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Money, Money Everywhere and Not a Buck to Spend

Steve · February 3, 2025 · 1 Comment

Here’s a question for you: What’s a bar with no name in the middle of nowhere with approximately 90,000 one-dollar bills stapled to its ceiling and walls really worth?

The past two weeks, Sue and I have been escaping the Midwest winter cold in the Florida Keys. Saturday, after a week in Key West, we were driving back toward the mainland with a planned stop in Key Largo for another week. An audio touring app we were using suggested a short side trip on Big Pine Key to a place called the No Name Pub. As the pub’s website says, “It’s a nice place if you can find it.”

We thought it sounded like a nice diversion (as if we needed a diversion from the beauty of driving along the 113-mile U.S. 1 Overseas Highway that runs the length of the Keys), so we exited as instructed and followed the app’s disembodied voice out onto the backroads of Big Pine Key, where we even caught a glimpse of some of the iconic and diminutive “key deer” that call the island home.

We pulled up in front of the pub, where a sign confirmed for us that we had, indeed, found it. Inside, as we had been told, every conceivable square inch of wall and ceiling was covered in autographed one-dollar bills. According to the app, there was an estimated 90,000 of them, deposited there by grateful barflies over the past 30 years or so. My head started to spin.

The whole thing prompted a conversation in my head about the worth of the building. Was it really worth $90,000 more than its real estate value? Were the bills still legal tender when written all over? Do the owners of the pub periodically take some of the bills down and then allow it to fill back up? Were they raising money for a good cause? Just what is the purpose and plan here? Inquiring minds needed to know! I sent a photo to my friend John (a retired banker) who questioned what the $90K in flammable paper might do to insurance rates. Imagine it all going up in flames!

According to an article I read on the bar’s website, there’s no purpose, no scheme, no underlying cause beyond the obvious. It’s just a celebration of a good thing. The owner of the pub doesn’t feel like the money belongs to him, and there are no plans for periodic removal. The money just “is,” a gift from those who pass through, a sign of appreciation for a cold beer and a hot pizza in the midst of a long drive. I think maybe he’s on to something.

The “stuff” of our lives is so often held up and measured by its monetary cost and perceived economic value, like many a photo I saw in Key West of Papa Hemingway with one of his prized trophy marlins. My initial thought of calculating the value of the bar was perhaps natural but it was the wrong question. Sometimes we are meant to just sit back and enjoy a cold one while contemplating the collective generosity of those who have come before us and left something behind.

And I think to myself, “what a wonderful world.” It would be a good place to be if we could find it.

What You Did For the Least of These

Steve · January 12, 2025 · Leave a Comment

In 2018, I was asked to write a chapter in a book by a group of Living Faith writers called, “Scripture Passages that Changed My Life.” In reflecting back on my life, I landed pretty quickly on the teaching of Jesus that culminates in Matthew 25:40 — “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

Here’s a shorter version of what I wrote for the book, and I think it’s a good summation of my understanding of social justice and Catholic social teaching that I developed as a young adult and how it influenced me for the rest of my life:

I first became enthralled by this verse as a teenager watching the movie version of the musical Godspell. As the character of Jesus tells this parable of the final judgement and separates the sheep from the goats (his disciples down on all fours baa-ing and looking lost) my eyes were fixed on those poor goats. They were being directed to the left because they had failed to recognize Jesus in their encounters with those in need. Taken aback by this command to love even the strangers among us, one of them says to Jesus in a sultry voice, “If we’d known it was you, we’d have taken you around the corner for a cup of coffee!” And that, for me, became a lifetime challenge. Well of course, if I’d known it was you, Jesus…

Admittedly, when I first began to let these verses sink into me, I was focused not on verse 40 but on the very similar verse that ends the parable in verse 45: “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.” There’s a big difference between those two verses, although they differ by just a few words. I was worried about what I might not do or recognize. I was afraid of being the goat during the final judgement. I was more concerned about letting Jesus down than I was encouraged to serve others. The idea frightened me and the story stuck with me.

My understanding of the story of sheep and goats deepened and widened over time. My full appreciation of the interconnectedness of faith and the care for others began to shift and evolve — a movement from fear to love. Seeing Jesus in “the least of these” became less a foreboding and forewarning of standing before Jesus to be judged and more the starting point for my understanding of human love, charity, everyday kindness, and justice.

