humble – 300 words a day

Advent 5: Humble

Humble. When it describes a building or a job, it means small, menial, inferior. When it describes a person, it means not full of yourself. In the first case, it approaches insult. In the latter, compliment. We don’t want to live in humble abodes or do menial work, but we would love to be known […]

by Jon Swanson

The foolish cure.

(Here’s the video version of this post: The foolish cure) Namaan was sick. He was a war hero, he was an army commander, he was the king’s confidant. And he was sick. There was nothing he could do. There was no one that could help. Because of the contagion, he would be cut off from his […]

by Jon Swanson

Concrete.

Phil Cooke talked the other day about the need for leaders to be concrete. In short, start in the world of abstraction, but to reach your team, move quickly into the real world. Give them examples, illustrations, and real-life explanations that will help them understand your concept. After I read that, I spent the day […]

by Jon Swanson

Pride in the name of respect

Peter is the only one who responds when Jesus washes feet. Maybe no one noticed it was Jesus. His point wasn’t to call attention to himself, after all, but to call attention to the hearts of the disciples, to the opportunity to serve each other that is always present. So it could be that he […]

by Jon Swanson

workin’ on it.

I walked down the hallway, heading to the car. To my left, in the conference room, a math teacher was working equations on the white board. Two high school students were at a table, asking questions. It’s an after-school tutoring session. They want to understand, he wants to help. To my right, from a classroom, […]