenticing with urban farmers in Detroit. MESSY JESUS BUSINESS is hosted by Sister Julia Walsh. Produced and edited by Colin Wambsgans. Email us at messyjesusbusiness@gmail.com BE SOCIAL:https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Twitter: @messyjesusbiz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/messyjesusbusiness SUPPORT US: https://www.patreon.com/messyjesusbusiness

Episode 79 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Email | RSS | More "Discipleship...ought to begin with the idea of being in that relationship of sort of Christ-like care and ministry for other people regardless of what they deserve." -Rev. Benjamin J. Dueholm IN THIS EPISODE In the latest episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh FSPA chats with Rev. Benjamin Dueholm. Rev. Benjamin tells Sr. Julia of his encounter with St. Augustine's Confessions at an experimental college in California, and how it, among other things, led him to becoming a Lutheran pastor. They discuss the paradox of the universal and the personal, and how technology has changed the way we live in community. Rev. Benjamin compares church ministry to a Sunday dinner, and speaks about mission drift of the Gospel in some churches. "My task as a preacher," he says, "and to some extent as a writer, is to make Christ contemporary...but the truth is, it's a scary thought to think that OK, God is talking to me right now." Rev. Benjamiin Dueholm ABOUT THE GUEST The Rev. Benjamin J. Dueholm has served as the pastor of Christ Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Dallas, Texas since 2019, after previously serving churches in and around Chicago. His writing on religion, politics, and culture has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Century, and the Dallas Morning News and has presented at the Cambridge University "Religious Diversity and Secular University" workshop and the Valparaiso University Institute of Liturgical Studies. Passionate about supporting the formation of leaders for the church, he has taught worship and preaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School and serves on the committee guiding candidates for ordained ministry in north Texas. He is the author of Sacred Signposts: Words, Water, and Other Acts of Resistance (Eerdmans, 2018). He lives in Texas with his wife Kerry and their three children. You can find more of him at benjamindueholm.substack.com. MESSY JESUS BUSINESS is hosted by Sister Julia Walsh. Produced and edited by Colin Wambsgans. Email us at messyjesusbusiness@gmail.com BE SOCIAL:https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Twitter: @messyjesusbiz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/messyjesusbusiness SUPPORT US: https://www.patreon.com/messyjesusbusiness