300 words a day

Real identity

Rich Dixon wants to help us understand identity: +++ I had the opportunity recently to speak about our kids. Hard to know what to say in 5 minutes, but I decided to talk about identity. It fit nicely because our pastor recently spoke about the same topic. He listed all the places people seek identity […]

by Jon Swanson

Foundation work.

Today promises to be an amazing day for a four-year-old who has been digging around our yard for a couple years. He’ll get to see an excavator actually digging where his kid-size excavator has worked with great effectiveness and imagination. Today will also be a significant day for his grandparents who have been concerned for […]

by Jon Swanson

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 […]