outWORD by Matte Downey

Comic by Joel Micah Harris at xkcd.com One of my favourite jokes goes like this: Knock, knock. Who's there? Interrupting cow Interrupting cow w--- Moooooooo!! Timing is important in both drama and comedy. A well-paced story draws the audience in and helps it invest in the characters, while a tale too hastily told or too long drawn out will fail to engage anyone. Surprise - something which interrupts the expected - is a creative use of timing and integral to any good story. If someone is reading a novel and everything unfolds in a predictable manner, they will probably wonder why they bothered reading the book. And so it is in life. Having life be predictable all of the time is not as calming as it sounds. We love surprises, especially good surprises like birthday parties, gifts, marriage proposals, and finding something that we thought was lost. Surprises are an important part of humour. A good joke is funny because it goes to a place you didn't expect it to go. Sim...

Image by Jim Davis. Found on pinterest.com I have been following a post by a colleague (whom I have never met but we have mutual friends and are both studying theology) in which he writes about his efforts to change into a functioning morning person, mostly out of necessity due to being a parent and a writer (his words). I am not a parent so I will not comment on the challenges that children present to sleep and work patterns, but I do a fair bit of writing and find myself chafing at the assumption that disciplined and successful writers do their best work in the early morning.  I am not sure that such a generalization is true or helpful. It seems to me that there is a bit of prejudice against late-night functioning people. We can be viewed as somewhat lazy, undisciplined, still lingering in that teenage/student phase of staying up late and sleeping in late. Similar to the subtle disdain for introverts that our Western culture exhibits (social skills are highly valued), la...

In the past few weeks, a few situations have arisen that have caused me to feel frustrated, to be annoyed, to be torn about which way to go.  What this signals to me is that I have something to learn in these areas and the lessons are starting NOW!  The wonderful part of all these hard lessons is that in the middle of them, some understanding, some teaching, and some helpful insights always come along.  Kind of serendipitous how that always seems to happen when you need it.  In case you are taking the same life lessons that I am in the middle of, let me share some of them with you. 1.  WHEN TO SPEAK OR WRITE:  I thought I knew how to write a paper, but I found myself in a bit of a rush with the last paper I had due this past term and made one big error:  I started to write having only finished half of my research.  The result was a messy conglomeration of 10 pages that wandered here and there, saying a bit of this an...

Dean has been talking about generous living lately.  He is much better at it than I am.  For one thing, he understands the concept of 'gleaning.'  This is related to a farming practice in which the farmer deliberately leaves a bit of the harvest out on the field for folks down on their luck to 'glean' or pick up in order to feed their families.  You find it figuring prominently in the biblical story of Ruth.  The basic principle is that we do not try to wring the last bit of value out of our resources, livelihoods, or transactions, but make sure we leave something behind for someone else.  Dean compares it to the contemporary practice of tipping in a restaurant. Leave something behind - something good and substantial - not just leftovers that are hardly worth scraping off the ground.  Another place that I find myself thinking in terms of 'gleaning' is when I am selling or buyin...

Station 7 - Jesus falls a second time I am one of those people that lets their breakfast cereal sit for awhile before I eat it.  I like it soggy.  I like the milk to infiltrate the squares, circles, flakes, clusters, and sticks and change their texture.  I figure if I want it crunchy, I might as well eat it out of the box and drink a glass of milk as a chaser.  I like to know that the milk has truly met the cereal and there is no turning back from the encounter. Station 11 - Jesus is nailed to the cross Station 10 - Jesus is stripped of his garments We spent Sunday morning walking through the Way of the Cross garden at St. Joseph's Oratory with our faith community.  I have done this walk many times before, but never at such a slow, meditative pace.  It was a lot different than just hiking along the path, sightseeing.  We took our time.  We stood and looked.  We were silent....

Things have been a bit hectic this last month as I dove head-first into doctoral studies.  The first few weeks were filled with so many meetings and events and orientations and administrative 'stuff'  that had to be completed that it left me feeling a bit tossed about and slightly nauseous.  In the midst of all that hurricane activity on the sea of learning, I was given 4 days to complete a huuuuuuge funding application.  I managed it, but I am not sure how brilliant and put-together it was.  Now I am in the middle of two more very large applications and have a flurry of parties to attend on the weekend.  This whirlwind of activity has brought me to face to face with the issue of schedules.  With Dean's help (and the Holy Spirit), I have now put one in place that should better manage all the classes, teaching responsibilities, reading, writing, and surprise tasks that are part of my workload, as well as leave space for liv...

It is a windy day today. This afternoon I took a long walk which included stops at the grocery store, the bank, the pharmacy, and the dry cleaner. At one point I thought I was going to lose a pair of pants as the wind lifted the plastic dry cleaner bag above my head, but I managed to get everything safely home, including my hair. Things have been moving quite quickly in the past few days - it feels like a bit of a whirlwind. On Tuesday I submitted a thesis on behalf of a colleague who is no longer living in Montreal, and while I was printing out the multiple copies at the library and annoying a few people who were queued up after me, I received an email that let me know my own thesis had just been approved by my second supervisor and was good to go! The next morning I did one last proofread of the 114-page document and headed to school to print my own copies and hand them in to the various offices. Today, I just received news that the formatting is all okay (no changes) and that I now ...

I am not a big history fan. This can be a bit challenging when so much of what I am studying, especially this term, has to do with history. Some of my colleagues love the adventure that comes with a sense of the past, and historical details come easily to them. I tend to struggle a bit more with this linear way of looking at the world and have to make an effort to grasp the bigger picture. But there are other things I do see quite well, like the human element present in history and the impact of interesting personalities in our world. This is because I am basically a PRESENT person. If you are a PAST person, you tend to think about what has happened. On the plus side of this, you would make a great history professor and can handle a great deal of information and detail about events with relative ease because the past is important and interesting to you. The past is also stable - it won't change - which, although it means that you can't alter it, also means that you are always ...

I am one of those fortunate people who does not work a 9-5 job. Though I did trek off to a 35-40 hour work week for many years, at some point I realised that I do much better outside of the grind. Not financially, at least not yet, but in every other way, I thrive in a self-directed environment. I suppose many creative people do. As great as it sounds, managing your own schedule can be much more challenging than the 9 - 5 scene. The possibilities are endless, but in direct proportion, so are the opportunities to squander your precious resources, especially time. This lifestyle is not for everyone, but here are a few things I have found helpful over the years. I don't get it right every day, but I am getting better at it. 1. Know your values . At the end of the day or the week, what use of your time will leave you content and satisfied, filled with a sense of purpose and gratitude? Make sure those things find priority on your schedule, along with all the necessary tasks of life. 2. ...

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 ...