outWORD by Matte Downey

Hello readers.  I have spent many weeks building a new online home for my writing, publications, photos, and more. The new website has a lot of flexibility and allows me to be more creative with the content.  That means that I will no longer be posting blogs here at outword.blogspot.com. The content here will remain accessible, meaning it is not going away anytime soon. However, you will now find me writing over at mattedowney.wordpress.com. I have made sure to include over 100 of my most recent blogs from this site (mostly on theology) as a way of ensuring continuity and familiarity. But there's a lot more than blogs on the new site. You can find my new website  here . Hope to see you over there. Matte   November 2021

Surrender. Not the most popular word or concept in today's world. To the athlete trying to best the competition, surrender is not an option. To the military commander in the middle of a skirmish with the enemy, surrender is shameful. To a political candidate vying for votes, surrender is weak. To someone trying to convince a skeptic about the merits of their beliefs, surrender seems faithless. And yet, surrender is a posture Jesus modeled for his followers. He prayed, "Not my will, but yours be done." When he was wrongly accused and condemned to death, Jesus did not defend himself or demand justice. He surrendered his life. Most often, the disciples did not understand Jesus's refusal to exert his will over others. They lived in a context where the people with the most power made the rules, so the exertion of power was seen as the only agent for change. But Jesus insisted on showing them another way, a way not reliant on threats, coercion, or pressure tactics. He ...

Someone moving into my neighbourhood It's been 5 years since we moved to this lovely 2-level condo here in ville St-Laurent.  Five years is the longest that Dean and I have lived anywhere, so it is no surprise that the itch to move has been pretty strong in the past few weeks.  I have been going to open houses, checking out properties online, and even had a real estate agent come in and appraise our property.  The sight of a friend's new house on Facebook caused me to immediately find one in my neighbourhood that I wanted to buy. It's not that there is anything really wrong with our condo (though I would like a bigger closet and another full bathroom). This restlessness has very little to do with inadequate living conditions; it basically means that what at first seemed new and exciting has now become old and familiar. The gleaming hardwood floors, soaring cathedral ceilings, winding staircase, and open mezzanine have ceased to dazzle me.  Now I see only the smal...

I don't throw very well.  In fact, I don't even throw as well as a girl.  When aiming for a target straight ahead, I have been known to toss a projectile straight up, backwards, towards my feet, and in a different direction altogether.  We are attending a charity soft ball tournament tomorrow and for the safety of everyone, I hope I don't have to throw anything. The path that an object in motion follows is called a trajectory.  It is usually fairly predictable.  If you watch a stream of water flying through the air, you can tell where it is headed.  If a hockey puck is coming at a goalie, he knows where to place his body in order to stop it.  An object in motion stays in motion, unless a force acts upon it, Newton observed.  Our lives are always moving (objects in motion, if you will); we can't stop time or the turning of the earth or the progressions of life in and around us.  In a way, all of life is ripe for tr...

March has been a bit crazy for me thus far. I am on the final push to finish my master's thesis, have to decide where to do a PhD in fall, am busy building an academic CV (presenting, publishing, applying for awards, etc.), and trying to fit in a normal healthy life with family and friends and a faith community. Oh, and insert coursework, lecturing on occasion, and some research on monasticism that is fun, but never-ending. In the past week, I came across two principles that made me sigh with relief and say a hearty YES at the same time, because they reminded me where this is all going and how it needs to happen. In case someone else needs help with those two things as well, I write about them here: I don't need to promote myself. I heard this advice from a musician who works mostly in the church, but I find that this principle resonates very deep within me in my current setting. It affirms that I don't need to build the perfect CV (which lists all my incredible accomplish...

We are in an interesting place as a faith community, literally. The lease on the space we currently rent expires at the end of the month, and we are unable to renew it due to zoning issues. We found a new space that was smaller and much better suited to our needs (with our own private bathrooms!) and after we met with the landlord and signed a lease, that space also fell through due to a zoning ruling. The Director of Urban Planning suggested that we rent space from an existing church in order to avoid the zoning problem. Now we would be perfectly happy to share space with another church, but most of the congregations are housed in old, formal, cavernous, pewed buildings not conducive to our casual and interactive worship and teaching style. At Vineyard Montreal, we have couches and sit in a semi-circle and you are free to interrupt the speaker with a question or comment at any time. Plus, where would the drums go? Sadly, meeting as a church in a non-traditional church space seems a bi...

Things have a been a bit slow in my blog-world lately because my usual schedule has been disrupted by wonderful but time-consuming events. ONE: I opened my first exhibit of photos this week. It is kind of a strange sensation to see ones art displayed in a public setting and have people study it up close and offer their comments. I have been pleasantly surprised by the reaction of all and am always amazed by the wonderful support of the folks in our church group and my friends from all walks of life. One of them even compared the dilapidated old stone church basement with fluorescent lighting where the exhibit is being held to the humble beginnings of some famous artist whose name I can't remember right now. I like the concept of humble beginnings because it is something Jesus loves as well. And beauty shows well in humble beginnings. TWO: I have been helping a far-off friend search for an apartment in Montreal. She emails me the details of a place she is interested in and I go sc...

