Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 33

A prayer for the twenty-fifth Sunday in ordinary time

God.

We are jealous. We have selfish ambition.

James is right.

We don’t like those words, of course.

But when I check the number of views and likes as I have been doing for years, my heart and mind have been formed in that direction. To long for “the like”, to look at the traffic of others.

Even to keep checking ourselves against those we call and know as friends.

Maybe it is me.

Maybe it is my particular sin.

Tied to my pleasing.

Maybe it needs to end.

To stop w...

What can you let go right now?

The other week, James Clear’s Monday morning question was “Which responsibilities, relationships, or projects have been weighing heavily on me and can I give myself permission to let one go right now?” 

At that moment, I was thinking about what to do here at 300 words while I’m doing some family things for a couple weeks. I realized that I don’t mind sharing some things I’ve written in the past (and a couple new things). And I want to keep going with Rich and Paul.

But what was creatin...

Stop gaining. Start following.

So what does Jesus do after scolding Peter?

He stops walking. He lets everyone catch up. He starts to explain.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”

So. A couple thoughts.

Deny yourself. Stop indulging yourself. Stop taking yoursel...

I am.

Rich Dixon is talking about dreams.

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Toward the end of FREEDOM TOUR 2014, our team discussed my notion of “dream.”

A dream is the God-inspired desire to share your unique gifts and passions, to serve and make a difference in the world.

During the conversation I shared some thoughts about one of my favorite passages:

Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.   When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,”   they said,...

human concerns

Yesterday, I talked about the conversation Jesus and his disciples were having about his public identity. He asked them what people were saying about him.

And then Jesus begins to describe what will happen to him.

Suffer and be rejected by the establishment and be killed and rise again.

And Peter starts to rebuke him.

We don’t know what Peter said.

We can imagine that he might have warned Jesus that he was sounding negative and that if he talked too much about the religious le...

Who is he?

My dad used to travel a lot. When I got old enough, I’d drive him to the airport. And then I’d pick him up at the airport.

Those trips gave us time to talk, 45 minutes of catching up on the trip, of last instructions before he left town, of just talking.

Because my dad had a couple strokes later in life, I can’t remember his pre-stroke voice. And of course, I can’t remember any of the specific things we talked about. But I remember the time together.

Jesus and his disciples didn’t dr...

A prayer for the twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

God.

You are reading Facebook.

Or maybe James and Solomon were as they wrote about the destructive power of spoken words.

“How long will mockers delight in mockery?” Wisdom says. “How long will fools hate knowledge?”

“Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark,” James says. “The tongue is also a fire. It sets the whole course of one’s life on fire.”

Thousands of years later, we are burning down careers, destroying families, despising one another with simple wo...

More isn’t necessarily better.

In addition to reading books and articles and blog posts about chaplaincy and spiritual formation, I read about publishing books and writing for social media. In that reading, I hear the word “more” often.  More readers. More emails. More sales. More pages. I sometimes try little things to get more readers, more emails, more sales. I make links from my blog to my books. I post stories on Facebook about my email newsletter which is based on my blog.

It’s a thing called scaling. We want to ...

Learning about love.

In Tuesday’s post, I talked about walking out of the hospital while a cardiac arrest came in. At the end of my shift on Tuesday, I sent Nancy a text.

“So today I’m staying for the cardiac arrest.”

The hospital was complicated for chaplains at that moment. Staff and families and uncertainty called for support. And I was available.

I provided some backup, responded to a couple situations, and then walked out. My coworkers provided excellent support in all of the difficult conversations...

Notice

Rich Dixon turns the mic over to Becky Dixon this week:

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During the 2014 FREEDOM TOUR, Becky shared this reflection about life on the farm.

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I remember driving around the farm with Dad, heading off to perform some specific chore. We’d finish whatever we set out to do, and when we arrived home, he’d remark that a particular fence needed repair, a neighbor’s tractor seemed out of place, or he needed to check back on the cows in the field by the birthing barn.

If you were ...