Jesus’ parable reflects the “mitzvah of hospitality” as found in Isaiah 58, outlining for us the corporal acts of mercy, the care and feeding of the lives and bodies of those around us. Jesus certainly knew what was written in Isaiah and was teaching his followers what he had learned from childhood — feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead.

Matthew 25 has led me to at least try to understand what it means to be the other and the outcast. It allowed me to see the world and those in it with a different set of eyes. I was able to move from, “I wonder what they did (or didn’t do) to get in that position” to “that could be Jesus right in front of me, there on the street corner begging for coins.”

I started to see the world and its problems not as the result of people’s faults, actions and inactions, but as vast and great opportunities to practice charity and — ultimately and more importantly — to work for justice. For both charity and justice are necessary as we take up the corporal works of mercy. We must be willing to roll up our sleeves and help those in desperate need, and we must be willing to seek justice and social change by working to eradicate the root causes of those problems.

I have learned — with this scripture coursing through my veins — that my response to those in need must stem not from pity but from the deep understanding that the difference between “us” and “them” is a very fine line. It could have been my life that was flooded away [or my house and neighborhood burning], had I lived some place different.

To see Jesus in the faces of those in need is to have our lives transformed by the power of love. To serve the homeless is to embrace the poverty and humanity of the Incarnate Word of God. To care for the sick, injured and diseased is to bind up the wounds of the crucified, bleeding, hurting and human Jesus. To visit the lonely and imprisoned is to walk the way to Golgotha with Jesus, to shoulder the cross for even a few steps and hear the sound of metal on metal and the cries of his mother.

To recognize and embrace the broken in the world is to see Jesus and cling to him. The parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 is perhaps the great and lasting challenge of our lives. For it is, above all, about loving Christ, loving as Christ loved, and loving others as though they were Christ, all at the same time. “Love me,” Jesus says to us.

Do you listen to podcasts?

As the executive director of the Bridges Foundation, which offers the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola in Everyday life to the St. Louis region and beyond, for the past several years I have served as the host of a video interview series that has now been turned into a podcast. You can check out and subscribe to “Bridges Conversations” at: iTunes, Spotify, or Podbean.

Are You Ready for Christmas?

Steve · December 21, 2024 · Leave a Comment

This is the question, it seems, that we hear most often this time of year, and it has many meanings and intents. When I was a kid back in the ‘60s, it meant: Are you excited for the presents you’ll be getting? I was always ready for that. (see photo below, circa 1975!)

Now, it mostly seems to mean: Have you done all your shopping, wrapped all the presents, sent your Christmas cards and planned your menus for the family gathering? Have you made your list and checked it twice, or maybe three times? We may be exhausted by the time Christmas day dawns, but we’ll be ready. But are we really?

All of this can leave us feeling a bit like Martha in the story in Luke’s gospel (Luke 10:38-42). Like Martha, we are running around like crazy getting ready for the coming of Jesus, making sure everything is just right, when all the time Jesus just wants us to sit with him and listen, as Martha’s sister, Mary, is doing. “Martha, Martha,” Jesus says, “you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

I love Christmas morning around the tree with the kids, their spouses, and the grandkids. I don’t want to lose that for a second. I know that the looks on their faces when they open their gifts only happen with my wife’s carefully prepared shopping lists and our treks together out to malls and stores. We’re going to grocery shop today so that we’ll be ready for breakfast on Christmas eve when they all arrive, eyes bright and shiny and full of expectation. So, yes, we’ll be ready for THAT Christmas.

But Sue and I are also trying hard to make time for quiet, for prayer, for reflection on what this ancient story means. We’ve made our annual advent retreat. We know we need to find some time each day to sit at the feet of Jesus and just listen, watch, and wait with urgent expectation for the next line of the story, the next stage of our lives, the next coming of Christ. And that’s the point, isn’t it? Jesus wasn’t born just once, in a stable in Bethlehem some 2,000 years. He is born again and anew in us each Christmas, each day, each moment of our lives, if we just sit still and wait.

