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Blog postA reflection from Rich Dixon which s helpful for black Friday.
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Woodward Company is an international industrial design firm based in my Colorado hometown.
Their original flagship product was “governors,” sophisticated controls that constrain an engine’s speed.
An engine governor feels like a buzzkill. Why should some engineer get to limit my freedom and decide how fast I can go?
However, my engineer/designer friends tell me a governor protects t -
Blog postOur hospital system created a short daily video for our coworkers during the last few months. With many working from home, and with the changes and risk we were facing (and still do), some stories of coworkers and a daily prayer from a chaplain have become an encouraging time.
Below is my prayer for today from the Daily Dose. It reflects our life in healthcare, but it also reflects all of our lives.
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God-
We need to be honest.
It’s hard to be gratefu -
Blog postWhen I was growing up, we went to church on Thanksgiving Eve.
We’d sing Thanksgiving songs, including “Thanks to God for my Redeemer”. It’s a Swedish song, with bittersweet lyrics, including these:
Thanks for prayers that Thou hast answered,
Thanks for what Thou hast denied.
True lyrics, but interesting formation for a ten-year old. I was learning from my Swedish ancestors that thanksgiving comes with remembering the challenges.
We would have a time f -
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Blog postI wrote this several years ago. It seems even more appropriate today.
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This is for the people who are struggling with Thanksgiving Day. The rest of you can move along. There is nothing here to see.
Jesus stood on the hillside with five barley loaves in his hand. It wasn’t an armload of bread. A kid was able to carry them easily on a long walk, five loaves in some kind of bag along with a couple fish.
Jesus takes the loaves and fishes and feeds 15,000 people. -
Blog postSo. I had a message for the service at the hospital Sunday. Things got busy. I didn’t have a chance to share it there. But we would have read from Ezekiel 34 about sheep beating up on each other.
“You, sheep, when you get to the field, you push the weak ones out of the way so you can eat first. You make the water muddy for those who follow you.”
And then we read from Matthew 25, the story about sheep and goats.
In that story, Jesus is saying is that people who aren’t f -
Blog postGod.
It’s hard to talk about your kingdom and you being a king.
We pray all the that that your kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. That your will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But we don’t trust leaders and we want our independence. And we don’t like the pain and confusion we see and feel.
And I think part of our resistance to you is the pictures we have of you.
Forgive us the pictures we’ve created of you.
We think you are chasin -
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Blog postI understand that I don’t always look at the bright side of life.
As I’m walking a family out of the hospital after they leave their loved one for the last time, “Make it a great day” feels off. I may as well punch them in the gut.
As I’m listening to a nurse in a light-dimmed hallway, rooms full, two deaths already in the last four hours, offering “It’s always darkest before the storm,” feels like spiritual malpractice.
So I don’t say those things. I offer presence an -
Blog postI think all the time. It’s a strength and a liability. So it was no surprise that I was thinking about a person at the same time I was reading a letter from Paul.
A little frustration in one part of my thinking, these words in another part: “Love does not dishonor others.”
I stopped reading and starting again from the beginning of the paragraph.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not -
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Blog postI can’t remember whether Nancy suggested the word grumpy or cranky the other night. Either will do.
So will weary. So will sad.
In the course of our days, you and I talk with many people who are grumpy and cranky and weary and sad. That includes the conversations we have with ourselves.
And no wonder.
We’re in the middle of a global pandemic. I don’t know about you, but in the past months I’ve watched people die with “the COVID” and die without it. I don’t know -
Blog postA reflection from Rich Dixon.
It was a dispute among good friends.
We’ve seen a few of those lately, maybe more than usual. Pandemic. Economic uncertainty. Isolation. Working from home, or not working at all. And, of course, there’s always politics.
Folks are on edge, and the tension leads to division and quarreling among friends and family members. Stress does that.
I’m guessing it was a stressful time for Jesus’ friends. He told stories they didn’t completel -
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Books By Jon Swanson
A Great Work: A Conversation With Nehemiah For People (Who Want To Be) Doing Great Works
Nov 29, 2013
by
Jon Swanson
$0.99
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"God. We Need You.": A Year of Prayer in a Hospital Chapel (Resources on Faith, Sickness, Grief and Doubt Book 5)
Jun 21, 2020
by
Jon Swanson
$0.99
Other Formats:
Paperback
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