chaplain – Page 8 – 300 words a day

Emotional triage

Some chaplain days have no space. The pager calls you to the emergency department three times in fifteen minutes. The pager calls you to three deaths in three hours. The pager calls you to two patient rooms for conversations in the same fifteen minutes and the same three hours. On those days, I’m learning about […]

by Jon Swanson

A mid-week renewal.

Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word. Psalm 119:36-37 My week is oriented toward weekends. I work as a hospital chaplain every Sunday. I work Friday or Saturday, Monday or Tuesday. Sometimes four out of the five. […]

by Jon Swanson

Everyone is spiritual.

What if everyone is spiritual just as everyone is physical, as part of being human? Not just people who are already following Jesus. And including people who are following Jesus. What if everyone has spiritual temperaments, personality traits? Not just people who have been given that personality after they start praying. Think about it for […]

by Jon Swanson

A sense of connection.

A few months ago, I was part of a workshop on spiritual health. We suggested at the outset, As a working definition, let’s talk about our spirit as that part of us that desires connection to something greater than ourselves. We’re not sure exactly what it is, this pull, this awareness, this sense of connection. […]

by Jon Swanson

Peaceful expectations.

It’s the season when expectations reach their annual peak. Around Christmas, many people wrestle with family expectations. Gift-giving, party-attending, family-gathering expectations. It’s not that gifting or partying or familying are bad. In fact, each is good. But when we have to measure up to stated or unstated standards, our minds swirl and our hearts ache. […]