outWORD by Matte Downey

I am currently in Winkler, Manitoba (the centre of the universe, my husband would say) for a family visit. I flew out to play at my niece's wedding and one of the first things I did was attend a small family funeral service for my uncle who had just passed away. Now, you should know that I HATE funerals and have not been to one since my father's in 1983. But in Winkler you are expected to attend the funeral of anyone you know, and there was no way I could gracefully bow out of this one. I did want to see my aunt and let her know she was in my prayers and thoughts, so I decided I could probably handle the small family gathering the day before the funeral and then it would be okay to skip the more formal public funeral the next day. I borrowed some funeral clothes (I had not brought anything sombre enough - a black strappy sundress was voted as unacceptable by my family) and let my mother drive me to the funeral home. We visited with some relatives outside for a bit because...

I am rehearsing the music for a wedding I am playing at in 8 days. Playing for weddings is an interesting thing…I do not really find it all that enjoyable, though I get a great deal of satisfaction from doing it well and making someone’s special day everything they want it to be. You have to leave your own personal taste and artistic ego aside, for you usually end up playing pieces you do not like, having to learn some challenging selections that you would rather not put into your repertoire, playing some boring music (surely these people know there are more than 3 chords!!!), and spending hours and hours of your life preparing to play basically background music which most of the people attending will never remember and in fact, during much of your fine performance, will most likely end up talking over it. To be fair, there are usually a few pieces that I truly enjoy and some friends have given me much liberty in song selection, but the thought of being a professional wedding musici...

I have been receiving calls from a fax machine for…oh…for about 5 or six weeks now. The calls happen pretty much everyday, Monday to Friday, sometimes starting as early as 7:30 am and usually in a sequence of 5 or 6 calls at 5-minute intervals as the machine is obviously programmed to automatically redial when it does not get through. After a few days of this, I was getting slightly annoyed so I pressed *69 and got the number and had my husband send a fax asking them to stop calling me and letting them know they had reached a residence and not another fax machine. It was no use. The calls continued. I tried to look up the number on the internet but only got a location…no name or address because the number was being serviced by a third-party phone provider. Two weeks into this, I called Bell and told them about my problem. They promised to sort it out, but it would take a few days. That was about 3 weeks ago and I have begun to make peace with the possibility that the fax machin...

Visitors and projects and several birthday celebrations have kept me from writing much in the past few weeks, but today the house is quiet (except for the snoring cats and the dishwasher) and I can once again take a few moments to sit quietly and mull over the lessons being offered, along with homework, on the journey of life. This past week has been a seminar in EXPECTATIONS. We had some family members visiting us for a week and we had made plans to complete some outdoor projects, take in some beautiful sights and do a bit of walking around our neck of the woods. That was before the rain started. For four days in a row we experienced everything the wettest, windiest and coldest May on record could deliver and there was no way we could do anything outdoors, so we modified our plans and decided to shop for a few things for our home. We spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday driving from store to store checking out coffee tables and when we finally decided on the right one, the...

Today was supposed to be a yard work day. We bought a house that is just over a year old and it needs some landscaping - no, let me rephrase that - ALL the landscaping needs to be done. I have been trying to get at it, and even arranged for some friends to come over this weekend to help out with the heavier work, but it has turned out to be a totally rainy and cold day, so I am stuck inside...alone. Sigh. I like to work outside. I like to work on things that others can see and admire. I like to work together with people on projects. There is nothing wrong with that, I know, but today God is speaking to me about taking care of some things on the inside, working on the places that hardly anyone gets to see. The inside is what I have to live with every day and it is up to me whether it will be a well-kept, tidy, sunny, comfortable and welcoming place or a neglected, gloomy, tight space with dark and dirty corners. I hate cleaning my house, yet it is this weekly chore that makes it a pleas...

