I have been informed repeatedly by the internet that I should probably monetize my hobbies, increase emotional urgency, and keep everyone mildly stressed at all times for “engagement.”
Unfortunately, this publication was built by a priest who writes essays about being terrible at card games.
Message From the Margins survives because ordinary readers decided they wanted at least one place online that was not trying to hijack their nervous systems for profit.
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No tactical gold investment sponsors appearing halfway through a prayer.
Just reader-supported writing trying to help people remain compassionate and sane.
If that feels worth sustaining, you can join the paid community below.
The Joy in Doing Good Things Poorly
God Never Asked You to Monetize Your Joy
For the past few months, every Thursday night, I sit down with a few buddies to play cards.
And I am terrible at it.
Not “oh stop being humble, Father” terrible. I mean genuinely awful. My current record is 4-14. Even as a Mets fan, I look at that statistic and think, this is getting difficult to defend publicly.
The strange part is that I look forward to it all week long.
Most days, I work an absurd number of hours. This newsletter alone consumes huge stretches of my week. There are articles to write, comments to answer, research rabbit holes to disappear into, videos to edit, emails to send, livestreams to prepare, graphics to design, tech problems to solve, and about sixteen tabs permanently open on my computer that I swear I’m getting back to eventually.
I work weekends. I work late. I care deeply about this work, and I’m grateful for it, but there are days my brain feels like an overheated laptop being asked to render one more video it absolutely does not have the RAM for.
Thursday night interrupts that cycle.
Not because I suddenly become good at cards.
I assure you, I do not.
But for a few hours, I get to let my hair down, proverbially speaking.
I am just there with my friends.
Laughing.
Losing.
Talking trash.
Eating peanut M&Ms and drinking this new frosted berry Red Bull I like.
Existing in each other’s company without turning the evening into something that needs to be productive.
And honestly, I think a lot of us have forgotten how to do that.
Modern life pushes competition into almost every corner of existence. You cannot simply bake bread anymore. Now you must launch a sourdough brand with cinematic Instagram reels. You cannot casually jog. You need biometric tracking data, optimization plans, and a smartwatch informing you that your cardiovascular recovery is disappointing. People buy watercolor paints and within forty-eight hours someone online is explaining how to scale it into a side hustle.
When someone is good at their hobby, the first thing out of an observers mouth is almost instinctively “You could sell these!”
Even rest becomes labor now.
We are exhausted partly because we never stop measuring ourselves.
The market has crept into parts of the soul where it does not belong.
Scripture contains this recurring rhythm that human beings resist constantly: Sabbath.
Not merely church attendance. Not simply “a day off.” Sabbath was woven into creation itself.
In the Genesis Story, on the Seventh Day, God rested. If we accept that The Father has no need to replenish and recovery His energy, then it logically flows that God simply made time to enjoy Himself.
A deliberate interruption of production. In Exodus 16, God gives manna in the wilderness and tells the people not to gather endlessly, not to hoard, not to obsess over accumulation. There is enough for today. Rest. Trust Me.
Human beings immediately panic and try to optimize the miracle.
Honestly, that still sounds familiar.
We have become deeply uncomfortable doing things poorly.
Children naturally sing loudly, draw terribly, dance without rhythm, and invent games with rules that make absolutely no sense. Then adulthood arrives, and somewhere along the line embarrassment starts policing joy. We begin calculating whether we are talented enough before we allow ourselves participation.
A lot of people quietly stop living long before they actually die.
Not physically.
Spiritually.
They stop trying things unless success seems likely.
They stop creating unless it can be monetized.
They stop gathering unless there is measurable value.
They stop learning unless they can become impressive at it.
And underneath much of that is fear.
Fear of looking foolish.
Fear of wasting time.
Fear of mediocrity.
The strange thing is that Christianity has never actually taught human worth through elite performance.
The Kingdom of God is full of profoundly ordinary people.
Fishermen.
Widows.
Laborers.
Children.
Tax collectors.
People who misunderstood Jesus constantly.
People who failed publicly.
People who had no influence, no brand, no metrics, no carefully optimized personal identity.
Saint Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:27, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”
That verse is usually preached as a statement about humility.
I think it is also a statement about freedom.
You do not have to become extraordinary before your life has meaning.
That is deeply important.
Some of the healthiest moments in human life happen outside achievement entirely. A family making dinner together. Friends playing cards badly. Someone learning guitar in middle age and still fumbling chords after six months. A grandfather building a birdhouse no one will ever buy. People singing in church slightly off-key.
None of this shows up efficiently on a résumé.
All of it forms a human being.
There is also good psychological evidence for this. Researchers studying play and recreation consistently find that unstructured, low-stakes communal activities reduce stress, improve emotional resilience, strengthen social bonds, and lower anxiety. Not because participants are excelling, but because they are participating without constant evaluation.
Human beings need spaces where they are not being scored.
A reader wrote recently:
“Your reflections help me reset, refocus, and rest my tired soul.”
Honestly, that may be the clearest description of what this community is trying to become.
Not a performance.
Not outrage-as-business-model.
Not endless emotional activation disguised as spirituality.
Just thoughtful people trying to remain human together.
