what I can't write about

Sometimes I think of a cool idea for something to write about here and then realise that it probably isn't such a great idea after all. The two most prominent reasons that happenings in my life, despite being interesting and meaningful, don't appear on my blog is 1. some of them are too personal (I do have some sense of propriety), and 2) they involve other people.

My blog is often read by people that I contact in a professional or scholarly setting. Since this website is easy to find when you google my name (and the link is often at the bottom of my email), these people sometimes read it to find out who they are talking to and get a sense of who I am. For that reason, I try to avoid overly personal details. I won't be writing about how sweaty and tired I am right now after an hour-long walk to the store and back - and they didn't even have my item available! I won't be telling the world that I occasionally suffer from irregularity or that yesterday a waiter flirted with me. That's just too much information.

The other thing I can't write about a lot is other people. I used do a bit more of this, because honestly, most of my life lessons come through contact with others. Challenging relationships and interactions make up most of my inspirational and character-building moments. But I don't want to show anyone in a bad light, nor write something about a person that they would rather not have up on a public forum, even though I never identify them. So I won't tell you about the person I struggle to love because we just seem to see the world so differently, or the relationships I hoped would flourish into deep friendships but seem to have stalled (sigh), or all the ways in which Dean loves me and on occasion, frustrates me (lets just say there is a dishwasher involved). That's just wouldn't be kind or considerate.

I cannot write about any one's life here except my own. I cannot live another's life, either. Sometimes I have tried to give advice, offered unsolicited wisdom (I thought it was wise at the time), but that never really turned out well. Though it strikes me as self-indulgent at times, my own life is pretty much the only material I have at my disposal. And if I don't do something with that, if I don't learn from it, if I don't pay attention and see what is going on there, and if I don't share the process with others, then it is a bit of a waste. At least I think so.

So, to all the people that have been and are part of my learning and loving journey: thank you for being there through the good, the bad, the ugly, and the still-being-worked-on. You will probably never read about it here, but I am constantly aware of the gang of great, funny, silly, loving, sometimes hurtful, sometimes challenging, occasionally annoying, and many times heart-bustingly generous people that walk through my life. I need you.

This is a photo that Dean took at the Ernest Hemingway house in Key West, Florida. A group of people gathered for just that one second and none of us at our photographic best! That's just the way it is sometimes.

comedic timing

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

soul refrigerator

I went grocery shopping yesterday and came home with three bags of food. After I unpacked them all, this is what my fridge looked like: really empty. How does that happen? How can I feel so full and ready for any food emergency one moment, and after one quick glance, realise that I have nothing, really? Today is one of those days in my soul as well. I woke up with gratitude and fullness in my heart, ready to take on this day and all the wonderful opportunities that it presented. Then I caught a brief glance of some emptiness in my life and bam - my buoyancy was compromised. For the past few hours I have been treading water, trying to keep my head in a positive space, bobbing in and out of disappointment, and catching myself whining with pathetic indignity at the cement blocks of other people's stupidity that are tangled around my ankles. When I am staring at the empty refrigerator of my soul, these are my thoughts. Where do I go from here? Perhaps I should slam that refrigerator

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go

outWORD by Matte Downey

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