downloading vs. streaming

I am a thinker. I like to sit in the quiet and contemplate. This is where I come up with ideas for just about everything I do in life including the writing and the talks that I give. This is how I find the energy and insight to walk with people in a creative and hopefully helpful way. Most of all, this is where I am able to make some sense of my life and find some direction for daily decisions. When I don't find the space to be quiet and dialogue with God and ponder the deep questions, I can feel quite empty and aimless, unable to offer much to anyone.

This past month was one of those times when I did not find a lot of space for pondering. It happens. And yet, I had talks to give and people to pray for and counsel and writing to do. The wisdom pail was often scraping at the bottom of the well, or so it felt to me. One of the times that I was expected to get up and say something to a group of people, I realised that I had nothing running through my head: no prepared thoughts and not even a memory of something I heard or thought about earlier. I was tired and felt like I couldn't concentrate. Nevertheless, I got up in front of the group when my turn came and stood there, willing to open my mouth and see what came out. I started with one sentence, a kind of lame repeat of something I had said 2 days earlier, but it was a start. And then it led to a thought that was relevant and fresh. Then I totally lost my train of thought for a moment, but after a wee pause, it came back and I started talking about church not being an event and suddenly I knew that I was saying something that was very important for me and everyone else to grasp. I was so glad I had not waited until I had a prepared speech in my head before I got up, because the insight came after I opened my mouth.

It is a bit like the difference between downloading and streaming. I prefer downloading because then I possess the information on my hard drive and can access it anytime I want, especially when I don't have access to an internet connection. It takes longer and uses up more energy and space, but then it is mine to do with as I please. I own it. Streaming means that one has to have a really good and consistent connection to the source. There is no time lag, no space taken up, and no energy spent getting it all together before it can be used. It can never really be called "mine," either. I just hit "play" and I trust that something will be there. It does not come from me, it is tapping directly into the source and it is using the source's resources instead of mine. It is a much riskier way of doing things, but so much less taxing on my system.

And so I believe that I am learning to stream in the spirit. I don't always have to have a deep well of resource material to draw from, or weeks of prepared thoughts and notes (though I still value that process and do it as much as I can). When the time comes that something is required of me, even though I have not had the benefit of lengthy preparation, if I am connected to God and willing to press play by opening my mouth and being available, he will always come through with something. I won't have time to edit and alter it, but that's not a bad thing. It never has to be "mine" first, as if the truth were something that could be latched onto and captured, to be used at my convenience. No, Truth is and always has been Him.

Connect. Press play. Watch. Listen. Learn.

This is Tea sitting in the sunny window right beside my desk, catching some rays, flicking her tail in excitement at the birds flitting by (photo taken April 1, 2009).

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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