I am waiting for the air conditioner man to show up but since it has been 50 minutes, I guess he forgot about me. I hate it when people forget about me. I had a plumber at the house on Wednesday taking a look at a job I needed done and 48 hours later, I still have no quote from him. I hate it when people say they will do something for you and then neglect to follow through on it. No doubt I will call all these guys next week and remind them that I am waiting for something from them and they might actually GET some of my hard-earned money if they only took the time to give me quotes and pay a visit and do a little bit of work. But these are only tradesmen and I am rather easy-going and willing to give them another chance but if they continue to be rather unreliable, I will just call someone else until I find a person who exhibits a bit more drive and dependability. You can’t do the same with your friends. I could give you a big long lecture on how one must be true to their word, e...

In the past few months, I have thinking about value. Well, actually, it started out more in the realm of beauty and femininity. While I was in South Africa, I attended a women’s function and ended up being the worst-dressed female there. Egad, I had no idea that putting on my cleanest jeans and my t-shirt with the nicest logo and spraying on some smelly substance would not even come close to the power suit and cashmere sweater my host answered the door in. Oops! So it was not a total surprise when during the meeting some well-meaning lady began to pray for me that I would find my true beauty and not hate myself every time I looked in the mirror, feeling unworthy and un-beautiful. Okay. I didn’t really feel that way but was willing to take a look inside my heart and see what could be improved, so I asked God to teach me about beauty. And as I talked to some friends about it, yes, it did seem that I could improve in the area of enhancing my beauty and taking a little more care wi...

Sometimes in the middle of my day, I will stop and look at what I am doing and see what wonderful gadgets and tools I have at my disposal. Then I take a moment to thank God for those innovative and creative minds that came up with these ideas. Here are a few of my best and worst (in my personal opinion of course). Feel free to add yours. Best Inventions: 1. carbonated drinks 2. cameras 3. heating and air conditioning 4. recording devices 5. written words and books 6. pie 7. instant messaging 8. phones 9. hot air popcorn poppers 10. air travel 11. flushing toilets 12. windows 13. toothbrushes 14. paint and dyes and tints to colour everything 15. car mirrors 16. dishwashers and washers and dryers 17. antibiotics 18. contact lenses 19. fireworks 20. electricity Worst Inventions: 1. high heels 2. flowery air fresheners 3. sushi (sorry all my sushi-loving friends) 4. lawn ornaments 5. pornography 6. facelifts 7. gossip 8. bureaucracy 9. snow cones 10. clothing that wrinkles 11. pantyhose 12...

In the past week I have had a lot of my plans changed. I did not change them – dates got mixed up, people called with emergencies, someone forgot an appointment, scheduled meetings developed conflicts and had to be rescheduled, the talk I prepared ended up being delivered by someone else, people were unavailable – all these things did not happen the way I planned them. Some things were beyond my control – other things were presented to me and I decided to go with the flow, change direction slightly, and alter my plans to accommodate someone else. I did not find any of it particularly traumatic or bothersome, and that is a good thing. I am learning to let go of the need to control my world. At another point in my life I would have freaked out about things not going the way I thought they should. Whether you admit it or not - and some people say they don’t have a controlling bone in their body but I would beg to differ – we ALL have this urge to make things happen our way; some of u...

We live in an odd culture. Sometimes I take a step back and look at the things we do and don't do and find acceptable and awkward and it seems so strange. I was talking to a friend yesterday and despite my prodding, she found it difficult to say anything nice about herself. Why? It just feels wrong to say something like, “I am a kind person.” It feels proud and slightly false because can one ever be truly kind? I have other friends who like to tease me (I am an easy mark for this, I will admit) and I know this joking and trading harmless insults and sparring banter is a sign of affection, but on the other hand, why can’t they just tell me, “I like you and value spending time with you?” Why is that so difficult to say? Why must we couch all our affections in these insulting words that we don’t mean and adopt faux modest behaviour that keeps us from acknowledging the truth about ourselves? I am a fairly straightforward person, which can get me in trouble sometimes, but if I like some...