So sometime between now and Christmas, give yourself the gift of time with Jesus. Sit in silence with Luke’s short Nativity narrative — the whole thing is just the first 20 verses of Luke’s second chapter. Put on some of your favorite carols or pick up a book of advent and Christmas meditations. Give yourself permission to do nothing for an hour or so. Choose the better part.

Note: If you click through to my website, you’ll see I’ve posted three Christmas songs I created with my collaborators and friends John Caravelli and Phil Cooper over the past few years. Hit play and enjoy.

Around the Fire:

After this Night:

Christmas to Me:

An Advent Collection: The Word is Still Becoming Flesh

Steve · December 12, 2024 · Leave a Comment

This past weekend, I helped lead an Advent Retreat at the Marianist Retreat and Conference Center just outside St. Louis. It was the eighth time leading this annual event (taking a year off for COVID in 2020) with my friends and colleagues Lucia Signorelli and Fr. Tom Santen.

The title of the retreat was, “The Word is Still Becoming Flesh,” and through talks, songs, prayer and even a contemplative photography experience inspired by Thomas Merton, we looked at the many and diverse ways that Jesus keeps “breaking into our lives.” And that is the power of Advent, of course. It’s not just about getting ready for Christmas and remembering that historic event that happened in Bethlehem roughly 2,000 years ago. It is about that, of course, but it’s so much more.

Advent is a time to remember that the Incarnate Word of God continues to break into our lives, day in and day out, if we will only take the time to watch. Just as the Son of God interrupted the lives of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and so many others on one night so long ago, he keeps showing up for us even today. The question we need to keep asking, Fr. Tom challenged us, is “do you see what I see?”

I took the photo above just outside the doors of the retreat house. It’s a little hard to make out, I confess, but what it shows is a trickle of water from a fountain, which has broken through the ice of a small decorative pond. It spoke to me of God’s slow and steady work in our lives, of God’s living word that, if left flowing, will indeed break into our lives and change us in ways we can never imagine.

Today, I offer you a small sampling of advent reflections from prior years of this blog. Perhaps you will find something here that will meet you where you are in this holy season. I hope you will allow these words, and more importantly the words of scripture that accompany us these holy weeks of advent, to help you pay closer attention and perhaps find that small trickle of God that is waiting for you.

Advent 2020: Welcome to the ‘Demented Inn’

Waiting for Christmas with Bright Eyes

Advent Week 2: Just what are we waiting for?

A Thanksgiving Relaunch

Steve · December 1, 2024 · 1 Comment

Fifteen years ago on Thanksgiving, I posted my first tentative blogpost on GivensCreative.com.

That year, 2009, was still the early days of blogging and social media and much has changed in the ensuing years. Some of those changes have not been healthy and creative, of course, not to mention good for our souls, spirits, lives of faith. But I continue to believe God is and can be at work in the simple creative acts we send out to the world, so I’m going to start again. I’ve been offline for the past six months due to some technical issues but am hoping with today’s post I am back and will be posting more regularly. So thanks for reading, subscribing and spreading the word.

In fact, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what this site can become. Beyond all the changes in the world and technology, many other aspects of my life have shifted in the past 15 years, including retirement from my job at the university, full recovery from a rare blood disease, a full life of working and creating at the intersection of creativity and spirituality, and the addition to my family of a daughter-in-law, a son-in-law, and five grandkids, aged 11, 9, 7, 4 and 4!

In short, I can see this as a site that represents the creativity and faith of where I am in my life right now (about to celebrate my 65th birthday in January), as well as contributions from others in the Givens clan and in my extended creative family.

An example: I recently produced a roughly ten-minute audio story for a great new site called Jesuit Media Lab, which featured the story on its AMDG podcast. The story is about an imaginary game of baseball I played as a young boy and its connection to the practice of Ignatian imaginative prayer that is an important part of my present-day spirituality. The story features music by my friends and frequent collaborators John Caravelli and Phil Cooper, and voice acting by John, my father-in-law Phil, my wife Sue, and my 11-year-old grandson, Noah. It was a fun, creative and collaborative effort, and you can listen to it at the link below. See you again soon!

[Note: Because of some of the technical problems I had, you may be receiving this even though you once unsubscribed. If that’s the case, I apologize. Please do so again if that’s your wish.]