the happiest girl in the world

Have you ever had a day where you feel like the happiest person in the world? Despite having a dream this morning about being shot in the neck (don't worry, I survived just fine and it was sort of a heroic moment), today was one of those days. I don't know where this sensation of "wow, everything is soooo good at this moment" comes from. If I did, I would certainly tap it at the source, bottle it, keep a good supply on hand for those "other" days, and of course, hand cases of the stuff out freely. I certainly cannot manufacture it, though I believe I can place myself in its path to a certain extent.

Simple things shine and sparkle with glittery life-dust on days like this. I did my workout for the first time in our new place, and it gave me the greatest pleasure to move and stretch and jump around and punch the air after a 2-week hiatus due to moving. I walked to the bank after lunch and had to express myself out loud, "I love being able to walk to stuff, I love just being able to walk, I love my body, I love my hair, I love this sunny warm day, I love my clothes!"

On the way home, I took a long-cut through the park and discovered the woods! Yes, woods! Ten minutes away from our condo. Right next to the soccer fields. There is a whole section of trees big enough to get lost in and experience poison ivy first hand. Fear not, I stayed safe from both dangers by following one of the well-used paths. But listen man, I have woods!

I also have planes! We live close to the airport and planes fly overhead all the time. I love them! They are not really noisy (we don't hear them inside at all) and when I am outside, every time one flies overhead, I stop what I am doing, look up and go, "Wow, look at that plane!" It is like an improbable adventure zooming past me every 15 minutes, inciting wonder and feeding the explorer in me.

I did the laundry today and after a rough start with the dryer (don't know exactly what was going on, but after adjusting the vent and switching to a different setting and of course, asking God to make it work), the clothes came out dry! By my reaction, one would think that a miracle of huge proportion had happened. My heart swelled and my soul had that feeling one gets after a huge meal when you just can't think of anything else that you might ever want to eat. Can you believe it? My one closet and my chest of drawers are full of clean and dry clothes! Really! It's true! Incroyable!

My buddy, Shane, of http://www.fakerepublic.com/ fame, has called me matte the irrepressible. It is my superhero name. I love him and his way with words and have clutched tightly onto that moniker as an identity that I want to embrace and embody. Some days, like today, it is easy - a gift from the benevolent one. On other days, well, I believe the gracious hand of God still extends the gift, but I might not be in a receptive frame of mind. Some days all I want is circumstantial evidence biased towards the guilty party (me) instead of a grateful heart sliding along on grace. Silly me.

This is Tea , the happiest cat in the world, sleeping in her new favourite place, hanging over the banister on top of the mezzanine.

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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