outWORD by Matte Downey

Image from thefinancialbrand.com A nasty virus hit me a week ago on Thursday evening and laid me out for most of three days. I had proposals I was working on, a pile of paperwork on my dining room table that needed attention, preparations to make for church on Sunday, emails to answer, supplies to be bought, a house to clean, and laundry to be done. All of that was disrupted. The sickness rendered me unable to think, read, work, stand upright for any length of time, or do much else other than sleep and ingest the occasional protein smoothie. I thought of chocolate and had no interest. I thought of checking my email or Facebook and it just didn't seem to matter. I picked up a book and put it down again without even cracking it open. My fever finally broke Saturday evening, but I was still pretty useless the next day, my brain and body not capable of much. Monday morning, I woke up feeling almost normal. I decided to read a theology blog. My brain ate it up like it was the first ...

Schwartz's deli on Monday night I have a love/hate relationship with hospitality. In theory, I love opening my home and my table to friends and strangers, and in the process of preparation, whether that be cleaning bathrooms and floors, converting my office into a guest bedroom, or buying and preparing food, I am mindful to prepare my heart as well, to create a space where people are welcome. I do this because I realise that I am a constant recipient of God's gracious hospitality, that I have been warmly embraced by a heavenly Father, and that there is a seat at the feast of Jesus always available to me. And yet, because I am a person of limited resources and social energy, my hospitality, when stretched to its limits, begins to look more like resentful hostility. I hate it when that happens. We came back from a wonderful, whirlwind tour of Europe last week. The people who had been staying in our condo while we were gone remained with us for another week after we return...

Image from anthonycoppedge.com I was privileged to be a part of Society of Vineyard Scholars conference last week. The theme of the conference was Hospitality, Holiness, and the Kingdom of God . It was hosted by the lovely folks at the Raleigh Vineyard Church in South Carolina, and we all got a taste of Southern hospitality in the form of local favourites such as sweet tea, biscuits, pulled pork, and shrimp and grits. Yes, focusing on hospitality meant that we were offered kindness, meals, housing, and rides to and from the venue, but it also meant that we were invited to do a bit of hard work: the hard work of embracing the unfamiliar and the strange(r). Here are a few snippets from my conference notes. Hospitality is more than inviting a few people over for a meal in the comfort of my own home. This is a limited form of hospitality because in this scenario I remain on my home turf and, for the most part, still make the rules. True hospitality challenges me to "play the ...

The Holy Spirit and the seven-fold gifts. Image from curtisgraphics.com A lot has happened since my last entry here: After a few intense weeks of studying, I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation on April 1 (see my post  here  if you want to know what that entailed). We (Dean and a bunch of academics) all went for a celebratory lunch and then I spent the next few days writing a paper for a conference which is happening this week. After that, it was back to my dissertation to make the changes requested by my examiners (the title and a note about one of my sources) and fix any typos and improper citations. On Tuesday, I submitted the final version and allowed myself to sign off as Dr. Matte on an email. Just for fun. This morning I drove Dean to the airport, waved goodbye to the house-guests we had for a few days, and sat down to read 1 Corinthians 12. It is about the gifts the Spirit of God gives to the people of God. As I am currently considering the next steps ...

Image from southernbelleviewdaily.com Christmas is always a challenging time for me. In many ways, the gift-giving practices (and accompanying consumerism) surrounding the season seem to clash with nearly everything I find in the story of Jesus' birth. And yet, I don't want to become cynical and miss out on all that is good in our present-day traditions. The benefit of my yearly angst is that every December I find myself going back to the basics, reminding myself once again what is important, what is true, and what is good. I try to put into practice the directive Paul gives to the Philippians: "Fill your minds with beauty and truth. Meditate on whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is good, whatever is virtuous and praiseworthy. Keep to the script." (Philippians 4:8-9a, The Voice). Well, my script this year included two well-known stories. You might be familiar with the century-old short story, The Gift of the ...

Image from patriceayme.wordpress.com This morning I taught a class on the topic of spirituality, specifically, Christian Spirituality. People can have varied, muddy ideas of what constitutes spirituality these days, so I always try to bring a bit of clarity to the topic. Spirituality is that dimension of life which is engendered (comes out of) and empowered by (derives energy from) the Spirit of Christ. It finds expression in how we live, act, and interact with others every day. It is not merely an interior, isolated journey (though that is certainly an element of spirituality), but an integrated life guided by the Spirit of God. It is a quest for meaning, for the sacred, for the mysteries of the universe, for the purpose of life, and for a life which flourishes. It links the question "Who is God?" with "Who am I?"[1] It addresses queries like: "Why do people do what they do?" and "What values are guiding them in their decisions and actions and re...

Part of the crowd at Vineyard Columbus Last week I attended the Vineyard Church USA national conference in Columbus, Ohio. Around 60 nations were represented and over 4000 people were present. I won't try to give you a rundown of the week or the speakers or their talks. Check out the video  archives  of the main sessions if you want to get a glimpse (only available for a limited time, I am told). The highlights for many of us were Thursday morning's talk by Dr. Charles A. Montgomery on breaking down barriers (it starts at 1:35) and the worship led by David Ruis and Noel Isaacs from Nepal on Thursday evening (a particularly poignant lament song starts at 1:03). The stuff that happened on the platform, in many ways, was just a small part of the experience. God doesn't need a microphone to speak nor does he require a crowd in order to be present. Our loving God is with us in so many ways if we have ears to hear and eyes to see. I came to the conference believing that I...

