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The Pastor's Dream: Lazarus
“We may possess and may practice a dogmatics, an ethics, and a proper worldview such as the given tradition requires but still leave...
Jon Swales
Feb 142 min read


The Harrowing of Hell
Today, the Lighthouse team continued their book study of ‘The Wood Between the Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross.’ After discussing...
Jon Swales
Feb 41 min read


A Psalm for a Secular Age
Give thanks for the longing within, for the hunger that will not be silenced. Speak of the beauty that lingers still, of the mystery that...
Jon Swales
Feb 41 min read


The River I Step In Is Not the River I Stand In
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man." —Heraclitus The River I Step In...
Jon Swales
Feb 41 min read


Bats or Newts? A Lament
“Bats or great crested newts?” “Neither, because I want growth, ” - Rachel Reeves, Times Interview, Quick Fire Questions ‘Bats or Great...
Jon Swales
Jan 281 min read


Fragility-A Dialogue with Psalm 46
There is a trembling beneath all things, a quiet undoing woven into the fabric of being. The earth shifts, waters rise, and I too am...
Jon Swales
Jan 251 min read


As the Deer: For a Secular Age
There is a thirst— a restless, raging thirst we cannot name, a yearning without object, a hunger beyond the reach of reason, a void...
Jon Swales
Jan 252 min read


Drill, Baby, Drill!
Drill, baby, drill— strange words, a chant from a strange man in a strange world. Forests burn, their ancient voices smothered in smoke....
Jon Swales
Jan 221 min read


Soup, Soap & Salvation
Step beyond the comforts of romanticised religion, beyond a hope too soft, too distant. Move towards the wounded, the image-bearers in...
Jon Swales
Jan 212 min read


Find Your Own Calcutta
You can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have the eyes to see”- Mother Teresa Find your own Calcutta— a descent, an incarnation...
Jon Swales
Jan 151 min read


Hope: Peering through a Veil
Hope is not a calculation, not a tally of gains or losses, but the ache of a heart stretched toward the horizon, a whisper of...
Jon Swales
Jan 131 min read


Go Forth without Fear
Do not be afraid. Bid farewell to fear. There is no shadow so deep that love cannot reach it, no sin so vast it could exhaust the...
Jon Swales
Jan 101 min read


Hope Leans Forward
Hope leans forward, tender, listening to the whispers of creation groaning for renewal. It does not turn its face from shadows but gazes...
Jon Swales
Jan 101 min read


The gods come to die
As it’s Advent, this poem/reflection might seem out of place. However, I was recently listening to a podcast about the Aztecs that...
Jon Swales
Dec 17, 20241 min read


The Ancient Story
The Bible presents us with an epic love-shaped narrative, a story of salvation, a history of hope, and a metanarrative of mercy, which...
Jon Swales
Dec 15, 20245 min read


To live is to awaken: A Poem
The world is not what we think it is. We have been told a lie: that it is mere physicality, A random assembly of atoms, A cosmos...
Jon Swales
Dec 7, 20241 min read


Wounded & Weighty Silence
I carry words unspoken, hidden beneath the surface, not because they are forgotten, but because they are too heavy to be set free....
Jon Swales
Nov 15, 20241 min read


Hope Spoke my Name
Hope can be elusive, slipping through our grasp like morning fog, leaving behind the stark reality of suffering. For my lighthouse...
Jon Swales
Sep 21, 20242 min read


Walking with Wounds
Life, though common to all of us, remains profoundly strange- a puzzle, a mystery. We are biological beings, products of evolution, yet...
Jon Swales
Sep 20, 20242 min read


Broken Piano
The keys, once pure, now lie fractured in a Leeds square. Broken yet beautiful, they mirror us— image bearers, wounded but still...
Jon Swales
Sep 1, 20241 min read
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