Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 4

A prayer for the twenty-seventh Sunday in ordinary time.

God.

We need you.

We need something or someone that can anchor us.
We need something or someone that can steady us.
We need something or someone that can stop changing all the time.

Because everyone and everything is changing all the time.

We are fretting. On account of evil doers.

And we aren’t sure who the evil doers are anymore. Because the people we thought we should trust, those in charge, those who you gave charge to, are fully human.

Are they scheming or are they planni...

Doggies and free will

Sashi, a malamute-wolf-huskie mix,* entered our lives in 2024. She’s the sweetest dog ever! She never barks. She tells us she’s sad by howling when we leave and she can’t come along.

Her only flaw is that she and our cat don’t get along… but that may be more his fault than hers.

And she loves to leave deposits all around our back yard. My OCD side would love it if she did her deed in one narrowly defined corner to make cleanup easier. But that’s not the way dogs work. She’s not being b...

Why These Kids?

Rich Dixon is back after some house renovation work. And he’s talking about commitment.

+++

“Why don’t you support someone locally?”

Good question, one we’ve heard frequently since we began in 2013. I get it. There are too many domestic trafficking victims and many worthwhile programs that work to serve them.

So, why do we support a group of kids halfway around the world?

The answer is simple – we made a commitment.

In 2013, we told some folks at our church we wanted to do ...

A note at the end of September.

Some of you have noticed in real life (and here) that I’m a bit introspective these days. We’ve lived in Indiana for 40 years, coming here to start my professional career. We’ve lived in our current house for 29 years. I know when my hospital work is done (12/31/2025).

Because I have several other projects, I’m not done with working. I’m already scheduled to teach preaching and spiritual formation in March, and to represent Arbor Research at a conference, and to keep writing. But I’ll be ...

One last shift change

I walked to my friend Dianna from our chaplaincy office on the edge of the Emergency Department out to triage. It was the end of her last shift as a chaplain. She’s retiring.

She’d been up all night. A couple of deaths. She talked with families, talked with nurses, completed the paperwork of death. A couple of other crises that were, for families, resulting in phone calls. “Mom’s here again.” “Dad’s moving to intensive care.

She cleaned out her drawer, all except for her badge. She fin...

A prayer for the twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

God.

We need refuge.

With all the voices telling us what’s wrong, we need a place that is quiet.

With all the questions running through our heads, we need a place where we feel safe.

With all the fears for the future of the world, of our families, of our bodies, we need a place where we can ask and answer simple questions:

Is this true?
Is this real?
Is there hope?
Are you?

We know that contentment is part of the answer. That striving for things that don’t satisfy leaves us emp...

A note about tears.

There is, in the Bible in Revelation 21, an image of tears being wiped away. And no more tears or death or mourning or crying or pain. It’s a fixture in funerals, it’s a last reading.

I hear it, from time to time, used as a reason to stop feeling bad. “Because of that then, you should feel better now.”

What if the one who wipes tears away is one who also cried tears?

imagine Jesus on a hill, looking over Jerusalem and weeping.

Imagine Jesus walking near a town and seeing a funeral...

Morning.

Just a simple greeting this morning. I hope you can take a moment.

Gratefully,

Jon.

Two or three

Today I’m talking to a group of people who care about people.

Nurses and social workers and chaplains and pastors who are giving up time and attention to learn more about caring for the grieving and lonely. I’m grateful for the opportunity, anxiously hoping to be helpful. Aware that these are people who make a massively small help in mostly tiny spaces with audiences of two or three.

When we measure impact, we think most about the numbers of people or dollars or words. We think less a...

A new season

Sometime today, Monday, is the fall equinox. For daylight, it’s all downhill til December 21.

Back when I paid attention to seasons, fall was my favorite. It felt like the perfect season. I could explain why, but then some of you would say, “exactly” and others would say, “but what about this other season?”

What if, instead of saying (and hearing) “This is the perfect season”, we said and heard, “I really like this season.” And then, instead of arguing or expressing an opinion, we cou...