January 24, 2025 • 41 mins
What happens when you challenge traditional beliefs and set out on a path of expansive theology? Dr. Matte Downey joins us to unravel the mysteries of faith in a world hungry for diverse narratives. Her book, "Go Wide," serves as a beacon, guiding us through the transformative power of storytelling, from biblical parables to the enchanting worlds of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. Together, we explore how embracing broader perspectives and questioning inherited traditions can lead to a more inclusive faith experience, filled with hope and joy even in the most turbulent times.
Our conversation leads us into the realm of community learning, where curiosity thrives and diverse voices are celebrated. By examining stories that Jesus told, like the parable of the woman searching for her lost coin , we uncover unique portrayals of the divine and reflect on our own roles in these sacred narratives. This episode champions the shift from solitary study to communal exploration, highlighting the profound insights that emerge when we listen and learn together.
Finally, we confront the shadows of fear that often loom over our spiritual journeys. Dr. Downey shares personal anecdotes and insights on how community support and love can empower us to face fear with courage. Join us as we navigate these rich themes, offering listeners a chance to transform their perspective and embrace the ever-expanding canvas of faith and storytelling.
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Episode Transcript
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Heather Drake (00:00):
Heather Drake.
Welcome to the ExpansionistPodcast with Shelly Shepard and
Heather Drake.
In each episode, we dive deepinto conversations that
challenge conventional thinking,amplify diverse voices and
foster a community grounded inwisdom, spirit and love.
Hello, this is Heather Drake,and I'm with Shelly Shepard and
(00:22):
our friend Dr Matte Downey, andwe're excited to be having a
conversation today, one thatexpands our imaginations into
what it looks like to practicean expansive theology and to
live an expansive story.
Shelley, it's good to actuallybe with you again.
Shelly Shepherd (00:41):
Yes, thank you, heather, good to see you.
Heather Drake (00:43):
Our podcast is now over a year old, so we're
excited about that, and we'recertainly excited to have a
conversation with what feelslike a new friend, and so I want
to introduce our listeners toDr Matte Downey, and I found her
things, I think, through thealgorithm, through the spirit,
(01:03):
through common ideas, andstarted listening to some of her
little reels and reading herposts, but also then reading her
work and her book.
You want to tell us a littlebit about your book and about
what's the message that you wantto spread.
Dr. Matte Downey (01:25):
Welcome, Matte , it's good to have you.
Yes, Hi, thanks so much forreaching out and having me.
I love to be with you and getto make new friends as well and,
if I might, the first thing Ikind of like to do if I'm doing
something public-facing, is todo territorial acknowledgement.
I live in Montreal and that ison the unceded indigenous lands
(01:47):
of the Ghanian Gehaga Nation,also known as the Mohawk Nation,
and I'm grateful for theirstewardship of lands and waters
and so much more for manygenerations and up to this day,
and I hope to be a good neighborwith my indigenous brothers and
sisters.
Heather Drake (02:03):
That's beautiful, and so I come from Ocala, not
originally, but for the past 30years, and so on this particular
land, it is the Seminole andthe Creek Indians, and we also
give thanks for their presencecurrently and also what they
have offered to us.
Shelly Shepherd (02:20):
Yes, and in San Diego.
The native history here is theKamai Indians, and those that
settled here were initially fromthat Kamai tribe.
Dr. Matte Downey (02:36):
Matte tell us about Go Wide.
Oh, yes, well, I think it'skind of encapsulated in the
title I hope Go Wide, and that'sit.
It's a verb in there too.
It wasn't the original title ofI hope Go Wide, and that's it.
It's a verb in there too.
It wasn't the original title ofthe book, but that's what we
landed with Go Wide and thisidea of we're always being
invited to be learners, to becurious, to expand our ideas,
(02:58):
because, I mean, we can onlyreally look through one set of
eyes.
That's our eyes and ourexperience, and that's wonderful
.
But it's also a limitation.
And I think it's an invitationfor us to really engage with
people who see the world andexperience the world in
(03:19):
different ways than we do, thanwe do, and realize that the
story is so much bigger and somuch more beautiful and so much
more complex than if we just arelooking through our own eyes
and interpreting things throughour own experience.
And that's really what I triedto bring to this book, which is
quite theological.
It has a little bit of anacademic flavor to it, but don't
(03:43):
be alarmed, I tried to write itreally excessively.
