Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 3

An open invitation.

Sometimes people say to me, “God wouldn’t want me.”

I ask them if they have killed Christians. So far, no one has.

(Except by the measure of Jesus who indicated that if you hate, that’s like murder. With that measure, many people who identify as some version of Christian and talk on social media or gossip about friends or read stories and say, “Who in their right mind would support him (or her or that)” would fall into the “deprive people of the value God gave them and do or desire dama...

A prayer for the twenty-fourth Sunday in ordinary time

God,

We are wanting to be looked for.

Instead of thinking we have to find you,
thinking we have to be earnestly seeking you,
we wish that you were actually looking for us.

That you wanted us.

Or instead of thinking you are searching for us with the malicious intensity of a predator, trying to take us down, we wish you were seeking us with the tenderness of a parent.

Forgetting, of course, that the stories you tell us about yourself have that tenderness.

You created the relatio...

Rest and honor and remember

Our team of chaplains gathered for our monthly staff meeting on Wednesday. It was our first gathering since the death of our colleage, Kent. It will be the last gathering before the retirement of our colleague, Dianna. It was my turn to start with a reflection before we turned to the remembering. Here’s what I said.

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I want to talk about the value of stopping. And the value of honoring. And the value of remembering.

I want to talk about those things, but you all know well that s...

Our team of chaplains gathered for our monthly staff meet...

Our team of chaplains gathered for our monthly staff meeting on Wednesday. It was our first gathering since the death of our colleage, Kent. It will be the last gathering before the retirement of our colleague, Dianna. It was my turn to start with a reflection before we turned to the remembering. Here’s what I said.

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I want to talk about the value of stopping. And the value of honoring. And the value of remembering.

I want to talk about those things, but you all know well that s...

Celebrations Are Okay

Rich Dixon reminds me of my own words in a helpful way.

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Jon said something last week that I found comforting and reassuring.

Jesus doesn’t say, “Don’t have a picnic, give your food to the foodbank.” We might think that would be the best use of resources. Instead, Jesus says, have your parties, your events, your celebrations, your feast. Put the energy into planning. Do the cooking and decorating. Do everything the same as now, as well as you can.

When we do the FREEDOM TOUR C...

Being careful.

Nancy sneezed. I was in my downstairs office, she was in her upstairs office. And I heard her sneeze in the quiet of the house.

“Bless you,” I said via Facebook Messenger. (I’m not going to holler it.)

And then I asked her for a word.

“Bless you,” she answered via Facebook Messenger.

We do talk face-to-face. Often. But we also often email, text, call, and message. Because we want to offer each other our words, our awareness, our sympathy, our ideas, our commiseration. When we leav...

Happy Monday.

I hear the question often. “God must have kept me alive for a reason. I wonder why?”

I talked about it yesterday, in fact. 

A coworker had a major medical event. Eventually she recovered and went back to work. I said, “What if your reason is to be an even more effective, even more compassionate coworker? What if it’s not about quitting and building an orphanage somewhere?” 

Because this person is already skilled at her work. Now she understands it from the inside. 

She said she ha...

A prayer for the twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary TIme

God.

You know us. You know all about us. You make us inside and out. You are completely aware of the things we are good at and the things we struggle with. You are aware of the things that annoy us about ourselves. You are aware of our insecurities and our anxieties, our adequacies and our competencies. You are aware of what you have equipped us to be able to do, yet you don’t disown us when we don’t measure up.

In fact, you don’t actually measure. Not like we do.

You know us and are...

SZALLGUD

I was given a great reminder while waiting at a traffic light the other day. I was behind a truck with a license plate that read: “SZALLGUD” – “it’s all good.”

I’m not sure what the truck owner meant by it, but it was a great reminder that “…God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” (Romans 8:28).

When we are in the thick of life, it may not seem like it’s all good. It might seem like it’s all bad.

Go...

Enough.

On May 9, 2018, Rev. Kent Green was ordained as a minister in the Missionary Church. Kent serves as a chaplain in a hospital, Parkview Regional Medical Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The text he chose to be read that night was Philippians 2:1 to 18.

Kent asked me to bring the message for his ordination service. As I reflected on the work of chaplains, this message became not just a charge to Kent but a charge to all Chaplains at least for those working from a Christian perspective.

On Augus...