Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 21

Everything has limits.

“I did everything I could. But it wasn’t enough.”

I talk to nurses these days. ICU nurses work and care and listen and do as well they possibly can. It’s what nurses do. Some days, they make no mistakes, they offer remarkable care to patients and their families, they do everything they and the physicians know to do. And the patient doesn’t make it.

Sometimes, as those nurses walk off the floor and out of the building, they are spent.

What we forget, what we need to know, what we need...

A prayer for the second Sunday after the Epiphany.

God.

We read about miracles in the Bible. People healed. People fed. Water turned into wine.

We want those kinds of miracles. Because people are sick. People are hungry. We’d just love to have a great celebration.

We don’t see those miracles.

Maybe we could help people out. Offer them courage. Offer them opportunities.
Maybe we could offer shoveling and comfort and supper.

But those aren’t you doing a miracle, those are us expressing love.

Which is, I suppose, a kind of mirac...

the beauty of ordinary.

“There is no shame in not leaping from a plane. There is no shame in delivering a good batch of non-gourmet chocolate chip cookies.”

I wrote those sentences on January 2, 2014.

I was thinking about writing a manifesto, a battle cry of belief. A manifesto is an answer to the question posed on the back of a Radisson hotel in-room coffee wrapper: “That’s our philosophy. What’s yours?”

The manifesto I was thinking about would be called “The beauty of ordinary”. It would speak to all the ...

Take my hand.

Thomas Dorsey was not home when his son was born.

He was not home when his wife died after the birth of their son and when their son died the next day. He was away from home to speak and sing, when he got the telegram. It was 1932.

He came home with the grief, and to the grief.

And eventually, in response, he wrote “Take my Hand, Precious Lord.”

I heard that story the other day. I smiled in relief. Because that song always had an acknowledgement of heaviness to it. Rather than t...

Simple And Difficult

Rich Dixon on thinking about focus:

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Continuing last week’s reflection on Falling And Numbers… What’s your memory of President Jimmy Carter?

A political leader? The Carter Center? His unending work for peace?

For me, the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions President Carter is Habitat for Humanity. I wonder what made a former US President lend his considerable influence to that particular organization? (Was it because Jesus was a carpenter?)

I can’t know the...

Cornbread

Supper on Monday night, January 13, 2025, is chili and cornbread.

When you read this on Tuesday, the meal will be history. As I’m writing this on Monday evening, after a day at the hospital and a walk at the mall, Nancy is mixing the wet and dry ingredients, warming the chili. And I just heard the beep that says the oven is up to temperature.

The cornbread will be in the oven soon.

Every Sunday, I stand in the chapel and talk for a bit, unpacking some text from the Bible.  At the end...

Shoveling and Ben.

We don’t have a little snow shovel. But we have a big dustpan, the kind that you use if you are cleaning up a shop.

So when I went out to shovel snow the other day, I gave Ben the dustpan. He started scooping snow.

He scooped some onto the driveway where I had just shoveled a row. He scooped some onto the stalks of plants Nancy had cut back a couple months ago. “I’m hiding stuff.” He scooped some onto a pile in the yard. “I found grass!”

He did nothing to help me clear the driveway a...

A prayer for today.

God.

You know more of the story than I do.
More of my story. More of our stories.
You know what has happened and what is happening and what will happen.

Today we think about wise men meeting you, Jesus, after a long journey.
They saw you, they honored you, they went on their journey back home.
They didn’t know the whole story but they trusted what they know.
The timespan on their story is beyond our imagination.

Isaiah heard you and repeated your words.
Micah heard you and repeated your w...

A great conversation.

Jesus wasn’t always talking to the disciples.

Sometimes when they were traveling, and living, and sitting, the disciples actually talked with each other. Among their topics was, “Who is the greatest among us?”

It’s a familiar topic. In families, in work teams, in friend groups. Some personalities are deeply, unapologetically, competitive. Others are deeply apologetically, competitive. Others are deeply, apologetically, insecure. Which is still a part of the “who is the best among us” c...

A simplifying morning reflection.

Go make a tea. Actually, don’t go make a tea. Instead, write about email.

What’s the cost to me of having tens of thousands of emails piled in my inbox that I see every time I open my email?

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I’ve written about Martha and Mary before. About how Jesus engaged Martha’s theological understanding after Lazarus’ death. How Jesus went in when she opened her house to the disciples. How Martha planned and served a banquet for Jesus and Lazarus.

So I’m good with people being like Martha...