another lesson from the metro

I know people who struggle with depression. I also know people who suffer from positive thinking. At the risk of being over-simplistic, both of these tendencies (at least to me) ring of untruth in their own way. I always seem to be at a loss for words in the presence of super positive people. What can one say to someone who will only see what they want to see? Likewise, I have little to offer those who are trapped in despair, teetering on the edge of blackness. Maybe a hug or a sighing prayer.

I was on the metro a few days ago and they were having some problem with the automated voice that announces each upcoming station. I was deep in a book, as usual, and relying on the voice to let me know when I was approaching my stop. However, this time when the train left the station, the voice spoke some very unfamiliar words. I stopped reading and wondered if I had inadvertently stepped on the wrong train. I checked the metro map and found that the female voice was announcing stations from another part of the underground system altogether. The voice then began to announce, in rapid succession, all the stations at the other end of the line.

It was disconcerting to be hearing these strange words. It made me check twice when we pulled into a station to make sure I was on the right track. Yes, it was indeed the station I wanted to be at. Things were pretty much normal and as they should be, but hearing the voice give me continuous conflicting information was quite disorienting.

And I guess this is what I feel when I hear people talk in overly positive or negative ways. I look around me and see that what is actually happening does not quite relate to what they are saying. The words don't match the present reality. I understand there are times when we speak of things that we hope for. We are perhaps trying to align our thoughts with where we want them to be, but no amount of saying "I am at metro Cadillac" will put me there. I actually have to go there.

I also understand that pain can cause us to view things in a distorted way, seeing actual or potential wounds everywhere. But no amount of saying "Metro Namur is being swallowed into a black hole" when I have just pulled up at that very station will change the fact. Positive thinking is not faith and negative thinking is not doubt. Both just reveal how badly we see, and perhaps admitting this goes a long way to having our eyes opened to what is in front of us. And that is the good and the bad, the possibilities and the disappointments, the love and the fear, all somehow encompassed within the great and good hands of God.

Today, I am preparing for my master's thesis defense which is a mere 3 days away. I have many people telling me I will do just fine, and I appreciate their support. But honestly, I know that unless I study and prepare, I am not going to arrive at the "do just fine" station. Saying it does not make it so. Unless you are God, whose words and actions are one. I am not, so I have to stick with taking this journey one station at a time, one day at a time, and hopefully, one truthful moment after another.

May I learn to see the truth better so that I can speak it and live it.

This is a photo from a recent walk I took through a field. Buds, seeds, grass, trees, all at different stages of their life.

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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