outWORD by Matte Downey

When people contacted Mother Teresa to find out more about her and her work among the poor in India, she was often known to reply with the words of Jesus:  come and see . Mother Teresa knew that no amount of explanation could adequately communicate the nature of the world in which she lived and laboured. A person had to experience it for themselves. Come and see. Come and see is a favourite phrase of children. I am often invited to come to a child's room to see something. I know that the child is not asking me to stay at a discreet distance and observe as if collecting data for a report. The child is inviting me to get up close and personal, to sit on the floor and hold each precious toy that is handed to me. The child is inviting me to enter into their world, to join in their experience. I am expected to press buttons that make noises. I am expected to hug a plush animal. I am expected to join in a silly song or dance. I am expected to smell yellow candies in order to tell...

The familiar description of love found in Paul's letter to the church in Corinth is often read at weddings. However, in 1 Corinthians 13 we find no mention of a particular "other" whom we are to love. Neither is there any reference to an exclusive relationship. Instead, Paul's description of love stands firmly in the context of community life, meant to inform a follower of Jesus concerning their posture toward others in the faith community and beyond. Let's take a look at three of the characteristics found here (verse 5): 1) love is not self-seeking, 2) love is not easily angered or provoked, and 3) love does not keep a record of wrongs. These are all stated negatively, a technique which helps us to recognize what is missing or distorted. However, negative descriptions have their limitations, because they fail to give us a means whereby we can imagine what something actually looks like. So, let us identify the positive side of each of these statements. Love is...

When I ask people what love is, they very often mention the list of characteristics found in 1 Corinthians 13. You know how it goes: love is patient, love is kind… Lately, I have been thinking about these two particular adjectives at the beginning of this description of love. One reason for this is because I find it hard to remember what comes next, so I keep repeating “love is patient, love is kind” with the hope that my memory will eventually start functioning. But I also wonder if their placement next to each other might be intentional, if they are connected in some way. Perhaps our understanding of love loses something when we dissect its characteristics into singular, separate ideas. What happens when we join patience with kindness? The word translated “patient” is makrothymei in Greek. It has two parts to it: the idea of length or slowness and the concept of suffering or anger. The word is sometimes translated as longsuffering or slow to anger . Here are a few example...

As I sit down to write a blog today, this has been my process thus far. Look at an idea I jotted down several weeks ago. Try to remember why it seemed important and exciting at the time. Get a drink. And a bowl of popcorn. Iron some shirts. Look out the window at the rain. Research flights for an upcoming trip. Get another drink. Look through some scribbled notes that I put in a file. Yes, that might be something. Or not. Decide to have lunch and watch a design show, hoping that will put me in a more creative space. The show is over. Sit in the chair and start typing. Read it over and ask myself, is this really anything? Do I keep going or do I toss it out? Think about alternate careers, perhaps investing in a popcorn company. Eat chocolate. Sit at the computer again and type some more. Decide that writing something today is important, even if I delete most of it tomorrow. Wonder if inspiration is on vacation. Wish I was on vacation. Look out the window. Type more words. Delete ...

Image from steppingstonefriendswood.com When you go to a financial adviser, they ask you three basic questions in order to discern how best to handle your investments. 1. What is your goal? (retirement, simple and sustainable lifestyle, travel, funds for children's education, etc.) 2. What is your timeline? (5 years, 20 years, 50 years) 3. What is your tolerance for risk? (are you willing to take chances? how do you handle setbacks? volatility?) When we think about investing our lives in the kingdom of God, of living a life of faith, the same kind of questions apply. What do we desire or love? What are we pointing our lives toward? Do we frame things short-term or long-term? What foundation we are laying for future generations? How do we respond to hard times? Do we experience a significant amount of fear and paranoia or are we willing to take risks? Does our perspective take into account the long arc of redemption and grace found in Jesus? When Jesus tells his listener...

