my unperfect life

Someone disappointed me this weekend. Somehow, after all this time living this life, it still shocked, surprised and offended me. I know my reaction was not a perfect one - silly how I can have an imperfect reaction to an imperfect world and think it is somehow justified or right or will work for me in some way just like expecting two wrongs to make a right. And oh yes, I feel somewhat excused from being part of the overall problem since I am only reacting and I did not actually DO anything.

Sigh. This persistent need for someone to recognise my value is so misplaced at times, and I don't know if the answer is to let it all go or to lovingly communicate to a person how their actions have hurt me and my ability to trust them. Any scenario I go through in my mind regarding the latter confrontation always end up in a mess, so maybe the best thing is just to let it go and realise that God is much better at teaching people and maturing them than I am since his motives are never personal nor vindictive and his lessons always pure and unselfish.

This imperfect picture was taken just a few minutes ago outside my house. The power line and the house roof throw the whole beautiful sky/flower/tree composition out of balance, but that's life. I will not let the unwanted elements subtract any value or beauty from the flowers, blue sky, whispy clouds or background tree in full leaf.

And to the left is another picture I thought was of some nice plants in front of my house but the centrepiece of the picture turned out to be a spider! (shaking my head and laughing)

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Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

The mad dash for the end of term has begun. I have finished all my required readings and have jumped into research reading. One of my papers is on the madness of theology (the correlation seems more obvious to some of us than to others). Truly inspiring stuff, I am finding. Let me share a few quotes here: There is a certain madness in Christianity – in a desert God who is jealous and passionate, in a saviour who speaks in apocalyptic terms, in a life of sacrificial love, in the scandal of particularity. In principle, a confessional theology should bear the mark of this madness, but the mark or wound must constantly be renewed. - Walter Lowe, "Postmodern Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology , 2007. “In the Scriptures the odd phenomena constituting the ‘Kingdom of God’ are the offspring of the shock that is delivered by the name of God to what is there called the ‘world,’ resulting in what I call a ‘sacred anarchy.’ Consider but a sampling o

comedic timing

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

outWORD by Matte Downey

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