May 2009 – 300 words a day

living between the big three

The church calendar feels unbalanced somehow, at least about the big three holidays. The really big holiday, acknowledged inside and outside of the church, is Christmas. We are excited about Christmas. Everyone loves a baby. We are ready for angels and mangers and cuteness. And then, the holiday that we know is more important than […]

by Jon Swanson

now

It is possible to read too much positive thinking material. It is possible, I think, to be too optimistic, to be too ‘everything will work out great’, to be too ‘seize the moment.’ So I won’t be. On the other hand, when the servant got the five talents, he immediately put his money to work […]

by Jon Swanson

ninety five percent of the time

I heard the numbers long ago. I don’t remember them exactly. I don’t remember the speaker either. He was a business ethicist, talking to business people about ethics. (Profound. I know). He said, approximately, “ninety five percent of the time, doing the ethical thing makes good business sense. So it’s not what you do ninety […]

by Jon Swanson

taking sides

I don’t like sides. I don’t like having to decide which team to be on. I don’t like being forced to be with one group or the other. That’s why I want to avoid Matthew 13: 11-17. Because I am working our way through Matthew, writing 300 words a day about following Jesus, I consider […]

by Jon Swanson

what happened in our backyard

We spent the day working on our yard. We are getting ready for summer, ready for graduation. I spent part of the morning in two of our perennial beds, turning the soil with a shovel. Nancy went through those beds after I did, breaking up clumps of dirt, pulling out the weeds, planting some new […]