soul refrigerator

I went grocery shopping yesterday and came home with three bags of food. After I unpacked them all, this is what my fridge looked like: really empty. How does that happen? How can I feel so full and ready for any food emergency one moment, and after one quick glance, realise that I have nothing, really?

Today is one of those days in my soul as well. I woke up with gratitude and fullness in my heart, ready to take on this day and all the wonderful opportunities that it presented. Then I caught a brief glance of some emptiness in my life and bam - my buoyancy was compromised. For the past few hours I have been treading water, trying to keep my head in a positive space, bobbing in and out of disappointment, and catching myself whining with pathetic indignity at the cement blocks of other people's stupidity that are tangled around my ankles. When I am staring at the empty refrigerator of my soul, these are my thoughts.

Where do I go from here? Perhaps I should slam that refrigerator shut and never think about its cavernous, aching holes again. Perhaps I should run off to the local convenience store where I can find a lot of beer, ice cream, and pizza to stuff in it. That should stave off the emptiness for awhile. Perhaps I will turn my attention to the food cupboard instead, which is stocked with familiar canned goods and crackers - nothing fresh, but long shelf life has its advantages. Or perhaps, just perhaps, I should open the fridge and sit with it awhile until the emptiness doesn't scare me anymore. I could look around and find out what's really in there, in those drawers that I never seem to open a lot, and on those condiment shelves that go untouched for weeks. I might be surprised at what I find: some things past their expiry dates will need to be tossed, but hey, I had more orange juice than I thought. Maybe I could use this opportunity when it is not laden with fruit to give it a good cleaning. Maybe I could write a list of yummy fresh foods that I really want in my life and make a point of finding out where these can be found.

I am discovering that developing into a mature and solid person means taking times to sit with my pain, my emptiness, and my disappointments. If I don't expose them to the air and give them some time, like all wounds, they will fester and gangrinate instead of heal. It is a discipline of love to sit with someone and let them pour out their soul in a cathartic cleanse, so why can't I have the patience to do the same with myself?

Come, soul, don't be downcast. You are not alone. Invite Jesus to sit here with you and then face the void. Let the anger, the stabbing pain, the dull ache, the wounds of neglect and rejection start to seep out. Let the dullness deflate and crumble; a soft and willing heart is irresistible. Let the hidden fears and scummy lies bubble to the surface and be skimmed off. Come, soul, don't rush away. Come. Sit. Look. Seep. Be made clean so that you can be filled with all things fresh and delicious.

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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