Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 304
October 22, 2014
Reading together – three suggestions
The other day I talked about reading the Bible together. I thought I’d offer some places to start.
The immigrant.
Ask a group of four other people to read Ruth with you, meeting once a week for six weeks. Eat supper first. Talk about your week. Then read Ruth out loud. Talk about how her life reflects difficulties people you know are facing: immigration, widowhood, in-laws, physical danger for women.
Write down all the things that you don’t understand:
What’s the writer referring to?
When is this...
October 21, 2014
apparently ordinary woman renounces regret.
She was out walking with her husband. It was an ordinary night.
Actually, it was a kind of special night. It was garbage night.
At some times in their lives, garbage night was a furniture shopping night. Dumpsters, garage sales, curbs, castoffs. Every room of the house has some reminder of these shopping trips.
She looked at him. “It’s too bad we’ve got so much garbage furniture.” They walked a couple steps. He was still figuring out how to respond when she said, “No, I’m not sorry.”
October 20, 2014
Inside the processing.
Paul does design work in the housing industry. Someone else works with customers who want cabinets. Those dreams and dimensions come to Paul. He takes spaces and figures out how cabinets will fit in them.
A new guy is sitting with him these days. He’s learning how to do this work, too. Paul said, “Part of my work happens inside my head, as I look and plan and adjust the drawings in my head. But then I realize that the new guy can’t see in my head.”
Paul has to explain the processing to the new...
October 19, 2014
Planning to do good.
1. I’m sure that you are way ahead of me on this. I’ve talked elsewhere about my friend Becky’s 6 things to do list. At the end of the day, you make a list of six things that must get done the next day. Only six on the list, don’t need to be big, have to get done. And then you do them.
Until Sunday, I never thought about making any of those six things be about a particular prayer, or a particular Bible passage to read or a particular action of kindness or gentleness or self-control.
I’m sure yo...
October 16, 2014
a good word for a friend.
Bud was 94. He died on Monday. I’ve known his daughter for nearly thirty years. I’ve known him for half that.
I knew pieces of his story, like his service followingWorld War 2. But I knew more of how he lived in the present. Bud read the Bible, applied it to himself, and talked about it with a passion. He was, I suppose, a living example of Ezra, who read the law, obeyed the law, and taught the law. Bud prayed aloud in prayer meetings with a humility and intensity. It was clear that he wasn’t...
October 15, 2014
Apparently ordinary man decides to not comment.
On Wednesday, Jim Josephson, 39, spent 15 minutes reading the Facebook status updates and shared posts of friends. He then decided not to comment on any of them.
In a candid statement published on his LinkedIn page, Josephson wrote about his experience:
“It was rough for me,” he wrote. “I like conversation as much as the next person. Take an extreme statement that I disagree with and I’ll tell you about it. Make a well-consideredpost about the people I disagree with and I’ll share it with every...
October 14, 2014
What I will do.
In my journal the other day I wrote, “runners run” It was October 9. I hadn’t run for a couple days. I was a little achy. I was hesitant. But I knew that what runners do is run. More than talking about it, more than reading about it, more than worrying about it. They run.
A couple lines later in my journal, I wrote the words from a song: “In the morning, O Lord, you will hear my voice.“
The writer has the same kind of resolve that I did about running. “Prayers pray,” is what it says.
The writer...
October 13, 2014
Stopping for my heart to catch up.
Nancy and I and Andrew and Allie went to ArtPrize on Saturday. It’s a huge public art show in Grand Rapids. It was part of our weekend of vacation (Nancy and I), and was part of work (Allie). There are more than 1,500 works of art all around the city. We saw a few. And I cried a couple of times.
Once was in front of Walking on Water – Azurite. The piece, by Makoto Fujimura, is part of his elegy to the victims of the March 2011 tsunami in Japan. We walked in to the space and I stood, looking. I...
October 12, 2014
A psalm for Monday
First published October 15, 2012
I’ve never talked with you about Psalm 121.It’s a song that strengthens me. When my heart sings it, I am encouraged. It has been shaping me for several decades but I’ve never talked with you about it.
“The sun will not smite me by day, nor the moon by night.” That’s not exactly how the NIV reads, but it is how Bernstein included this Psalm in “A Simple Song“. I started singing those words, the phrases from Psalm 121 in college. Not out loud, for to me to sing ou...
October 10, 2014
Swimming in grey
Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a clue. My two oldest kids are both in college now. They ask some really hard questions about life. Answers to those questions are harder to find than they used to be. So many things seem grey compared to what life waslike during my younger days. Answers used to be so clear and distinct—so black and white.
One verse that gives me hope is what Paul said in Ephesians 1:18—“I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confide...