outWORD by Matte Downey

In the evangelical circles in which I was formed, we were taught that, for the most part, we couldn't trust our desires. Desire was largely equated with lust or greed. What we wanted was deemed mostly irrelevant or even assumed to be detrimental. Unless, of course, it was linked directly to the service of God as defined by the church leaders. Unfortunately, this has resulted in many of us who were raised in the church being ill-equipped to identify our desires and honestly reflect on them.  Jesus had no such hangups about desire. In fact, Jesus made a point of asking people about their desires and engaging with people's responses. Jesus believed people's desires were worth expressing and exploring.  In Mark 10 we find two stories, one right after the other, in which Jesus asks: "What do you want me to do for you?" The first story takes place as Jesus and his disciples are on their way to Jerusalem. Jesus has mentioned to his close followers what troubles await him...

The collection of texts which make up the Bible (narrative, poetry, laws, prophecy, letters, parables, apocalyptic literature, etc.) are what we call meaning-making texts. Together, they offer a certain view of the relationship between divinity, humanity, and the cosmos. For hundreds and hundreds of years, people have sought to faithfully discern and follow what the biblical texts teach.  When we are looking for meaning or direction from a text, we come with specific questions. Perhaps we ask, "How should we live?" or more broadly, "What does this have to say to us?" For those of us taught to read the Bible as a guide to personal piety, our questions might focus on laws, behaviours, and avoiding sin. For those needing comfort, the questions might be, "What encouragement or reassurance is being offered?" When we find the biblical stories confusing or disturbing, we might ask, "What does this mean?" or "What am I supposed to do with this?...

In recent years, I have heard and read many conversations in which Christians comment on potentially divisive issues such as sexuality, politics, economics, nationhood, leadership, socialism, etc. We are an increasingly polarized society, it seems, and the Church is not immune to this dynamic. What has saddened me most about these interactions is how often kindness is in short supply. We can get so worked up about an issue that we think it is okay to disrespect, shame, or mock those who do not share our views. In other words, we make things more important than people , and that is not the way of Jesus. In English, kindness is defined as being friendly, generous, and considerate. Kindness is when someone gives up their seat on the bus for an elderly gentleman. Or lets someone go in front of them in a line. Or offers to pay for a stranger's coffee. However, the word translated as kindness in the New Testament is a bit more robust than our English version. Chrestotes (Gk) com...

Image from physicsworld.com Last night I attended a lecture entitled, "Quantum Physics and Christianity." I know, who could resist a topic like that?  Quantum is the Latin word for "amount" and in physics, it refers to the very small increments into which energy, such as light, is subdivided. The lecturer was Dr. Arnold Sikkema, a professor of Physics from Trinity Western University. There was a lot of talk about electrons and particles and how physics is increasingly verisimilitudinous (we are always learning more about how things work), and even mention of a cat, though not in a very pleasant way (what do you have against cats, Schrodinger?). It is common to associate science with certainty, precision, and verifiable predictability, but in reality, the more scientists discover, the less they speak in terms of certainty. Dr. Sikkema mentioned that in the last hundred years or so, worldviews in science (and much of culture as well) have shifted from certainty...

Image from remnantresource.org Yesterday I taught the first class of an undergraduate university course called Introduction to Theological Studies . Besides looking at a Van Gogh painting (beauty as the starting point of theology), listening to a Richard Dawkins interview (the limitations of closed system inquiry), and talking about theological sources, terms, and definitions, we spent some time thinking about the kind of questions we ask to find out more about a subject. One of the exercises I had the students do was to take out a piece of paper and write down two questions they could pose to someone in order to find out what kind of person they were. Then I had them turn to their neighbour and give their questions a try.  It was not surprising that no one asked how tall someone was or how old they were (scientifically verifiable questions which would have pleased Richard Dawkins). Instead, they asked questions which required thoughtful responses. One student asked another...

University of Toronto doorway In the past few weeks I have come across quite a few writings or conversations about the church and sexuality.  A pastor I know has written a book allowing for the option of same-sex marriage.  Another pastor I know says that the Bible clearly places this practice in the realm of sin (contrary to the ways of God).  A third pastor embraces all people in his church but insists that certain lines must be drawn when it comes to leadership roles.  One pastor indicated that the first question he is often asked is "What is your church's stance on homosexuality?"  He indicated that this is now being used as a kind of litmus test for people to either embrace or reject the church in question. And this is unfortunate.  I don't mean to sound insensitive, but I don't believe that this is a really important question.  Let me explain why.  First, it reduces the complexity of human relationships to one question. Second, I suspect...

A room in the Grey Nuns Motherhouse, Montreal Monastic writings have taught me a thing or two about the tension between trust and questioning Some days I wake up with questions floating around in my head.  This morning was one of them.  I wondered why God does not communicate more clearly.  If he is so interested in a relationship with humanity, why all the mystery?  Why does he remain so hidden?  This lack of directness means that many people misinterpret who he is or what he is saying.  Many people don't think he communicates at all and take that as an indication of his absence.  Faith in God contains a good many question marks. Perhaps the question bubbled up because I am reading a book (fiction) about a missionary family in the Congo in the 60s who use the Bible (and their North American version of God) as a sledgehammer to force certain cultural behaviours on the Africa...

