outWORD by Matte Downey

We go through doorways and openings every day, stepping across thresholds as we do, and seldom think much about it. But thresholds and doorways and gates are significant places, liminal spaces which tie two realms together. Thresholds are places of transition and decision. They are entrances and openings to new worlds, offering promise and invitation, but they are also places of ambiguity and disorientation. Open the door of your warm, cozy home during a blistering blizzard in the dead of winter and you know what I mean. Or step through the doorway of a plane after you land in a foreign country and you know the feeling. Gates are important places in the biblical text. We read about certain events happening "in the gate." This makes little sense unless we know something about ancient cities. A city usually had a wall around it and where there was a gate into the city, an outer gate would be built around it, providing a second line of defence. Between the inner and the ou...

Image from @Sign_Craft We talk about the kingdom of God as having come (Jesus declared as much), as being present, and as still to come. In the first chapter of Revelation, the Almighty One describes himself as "who is, who was, and who is to come." So closely is the kingdom of heaven related to the king of glory that when you see one, you see the other. Both king and kingdom encompass the realms of past, present, and future. If our theology emphasizes one of these aspects to the neglect of the others, we end up with some pretty lopsided doctrines such as cessationism, over-realized eschatology, or gospel escapism. I won't take time to unpack any of these (perhaps in a future blog) because my point here is that our personal spirituality, like our theology, can get a bit off-kilter if we do not invite God and God's kingdom into our past, our present, and our future. In the context of living in the kingdom, our past refers to that which we cannot change. It is our...

Today, I finally got to some ironing that had been too long neglected: 12 shirts and 3 pairs of pants. I don't think there was much left to wear in the closet, actually. It seems like I am perpetually behind these days. I am a week and a half behind in the schedule I have set for my reading course in order to finish it in a timely manner. I am always trying to play catch-up in household cleaning, buying groceries, and personal writing. I don't even want to imagine what Christmas preparations will do to an already packed month ahead. This week I began to think about my education. In order to be all that I can be, I should be submitting articles, presenting at conferences, and applying for awards, but frankly, I just don't have the energy. I know I have missed opportunities for funding and deadlines for submitting papers for important conferences. That's what happens when I am trying to live a joyful, creative, and peaceful life while being a full-time student, a teacher...