outWORD by Matte Downey

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend and she introduced me to the French term "le non dit" which means that which is not said .  One of the theories in certain streams of medicine is that when we repress and internalise traumatic and painful situations, leaving them unspoken and undealt with, they eventually emerge and manifest themselves somehow in the body.  If we run with this theory, then various pains, diseases, and maladies might be related to the dis-ease and unhealthy state of our minds, souls, and relationships. I can testify to the fact that when I have been wronged or have wronged another person and there is tension in my relationships, my digestive tract is affected. I watched a video this week where a musician was talking about the story behind one of his songs, The Lord is My Shepherd . He said this: "I think one of the hardest questions I have had to answer for myself is 'What am I going to do with my pain?' because pain is just a reality o

Today I got the news that my paper proposal was accepted at the Theatrical Theology conference being hosted by the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in August.  This means that I get to present my thoughts on divine drama to a group of esteemed scholars and fellow researchers.  Very good news.  I hope that Dean joins me for a working vacation to a beautiful and intriguing part of the world.  Two days ago we attended the funeral of the man who first gave Dean a job when we moved to Montreal.  He died of brain cancer.  Very sad.  The man's father wept openly as he gave tribute to a kind and generous son.  Life seems to be an uncomfortable mixture of joy and heartache these days.  While my life appears to be on an upward trajectory both professionally and personally, many of my friends and acquaintances are battling some form of cancer or health crisis.  I get updates and prayer requests several times a week; sometimes things are going well, other times there are disappointin

Phew! Another semester over and done with!  I just handed in my last essay this afternoon.  The topics I was dealing with this term were 1) Hans Urs von Balthasar and the role of the witness (audience participation) in God's drama and 2) Rembrandt's self-portraits as an illustration of Paul Ricoeur's idea of narrative identity.  Very interesting and perhaps I will write about them here at a later date.  This afternoon I am sitting at my desk, enjoying the breeze wafting in from the back balcony, drinking a cup of tea I accidentally added 2 sugars to (oops, got distracted), doing the laundry, baking bread, and trying not to jump right into editing 3 more papers for presentation and publication.  One of the most intriguing and thought-provoking books I read this semester (I always have one non-theology book on the go to read on the subway) was Fire Season by Philip Connors.  I picked it up at a book sale at the university store and was pleasantly surprised to find that

I didn't get around to blogging on Friday because I was in Halifax at a conference.  Lots of good things happened there, and two of the best things were seeing Dean again after his 8 days away in Memphis on business and getting a chance to connect with friends old and new.  And I got to drive around in a Nissan Pathfinder. It worked!  I found my path from the conference to the hotel, no problem! The talks given in the leadership meetings we had before the general conference were from people who have been leading for a long time.  They offered some of their lessons learned.  Let me share a few of the ones I that I thought were really important for me to remember as a leader, a student, a teacher, a person in community, and a follower of Jesus. Ed Piorek talked about how we as leaders can operate out of a core insecurity.  This insecurity can manifest itself in competition. In the context of pastors, it often means trying to get a bigger church and have a broader ministry.  O