A week ago I took a mini road trip to Syracuse, New York to attend the American Academy of Religion Eastern International Regional meeting. Basically, it was a bunch of religion scholars from New York, Ontario, and Quebec together presenting ideas, exchanging information, eating finger food, and drinking wine. Very nice, actually. The SUNY campus is lovely and I spent what little spare time I had wandering around a bit of it and taking pictures. Two of the talks I attended that sparked quite a bit of discussion were ones that dealt with certitude, doubt, and struggle. It seems that in some circles, 'doubt' is the new 'faith.' One of the men presenting a paper plainly stated that certitude is our enemy. And he seemed quite certain about that! (just pointing that out). While I understand that he is reacting to a tendency to offer simplistic, pat answers which indeed are unhelpful for the most part, in my opinion he pretty much substituted one pat answer for anot...

It has been a week where death has knocked on my door a few times. In our culture, death is usually relegated to bad guys who meet their messy, but just, end on the big screen, or found in statistics that are for the most part distant and therefore, somewhat meaningless, or just some unfortunate incident on the news. This week, it was different. First came a phone call from my mother on Sunday night informing me that her brother had died. Something in her opening sentence, "I don't have any more brothers," painfully reflected the hollowness that death leaves behind. Yesterday, one of our colleagues in the family of Vineyard Canada (our church affiliation) was killed in Africa in an accident while on a year-long adventure and humanitarian aid trip with his young family. The images from a devastating earthquake in Christchurch yesterday just added to the sense of loss and being lost. This week I was reading a book on the metro in which the writer said that if he gets to hea...

In my formative years, I developed quite a lot of rituals and rules to regulate my religion. Part of that came from growing up in a religious environment, but a large part of it came from my need to feel secure and safe. There were prayer patterns that I followed, lines that I vowed never to cross, and obligations that had to be kept or the guilt would come knocking. These days there is much less of this external religious structure in my life. And paradoxically, I know that I am closer to being a friend of God than I was back then. There are less rules to follow and more questions that roll around in my head. Questions that ask...what is real? what is lasting? what is valuable? I am not as concerned with what is right, but more interested in truth that is embodied in a person: authentic, transforming, and challenging. There are less obligations, less guilt, and less predictable patterns. There are two "problems" that have accompanied this gradual change. The first is that th...

I got word today that I did not receive a scholarship that I applied for last fall. Not that I was really counting on it, because you toss your application in with hundreds of others and never know how it will turn out. I thought I might have a pretty good shot at it, but it turns out that I never made it past the first round. Disappointing. I guess a tiny part of me had hoped that I would finally see some financial benefit from doing something that I loved - learning and studying. And I thought I was doing it quite well, but I obviously didn't have what they were looking for. Dean is a very successful businessman and sometimes I feel the inequality between his ability to contribute to our finances and my lack of the same. I know I am smart and talented and creative, but it never seems to translate into income. In fact, all my creative projects seem to cost us money. I have asked God if it would be possible to get paid a living wage for doing what I believe he made me to do: be a c...

I am good at jumping to conclusions. I can land on possible scenarios, hop to perceived motivations, and bounce to likely outcomes in an easy hop, skip, and jump. Though a quick and flexible mind is helpful in some ways, this particular skill is not all that useful. It keeps me off the solid ground of reality. It usually blurs the truth, and most unfortunately, I believe that it substitutes certainty, or the illusion of having hit upon something resembling certainty, for faith. One of the things that I admire about higher education, or at least my exposure to it in my particular setting, is the opportunity it gives me to say, over and over again, "I don't know." There is a humility that this cultivates, a dependence on knowledge outside oneself, and a desire to learn and pursue a mystery, that is at the heart of nurturing a love of wisdom. Yesterday, I tried to help some of my friends by asking pointed questions and offering what I thought might be appropriate insights. T...

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 ...

I voted on Sunday. Montreal was having its municipal elections and we got to vote four times. Once for the mayor of Montreal, once for our local borough mayor (St-Laurent), once for the city councilor and once for the borough councilor. I am not all that up on municipal politics, so I decided to inform myself. In case you are not aware of the plethora of intricate and complex issues at stake when you vote in Montreal, here are a few of the things going on: 1. The current mayor and his party have been plagued by scandal. There have been numerous accusations about crooked contracts, bloated costs, Mafia connections, and political pay-offs. It seems to be the way we do business in this city. 2. The main opposition to the current mayor was from a woman who has spent 39 years working for the Parti Quebecois (the political party dedicated to promoting Quebec sovereignty and separation from Canada). She was one of the main forces behind the mega-city merger and wants to centralize power and ...

This school year has started with a bang! Though I am only taking 2 courses at the Master's level and have a small part-time job, some extra things have come up this month that have served to overwhelm me a bit. And for some reason I seem to be extra prone to overwhelmedness right now. In the next 2-3 weeks I also have to plan and organise a church retreat, apply for a major government award which means that I have to write a very detailed research proposal (something most people don't start to think about until later into their first year and something I have never done before!!!), and manage the logistics of a move for our church meeting space. Today, I have an occupancy permit application to write, I hope to begin on that research proposal, and there are readings for next week and a class presentation on Monday. Plus, I promised to get together with some good people today, which is very important for my sanity. And we haven't even talked about cleaning bathrooms or buy...