outWORD by Matte Downey

I awoke at 7:41 am this past Saturday morning in order to attend a morning lecture on the subject of understanding incorporating the works of theologian Bernard Lonergan and philosopher Paul Ricoeur.  Though I arrived with pretty low expectations and a medium chai latte, the morning proved to be a provocative one.  I am going to be processing all that was brought up in the lecture/discussion for quite some time.  Let me just mention one thing here:  in the melange of Dr. James Pambrun's remarks about encounter, cognitional operations, epistemology, the multiplicity of symbols, and narrative, he lobbed in a few short sentences about bias. Basically, he suggested that while bias can be one of the obstacles that keeps us from being open, from learning, and from maturing, it can also be a good thing.  A good bias orients us toward something to such a degree that we become comm...

We saw the band Mumford & Sons last night.  A real treat!  Those boys play hard, put everything they have into their music, graciously deal with each other, the audience, and their fellow musicians, and write some of the most insightful and profound songs I have heard in a long time. I was one in a crowd of about 10,000 and we chose to buy general admission tickets on the floor instead of reserved seats further away.  The great thing about general admission is that you can decide your location.  The bad thing is that you have to get there early and stand for a few hours before the band plays.  Also, as the floor fills up, you have to deal with all the people who start to infringe on the space you thought you had claimed for yourself.  I am also not one of the tall people, so standing, general admission gigs are not ideal for me.  I positioned myself as best I could with Dean right behind me, but at the last minute a tall guy and h...

The problem with containers is that I like them. I love their different shapes and sizes and the promise of tidiness that is attached to them. I like stacking them and arranging them on shelves. However, there is a major difference between containers and what they carry. Sometimes I forget that. I can focus on the loveliness of the container too much, and then what is inside becomes almost secondary. Events, meetings, and traditions are containers. They are meant to carry something that is valuable to us. These containers can come and go and morph into different forms, and we should never get too attached to their malleable shapes. A weekly church meeting is a container. It is meant to carry something really important, but it is only a container. It is a time and place to recognise that we are part of something bigger than ourselves. It is a time to recognise the presence and work of an almighty God and see beyond our limited world of work and play. It is a place to devote ourselves to...

On the recommendation of a friend, I started reading the book, Good to Great by Jim Collins. It contains the highly readable and interesting results of 5 years of research conducted to answer the question: Why do some companies make the leap from good to great and others don't? It is much more than a book on business. It is a book on how to do life with others and make something great of it. It talks about the unexpected but absolutely necessary factor of humility, putting the interests of the "whole" ahead of your own interests, focussing on "who" before "what," and the amazing potential of disciplined dedication. Here are some quotes that I found stimulating: Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice. (p. 11) When you have disciplined people, you don't need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don't need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don...

We just lost an hour when we switched to Daylight Saving Time this weekend. Well, nothing was really lost, the numbers were just changed in order to make life brighter and more productive for everyone. I don't know about you, but I could use both of those. Let's hope it works. :-) Time is a funny thing. We treat it like a precious commodity in some ways. We say, "I just don't have the time for x or y anymore." Did we lose it; was it stolen? We say, "I wish I had more time," as if there might be a time depot where we could go to get some. We talk about buying time and spending time, and I guess if you have a cell phone, it sort of applies. "I should make time for that," implies that with the correct ingredients and a good recipe, we could indeed whip some up. Or when we say, "I'll find the time somehow," it conjures up images of an intense hunt for those hours that know how to hide all too well. The truth is, we all start with the ...

I have been learning how to make decisions lately. In a different way. I guess I have always been learning this, but in the past few months I have discovered that some of the machinery in my decision factory was not only out of date, but producing sub-standard end products. Everything seemed to be fine when it left the factory, but you got it home and gave it a road test: BAM the thing fell apart. Here is the old process: Dear God, should I do A or B? Should I say yes or no to this opportunity? Is this the right thing to do at this moment? I would wait to hear an answer, read my Bible, ask wise friends, and try to weigh the outcomes of both choices. While it sounds like a simple question based on the desire to obey God, it is in fact more like an ultimatum. Only two choices. And these two choices are at the end of a long road of pre -choices and assumptions that I have already made because I thought I knew what I was doing all along the way. God is only there for quality control, show...

I once ate 3 servings of homemade tapioca pudding followed by a few glasses of fresh apple cider. You can guess what happened next. There are certain combinations of food that do not do well together. Citric acid and milk are one of them. They cannot coexist at the same time in the same place - they are in opposition to each other's purposes, one being a base and the other being an acid. This week I started another French course; it is making a bit of a mess of my normal weekly schedule because I have 4 less hours each day to work with, and the pace at which I used to do things has to change. Yesterday, I was still laundering bedding at midnight. Considering Dean wanted to retire for the night, that was a bit of a problem. French class and laundry cannot co-exist in the same time frame. I must choose where my time will be spent. Dean and I were talking to someone last night about working balance and priorities into life. Let me paraphrase some things that were said: If w...