June 2009 – 300 words a day

Flat bread. Grape squeezings.

A few hours after I write this, a handful of people, older than high school (but less than a decade so) are going to sit in a circle and look at flat bread and grape squeezings. They will have spent time before that looking at their souls, allowing the God whose job description includes “reminding […]

by Jon Swanson

listening in the evening.

I write this on a comfortable evening, sitting on the deck. The wind is blowing the trees. The birds are chipping in their evening voices. I can’t tell whether they are trying to get the kids to settle down or making plans for tomorrow. The robin is on the wire, resting a moment before heading […]

by Jon Swanson

the upper left corner

I am not a formally-trained theologian. I am a formally-trained rhetorical scholar. I look at arguments or explanations or descriptions in the Bible more as conversations than as systematic theological statements. I want to see the people behind the words, to consider why a person would come to say that. Yesterday, you read my attempt […]

by Jon Swanson

God has a face

Sometimes when a text is complicated, I have to rewrite it, just for me. That happened when I was looking at Colossians 1:15-20. So I rewrote it. I’m letting you see it, too. ———- God has a face. Jesus. —– The way the oldest gets everything? That’s Jesus to creation. Why? Because he was born […]

by Jon Swanson

lip service

It’s a constant challenge. And I think that’s good. What is? Checking what we say against our hearts. It means, of course, that we have to take the blob our words form as they trail out of our mouths and scoop them up and put them on the table. A large table. With a clear, […]