Image from Inc.com Finish the following phrase: I need patience when.... Your answers might include things like parenting, standing in line, performing some detailed task, losing weight, or going through a hard time. Patience is the ability to wait, to continue doing something despite difficulties, to suffer without complaining or becoming annoyed, to tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. To illustrate the concept of patience, let me tell you two stories. Here is the first, a mom's story: "Getting ready and out the door is a chore, as any mom of littles will tell you. No matter how much extra time you allot yourself, it's never enough. It seems those last 10 minutes before leaving are pure and utter chaos. It never fails. Somebody poops right as I step out the door. ... Oops, I forgot to water the dog. It's enough to drive someone mad—at least if that someone is me. "I like to think I am a good mother. But I know for a f...

Image from www.freepik.com I have been reading Paul's letter to the Colossians. The words are joyous, buoyant, effervescent, not the kind of correspondence you would expect from someone in prison. I suppose the words appeared especially bright and bubbly to me this past week because I found myself inexplicably dark and gloomy, not to mention negative, critical, and impatient. It is clear to me now that it was that old demon of control baiting me because, well, things are out of my control. Yes, people make mistakes, unexpected situations happen, and life has a tendency to be overwhelming and disappointing at the same time. But mostly, I believe the trigger was my current state of job limbo. It is scary. So, naturally, being impatient and complaining are the solution, somehow. Demons make no sense. Anyway, there is nothing like a walk outside in the sunshine to put things in perspective, so I pointed my feet to the park and away we went, me and my irritations. I saw trees, I s...

After a whirlwind of travel, teaching, deadlines, and meetings in the past few months, Dean and I managed to get away for a bit of a warm vacation last week. It was a welcome break from the work and the cold weather. We were both attacked by some ugly, demented plague flu just before our scheduled departure, but we were determined to get on that plane to Cancun even if we had to crawl on our hands and knees. And we did. We arrived pretty much depleted so the first days in Mexico were spent drinking, eating, napping, and marveling at the sensation of being warm. I usually like to catch the sunrise when I am in a beautiful location with big, unobstructed views, so one morning I woke up early (no alarm necessary), threw on some clothes, and made my way down to the beach. The sun was scheduled to rise at 7:12 am, and when I arrived at the water's edge just before 7 am, there were already a few other people gathered there for the event. Some sat quietly on beach chairs while others we...

There are some books that I take a long time to read. One of those is The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin S.J. It is filled with stories, advice, quotes, and wisdom on a wide range of spiritual topics, all offered within an Ignatian framework. Though it is a very accessible read, I find myself not rushing through it; I want to stop and think, stop and pray, stop and work out the things I read about. This morning I read something in Martin's book which hit very close to home. The author has a condition which has been diagnosed as repetitive strain injury. Since his theological study days, he has suffered shooting pains in his hands and wrists which affect how much he can type and write. While working at a magazine, he became increasingly frustrated at the situation. He asked: "Why would God do this? What was the sense of a writer who couldn't write? What was the point? ... Why would God prevent the work that I was missioned to do?" He tried e...

The bottle of water I bought this morning On my way to class this morning I stopped to buy a bottle of water.  I always go to the same coffee shop because it is convenient, well-priced, and I want to support the new management which seems to be trying really hard to change the mediocre reputation the place had before.  Anyway, this morning I walked up to the counter and waited for the server who was busy tidying something up at the back of the serving station.  As I was waiting, another person walked up to the counter and stood on my right, closer to the server.  I watched as the server turned, greeted the other person, took their order, and made her way to the cash register (where I was standing) to complete the transaction.  I felt my mouth drop open and my head shake ever so slightly, my annoyance at being overlooked coming through in my body language.  I was here first, lady!  The server smiled at me ...

You don't always hit a home run the first time you swing a bat. When I look back at a lot of different situations in my life, you'd think I would know this by now. But many times I still have the unrealistic expectation of getting things right and making it all come together on the first go. This miscalculation has cost me a lot of hope. And made me drop my faith at times. I have also wasted precious time wallowing in dejected disappointment instead of readying myself for the next swing. I remember the first time Dean and I visited the model condos in an up and coming neighbourhood in Montreal. We loved the open floorplans, the hardwood everywhere, the mezzanine overlooking the living space, and the vaulted ceilings. We also saw the price tag and realised that we could not afford to live there. It became that illusive dream home that we would never have. Ten years after that initial visit, I sit here under my vaulted ceiling a few blocks from that model condo and write this blo...