Image from thefw.com I was reading a book a few weeks ago which said that according to a poll in the USA, the words people most want to hear are the following (in order of importance): 1. I love you. 2. I forgive you. 3. Supper's ready. The first one is no surprise. We all want to know we are loved, and we all doubt it. We all feel unloved or unlovable at times, probably because we most intimately know our own internal ugliness and essential unworthiness. We are all too aware of our lack of love, our lack of kindness, our lack of faithfulness, and our selfishness. If we are honest, the words, "I love you," can be unlikely. In spite of all our shortcomings, and perhaps because of them, we long to be unconditionally loved, to have kindness gifted to us, to have someone be a faithful lover and friend, and to be the recipient of unselfish acts, especially if we find it difficult to reciprocate. These words not only feed our basic human desire to belong, but give us hope...

Image from memecenter.com Life is sometimes awkward. It just is. There is physical awkwardness when our body seems to lack balance, grace, harmony, or skill. We find ourselves in positions which feel uncomfortable and we'd rather not stay that way for too long. I have awkwardly tripped and had a large wooden speaker fall on top of me. I have tried to open a door with my arms full and done some awkward contortions just to keep that bulky box tucked under my arm. Then there is social awkwardness which adds the element of other people seeing our lack of grace. We feel awkward singing or dancing in front of people because for most of us, it is very much a work in progress (or so we hope). Or maybe we are at a wedding dressed in jeans and a t-shirt when everyone else is in their finest clothes (the airline lost my luggage) making us very aware of the lingering looks people are giving us and the assumptions they are making about our lack of propriety. We can be standing by ourselves ...

Image from wpcg.ca It somehow seems apropos that I am doing research on the idea of gift during the Christmas season. When I first began to write this chapter of my dissertation, I was pretty sure where I would go with it. I was headed for the idea of the perfect, pure gift. A gift given without self-interest, without obligation. A gift which did not shy away from sacrifice and sought to bring the other person delight. Yes, that was the kind of selfless gift I was going to write about, the kind of gift motivated solely by concern for the other with no thought for oneself. Earlier this year I read The Gift (1925) by sociologist, Marcel Mauss, his influential work dealing with gift-giving practices in primitive societies. Mauss concluded that gift-giving practices in archaic tribes located in Polynesia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Northwest were actually part of a whole system which involved economic transactions, wealth dispersion, political power, familial ties, and honour cod...

The cat is sleeping on the bed behind me. An early snow is resting softly on the balcony outside, deaf to my passive-aggressive hints that it take a hike. The kettle has just boiled for my second cup of chai green tea. After a few busy days and weeks, including another research trip to University of Notre Dame, I am back to reading, researching, and thinking about the idea of "gift." Image from verona1992.blogspot.com It is exciting and frustrating at the same time. Gifts should bring out the child in us, making us ready recipients and willing donors, eager to participate in generous interactions without calculating future obligations or feeling the pressure of expectations. But it turns out that a true gift is really hard to find. Scholars and researchers write about the dark side of gift, the contradictions in gift-giving practices, the evaluation of the gift economy as a system which provides much-needed social cohesion and stability in our relationships, the importa...

Image by Gunnar Wrobel on Flickr The note on my calendar for last Saturday read: 3:30 Montreal Improv. A few months ago I had discovered that a local improvisation group offered free workshops, so I scribbled this note on the calendar to remind myself to check one out. I hoped it would be informative and relevant for my research on theatre practice. At the time it sounded like a fun thing to do on a weekend. However, on Saturday morning when those words glared at me from the calendar, the thought of walking into a room filled with strangers and making things up off the top of my head activated the anxiety tarantulas in my stomach and head. I immediately found a bazillion excuses for not going. And just as promptly decided that I would not be held hostage by fear and anxiety. Dean offered to drive me to the workshop and on the way there, I talked to God about the upcoming nightmare. I was mainly afraid of two things: freezing when it was my time to speak or act and being thrust in...

The scary donuts This past term I taught a course on Christian Spirituality at the university and Friday was the last class. I wanted to do something special for the final time we would meet as a group, besides giving a rockin' concluding lecture about incarnational spirituality, so I tossed around a few ideas on Thursday night. Give everyone a book on Francis of Assisi? Too expensive. Go on a field trip to a nearby church? They had already done their own field trip as an assignment. Bring chocolate? I did that for the Valentine's Day class. Go out for drinks afterwards? Not everyone would be able to make it due to exams and other classes, and since it would only be 11:30 am, maybe not the best idea. A cake? I didn't really have time to make one. Bring donuts? It seemed like the best solution. Everybody likes donuts, right? Well, maybe not. I had observed that quite a few of my students seemed to be on a health kick, bringing fruit, smoothies, and nut mixes to class. Pe...