Of Papa.  A psalm.

O LORD, you have given me a two-year-old who knows everything I do.
He knows when I sit and when I rise;
He perceives my thoughts of escape from afar.
He discerns my going out and my lying down;
Nothing eludes his scrutiny.
He chooses the topic of conversation
and tells me when my response is incorrect.
He refuses me a chair at the dinner table.
He lays his oily hand upon my clean shirt.
Such an existence overwhelms me
and pushes me to the brink of sanity.
Where can I go from his constant chatter?
Where can I flee from his presence?
If I sit at the computer, he is there.
If I take a shower, suddenly he is there.
If I wake from a nap, I find him staring at me.
If I work in the garage, he finds me;
Even there I hear, “Hi, Papa.
What do-ning, Papa?”
If I say, “Surely bedtime will bring quiet
and the night will blanket the house in silence,”
even slumber will not muffle his cries;
the night will amplify his voice
while the world lies still with sleep.

But you, O LORD, created this two-year-old;
You knit him together in my daughter’s womb.
I praise you because he is fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
His frame was not hidden from you
when he was made in the secret place.
When he was woven together in the depths of the earth,
Your eyes saw his unformed body.
All the days ordained for him,
even the days in the NICU,
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious are your thoughts for this two-year-old, O God!
How vast the sum of them!
Were this Papa to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
Protect him from the wicked, O God!
Keep the bloodthirsty at bay!
May your goodness and mercy go with him
all the days of his life,
And may we all dwell in your house forever,
where there are no tears,
where there is no night.
O LORD, the God of two-year-olds and Papas,
how great is your grace and love.
~Keith Schwanz

P&B Online / Pensions & Benefits USA Church of the Nazarene

The full-color graphic on the front page of the Kansas City Star was nothing like I expected for a Thanksgiving Day (2009). A tiny, token cartoon turkey sat on the top of the narrow left column. In contrast, a large graphic splattered two-thirds of the front page: a spherical depiction of the northern hemisphere of the earth with the middle part of the earth crumbling and cascading into the southern hemisphere which took on the shape of a box. “What just happened?” the article began. “The first decade of the 2000s—a decade that nobody can agree what to call, but ‘uh-ohs’ has been suggested—is nearing its close. Expectations of 10 years ago have been blown apart, more than once, and re-assembled” … MORE

I listened to a lively conversation today. A man who attends a Church of the Nazarene, but doesn’t consider himself a Nazarene, raised the matter of the “rules” of the Church of the Nazarene in issues such as drinking alcoholic beverages. He said that he doesn’t have any problem with having a beer, but that he has voluntarily stopped drinking because of a relationship he has with a young man who has an alcohol addiction. Someone pointed out that that was the source of the “rule” in the early days of the holiness movement. Because the early holiness folk were engaged in ministry to alcohol abusers, they abstained from that which was the downfall for their friends.

We sometimes hear the call to do away with the Covenant of Christian Conduct in the Manual of the Church of the Nazarene. After this discussion I wonder if the real issue here is that we no longer engage missionally in ways that help the Covenant statements make sense. We don’t see the rationale, for example, of the statement concerning total abstinence of alcohol, tobacco, drugs, or gambling because we are not sharing life with those struggling with addiction. The response to questions about the validity of a Covenant statement or lifestyle issue, then, would be missional engagement, not merely discussion or debate. Or maybe it needs to be missional engagement, then discussion.

P&B Online / Pensions & Benefits USA Church of the Nazarene

Our eagerness to serve masked our lack of experience and know-how. Here we were—ten members of a Work & Witness team in a foreign land with the responsibility to set about 2,400 square feet of porcelain floor tile. After a quick training session, a couple of guys on the team set up the cutting station. The rest of us divided into work groups and began laying out the plan for each of the rooms. We quickly discovered the rooms were not square—not even one corner formed a 90-degree angle. What amounted to a small variation the length of a 12-inch tile could be more than an inch at the other end of the room. We saw up close the fact that small things can make a big difference… MORE

P&B Online / Pensions & Benefits USA Church of the Nazarene

I stood in the exhibit hall at the 2009 General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene in Orlando. As I gazed across the large room, I heard someone say, “Hello, partner.” I turned to see my friend, Francisco Cardona, from Guadalajara, Mexico. We embraced, glad to be together again… MORE

My niece, Shela, listens to Matt Case, a mid-day DJ at Spirit 105.3 radio in Seattle.  One day her five-year-old son, Samuel, wanted to call in to tell Mr. Matt a joke. That has developed into quite a relationship.  Mr. Matt gave Shela a private phone number so “Buddy Sam” can call anytime he has something to say.  Here are a few of the clips.

Tooth Fairy; Christmas Gift for Sister

Summer; Vacation in Alabama; Joke

Trip to Portland; Nysha’s Dogs; Lessons at Church

Joke; Mother’s Day Gift; Money for Children in Africa

Crafts; Joke

P&B Online / Pensions & Benefits USA Church of the Nazarene

For months, the financial crisis has dominated the news. Pundits speculate on the bankruptcies of automakers and the ripple effect it may have on the economy. City officials look closely at foreclosure rates in their neighborhoods, calculate the shock on city budgets and services, and assess the impact on perceptions of livability. Some people wake up on Saturday to discover their bank failed on Friday and the federal government has brokered a peaceful takeover by a solvent bank… MORE

P&B Online / Pensions & Benefits USA Church of the Nazarene

On a beautiful spring afternoon, just a few weeks before we received our high school diplomas, my friend invited me to go flying with him. He had just qualified for his private pilot license. We took his green Chevy Vega to the small municipal airport. He went into the office to finalize arrangements and before long we were flying… MORE

P&B Online / Pensions & Benefits USA Church of the Nazarene

We might never have known about them had they not left sizeable gifts to a university, library, or nonprofit organization. But the institutions shared the good news. When a news agency picked up the story, the word spread quickly… MORE

From April to December 2008 I worked on a grant proposal for Nazarene Theological Seminary.  The Kern Family Foundation initiated the Leading Through Change: Innovation in Theological Schools program and invited NTS to propose a project.  We succeeded!  Kern announced that NTS was one of five schools invited to participate in the program, and they will provide $500,000 to help us achieve the goals we identified in the proposal.  Great news for NTS.  See our press release at the NTS website or at NCN News.  Over the next four years we will work the plan — The Re-imagining NTS Project: A Missional Seminary Serving a Missional Church.