outWORD by Matte Downey

This is part two of a series talking about Jesus's calls to come and to go and the relationship between them. You can read the first part, "Come and See,"  here. Image from healthland.time.com We learn things by being around other people, and they learn things by hanging out with us. That's the way it works. The first people we learned things from were members of our family. Children are natural imitators and they mimic the behaviour and attitudes they see in their parents and other influencers present in their lives (for better or for worse). Growing up on a farm, I learned how to care for animals, how to plant and harvest, how to embrace the seasonal nature of life, and how to shovel manure. Like I said, for better or worse. Not all of the ideas we assimilate are helpful, and as responsible adults, we need to honestly evaluate learned behaviour to see if it contributes to a flourishing life, a good life, a life consistent with the life, death, and resurrectio...

Image from veteranstoday.com I have been teaching a mini-series in our faith community dealing with the three interconnected loves found in the answer to the question, "Which is the most important commandment?" Jesus' reply is this: "You should love the Eternal, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second great commandment is this: Love others in the same way as you love yourself. There are no commandments more important than these" (Mark 12:30-31, The Voice). You can find a summary of my first talk on loving yourself  here . Now I turn my attention to what it means to rightly relate to our neighbour, or to the other. It is imperative to remember that we cannot neatly dissect these three relationships; how we relate to ourselves is directly related to how we perceive God relates to us and likewise, how we relate to others is directly related to how we believe God views the other. If any one ...

Table of food: Christmas dinner with my family I try to live by the motto that life is not about issues, but about relationships.  As a result of this, I don't engage much with hot topics or comment much on world events or what's on the news.  Frankly, I usually have very little to add to the conversation, other than to ask God for grace, help, healing, and wholeness.  Coming down on one side or the other of an issue is never that helpful, I find.  However, a few things I have read lately about how some Christian groups are condemning, excluding, and judging certain people have pained me deeply.  As a result, I have begun to do some thinking about how we treat others.  And by "others" I mean those whom we disagree with, those whom we don't understand, those whom we don't like, those whom we think are a blight on society, etc. You know who I'm talking about.  Since I profess to follow God, I believe that I should learn how...