January 2014 – Page 4 – 300 words a day

Getting back on track.

Hi. It’s Friday. Just some thoughts. 1. We’re a week and a half into 2014 and school has already been cancelled four extra days for some of you in the US. Work was cancelled. Snow and ice and cold have undermined our plans. That’s a rough way to settle back into a routine. But all that focus […]

by Jon Swanson

Piling wood.

If we were to look at the Old Testament chronologically, in the order of the story it tells, Nehemiah would be one of the last two books. It may even be the last book, since Malachi, the last of the prophets, may have visited Jerusalem while Nehemiah was away for several years. So the very […]

by Jon Swanson

the beauty of ordinary.

“There is no shame in not leaping from a plane. There is no shame in delivering a good batch of non-gourmet chocolate chip cookies.” I wrote those sentences on January 2. I was thinking about writing a manifesto, a battle cry of belief. A manifesto is an answer to the question posed on the back […]

by Jon Swanson

101 ways to make friends.

Seriously? There are 101 ways? And you expect me to know any of them? I’m sitting in the spare bedroom of Andrew and Allie’s apartment because the snowy roads across northern Indiana made it unsafe to get home. And so I’m writing here while Andrew and Allie and Nancy are sitting in the other room […]

by Jon Swanson

Snow day.

Welcome to the first Monday of 2014. Some of you are looking out at the coldest temperatures you’ve seen in decades. Some of you are looking at the most snow in years. Some of you are looking at a complete disruption of everything you’ve planned for the day. Some of you are in fear for […]