When I was young I believed that I could change the world. Why not? The world I knew was quite small, just a few square miles, really, and the people I knew and cared about were all within those few acres, and the issues I grappled with were usually resolved within a day or two, and if I encountered something really tough, I enlisted the help of my father and he settled the matter in no time. The older I got, however, and the more I travelled and the more people I met, and the more complex the situations I encountered became, I started to lose hope that I could in fact influence anyone or accomplish anything! My life seemed insignificant and small and of little value when you looked at the whole picture of human history and especially when you took into account that I would probably never get to meet many influential people and those that I did meet, in positions of power or not, were exercising their free will, just like me. But lately, I have begun to adapt the attitude of my childho...

In a very success and results oriented society, the simple pleasure of enjoying something is sometimes not seen as a worthwhile expenditure of time, energy and money – perhaps something best left to children. But if you are up on your Westminster catechism, the following will sound familiar: What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever . Enjoyment was not something I captured as a mainstay of my faith in my conservative Mennonite upbringing, but I am trying to rectify that now. No, I have not become a hedonist, but this great big life that God has given to me as a gift is to be thoroughly enjoyed as an act of worship to the one who gave it to me, and I will not be found ungrateful if I can help it. Enjoyment involves the senses as well as the heart, mind, emotions, and imagination. I can enjoy a good meal, a drink with friends, a good book or movie, a sunset, a walk in the woods, good music, dancing, playing a game, working hard, sex, traveli...

Discomfort is such a maligned word. Since I have made my peace with it and started to realize that awkwardness is usually a symptom of change and often an invitation to be real and give up one’s insecurities, I seldom suffer from it at all. I was surprised how little culture shock I felt in Africa. Though I can be known to be somewhat shy and quiet, I think I did pretty well for meeting tons of new people on an almost daily basis and managing to say at least a few intelligent, and hopefully the odd meaningful, thing. The two things that did affect me the most were the level of security one has to live with (at least in Pretoria) and the stifling sense of cultural conservatism in the church which reminded me just too much of my own repressive Mennonite upbringing. Don’t get me wrong, I am not dissing either the African church I attended nor my childhood church, but let’s face it, we all have our trappings, and I am simply mentioning one that I have spent a lot of my life trying to get o...

I believe that God is teaching me to be a friend, and in that way, opening a door on my friendship with him as well. In my opinion, the fact that I flew halfway around the world to see some friends says a lot about my values. Some people seem to be a bit awkward with this bit of information, for while it seems totally acceptable to spend vast amounts of money and time touring the world and that is thought of as adventurous, using your resources to visit some exotic place mainly to invest in people and relationships instead of seeing the sights just seems sentimental or needy or I don’t know what people assume it is. Frankly, I don’t care. I was privileged to live with a family for two-and-a-half weeks and have lots of good conversations and get to know them better by listening and watching and playing and eating together and seeing what adventures and challenges they face in their adopted, temporary country. I feel I gained much more than I gave (they gave me non-stop nutritious meals,...

I just returned from three weeks in South Africa and here are the answers to the questions I am most frequently asked: 1. No, I did not go on a safari and no, I did not see any lions. But I did spend a few hours at a game park and see rhinos, giraffes, an elephant, hippos, zebras, wildebeests, an ostrich, warthogs, guinea fowl, a wide variety of birds and various small bucks. 2. No, I was not there to work with some humanitarian organization. I went to visit friends, but I was privileged to see the child that I sponsor through South Africa Cares For Life and meet his family. They struggle with poverty and health issues and live in a small leaky tin shack situated on a garbage dump, but they have a flourishing garden in the back and smiles for strangers from Canada. I felt honoured to be invited into their home. 3. No, my worldview has not changed drastically. If anything, it confirmed for me how much people all over the world are basically the same – we all share in this thing called h...

