April 2014 – Page 4 – 300 words a day

Small conversations with Jesus

Jesus spent time with crowds and had compassion for multitudes and children. But he often took his disciples away from the crowds so that he could teach them and talk with them. When we map parts of his journeys, it looks like he lost his compass and led his disciples aimlessly in the wilderness. And often, […]

by Jon Swanson

As best as we know how

I’ve been thinking about the amount of time that I have to make a difference in myself and in others. I’ve been thinking about three amounts of time. 1. What can I do today? 2. What can I do in the next thirty days? 3. What can I do in the next 25 years? Today […]

by Jon Swanson

Hope walks.

It was a foggy morning. Nancy and I were waiting for Hope our daughter (who turned 23 yesterday). She was riding on the Lake Shore Limited from New York City. She’d only been away for a week. She’s been gone much longer before, but we were looking forward to seeing her, hearing her stories. We […]

by Paul Merrill

More about distractions

Jon and I both struggle with distraction. His recent post on being distracted got me thinking further (once I focused a little and pushed a few distractions out of the way). What did Jesus do? He had to deal with a lot more distraction than I do, since he was extremely popular. Three incidents show […]

by Jon Swanson

a blessed life.

(First published July 13, 2014) When you pick up a book of poetry or a book of song lyrics, you have to work. You cannot read Gerard Manley Hopkins or W.H. Auden or Bono the same way you read Malcolm Gladwell or Donald Miller. With poems, you have to stop often, read out loud at […]