300 words a day

As fast.

I had failed deeply. When gathering up Ben’s things after a sleepover, I put Pillow in the Aldi bag. And Letters the bear and Santa Penguin and the water bottle. And the little green stuffed whatever. When his dad came (“Hi Dada”), I remembered the other bag. And Piggy One and the leftovers. We waved […]

by Jon Swanson

A prayer for the day of Pentecost

God. Most of the time that we turn to you and start talking, we know what we want. We’re not shy about wanting to you fix things, to solve pain, to bring blessing. We know exactly what you should do. That first day of Pentecost the Apostles were in a room together, talking with you, honoring you, […]

by Jon Swanson

Some notes for the weekend.

Read out loud. We’ve been working on Mark 9:33-50 a bit at a time. Sometime soon, read the whole text out loud. It’s how it would have been heard by the disciples when Jesus was first talking. It’s how Peter would have told it to Mark. It’s how people would have heard the Gospel read […]

by Jon Swanson

Attention.

For three weeks, we’ve been looking at the same text from Mark 9. You’ve seen seven posts, spread among all the things each of you reads or listens to. I’ve written those posts, spread among all the things I read. And, for both of us, that’s been 2000 words in all the living we’ve done […]

by Jon Swanson

Peacemakers

Rich Dixon is talking about making peace: +++ Lots of news these days about making deals to achieve peace. Most of those “deals” are about achieving some sort of power balance in exchange for ceasing violence. While we’re always in favor of less hostility, that’s not true peace. Peace, for followers of Jesus, can’t involve […]