I have a problem with boxes. At least I did. I like to keep boxes. I have saved the box for almost every small appliance, set of dishes, electronic device, or gift that has come through our abode. So when moving time comes around, I just stuff everything back in the box that it came in, and I am virtually packed! When it is time to mail the Christmas gifts to my family in another province, I have a ready supply of gift boxes and a sturdy box to ship it all off in. One time, we brought a television in for a repair a few years after we bought it, and the service guy was totally impressed when we showed up with it carefully packed in the original box. I have always thought this to be a worthy, wise, and forward-looking habit. This box habit. This box addiction. This inability to throw away packing materials. Until this move. You see, I have nowhere to store boxes anymore. Earlier this week I was slightly freaking out, enough for Dean to call me several times a day from work to see how I w...

We moved on Saturday. Three men and a 26-foot truck pulled up to our house at 3:30 pm and loaded up every last one of our earthly possessions. I jammed cleaning supplies, propane tanks, a few fragile things, and two stressed felines into my car and we all said goodbye to the crooked little house in St. Lazare. As I drove off, I tried to look for everything that I loved about living in this place so that I could remember it with thankfulness one more time. Things like the waist-high lilac bushes I had planted almost two years ago which were just starting to flower for the first time. The patch of bush right next door which housed bunnies and the occasional fox. My hairdresser and the car wash guys and the garden centre folks and the local mechanic who all managed to make me feel like I was the most important person in their day in that typical, small-town, unhurried fashion. The Wal -mart just seven minutes from my house were I could buy everything from cheese curds to cat litter. As I...

I spent all day packing up my kitchen. A good friend of mine came over and I guess in reality, did most of the work because she does not get distracted as easily as I do. I suppose I should change that first sentence to read: my friend spent all day packing up my kitchen and cleaning it while I tossed a few items in boxes, ate cherries and thought about what I still needed to do, took phone calls, sold a dishwasher, dehumidifier, and futon frame and helped load them into various vehicles, and gave the cats a dose of catnip. Thank God for friends who don't demand that your strengths be the same as their strengths. Thank God for bringing people to my house to buy my stuff and in the process, letting me see a glimpse of their life and pray for them. Thank God for good days like today. We just had a light supper so now Dean and I are going to load up the car with important stuff (the Xbox 360, the plasma tv , and the stereo) and take a run to our new place. This is yellow, near and f...

I am in serious downsizing mode. In this present house I have four bedroom closets plus a big storage room in which to squirrel away my various clothes, boxes, files, papers, extra chairs and blankets, games and puzzles, camera gear and all those things I think I might eventually find a use for. In the new place, I will have one average size bedroom closet. That's right. One. The smallness of the number smacked me square in the face last week when I was taking a second look at the property. I came home and realised I had to rethink my packing strategy. Careful collecting was soon replaced by ruthless jettisoning . No more room to store the original boxes for every piece of sound gear, small appliance, computer accessory or piece of stereo equipment. No more setting things aside because of sentimental value (just pick one thing to keep and move the rest on to a better home). If I will not use it in the next year, it is gone. I am busy selling unusual items on ebay , including Dean...

It is done. Well, almost done. We still have to secure a mortgage and do an inspection, but we bought a condo in uptown Montreal this weekend. We saw it on Saturday, put in an offer that afternoon, negotiated through Sunday about price and a few details, and while I was sitting on the toilet at church on Sunday night, peeing, I received a text message that the place was ours. Don't you love God's way with timing? I finished my business and ran out to inform Dean. He was relieved, and so was I, just having come from the bathroom, but after that, the sensation that kept washing over me in waves that evening was of being slightly overwhelmed by the goodness of God. Sometimes I have so little faith. Sometimes I doubt that God will do what he says, even though he always comes through and he tells me in so many ways all the time in every situation that he can be counted on to get us through it. But I have been known to mix superstition in with my lumpy faith, so I hesitate to jump i...

I had this great idea yesterday. I have started packing some of our stuff in preparation for moving and discovered a few things I had borrowed from people and need to return because I don't want to move other people's stuff. That would be silly. And then I thought, but I won't ask for any of my stuff back that I have lent to others until after I move because that's a few items I don't have to lug from one location to the next. And then, voila, or voici , a bright light went on inside my mind! Why, I could lend out almost everything I own just before my moving date, and then simply ask for people to bring it back just after I move into our new location. Absolutely brilliant! No need to move much at all, really. Just lend things at strategic times. Something like juggling bowling balls...it is not like you actually hold those heavy spheres at all, they are virtually weightless because most of the time they are in the air! Okay, it is late and I need to go to bed, but ...