My vacation is turning out to be much busier than I had hoped. The lazy days, sitting by the fire reading a book, are still strictly in my mind. We are planning a mega birthday celebration for my mother on January 1, and last night after a day crammed with lunch at the Mexican restaurant, a trip to a few stores to exchange gifts that didn't fit and redeem gift cards, scouting out the celebration facility, a trip to the photo studio for family pictures, and a late dinner, I sat down to organise the program (I am the MC), work on my power point presentation, and get the door prizes ready. I went to bed shortly after midnight and still left a few things undone. This morning I awoke, tired and coughing. Not pleasant. One thing that has been going through my mind this week is the following question: What am I mad at God about? In fact, he was the one that asked me this in the middle of worship in church on Sunday morning. And then he said..."Let's talk about it. Don't just ...

This morning I booked hotel rooms for our trip to London, England in 2 weeks. If you have ever checked it out, you will know that London is an expensive place to visit, especially when you are used to Canadian prices. I just don't think that breakfast at a hotel is worth 25 pounds, or 45 Canadian dollars, do you? They obviously think that I can eat 45 dollars worth of food, so perhaps I should give the Brits credit for their extreme optimism. Anyway, after weeks of research and asking around, during which time I found a lot of overpriced hotels, a few reasonably priced rooms accompanied by horrible reviews, and one or two deals that disappeared while I thought about them, everything fell into place last night. It's funny how waiting can bring clarity. The foggy impossibility of the task, given the myriad of locations to research and the limited budget we were working with, vanished as the right choices became clear, like someone was highlighting them. It was all so obvious last...

My sincere apologies for the lack of posts here lately. My schedule is slightly overfull these days due to being a full-time student, a part-time administrator, and a willing volunteer with several leadership roles that I continue to fill in our church group. Most weekdays it is a challenge just to make sure I get some real food in my stomach and a reasonable amount of sleep. This week I have not done too well on either of those counts, but hey, this is a no whining zone, so let's get on with the important stuff. I have a giant can of Arizona green tea with ginseng and honey and a yummy apple and cheese salad in front of me, plus I had a little nap today when I got home at 5:30, so we're all good. I have often said to myself (and whoever will listen to me) that if this faith, this truth, this belief that God is good and loving and wants to be with us and infuse our lives with meaning and purpose - if this truth is no good under stress, then what good is it? If I get grumpy and ...

I like being patient. It is so much more fun than being impatient. Yesterday I spent the day with a friend who was shopping for a desk. She had requested my company because I have a car and hey, I am just so much fun. It turned into an all day event that included lunch, the mandatory crying in the restaurant over stories of redemption, plenty of bathroom stops, numerous bouts of indecision over colour and size, a brief ride on the shopping cart, thorough research of all the store's other fine articles offered for sale, an excursion into the "as is" section, talking to a polite Spanish guy in front of me who had the best hair and seemed to be buying enough stuff to furnish a small house but was stuck waiting in line while his friend collected more articles for purchase, delivering the desk to my friend's house only to discover that it was damaged inside the box, returning to the customer service area at the store and waiting for another half hour to get a new desk, an...

I was in an accident yesterday. No, let me rephrase that. I caused an accident yesterday. I rear-ended a guy (well, his car, actually) at a red light. There was no excuse. I hesitate to even write the details here because then everyone will know how careless I can be, but hiding the truth would be refusing the opportunity to be humble, so here we go. The light was red. I was stopped. And for some inexplicable reason, my brain registered that the light had turned green and I started to go. Right into the back end of a green car. Everything in my car went flying forward onto the floor. A man in his sixties hopped out of the victimised car with an unhappy expression on his face. I apologised profusely in French, gave him my name and phone number, and we both went on our way. Thankfully, no one was hurt, the cars seemed to come out of it without even a scratch, and all that was damaged was my self-esteem and the desire to drive anywhere for the next year. I continued on to the grocery st...