February 2016 – Page 2 – 300 words a day

The opportunities we take

Hope loves to sing. Our daughter loves to sing challenging music with directors she respects. On Sonday, she was challenged in singing music for a director she respected. Bob Ham’s memorial service was yesterday at Bethel College, a place where he worked for twenty-five years as a faculty member and choir director. Hope was part of […]

by Jon Swanson

Obliged. Thank you.

I talked with some junior high and high school students the other night about some of the ways that we are different. I spent some time talking about Gretchen Rubin’s discussion of the different ways we respond to expectations (See Expectations and Lent for more discussion). I told them that I’m a person who can meet the expectations […]

by Jon Swanson

How did Jesus breathe?

(First published July 24, 2013) I know. Through his nose. Unless he had a cold or allergies, in which case he breathed through his mouth. The question occurred to me as I was reading Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines. He said that the reason we struggle to understand Jesus’s statement that his yoke […]

by Jon Swanson

Adjusting our lives.

I’m several days into training as a hospital chaplain. I’m scrambling. It’s been a long time since I learned a new role. Everything that had been a habit about work has changed. Different direction to drive. Different building. Different conversations. Different organizational structure. Everything changed. That’s how it felt for a couple days. Until I realized […]

by Jon Swanson

Water and wine with Jesus and John.

(First published December 3, 2014) John 2:1-11 “What was the first time we saw through the skin and saw a glimpse of something more?” The old man shifted slightly on the chair. “That’s easy. Water into wine.” “We’d had conversations with him. He shocked Nathaniel with his mind-reading or whatever it was. But at the […]