There's stories and anecdotesand it is primarily focused on
the stories in the biblicalnarrative, and I mean almost
half of the Bible is narrative,so it is a very strong genre and
way of communicating.
We find that in the teachingsof Jesus too, narrative stories,
(04:04):
parables.
I mean very, very strong way ofcommunicating.
We find that in the teachingsof Jesus too, narrative stories,
parables I mean very, verystrong way of communicating.
And so with this book I reallywanted to invite people to think
maybe about things they hadn'tthought about before, just
because, you know, especiallyfor those of us who grew up in
the church, we get told Biblestories and we hear sermons and
(04:26):
we just kind of take it in andwe become indoctrinated.
And that's not a bad wordnecessarily.
It just means that we all growup in a certain way of.
We are told things and webelieve them, we take them on as
our own, but as we adult morewe kind of can question some of
those things and that's a verygood process too and expand on
(04:48):
what we have inherited as ourfaith traditions.
So really the book is takingfamiliar biblical stories, for
the most part familiar biblicaland theological doctrines, and
pulling at them a bit and sayingcan we see these maybe from a
different perspective?
Have we thought about it inthis way, and what might that
(05:09):
mean?
Going forward for how we canlive more expansively and more
inclusively and, like you say,live a better story, live into a
better story?
Heather Drake (05:19):
I think, where we find ourselves in the world
right now, that we are on theprecipice of needing a much
better story, and I am a personthat was very influenced by CS
Lewis and by Tolkien, especiallyin my very early years, and so
this understanding that there isa deeper magic still, that
there is a story, that if youknow the story underneath it, it
(05:40):
can anchor you in joy, it cananchor you in incredible hope,
even when things around youdon't necessarily look hopeful
or look like places for joy.
So I invite a furtherconversation between us going
how do we open our eyes orpractice our holy imagination to
be able to change perspective,to maybe have the courage to say
(06:05):
I've only always seen it thisway.
Is it possible that there isanother way of seeing this, of
viewing this, of living this,and how that draws us, I think,
deeper into the story of Jesusand what he offers to us?
Dr. Matte Downey (06:20):
Yeah, definitely.
I think there's a lot of thingsthat we can do, and what I do
now I don't even teach intheology now what I do is I
teach storytelling and writing,and there's so many things that
we can learn from this the waywe tell our stories, who's
telling the story?
But I go back to the storiesthat Jesus told and he used this
(06:41):
very much as a teaching tooland an engagement tool.
So telling parables andparables are basically puzzle
stories and they're meant tochallenge and engage the hearers
and the readers and get them towrestle with some of their
assumptions or presuppositionsor things they might think.
(07:03):
Well, that's just the way it is.
And suddenly they go wait, wait, what's he talking about?
And one of the primary thingsthat parables do is invite us to
ask who are we in this story?
So if you take some of theparables that Jesus told quite a
few parables with landownersfeaturing as a major character,
(07:28):
and the way I was taught thesewas you know, god is the
landowner, but the people thatwould have been hearing these
stories would not have beenlandowners.
They would have been peoplemore on the bottom edge of
society, poorer people, peoplethat were struggling to make
ends meet, and landowners wereseen as the people who took
(07:48):
advantage of them.
And so just to assume that alandowner is the good person
that's challenged or that thelandowner is God, because then
you're superimposing these twothings together.
When landowners were seen asthe people in power who took
advantage of others, and when weimpose that on God, then
(08:08):
suddenly we got to wrestle withsomething right.
So I think this was I firstread this, I think Amy Jill
Levine, who's a Jewish NewTestament scholar and talking
about this really questioningour assumption that the power
person in a parable is alwaysGod, because sometimes that
(08:28):
person in the parable is notacting justly and we're invited
to observe that and go well,what do we do about that?
Who are we in this story?
Are we identifying with thelandowner?
Are we identifying with theslaves or the servants?
Who are we identifying withright?
And there's no neat and tidyanswer.
(08:49):
There's no one.
Here's one moral thing, pointthat you get from the story and
there you go, all finished.
No, it's always like you goaway wrestling with these ideas
and trying to really go how arethese relationships working?
Are they just?
Are they unjust?
What is what action am I beingcalled to what way of living in
(09:13):
a better way with others am Ibeing called to?
Shelly Shepherd (09:16):
I love that.
Wow, that was just amazing.
