outWORD by Matte Downey

At the beginning of December God showed me that I was not operating from a foundation of peace in my life. Yep, you’re right, God, let me readjust that. And so I became more aware of remaining calm instead of getting stressed out, not letting little situations bug me, giving people the benefit of the doubt, keeping a closer check on my emotions when they threatened to go all weird on me, and things were pretty good. We were at relative peace (meditative hum). Ten days ago I developed a little fever. It was nothing, just get a little rest, take a few Advils, it will be gone in a few days. Six days later I was thrashing around on the bed wondering why someone didn’t invent something beyond beds; because if you are standing up and feel bad…you sit down; if you are sitting down and feel bad, you lie on the bed; if you are lying on the bed and feel bad…there is nowhere else to go to get relief. I was on my bed and had no relief. The prolonged fever was affecting my brain, my dreams, my abil...

Everyone has them…those disturbing selfish tendencies or annoying impatient attitudes or judgmental prejudices or gripping fears or glaring weaknesses that we just can’t seem to totally get rid of. We wrestle with them off and on, we could in fact have long spurts of freedom from the besetting vices, but when some event triggers that wound, that Achilles heal, that fragile and often unhealthy defence mechanism or mindset or emotional reaction – we realize we are not entirely free of it after all. Discipline and self-control are good things; they go a long way in helping us lead more stable and consistent lives, and though they can assist us in not giving in to our baser and unhealthy urges and help us in dealing with unpleasant and painful situations, they will never remove the trigger point itself, the hook in the flesh, the agitating sliver, the shrapnel under the skin, the tender spot that just never seems to totally heal. Discipline cannot bring wholeness. So are we doomed to just ...

I got mad this week. Unpleasantly mad, uncivilized mad. I could feel it coming and twisting my mind into a mess of unreasonableness and my soul into a heap of disgusting desires to do mean things to people who neglected to conform to my narrow and oh-so-right ways. It was almost like I was standing beside myself and as I stewed about a situation and let myself get more agitated about it, blowing the implications into massive proportions in my mind, I could see the black cloud approach behind me, waft slowly to my side, linger for a bit to see if it was welcome, and as I fed my self-pity for the mountainous wrongs others had so carelessly tossed across my path, I saw my body turn slightly towards the cloud and step into its hungry path. I wasn’t going to let it stay long, just long enough to take a sweet moment of justice, long enough to make someone pay for their mistake by feeling my displeasure, just enough to satisfy the disappointment I felt and to abate the floundering feeling of ...