outWORD by Matte Downey

I love progressive change. I love seeing things and people and relationships being restored. I love things getting better and better instead of worse and worse. I love to see people rising up and accepting challenges. I love encouraging people to reach their potential and going beyond those imaginary limits that we all put on ourselves. It is the process of redemption. Part of the problem with redemption is that all we have ever known since the day we gasped our first breath of earth’s atmosphere, is a world tainted by the presence of sin and evil. We all long for things to be whole, be pure, be right, but if we truly ask ourselves, we have little concept of what that would look like. Just take a brief survey of what people think heaven is like and you will get everything from blank stares to elaborate imaginations that hold no basis in reality or perhaps a few vague notions of what we can expect. In the end, we really can’t grasp the concept of heaven, for it is totally foreign to us....

This is another one of those topics that so quickly becomes awkward when you bring it up in a conversation. The most frequent arguments in family and business are about money. It is deemed impolite to inquire about someone’s financial status, to ask how much something cost, or to reveal too much about your own bank account. Why? These days we actually try to hide our financial status, and poverty as well as wealth carries some stigma with it. That makes no sense! Surely we are not that shallow as to judge a person by their personal belongings, or the number of zeros in their bank account. Or are we that paranoid that as soon as we get something of value, we believe others will want to strip us of it? Perhaps we think that if the unhealthy condition of our finances were truly known, people would think less of us, or be hesitant to trust us. I have no idea, but we certainly lack an openness on this topic in our society. There is a power that we have given to money: it rules much of our l...

I have just finished a most interesting book, A Vindication of The Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. I admit that this is a bit of an unusual read for me, but a friend gave it to me at exactly the same time as I was studying the beginning of Genesis and really understanding for the first time the curses we as women (and men) live under as a result of defying God, and I thought the timing was most apropos. I will not revisit the topic (see my previous blog entitled “Curses”), but let me give you a few quotes that have stirred my mind: “Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep woman in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a plaything. The sensualist, indeed, has been the most dangerous of tyrants, and women have been duped by their lovers, as princes by their ministers, whilst dreaming that...

Is that word starting to irritate you just a tiny bit? The misplaced empowerment put on this word makes me cringe. This concept is being touted as the new “standard” that we are to work towards as responsible world citizens. Okay, I’ll play. Let’s try that word out in a few situations: I will tolerate my children. I desire to tolerate my husband. Wouldn’t it be great if I could invite my closest friends over and we could tolerate each other. I look forward to going to work on Monday and tolerating my colleagues. All those poor people in Africa with AIDS, how I long to tolerate them. I wish we could have a world leader who was a really strong tolerator. Hmmm. It seems to lack a certain something, doesn’t it? I understand the concept of not standing in judgment of those who are different than I am, but “tolerance” is a very weak concept and a totally inadequate way of combating prejudice. Tolerance boils down to one thing: avoidance. Have you ever observed tolerant parents or a t...