Episode 81 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh.

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"A culture of encounter is something we have to be very intent on practicing, and so I'm excited about an economics that creates many of those opportunities for encounter."
-Elizabeth Barlow

IN THIS EPISODE

In the latest episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh FSPA chats with Elizabeth Garlow, economist and cofounder of the Francesco Collaborative, which invites individuals to critique economic structures and invest using their whole spiritual selves. Elizabeth discusses her early Capuchin influences and her interest in Focolare. "I had a sort of hunger to have a different kind of conversation about who we are as human beings," she says, "how we meet our needs, what kind of systems can we create?"

Sister Julia and Elizabeth talk about the damage that can be done by our current economic structures. "Our economic structures are intertwined with problems of disconnection and loneliness," Elizabeth says. Elizabeth also discusses the challenging ways we can move forward to help create a more just world. "Money in many ways is energy, " she says. "It's flow. It is not something that we are slaves to as the Gospel...teaches us."

Name Drops:

Natalie FosterPope FrancisMia BirdsongFr. Richard WardMarjorie KellyFr. LebrayMorgan SimonNich RomeoZacchaeus

Topics Discussed:

Franciscan spiritualityCapuchin communityFocolare MovementEconomy of CommunionEconomy of Francescohow we spend and investethic of enoughnessfinancial discipleshipINE Institute

Books Mentioned:

Laudato SiLaudate DeumThe BibleLiving City MagazineHow We Show UpReal ImpactWealth SupremacyThe Alternative

Elizabeth Garlow

ABOUT THE GUEST

Elizabeth Garlow is drawn to the spiritual dimensions of our shared work to build a new economy. She co-founded the Francesco Collaborative, which was in part inspired by the kinds of spaces she longed to be a part of as an investor: one that invites us to show up as our spiritually rooted selves, with deep vulnerability, care for one another and a commitment to critique the structural problems of our economy and dream about our role in its transformation.

Through her work, she supports protagonists of transformation drawing on lineages of faith, spirituality, and wisdom to ask questions like: “what is enough?” and “what does a practice of finance and investing fit for the needs of our time look like”? These questions are in part drawn from her formation in the Focolare Movement's Economy of Communion initiative, where enterprises seek to embody a relational economy paradigm.

Elizabeth previously co-led impact investing for the Lumina Foundation, served as a policy advisor with the Obama Administration, and co-founded a Detroit- based organization, Michigan Corps, to invest in local entrepreneurs through crowdfunding and innovative forms of patient capital. She studied political economy at Kalamazoo College, completed her graduate work in public policy and economics at Princeton University, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in 2019. Elizabeth lives in Michigan, where she is enjoying getting reacquainted with Michigan’s Great Lakes and apprenticing with urban farmers in Detroit.

MESSY JESUS BUSINESS is hosted by Sister Julia Walsh. 

Produced and edited by Colin Wambsgans.

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