outWORD by Matte Downey

Dean left on a business trip this morning at 4:30 am. This leaves me and Jazz unsupervised with knives and video cameras within easy reach. You can understand why it is important to have constructive tasks to keep us occupied while he is gone. No worries. I have a retreat to organise this weekend which will include planning a menu and buying groceries for 18 people as well as preparing a talk on "What are We Looking For?" There are also the usual readings and assignments in the next few days, several hours of office work tomorrow, regular household tasks, and I hope to take in a movie and coffee with friends as time allows. Jazz, I am sure, has an agenda packed with personal grooming, a litter box quota to fill, toys to stuff into small spaces, and meowing and pacing drills to practise. On a totally different topic, this is what I was thinking about yesterday while preparing my heart and my head for taking communion. Remember. This is what the Israelites were always being to...

Yesterday was my birthday. A lot of the birthdays in my life have been rather disappointing affairs, I have to admit. Nobody's fault, really. Being born in the middle of the crazy busy harvest season on a farm meant that there was usually very little time to make a special occasion of it. I got used to no big deal being made out of the day I was born. I remember coming home from school one day and seeing a brown paper bag on the table, a gift for me, but no one around to share the celebration; they were all working on the field. I also remember one year my mom promising to get me those shoes I really wanted, but I would have to wait a week or two. It was just the way it was for many years. Unfortunately, these small details left a big impact on my sensitive soul. I became super sensitive to being overlooked and forgotten. I craved affirmation that I was special and important, especially on that one day. And I heaped such high expectations on my husband and my friends to make a mem...

I don't know about the rest of you, but as a creative person, I have a recurring fear. And that is that I will never have another creative idea, or come up with anything worthwhile to say or do again. I fear that I only have so much in my creative bank account. Since creativity basically means that you never do the same thing in the same way twice, the pressure mounts with every task that comes my way. When I am faced with a another paper to write, a talk to prepare, a presentation to give, a picture to paint, or a blog to compose, there is often a gaping void that taunts me. There is a chaotic formless flurry of scattered bits that I can't make sense of. On Sunday, the void visited me again. I had a presentation to prepare for Monday night and when I jumped out of bed, the dark chaos was waiting. Fortunately, I was doing a presentation on Genesis 1-4 and the first thing that came to mind was: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and vo...

This school year has started with a bang! Though I am only taking 2 courses at the Master's level and have a small part-time job, some extra things have come up this month that have served to overwhelm me a bit. And for some reason I seem to be extra prone to overwhelmedness right now. In the next 2-3 weeks I also have to plan and organise a church retreat, apply for a major government award which means that I have to write a very detailed research proposal (something most people don't start to think about until later into their first year and something I have never done before!!!), and manage the logistics of a move for our church meeting space. Today, I have an occupancy permit application to write, I hope to begin on that research proposal, and there are readings for next week and a class presentation on Monday. Plus, I promised to get together with some good people today, which is very important for my sanity. And we haven't even talked about cleaning bathrooms or buy...

This is from a talk I gave at our church gathering last night. I have been feeling somewhat empty in the last month or two. I can't explain exactly why that is, but it has thrust me into a quest to pursue more wholeness in my life and hard as it may be at times, it is a very worthwhile journey. Yesterday as I was thinking about the difference between emptiness and fullness, I decided to explore the classic "half empty or half full" question. I held up a glass and asked, "What is this?" The answer came back: "An empty glass." I filled a glass halfway with water and set it on the table. I asked, "Is this half full?" "Yes," was the response. Then I asked, "Is it half empty?" The response was again positive. Then I submerged an empty glass into a large bowl of water and we all watched the liquid poured into it. I raised it up. "Is this glass full?" I queried. "Yes," people called out. Then I took another ...

Today is one of those days when I need the super-powers of decision-making and forward-thinking. There are so many things to plan and direct in the next few months and it all starts now. I have to construct a tentative schedule for our small group for the next three months so that we don't all just show up and stare at each other while we eat potato chips (though admittedly that's not the worst thing that could happen). I have to choose which reading to do a class presentation on (which means skimming the whole coursepak ) and get a topic for a Christology paper for this term. I have a paper to edit and submit to a publication and a major funding application to complete which needs me to outline what great contribution I will be making to society with my MA in Theological Studies. And I haven't even started my second course yet! Probably the largest decisions right now (besides what to have for lunch) are choosing a track to follow for my MA project and selecting the area...

For the past month or two, I have been feeling unsettled, empty, not quite myself. I have been emotionally raw at times, paranoid about situations and relationships, hyper- sensitive to pretty much everything, annoyed and annoying, and some days wondered if I was on the verge of depression or losing my mind. Not too pleasant for me or for my friends, I have to admit. It was a bit like waking up every morning to the moment just before you get on a really scary ride at the amusement park. Or the first day of a new and illusive job which might make or break you. I was unsure of what was going on and I was fearful of what lay ahead; my mind went in crazy circles fixating on worse case scenarios, and all manner of irrational thoughts bombarded me for much of the day. I knew my perception was off and I was not tracking with the truth, but for the life of me, I couldn't get a solid grasp on it. I talked to God a lot, I tried to stay calm and not take things too seriously, I read my Bibl...

I was talking to a friend today and somehow, somewhere, in the course of our wandering conversation, I compared my life to baking a cake or some fine confectionery treat. There can be a lot of flurry in the kitchen: ingredients are tossed about, the flour gets spilled on the counter, batter gets splattered, sticky spoons and fingers are everywhere, an egg might fall on the floor, dirty messy bowls start to pile up, and if you have any passion in you at all for what you are doing, there might be some yelling and screaming and loud banging of pans as the egg whites just won't form stiff peaks or the butter refuses to cream with the sugar because you got the temperature wrong or you realise that you are all out of icing sugar. Not everyone can handle being in the kitchen of my life. Everyone wants to taste the cake, the wonderfully sweet and delightful end product, but not all are up for witnessing the sometimes chaotic process or seeing the inevitable flop that I toss in the garbage...