Reflections by Danny Nelson Schweers

The best art, the best writing, opens up a world to the one who looks, to the one who reads. The medium carries the message but the message is something other than daubs of paint on a canvas or an alphabet arranged into words and paragraphs.  A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for Sunday, July […]

What makes a place feel like home? Something more than familiarity. We relax and let go of tension. We feel comfortable and safe. There is a resonance, a connection that makes us call the place ours. A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for Sunday, June 29, 2025. Earlier this month I was back on the […]

Last week I laughed out loud. Suddenly, words that I had found comforting took on a new dire meaning. It was such a surprise that I had to laugh, a good laugh at myself, that I had thought one thing but now had to suddenly adjust my thinking. A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for […]

Every day, sometimes every hour, I have a brilliant insight. I can hardly keep up with them! I have dusty notebooks full of jewels. One troubling insight keeps returning. A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for Sunday, May 11, 2025. What I noticed at first is the obvious. Every newscast starts off with five stories […]

Right now, as I write this, Barbara is driving. I am in the passenger seat, typing on my laptop between bumps as we roll down Route 6 just outside the town of Many, Louisiana. We are on a two-lane historic highway called ”El Camino Real”, the King’s Highway. Spaniards were here! A reflection by Danny […]

An alarm was shouted out. A beast approached in the night! We, the men, being men, took up our swords and spears and moved to that side of our miserable shelter. The snow storm raged. The women behind us, huddled with the children, implored us to have pity on the beast shivering before us, just […]

The world has never had it so good. By many indicators — energy use, life expectancy, income, education, communications, fewer deaths due to warfare, etc. — more people have better lives today than ever before. We have so much to be thankful for! A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for February 9, 2025. Even so, […]

So much to do and nobody else is going to do it. It is up to me. The other eight billion people on the planet have other plans. A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for January 19, 2025. I am consistently amazed that, even with so many people in the world, many important things are […]

Once again, reality forced me to revise my idea of it. A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for December 29, 2024. I do not need to tell you what an unwelcome experience it is when our idea of reality suddenly confronts reality itself and has to change. Just now, for instance, I wanted extra leg […]

Everyone wants to fit in. Everyone wants to stand out. In. Out. In. Out. We are all dancing. A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for December 8, 2024. Look! A rabbit hole! Let’s dive down!  If we go down this rabbit hole, thinking about fitting in and standing out, we won’t be like other people. […]

These words — Be afraid. Be VERY afraid — are usually said in jest. Usually. A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for November 17, 2024. You may remember these words from television ads for a 1986 horror movie, The Fly. In that movie our experimenting hero is accidentally teleported along with a house fly, tragically […]

Now might not be the right time, we may not be the right people, but with God all things are possible. Let us look and see or, because we are often blind, feel our way. A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for October 27, 2024. Recently, my wife and I found water pooled under the […]

A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for September 29, 2024. “I was sleeping in the graveyard,” said the woman I just met. “Now that I have a job, I am looking for a place to rent.” If you attend my church, you will remember that, until a week or so ago, people were sleeping in […]

My prayer list is long. That is not unusual. A reflection by Danny N. Schweers for September 8, 2024. A wife’s colon cancer. A mother’s death. A wife’s death. A husband’s death. A husband’s ruptured gall bladder on top of his cancer. A daughter’s arm amputated because of intravenous drug use. Friends and neighbors using […]

My new computer gives me hope for life after death. A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for August 18, 2024. There are many reasons to believe that death is not the end of life, that we can look forward to an afterlife. One reason I look forward to an afterlife is that my new computer […]

A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for July 28, 2024. There are many reasons to believe that death is not the end of life, that we can look forward to an afterlife. One reason I look forward to an afterlife is surprise. After I die, I expect to be surprised. Why wouldn’t I? I have […]

A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for July 7, 2024. Usually I only pray for the big things. On my prayer list are a colleague with colon cancer, a neighbor with dementia just admitted to a memory-care unit, a neighbor whose wife just died, a friend whose mother just died, a colleague whose nephew is […]

 Carpentry repairs make me think of Christmas. A reflection by Danny Nelson Schweers for June 16, 2024. Last week I was reminded of Christmas as I repaired some stair rails. A woman in her 70s and her mother rent the small cottage attached to my home . They are good tenants, so when they complained […]