The posts have not been too regular lately because I am in Africa. Even as I type this I find it hard to believe that I sat in an airplane for nearly 24 hours and emerged halfway around the world in another hemisphere. I feel surprisingly at home (perhaps it is the good friends I am staying with who make that so) and though I have seen many interesting and strange sights and have met a wide array of African and international people, the similarities seem more pronounced than the differences. I will write more on my trip later, but last night as I was lying in bed, I was suddenly struck by a truth (enough to make me get out of bed, turn on the light, and write some thoughts down in my journal). Lately, spurred by various discussions with people and different encounters, I have been thinking about what our words mean in different contexts and last night as I laid down, this phrase ran through my head: We have divorced our words from our actions. With God, they are one. When God spoke in ...

I am reading through Deuteronomy and have once again encountered God’s warning not to make a form, an image, or an idol representing God. This is a hard concept for us to grasp in our modern, mostly iconoclastic society, but today as I was reading, I think I caught a glimpse of something very distasteful that I have often seen in religious circles and (ugh) in my own practice of faith. It is hard to explain or put your finger on exactly, but it is a certain smugness at doing the right thing, an ignorant pride that comes with knowing partial truth, a bravado at having somehow managed to be on the winning team and looking pitifully at those still waiting to be picked. When a particularly gifted evangelist comes to town, the committed Christians crowd the place and knowingly nod at every profound point, giving a sideways glance at those poor sinners who have ventured into the meeting and surely must be on the verge of repentance, I mean, how could one not be under this anointed preaching?...

At the beginning of December God showed me that I was not operating from a foundation of peace in my life. Yep, you’re right, God, let me readjust that. And so I became more aware of remaining calm instead of getting stressed out, not letting little situations bug me, giving people the benefit of the doubt, keeping a closer check on my emotions when they threatened to go all weird on me, and things were pretty good. We were at relative peace (meditative hum). Ten days ago I developed a little fever. It was nothing, just get a little rest, take a few Advils, it will be gone in a few days. Six days later I was thrashing around on the bed wondering why someone didn’t invent something beyond beds; because if you are standing up and feel bad…you sit down; if you are sitting down and feel bad, you lie on the bed; if you are lying on the bed and feel bad…there is nowhere else to go to get relief. I was on my bed and had no relief. The prolonged fever was affecting my brain, my dreams, my abil...

Everyone has them…those disturbing selfish tendencies or annoying impatient attitudes or judgmental prejudices or gripping fears or glaring weaknesses that we just can’t seem to totally get rid of. We wrestle with them off and on, we could in fact have long spurts of freedom from the besetting vices, but when some event triggers that wound, that Achilles heal, that fragile and often unhealthy defence mechanism or mindset or emotional reaction – we realize we are not entirely free of it after all. Discipline and self-control are good things; they go a long way in helping us lead more stable and consistent lives, and though they can assist us in not giving in to our baser and unhealthy urges and help us in dealing with unpleasant and painful situations, they will never remove the trigger point itself, the hook in the flesh, the agitating sliver, the shrapnel under the skin, the tender spot that just never seems to totally heal. Discipline cannot bring wholeness. So are we doomed to just ...

I got mad this week. Unpleasantly mad, uncivilized mad. I could feel it coming and twisting my mind into a mess of unreasonableness and my soul into a heap of disgusting desires to do mean things to people who neglected to conform to my narrow and oh-so-right ways. It was almost like I was standing beside myself and as I stewed about a situation and let myself get more agitated about it, blowing the implications into massive proportions in my mind, I could see the black cloud approach behind me, waft slowly to my side, linger for a bit to see if it was welcome, and as I fed my self-pity for the mountainous wrongs others had so carelessly tossed across my path, I saw my body turn slightly towards the cloud and step into its hungry path. I wasn’t going to let it stay long, just long enough to take a sweet moment of justice, long enough to make someone pay for their mistake by feeling my displeasure, just enough to satisfy the disappointment I felt and to abate the floundering feeling of ...