Author: John Pavlovitz

I am a collector of stories. I watch people, I listen closely to them, I eavesdrop on their conversations in person and on social media, and I look for the patterns to try and 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 open to the ugliness. It’s isn’t...

Dear Friend, I don’t know your story. I cannot imagine how you feel. I can’t fathom how difficult this road has been for you: the swirling storm of the questions inside your head, the hidden fears you’ve had to constantly keep at bay, the incessant worries about the responses of those you love to your full truth—and to have to endure all of it while living inside a space that does not feel like home. There’s no way to place myself inside your shoes or your skin and even begin to understand how much it hurts be the target...

The ten victims in Boulder and the eight in Atlanta were survivors. They had managed to weather the greatest public health crisis of our lifetime: an insidious and relentless virus, that for twelve months has decimated the planet and taken the lives of our a half a million Americans with terrifying velocity and breathtaking brutality. They had endured lockdowns and shutdowns and job losses, they had made it through isolation and fear and grieving, they had navigated school closings and social restrictions, they had tirelessly evaded a pervasive sickness that so many others had succumbed to. They had lived...

The Catholic Church doesn’t need to bless same-gender unions. The Southern Baptist Church doesn’t. The United Methodist Church doesn’t. No church needs to. God already blesses them — that is, if God is love in the way these churches all claim that God is. If God is really love, if that truly is the essence of the Divine, then God is for same-gender marriage, non-heteronormative marriages for the same reason God is for any loving, respectful union. If God is love, God is for a mutually-beneficial relationship between two adult people; where they each find connection, affection, and devotion...

America has a white male problem. If you’re living here and you’re not a white male, I likely don’t have to do much to convince you of that fact. You’ve been an eyewitness. You’ve had a front row seat to the horrors. You’ve likely been on the receiving end of the misogyny, carried the brunt of the bigotry, and sustained the bruises of the brutality. We’ve all seen the mass shootings, read the assault statistics, and inventoried the hate crimes and they speak for themselves. The pattern is undeniable, the repetition is clear. We know that the violence of...