outWORD by Matte Downey

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...

The Holy Spirit and the seven-fold gifts. Image from curtisgraphics.com A lot has happened since my last entry here: After a few intense weeks of studying, I successfully defended my doctoral dissertation on April 1 (see my post  here  if you want to know what that entailed). We (Dean and a bunch of academics) all went for a celebratory lunch and then I spent the next few days writing a paper for a conference which is happening this week. After that, it was back to my dissertation to make the changes requested by my examiners (the title and a note about one of my sources) and fix any typos and improper citations. On Tuesday, I submitted the final version and allowed myself to sign off as Dr. Matte on an email. Just for fun. This morning I drove Dean to the airport, waved goodbye to the house-guests we had for a few days, and sat down to read 1 Corinthians 12. It is about the gifts the Spirit of God gives to the people of God. As I am currently considering the next steps ...