outWORD by Matte Downey

Think about a typical day in your life. What's the first thing you do when you wake up? What's your morning ritual? What do you do during your lunch hour? What's the last thing you do before you go to bed? We all have life rhythms. Every day, we do certain things at a certain time in a certain way. Most of the time, we don't even think about these habits; they are just a part of our life. Each of these small details may seem insignificant, but they are building blocks. The habits we inhabit are formative. This is because our life rhythms are connected to two big questions: What is the good life, the flourishing life? What is our vocation (what is God calling us to)? Let's look at an example. Here is the daily rhythm of a Benedictine community in New Mexico called Christ in the Desert. Vigils at 4 am (read 12 Psalms, scripture lesson, reading from Church fathers) Lauds at 5:45 am (prayer and Eucharist) Breakfast, personal time Chapter Meeting at 8:30 am (wo...

St-Benoit-du-Lac Abbey. Image from www.tourisme-memphremagog.com Last weekend I organized and participated in a women's retreat. For those of you who know me, you know that I am not particularly fond of all-women events, but this turned out to be a lovely, restful, rejuvenating, and fun time. Ten of us spent two days at a quaint bed and breakfast in Magog, and there was plenty of free time to relax, read, take a walk around town, sit on the porch in the sun, chat with a friend, or go on a hike to a local lookout point. Each evening we gathered together to pray for each other, and these were precious times of laughter, honesty, and encouraging one other. On Saturday afternoon we all piled into cars and headed to a nearby monastery, Saint-Benoit-du-Lac which is a Benedictine abbey situated on Lake Memphremagog. The abbey is remote, nestled in the countryside and at this time of year, surrounded by bright, colourful foliage. We wandered around the grounds in the cool fall air, ...

Iona Abbey This morning I taught a class on monasticism and we focused on the counter-cultural aspect of this particular expression of spirituality. It brought up some interesting questions: is being counter-cultural imperative if one is a follower of Jesus? How distinctive should a Christian lifestyle be? It is easy to identify certain religious sects by their dress, rituals, or closed communities, but exactly how important are these outward differentiations? I don't know that I have a definitive answer, but Jesus certainly indicated that those who follow him and embrace his teachings will exhibit certain distinctives. Here are a few that I found and none of them have anything to do with clothing, rituals, or separating oneself from society. LOVE. This is not the same as our culture's call for tolerance. Love is more difficult than tolerance because Jesus asks us to do more than just let people do what they do. Jesus calls us to care deeply about their well-being and to ...

Sunset in my neighbourhood This week I showed a video in class from some monks at the Monastery of Saint Antony in Egypt.  Father Lazarus talks about different kinds of silence: one kind of silence is when we go into a garden or enjoy a walk in a park and have a bit of quiet.  That's nice, but it is temporary and it is mostly external.  A deeper type of silence is when our minds are not frantic and our thoughts are not in turmoil.  This silence, this inner peace, is something that is possible no matter where we are, whether alone in the stillness of the desert or in the middle of a noisy crowd in the heart of New York City.  Oh, to have a mind that is a peace, that is calm and ordered, that thinks good and honourable thoughts and does not worry.  It is a struggle, indeed, but it is possible to have moments of inner peace. I read Psalm 139 a few days ago and found 5 distinct markers along the psalm...

While in Waterloo, Ontario to attend the Canadian Theological Society's annual conference last week, I picked up a few books, one of them being Kathleen Norris's Acedia & Me .  Sometimes defined as sloth or associated with depression, acedia is a word that, though commonly used by the ancient monks, has not found a prominent place in contemporary spiritual language.  Norris describes what acedia looks and feels like by writing about her own experience.  Basically, acedia is an absence of care.  Norris writes:  "The person afflicted by acedia refuses to care or is incapable of doing so.  When life becomes too challenging and engagement with others too demanding, acedia offers a kind of spiritual morphine: you know the pain is there, yet you can't rouse yourself to give a damn." (p. 3)  Monks knew this affliction well.  They called it the noon-day demon because the temptation usually made an appearance around midda...

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 myse...

This past weekend I was on a winter retreat with my faith community.  There were 21 of us stuffed into a 4-bedroom chalet in the mountains.  It was amazing to see how gracious and patient people were with each other.  One person volunteered to sleep in the laundry room.  Others offered to help out in the kitchen even if they were not scheduled to assist with cooking or cleaning.  Our hosts welcomed us with huge smiles, hugs, and kisses.  They silently served us in many ways: not only did they let us take over their chalet, but after a snowy night, we awoke to find that our cars had all been brushed off, ready for the trip home. I don't remember hearing any complaints over the weekend.  We cooked together, we ate together, we went on a winter hike, we frolicked on the frozen lake, we drank tea by the fire, we played games, we had times of silence, we worshipped God together, and we prayed for each other....