Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 49

A prayer for the second Sunday of Lent

God.

How are you?

We show up to these conversations, and we talk and complain. We tell you what we want, what’s wrong with what others or you or we are doing.

And we almost never ask you how you are doing.

Or if there is anything we can get you while we are up.

We almost never bring you coffee, like we would bring a friend, and then sit with you and listen to you unfold stories.

Like the time that you and Abraham met together.

You changed his name, and Sarah’s. You told h...

Making some choices.

A sense of preparation is what Lent accomplishes. It keeps us from being surprised. And we do that preparation by 1. Choosing a direction. And/or 2. Making a change.

Jesus went into the wilderness to pray. God took him there. Forty days to choose away from food, and toward God.

We are, as humans, accustomed to things. We are habitual toward things. We are addicted to things.

We think thoughts, about ourselves and others, without knowing how we arrived at the thought. We feel feelings...

Six weeks.

At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

What does six weeks feel like?

It depends. Six weeks of what?

Around the hospital, we sometimes hear measurements of six weeks.

Six weeks to live.
Six weeks until birth
Six weeks of rehab.

Each of those has a different feeling.

But each, I think, leads to a change in a way of living. Each leads to a kind of...

An Able-Bodied World

Rich Dixon is inviting us to think.

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Two days after completing the ride, we met in New Orleans with a group called Handicapped Encounter Christ (HEC) including people with a variety of disabilities and the “able-bodied” folks who supported their ministry.

A small group, perhaps twenty-five people, sat on an outdoor patio. They handed me this cool certificate, which proves how easy it is to get a proclamation from a big-city mayor.

I began as I often do with a small audience, a...

Stepping away from affirmation.

I know that science talks about dopamine. It’s a brain chemical. It makes us feel good, sometimes in an addictive kind of way.

It’s a driving force in social media design. Every “Like” is intended to help us feel good, to send a burst of dopamine to the brain. Many of us (because I understand from the inside), are aware of the likes, are excited by the bursts of being known.

This focus on being “liked” is deadly to sustained thinking, to quiet reflection, to the writing I do, to the re...

Not the details we want, but the story we need.

“…Came from Nazareth to the Jordan and was baptized...”

This is very simple story-telling.

When we are listening to a story, we want the details. We want to know what each person is thinking. We want to know motives. We want each piece of the back and forth of the debate. We want to know the tone of voice so we can tell if someone was being sarcastic and insulting, or respectful and supportive. We want to know everything.

When we are telling a story, we want to choose the details. We...

A prayer for the first Sunday in Lent

God.

It’s the first Sunday in Lent and we are already feeling like giving up.

I don’t mean giving up something for Lent. I mean simply giving up.

Everything is an argument and everywhere is a death (or more) and everyone is tired.

We need you.

You are, we read, outside of time.

With you, we read, a day is like a millennium and a millennium is like a day.

We are, you know, inside of time.

With us, a day can feel like forever. Forever can feel like a day.

Your plan, ...

I don’t know. Yet.

A few years ago, I took some words of Paul and unpacked them.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

As I consider where to start in that process, it may begin with a simple phrase: “I don’t know.”

I offer that phrase to both of us. It’s a useful phrase. I don’t say it often enough, though I often feel it. And it...

A suggestion of simple for Lent

Maybe the things that go into Lent–-the practices of giving up food or technology, the practices of prayer more often or solitude or silence, the practices of eating together–those things are acts of clearing space in our hearts so we can listen and attend.

Consider one of these exercises over the next few days:

Simply ask yourself, “What helpful, beneficial action do I know would help my relationship with God and others, but I just forget to do?” Then do that during Lent.

Set aside...

Foundation And Legacy

Rich Dixon takes a break.

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1500 miles was just one chapter in the story.

Before we continue, let’s take a one-week break from bike riding. Jon generously offered the opportunity to tell you about a wonderful book that describes part of the foundation for my story.

The book is Standing on the Shoulders by Tim Brand.

With uncommon tenderness and transparency, Tim traces his journey with his father, Denny, through the final six weeks of Denny’s life. Into this six-week walk, T...