outWORD by Matte Downey

Image from evineyardapp.com Last week I was reading the beginning of John 15 again. Here, Jesus employs the metaphor of a vineyard to describe the divine/human relationship. Jesus: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vineyard keeper. He removes any of my branches that don’t produce fruit, and he trims any branch that produces fruit so that it will produce even more fruit. You are already trimmed because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. A branch can’t produce fruit by itself, but must remain in the vine. Likewise, you can’t produce fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, then you will produce much fruit. Without me, you can’t do anything. If you don’t remain in me, you will be like a branch that is thrown out and dries up. Those branches are gathered up, thrown into a fire, and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done f...

In recent years, I have heard and read many conversations in which Christians comment on potentially divisive issues such as sexuality, politics, economics, nationhood, leadership, socialism, etc. We are an increasingly polarized society, it seems, and the Church is not immune to this dynamic. What has saddened me most about these interactions is how often kindness is in short supply. We can get so worked up about an issue that we think it is okay to disrespect, shame, or mock those who do not share our views. In other words, we make things more important than people , and that is not the way of Jesus. In English, kindness is defined as being friendly, generous, and considerate. Kindness is when someone gives up their seat on the bus for an elderly gentleman. Or lets someone go in front of them in a line. Or offers to pay for a stranger's coffee. However, the word translated as kindness in the New Testament is a bit more robust than our English version. Chrestotes (Gk) com...

A: Knock, knock! B: Who's there? A: Interrupting cow B: Interrupting c--- A: Moooooooooo! Timing is tricky. In comedy. In music. In cooking. In relationships. In life. Sometimes it is hard to know when the time is right for action and when it is better to wait. Let's ask the tomatoes for wisdom. I am not the world's greatest gardener by any means, but I have grown quite a few things in my day; when I was a child on the farm, my mother had the generous foresight to assign me two rows in her garden every year to plant whatever my little heart desired. So I grew the things I loved: corn, peas, watermelon, and one year, a whole row of bright red poppies. Now that I live in an urban setting, I grow things in pots on my balcony. This year I planted Sweet 'n' Neat Cherry tomatoes. The plant is doing better than I anticipated: very early it started to produce bunches of little green balls. Each day I go out, water it, and check for ripe fruit. Just because a tomat...

I love fruit. It is pretty much my favourite food group. Not only does it look great (much more colourful than steak or sausage), it is juicy and sweet and good for you! This spring, I decided to try growing a few plants on my balcony. Not only did I do the usual pot full of annual flowers, I dedicated a few pots of soil to tomatoes and also planted some watermelon seeds. As I have been somewhat occupied this spring and summer with trying to keep my plants healthy and growing, I have learned a few things about fruit. When I was asked to give a talk at a church meeting last night, I took some of the lessons I am learning about growing fruit and applied them to growing good spiritual fruit in our lives. Here, then, are some thoughts on fruit. 1. Fruit is a plant that contains its seeds . This means that fruit has the ability to reproduce itself. It carries an exponential factor. Not only is it tasty and attractive, but it is meant to produce more and more every year, just like ...

I sent my MA thesis to my supervisor on Sunday afternoon. Big sigh of relief! I am sure that more revisions will be required, but for now, it is off my plate. It seems that I have spent most of the last two months writing and writing and doing more writing, which is probably why I didn't write much here. At the same time, I have been doing quite a bit of reading on monasticism for a presentation I did a few days ago called: "What is monastic about the New Monasticism?" One of the books that came highly recommended to me because it touched on the topic was The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris. It was written in 1996 by a married woman of Protestant background who became associated with a monastery (an oblate, in technical terms). The book loosely follows the format of a diary, with interesting stories and thoughts and confessions woven throughout. Ms. Norris is a poet by trade, and the writing is beautiful, honest, and poignant. As it turns out, this book is not doing mu...

It was a warm and sunny day yesterday, so Dean and I walked to the grocery store and bought a few items. It gave me the greatest delight, for some reason, to tend to the small details of life like selecting a piece of fruit and buying toilet paper on sale, and to do it with a very agreeable companion. On Saturday I awoke with intense gratitude that I had arms and legs, air to breathe, eyes to see, and ears that could hear. What a wonder to be able to experience the world by moving through it, self-propelled. And what a plethora of vibrant and variegated sensory amazements awaits me everyday. I am a simple person at heart. I do not need much to be happy. I rarely go shopping for clothes (gifts and clothing exchanges account for much in my closet) and could eat the same diet of cereals, fruits, salad, and tea every day. I regularly give things away to avoid the feeling of claustrophobia that comes upon me when I see a stuffed closet or a crowded room. I believe I might have made...

I am learning how to skim read. I love it and I hate it. I like the speed at which I can get through information, but I hate not being able to savour each page. There is no time to stop and oooh and aaah over thoughts and ideas that tickle my imagination and curiosity. If they have nothing to do with my thesis topic (as undefined as it is), I must move on...quickly. Sigh. It's like only being able to sample one ingredient from a recipe. Or perhaps like looking through a whole book of recipes and notating each time baking powder is used and in what context. Does that really give me a good grasp of the fluffiness of this magic powder, dormant until it is mixed with other ingredients and exposed to intense heat? A list of ingredients by itself is not that mouthwatering: cornmeal, iron, niacin, thiamine, riboflavin, folic acid, vegetable oil, whey, cheddar cheese, hydrogenated vegetable oil, corn maltodextrin , sour cream, artificial flavour, monosodium glutamate, lactic acid, colo...

What is the difference between doing something because I "should" and something because I "want to?" We talked about the difference between these two motivations last week in a group discussion. Jon Ortberg holds that "should" does not have the stamina to get you there. Only "want" can do that. "Should" is an auxiliary engine, but can never serve as a long-term primary motivation because "want" will always win out over "should." Will power can give you a long lecture on how you should not eat that second piece of chocolate cherry cake, but if you really want it, you know you will eventually stuff it into your mouth. "Want" is much stronger than "should." I think that desire might be the most powerful motivating force on the earth. It will win over money. It will wear down "should." It will keep us going long after we have run out of energy. It won't stop in the face of pain, discomfo...