Most essays stay free because I never wanted this space to become spiritually gated or transactional. Paid subscribers simply help sustain the work and keep this kind of writing independent, thoughtful, and alive.
If you’d like to help carry it forward, you can become a paid subscriber below.
We Continue…
Honestly, churches should understand this better than anybody.
For centuries, Christianity created spaces where ordinary people could gather around practices that had no commercial value whatsoever. Feast days. Choirs. Communal meals. Processions. Shared prayer. Art. Music. Storytelling. Rest.
Not because everyone involved was exceptional.
Because human beings are not machines.
I worry sometimes that even spirituality has absorbed the logic of performance culture. People now speak about prayer the way corporations discuss quarterly growth targets. “Am I doing enough?” “Am I progressing?” “Am I maximizing my spiritual life?”
Meanwhile Christ keeps describing the Kingdom using images that sound almost absurdly small.
Seeds.
Bread.
Birds.
Vineyards.
A cup of cold water.
A shared meal.
Things ordinary people touch every day.
There is a humility to the Gospel that modern culture struggles to tolerate.
You do not have to justify every joy.
You are allowed to do things simply because they make life fuller, kinder, healthier, more connected, or more human.
You are allowed to be bad at something and still love it.
You are allowed to protect parts of your life from the marketplace.
You are allowed to remain gloriously below average at hobbies that nourish your soul.
Frankly, some of us desperately need an area of life where failure carries no existential weight.
I think about this sometimes after Thursday nights. I drive home knowing I lost yet again. But my chest feels lighter than it did earlier in the day.
Not because I achieved anything impressive.
Because for a few hours, I remembered I am more than output.
A lot of readers here are hard workers. Some of you are carrying multiple jobs, caregiving responsibilities, grief, anxiety, financial pressure, political exhaustion, family stress, or simple burnout from years of trying to hold everything together.
And because you are conscientious people, you may have quietly internalized the belief that rest must be earned through excellence.
But God did not create human beings merely to produce.
In Genesis, before humanity accomplishes anything measurable, God calls creation good.
Not efficient.
Not optimized.
Good.
There is a difference.
This week, I wonder if part of spiritual maturity might involve recovering activities that are beautifully useless.
Not sinful.
Not destructive.
Simply unnecessary in the eyes of productivity culture.
A walk without tracking steps.
Cooking without photographing it for instagram.
Reading without a goal.
Singing without recording it.
Playing cards while losing horribly.
Life becomes spiritually dangerous when every moment must justify itself economically or competitively.
Because eventually the same logic gets turned inward.
People begin wondering whether they themselves have value apart from achievement.
And that is where the soul starts starving.
Christ never demanded that people become impressive before He loved them.
He fed crowds who had nothing to offer Him.
He sat at tables with deeply average people.
He told exhausted laborers to come rest.
He blessed children who had accomplished absolutely nothing.
The Gospel has room for ordinary humanity.
Actually, I think ordinary humanity is exactly where God keeps showing up.
A Few Practices For This Week
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Spend one hour doing something you are objectively mediocre at, without trying to improve or monetize it.
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Read Ecclesiastes 3 slowly. Pay attention to the rhythms of ordinary human life the writer describes.
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Share a meal or conversation without phones on the table for at least part of it.
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Notice how often you internally rank yourself against other people throughout the day. Don’t shame yourself for it. Just notice it.
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Protect one small piece of your week from productivity culture. Even thirty minutes counts.
This community has a lot of intelligent, driven, thoughtful people in it. I’m grateful for that. But I also suspect many of us are tired in ways sleep alone cannot fix.
So I’m curious.
What is something you do poorly but still genuinely love? Have you done it in a while?
Tell me in the comments. I have a feeling the answers might help other people breathe a little easier too.
And if this reflection made you think of someone who has forgotten they are allowed to simply enjoy being human, share it with them.
Prayer
Lord Christ,
You lived among ordinary people and treated their lives as worthy of Your attention. You sat at crowded tables, walked dusty roads, listened to confused questions, and spent time with people the world considered unimpressive.
Teach us to resist the lie that our value depends entirely on performance.
Many of us are tired. Not only physically, but inwardly tired from constant comparison, constant striving, and the pressure to turn every gift into achievement. We carry anxiety about falling behind, wasting time, or not becoming enough.
Help us remember that we are human beings before we are producers.
Give rest to those who no longer know how to enjoy simple things without guilt. Heal the parts of us that believe love must be earned through success. Teach us how to receive joy without needing to justify it.
Bless our friendships, our laughter, our hobbies, our shared meals, our awkward attempts, our unfinished projects, and even our failures.
And when we forget that our lives already have dignity in Your sight, draw us back again to Your mercy.
Amen.
If you saw me after Mass and bought me a sandwich because you wanted to help keep the ministry going, congratulations, you now understand the economic model of Message From the Margins.
This publication is reader-supported because I never wanted to build a Christian platform powered by outrage, ads, fear, or emotional manipulation.
The internet already has enough of that.
Paid subscribers help me spend less time chasing algorithms and more time writing essays like this one, building future courses and conversations, answering reader questions, and creating a genuinely thoughtful Christian community online.
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