“Consider, oh God, that we are without understanding of ourselves; that we do not know what we would have and set ourselves at an infinite distance from our desires.” – St. Teresa of Avila What do we want? Not, as is often done, asking this about a passing bodily appetite of one kind or another… but what do we want? […]

Up late at night, perusing face book and then a feminist web site and then, these thoughts of my own… I’ve yet again been reading about 2nd Wave Feminism and its (usually) anti-porn stance vs the 3rd Wavers’ usually pro-porn stance. One phrase from Naomi Wolfe (a third-waver with second wave sensibilities) stopped me in my tracks: “Porn is the […]

Jesus People USA is a community… and a ministry. We live together so that we can minister more effectively, yet our lives together are about more than ministry. Sometimes, I’m nervous when people talk about our shared lives as if we do this only for pragmatic reasons. There is more than pragmatism involved for me. I find community to be […]

Marie James, long-time friend of JPUSA; member Jane Hertenstein would later write a book about Marie’s life called Orphan Girl. Photo copyright 2011 Jesus People USA. All rights reserved. It’s 3:30 p.m., time to prepare for dinner. Some of the brothers are getting the food and the utensils together. Others are setting the tables or separating plates, readying them to […]

[Historical note to this 1979 article: It details JPUSA surviving the infamous Chicago blizzard of ’79 and using it as a witnessing opportunity, and it also details our purchase of the 4707 N. Malden building (JPUSA was at this time living at 4431-33 North Paulina Street in a converted six flat).] JPUSA WINTER At first it was simply a lot […]

  In 1978, when Jesus People USA first moved into Chicago’s Uptown after a few years in the Ravenswood community, I was one of the “single brothers” picked to move into our new 4707 N. Malden digs. Only a few months after the move, three of us were playing cards on a hot summer night. Suddenly, we heard the unmistakable […]

Today, our twenty-fourth anniversary, I share just a few of the things my Carol Elaine Durkin Trott is to me. Teacher, Teacher I jump out of my skin When you touch me with your existence I cannot learn enough about you And the brilliant gold Of you, completely real, real. History happens, Regardless of philosophy or books Events progress inevitably […]

One of my dearest friends sat in the chair across from me. He’d just verbalized ideas I thought of as the perfect article for this blog. I said so… and his response took me off guard. I’ll paraphrase some of how I remember that conversation. “We’re getting older,” he began, with a half-smile at the obvious comment. “I don’t think […]

Maggie huddled on the hallway floor, tears running down her face. Her sobs were audible. As I came around the corner into the small niche formed by a secondary school exit, she seemed to squeeze herself more closely together. “Are you okay,” I said — surely the stupidest question that moment on planet earth. Maggie began turning away from me, […]

Yet again! Wilson and Sheridan Avenues draw some less than wholly complementary (if not wholly critical either) attention from a lion of literature… or more properly in Henry Justin Smith’s case, journalism. Mr. Smith, along with having written some dozen books (the majority of them addressing the art of journalism), was also managing editor of the no longer extant (1875-1978) […]