300 words a day

A new season

Sometime today, Monday, is the fall equinox. For daylight, it’s all downhill til December 21. Back when I paid attention to seasons, fall was my favorite. It felt like the perfect season. I could explain why, but then some of you would say, “exactly” and others would say, “but what about this other season?” What […]

by Jon Swanson

A prayer for the twenty-fifth Sunday in ordinary time

God. Sometimes we feel like we could weep all the time because of the pain we see around us. Sometimes we feel like we are crushed. Sometimes we feel like weep like Jeremiah wept. And we struggle to know how to talk to you. Because Paul tells Timothy to pray for those in authority and […]

by Jon Swanson

Chaos and memories are almost the same.

My desk is in chaos at the moment. I could blame Ben, of course. He stood here at wanted to see all the tools in (one of the) mugs I use for writing utensils. And then he wanted to see “that”. The orange thing. And I got down the small truck my dad brought home […]

by Jon Swanson

Listening to Messiah in September.

Tuesday evening, Hope had sectional rehearsals for Philharmonic Chorus. Last Saturday, the chorus and the FWPhil and some traveling musicians sang the music of Queen. Tuesday, they were working on Handel’s Messiah. And at the moment, I’m listening to side two of my three vinyl disk recording, released in the 70s of a performance in […]

by Jon Swanson

A long ride toward being helpful.

Since March 2020, Rich Dixon has been writing here every Wednesday. It was his way to help me out as my hospital work got intense. He’s taking today off. The floor underneath us in the photo is being refinished and he’s offline for a bit. I decided to run this post I wrote a few […]