outWORD by Matte Downey

Buds on a tree this morning I saw my first bud on a tree today.  Well, not exactly my first, because I have seen them before, but it was my first sighting this year.  It has been an extended winter and it feels like the whole earth is straining to catch a glimpse of the spring sun and feel its warm, nourishing rays again.  I know I am.  Today I was reading G.K. Chesterton and Kathleen Norris.  Both of them have developed a gift for seeing the playful and holy presence of Christ in moments that many of us dismiss as mundane and ordinary.  Chesterton writes about the sun rising every morning in response to the call of the Spirit of God to "Do it again!"  He calls this repetition in nature a theatrical, heavenly encore.  Similarly, Norris speaks about the mindless tasks of laundry and washing dishes as invitations to enter the temple of "holy leisure."  She says there is sacred potential ...

Helloooooo !! I have been meaning to write a blog for a few days now, but with the boat-load of projects I have had on my plate lately (and still have), intent has not translated into action. However, with 3 of the 9 projects behind me, I believe I can leave the 6 to play unsupervised for a bit while I write something here. I watched a video of a talk by Dr. Brene Brown a few weeks back (or maybe only a week, I have very little concept of how fast time is passing) that got me thinking about the culture of scarcity that we live in. She talks about the messages we are bombarded with: we are never good enough, safe enough, certain enough, perfect enough, extraordinary enough. And the sad thing is, we believe these messages. We find it hard to be thankful, joyful, content, and at peace. She talks about how our desire for the extraordinary, the thrill, the special, has eclipsed our ability to value the ordinary in our lives. In fact, the ordinary is where we can find the most joy, she says...