outWORD by Matte Downey

When preachers and teachers tell the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus, they often draw attention to her brave act of submission. After the angel Gabriel appears to Mary and announces that she is to give birth to the Son of God, Mary responds: "I am the Lord's humble servant. As you have said, let it be done to me" (Luke 1:38). Mary, no doubt aware that she could be stoned as an adulteress for having a child out of wedlock, says Yes to the dangerous, messianic mission presented to her by the angel. Mary is the model of female compliance, or so we have been led to believe throughout much of church history. The depiction of Mary as an innocent and docile peasant girl is carelessly, perhaps even willfully, selective and incomplete. Sadly, the iconic portrayals of Mary have only served to reinforce the stereotype of a meek and mild Mary. But if we keep reading the story in Luke 1, just a few lines later we find a song erupting from this feisty young girl's mouth, a s...

Christmas is a time of year when we see traditions being enacted all around us. Traditions, at their best, tell a story. They are meant to be reminders of identity, history, and hard-won values. Unfortunately, traditions can easily become unmoored from their stories. When this happens, the tradition morphs into something else: it may become a hollow act practically devoid of meaning, or it may become associated with a different story, or the story may be revised to reflect a more convenient story. About a month ago, I heard aboriginal women telling the heart-wrenching story of the slaughter and conquest which accompanied the original celebrations of Thanksgiving in America. This inconvenient story has been removed from the tradition in favour of a more sentimental, Euro-centric tale. The tradition changes when the story changes, and we must resist whitewashing the stories associated with our traditions, for doing so causes us to lose our way. Jesus encountered some very devout tra...

Image from www.onelittleminuteblog.com I am in the midst of writing the last exam of my doctorate and perhaps ever! Of course there is still a dissertation to write and defend, but let's not think about that right now. This exam is a 6000-word essay which is due December 24. I suspect that I will email it to the professors late on the 23rd, after a careful final edit, and the next day board a plane to spend the holy days with family. Sigh of relief. I must admit that I love the rhythm of the academic year. When you walk into your first day of class, you feel a nervous rush of excitement mixed with dread. You don't quite know what to expect, you are not certain you will be able to comprehend the material and do well on all the assignments, and you are never sure who will be with you on that particular slice of the learning journey (pardon the mixed metaphor), but the idea of diving into a subject you don't know much about is an invitation you can't refuse. Then the...