outWORD by Matte Downey

Sometimes life just seems bizarre. While some people are laughing and partying and watching a sporting event in one part of the world, others are dying in street skirmishes in a war-torn region. While one teenager plays video games and drinks Coke and thinks about nothing more than unlocking the next level, another adolescent faces painful surgery and possible life-altering complications. While a new baby is born into one loving family, another dies from neglect, hunger, or worse. At any point in time, we find ourselves touched by the good, the bad, the ugly, the painful, the funny, the overwhelming, the surprising, and the sweet. On good days, I can see some grand cohesion between these multi-dimensional aspects of life, but many times, I find myself puzzled or even at odds with what is happening. This is a joyful time in my life; I am about to graduate with my MA and have a summer of relative ease before I plow into doctoral studies in the fall. I find myself laughing and danc...

Here is a short video I made while letting my supper burn on the stove. Just for fun!

I remember having a regular day off last year. It was a nice break to spend 24 hours not thinking about the demands of school, and I felt it was imperative for my overall well-being. This past school year, however, that practice of taking a day off fell by the wayside. Taking on the additional responsibilities of a teaching assistant and facing looming deadlines for numerous large projects, I did what needed to be done, and I did it whenever I needed to do it. This meant that I worked 7 days a week on reading, writing, taking notes, teaching, grading, applying for programs and submitting proposals, as well as attending class. I did take 2 nights a week to participate in gatherings with my faith community, but often rushed home afterwards to complete any assignment I was in the middle of. On occasion I would also go to a movie with Dean, but there was no guarantee of a weekly date. Since it was only a temporary situation, I had no problem embracing the intensity of those 7 months or so....

I just finished an online spiritual formation course. The final assignment was a creative project based on some concepts we studied over the last 4 weeks. Usually, ideas line up in my brain and eagerly pepper me with scenarios for possible projects. But this week, much to my dismay, everything was silent. On Saturday, I tried to put some ideas down on paper, but after three attempts to come up with something creative (all of them whined about the fact that I was uninspired), I stopped. What do you do when you lack inspiration? Everything seems deflated and limp, void of life. Words fall flat - monotone and without meaning. Music becomes mechanical. I abandoned another idea mid-sentence and scribbled two words beneath the mess: phone book. My lack of inspiration was reminding me of a saying. When something does not hold our interest, we say that it is about as exciting as reading the phone book. On the other hand, it is also said of someone who has great charisma that they can read the ...

I attended a seminar at the American Academy of Religion annual conference in Montreal on Monday. For those of you who don't know (like me before Monday), it is a "learned society and professional association of teachers and research scholars" boasting over 10,000 members who "teach in some 1,500 colleges, universities, seminaries, and schools in North America and abroad." My professors had encouraged us to check it out, so I perused the offerings and found a round table discussion on Monday morning that piqued my interest: Practicing Faith in Graduate School. They promised free coffee and snacks, so how could I go wrong? There were only three of us that showed up for this particular session, and that was fine with me. I prefer a small group discussion to a person reading their paper to me from a podium any day. I grabbed a juice and a cinnamon pastry and sat down at the table. The facilitator was a pleasant fellow from Pennsylvania who worked as a pastor and ad...

Here is my first cooking show, where a fabulous new recipe that I invented a few weeks ago is revealed. Please be aware that this video may cause your stomach to make strange noises. No animals were harmed in the making of this video, but several corn chips were crushed beyond recognition.

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Green Online Worship Values Course with Dan Wilt The trinitarian nature of the Godhead fascinates and puzzles me. It is like a prism or multidimensional sculpture that one cannot take in all at once, but every time you look, you catch a different angle. And so I keep looking and moving closer and catching new glimpses of this God who is unlike anything or anyone that I know. One. Three. One. Hard to describe. Virtually impossible not to be challenged and changed and loved by Him, if one is up for it. For my final project for Essentials Green, I painted something inspired by my studies on the trinity this year, both in this online course and in my theology classes in university. I turned the video camera on and started painting, not sure exactly what I would come up with. It turned out to be an afternoon of joyful and playful creation. Sticks, fingers, knives, apples, and paint a...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Red Online Worship History Course with Dan Wilt I love some of the prayers of the saints that have gone before us. They carry a rhythm, beauty, maturity, and depth that I often lack. They say what I have inside my heart but sometimes can find no adequate words for. They remind me of truths and needs that I have forgotten or neglected. I have long loved the prayer called St. Patrick's Breastplate but I have always found it difficult to keep all the words straight. So, I decided to put together some of my most favourite prayers of the saints into a rhythmic melody much like a chant, but with a modern twist. This song is primarily a memory aid for me, and if it is helpful to anyone else's conversation with God, that's a bonus. I meant it as a tool that I could use to keep my mind turning to God as I walk throughout my day. I wrote it in what I hope is a comfortable wal...

For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies , St. Stephen's University , Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt A few weeks ago I woke up singing this phrase over and over: I Love This Body. Those are not words that would normally come out of my mouth, so the fact that I was singing them in my sleep made me think that perhaps I should also be saying them while I was awake. To be honest, these words make me uncomfortable. I don't really go around saying, "I love my body," and yet it is the most intimate, miraculous, and mysterious gift of God that I experience every day. One need only read any medical writings to get a sense of how intricate this marvellous synergy of tissue and bone and blood and muscle and all kinds of other good stuff is. Plus, it is intertwined with a unique personality! This body is my most constant reminder that God loves me and is as close to me as my next breath. Every day that I wake up and breathe an...

I received a package in the mail on Friday. You never know exactly what's going to be inside.

Warning: this video contains several strong images which might frighten people who eat pudding and some species of wild squirrels.

Tea is 6 years old today. I bought her a special tuna treat made especially for cats by IAMS (good quality stuff, people). When I placed the delicacy on a dish and set it in front of her, she just sniffed and stared at it, occasionally pawing at it like she would a toy mouse. You must understand that Tea was abandoned as a kitten (before she was found by a kind family who gave her to us) and as a result, feels she will never have enough food and eats everything in sight, including fuzz on the floor, paper ribbons, and all the tasty bits she can steal from the plates of Jazz or Dean or myself. Today, she just eyed the tuna in sauce like it was an odd new addition to the kitchen floor. For some reason, she did not recognise it as food. We were watching a video of John Wimber on Wednesday night and he was speaking about his journey to experience God as a healer, which included praying for peoples' healing for almost a year without results. One of the insights God gave him was that H...

sooo I used to be a filmaker. no, seriously, it's true! Here are some of the titles I worked on that did not get nominated for any awards but certainly merited consideration, in my opinion: 1. How To Replace a Windshield in Your Motorhome 2. Who Says You Can't Take It With You (30 second promo on how you need a motorhome if you are an outdoorsy guy or at least dressed like one) 3. Great Trek 3 (some youth retreat in Banff...this actually aired on local television) 4. President's Message (um, not president of the USA or any other country, but of the local manufacturer I worked for. I managed to set the shot up so it looked like he was hiding behind a tree, unintentionally of course.) 5. Mercy Street (music video starring one of my favourite friends and stellar artist, Dan. Included fake blood and all. Don't worry, we washed it out of the alleyway as much as we could.) Well, as you can see by the video above, I am back in business, home alone and without proper supervisio...