outWORD by Matte Downey

We returned yesterday from 5 days in New Brunswick at a Roundtable Leadership Retreat. There was a lot of sitting and talking and listening, but some time was made for fun and games, tasty food, and a hike up Dominion Hill where I watched my 2 fellow hikers cut down several dead trees with the chainsaw. Good stuff! However, I am pretty tired today from the lack of sleep due to a very early morning flight back (only 4.5 horizontal hours), recovering from the cold I caught while there (coughing - yuck!), and having to fast for a blood test today. (Giving blood just takes a lot out of me.) Anyway, in all my travels I started reading a book about the life of Einstein. This brilliant man was a wonderful friend to many around him who shared his passion for learning and discovery. However, authority figures were frequently put off by his seeming disregard for their position and the accepted social and political practices of the time. His direct and abrasive manner caused him to lose marks ...

Dean and I were watching Mythbusters on Monday night. He had just come home from a business trip, so we talked, ate, and chilled on the couch and had the TV on while we were doing so. It was an entire episode dedicated to seeing if there was any merit to the theory that the landing on the moon had been faked. Pictures and videos of the landing were analysed and the common so-called discrepancies were tested. Two of the tests they featured caught my attention. One was the claim that the American flag that was planted on the moon is seen to be waving in the breeze in a video and the reasoning is that in the vacuum of the moon, this should not be possible. The other one was that in a picture taken of an astronaut climbing down from the lunar module, he is in the shadow of the space vehicle and yet he is quite brightly lit, leading some to claim that this was a staged photo with a second light source. They tested the first theory by swiveling a flag (as if planting it in the ground) in ...

I have a new battery in my laptop. Since I always use my computer on AC power, I was in no hurry to replace it when it gave up a few months ago, but there were side effects that I had not counted on. One of them was a frightful blue screen that appeared while I was on a trip to Niagara Falls a few weeks ago. It seems that the short term memory is lost when I unplug it and transport it without a battery. And so the computer forgot who it was and why it was here and I had to run a diagnostic to tell it where to look for this basic information (yes, I use blatant personification for many inanimate objects). I unplugged my computer a few minutes ago, just to give the new battery a little test run. It says I have 4 hours and 23 minutes of battery life left. Wow, the initial factory-supplied battery never gave me that kind of mileage! I could not make it through a 90 minute movie without plugging in! This is sweet! Reserve power is important in my life as well. I won't always have optimu...

I sold my Echo on Saturday. It has been a great little car for the almost 5 years I have owned it, but since moving closer to downtown, I decided that perhaps I could do without a vehicle. I already own a bus/metro pass and use it several times a week to get around because it eliminates fighting the traffic and paying for parking. Due to living right on a bus route and being within walking distance to many stores, my little car was sitting behind our condo for days at a time, lonely and under-appreciated . I mostly used it to get groceries, run errands, get somewhere when I was running late, or help out friends. It was really a convenience more than a necessity, and I calculated that the annual cost of registration and insurance alone would cover a car rental twice a month, before one figured in any maintenance and repairs. Plus, we still had Dean's car which I could use on evenings and weekends. And so I put it up for sale on http://www.craigslist.ca/ (I love craigslist !) on Tue...

The topic of receiving has been coming up a lot in my life this past month. It started when I read the story of Mary again and was struck by how she willingly received everything that God was offering to her. Then I pulled a muscle on the day we were hosting a Canada Day party and had to receive a lot of help from my guests. As well, for a week, my modem had issues and my email program would only receive emails and I could not send anything. Okay, okay, I get it. I have become much more aware of how badly I still receive. As a result, I have modified my behaviour and attitude in quite a few ways, indeed I have. I don't often pray, "God, I need this one thing," but I say, "God, what are you offering me today?" I consciously try to accept and embrace prayers, gifts, help, and true words from others and from God. I say, "I receive," a lot to remind myself not to be so self-reliant. So on Sunday morning when I was asking God what to speak on that night, I ...

Here is my first cooking show, where a fabulous new recipe that I invented a few weeks ago is revealed. Please be aware that this video may cause your stomach to make strange noises. No animals were harmed in the making of this video, but several corn chips were crushed beyond recognition.

My new modem arrived today and I am back online. You don't know how valuable something is until you have to do without it for awhile. I can now research and write and reply to emails instantly with the flick of my forefinger. I can also run up and down the stairs in our home. These are both things I could not do a few days ago. I am sitting in the chair of gratefulness today, and I hope that I do not soon forget the privilege. This past week I have had to receive more than usual. It is good for me. I always want to be willing to take what God is bringing my way. I have also seen that I get things mixed up sometimes. I am reckless where I should be careful, and I am careful where I should be reckless. I am reckless in areas where I think I know what I am doing. I am reckless when everyone else is doing something and I feel I should be able to do it as well (like play soccer with an injured muscle). I am reckless when I do not consider the value or cost to myself or ano...

So, my modem died on Sunday. It just gave up all its lights and is now sitting lifeless and unproductive on the table, hoping I will consider giving it a second life as a paper weight or modern sculpture. Don't think so! I was supposed to receive a replacement in 2 business days, whatever that means, since it is now 5 days later and I am still doing without. Really, I don't mind being without access to the world wide web for a few days while I wait for my new modem, but much of my communication , writing, and studying is done online, and so I have already missed a webinar and fallen woefully behind in my writing schedule. On the work side of things, I have to disseminate certain information to our church community every week and on Tuesday, it took three attempts in three different Internet access locations before I finally managed to send this important communique. Rather inconvenient , to say the least. We are in Ontario for the weekend visiting friends and now have acces...