lent – Page 14 – 300 words a day

Reflecting on lent, reflecting on Easter

There’s no reason to be surprised about our confusion about living after Lent, living beyond Easter. Consider the responses of people during the days following the first Resurrection day. There are moments of sheer delight. Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. It was empty. She went to find the disciples. She ran into Jesus on […]

by Jon Swanson

Crucifixion, Francisco’s and mine.

In 1627, Francisco de Zurbaran painted a crucifixion. He could paint pretty fast. According to one account, he did 21 paintings in eight months. He painted mostly religious scenes. One of those paintings hung in the Monastery of San Pablo el Real. It hangs at the Art Institute of Chicago now. It is a crucifixion. […]

by Jon Swanson

half a mile from holiness

The Jordan River was between people of Israel and the Promised Land. I’ve told the story a dozen times or more. The priests picked up the ark. They use long poles of acacia wood threaded through rings attached to the ark. They walk toward the river. It’s rainy season. The river is overflowing the banks. […]

by Jon Swanson

occupational lent.

That phrase came to mind recently while reading a book Hope needs for a class. I got to it first and began to read. The writer talked about a passage from Augustine’s book on rhetoric, De doctrina Christiana. I pulled it off the shelf above my desk to look at the passage. In the slowly […]

by Jon Swanson

A Sabbath in a year.

We were talking about Sabbath on Saturday night in our Sabbath group. I don’t have time or space or energy to capture the whole conversation. But somewhere in the middle of the conversation, I said that many people don’t like the idea of Sabbath because they think it feels legalistic. They start trying to figure […]