Jack Beers:
“So Matthew, this time last year we got together to talk about a book called Life is Messy. A year later, couple of million books distributed, I'm still getting people coming up to me and saying, "Have you seen this title? What a great title. I couldn't help but pick it up. I started reading it. Totally changed my life," and then I usually get a follow up question to it, which is, "I would just love it if Matthew expounded on the question, okay, yeah, life is messy, but now what do I do with the mess? So as we get together today to talk about this book right here, Holy Moments, first question I've got on my mind is, is this the answer to the question, what do we do with the mess? And if so, did you go about trying to do that when you wrote the book?”
Matthew Kelly:
“Yes, I mean, absolutely, but I think we do rush to solutions to our problems, and in doing so we can skip the lessons of our problems. Life is Messy, I think it resonated with people because of what was happening in the world, what is happening in the world, what is happening in people's lives. It's enough just to recognize, to acknowledge, to accept that life is messy, and that while there are some things that we can do to alleviate the mess, life is always going to be messy. We cannot eliminate the mess. I think we have trouble sitting with that, and I think it's important that we do sit with that.
But as we do think about, okay, what is the answer to the mess, or what is the answer to the struggle we experience in the mess, Holy Moments is absolutely the answer. The mess is created by unholy moments, magnified and multiplied throughout history.
Jack Beers:
“So we'll get to a little bit more about what Holy Moments are in a minute, which will help flesh out what the answer to the mess really is. But I love starting out with this question, because it's at the highest level. So I'd love to know, Holy Moments, who is the book for?
Matthew Kelly:
“Book is for me. I think the book is for me. Hopefully it's for a lot of other people as well. We have a sense that life is messy. We have a sense that the world is a mess. We have a sense that it's bigger than us, and that can lead to a defeatism, a hopelessness, a powerlessness, which is really the core of poverty, material poverty. It creates a hopelessness and a powerlessness, and is the core of spiritual poverty, because it leads us to inaction.
When we feel hopeless, when we feel powerless, it leads us to inaction. I think our cultures place so much value and focus on worldly solutions to spiritual problems that have failed and failed and failed for every generation. It is an attempt to restore that focus in our lives and in our church and in society, and come to the realization that worldly solutions to spiritual problems are never going to work never. Never. Do we have the courage to shift our focus away from worldly solutions and back to God's answers, God's solutions, to our spiritual problems? Of course, to begin that journey, we have to recognize that our problems are spiritual. Our problems are not economic. Our problems are not political. We have political problems, but the essence of our problems are not political. They are spiritual problems.
And we need political solutions? Yes. Should we actively participate in the political process? Absolutely. Do we need economic solutions? Yes, we do. Should we actively participate in that? Absolutely. But they have to be mixed and married to spiritual solutions in order for them to be effective.
Matthew Kelly
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