Thank you for that explanationand deep dive on the parable, on
the parable of the puzzle, thepuzzle parable Something in your
work that I noticed you talkabout storytelling connecting us
as humans, and it invitesshared vulnerability
(09:40):
vulnerability, and I'd like foryou to maybe talk a little bit
about that.
But also, when you bumped intothese places of what's going on
in the context of this story,who's in the story?
(10:02):
Who's left out of the story?
How do you, how do you wrestlewith or process or get others to
interrogate the text, like youjust described, like how do you
invite people to do that so thatthey have a different way of a
different lens, or they flip itand can see it uh, you know from
(10:24):
a different lens, or they flipit and can see it, you know,
from a different position orpreference.
How has that worked for you?
Or how do you get other peopleto do that?
And then maybe you could talkabout how this vulnerability
plays into our storytelling.
Dr. Matte Downey (10:38):
That's a really good question, and maybe
you can tell me how to getpeople to do that.
I mean, you can invite people.
Definitely.
You can present something andsay have you thought about it?
This way?
I try not to present things asit's a finished statement here.
You should never that.
I try to invite people toconsider something and ask
(11:00):
questions and invite them to becurious, and that can be
threatening to people that findsafety and stability in
certainty, and so you can'talways get over that hump, so to
speak, but you try.
You keep inviting people to becurious and maybe that's all you
(11:22):
can do and encouraging them.
And the thing that is reallyimportant to me as an educator
is creating a safe space forpeople to express their
questions, their doubts, theirimperfectly formed ideas and
share parts of themselves thatfeel kind of vulnerable or like
(11:42):
they're opening themselves upit's a bit raw, maybe and to
give a space where they say thatis welcome here.
You are totally okay to bringthat question and say I don't
know what to do with this orthis makes me mad when you ask
me to engage in it this way,like just tell us what's going
on and we will process ittogether, because together we
(12:03):
will always have a more completeand full perspective than just
one person trying to do thatthemselves.
So yeah, there's that communityaspect of we learn as a
community.
We don't learn individually,which we kind of do.
That's a western model that wesit at home, we read our bible
by and maybe some othercommentaries or voices and books
(12:26):
, which are all great, I do allof it but this idea of learning
in community is a different wayof engaging with the biblical
text, with each other, with thedivine, with even how we see
Jesus.
So I think it's helpful.
When we do it in community andwhere people feel okay to just
(12:47):
honestly express themselves,something really special can
happen, and transformational aswell.
Shelly Shepherd (12:53):
And don't we wish we would have had that
invitation when we were growingup to just be in a safe place
and kind of share whatever waywe saw the particular story that
was being shared.
But thank you for that.
Heather Drake (13:08):
So, based on what you've just said, I want to
invite us to take a moment andlisten to the story, or the
parable that Jesus offers.
When Jesus tells us that God islike a woman who looks for a
lost coin, that's one of myfavorite parables, to start with
, when we're talking about Jesusand about his telling us a
(13:29):
better story of who God is.
I think that I grew up in churchand I grew up in the holiness
Pentecostal tradition, and inour particular church we went
seven days a week, so I alsohave heard the stories many,
many times and engaged in acertain way.
And then, when I started anexpansion journey and looking at
(13:50):
things and going, if I turnthis on its head or if I look at
it from this perspective, whatcan I see?
And I felt like this was one ofthe parables that had the least
amount of talk time and I waslike, why have we excluded this
parable that God is like a womanwho is searching for a coin?
And so I would love to talkabout the fact that Putting
(14:15):
yourself in the position of acoin, the one that God is
searching for is a reallybeautiful way of connection and
reminding all of the lost coins,that God is coming for us in
really beautiful and inrestorative ways.
But I wonder what you couldshare with us or see in that
(14:38):
particular parable that might besomething that we haven't seen
before.
Dr. Matte Downey (14:41):
Oh, the pressure's on.
I think again, I don't alwaysremember these things.
Despite having read the Biblemany, many times, I don't always
remember all the details.
I think that's one of a sectionof parables describing the
kingdom of.
Heather Drake (14:56):
God.
God is like a shepherd and Godis the father with the prodigal.
Dr. Matte Downey (15:01):
Yes, so I think it's important and I have
done this in the past.
I think I might have presented apaper on this where reading
them in conjunction with eachother and how they all add and
build on each other and show usdifferent perspectives, and the
one that God is like a womansearching for a coin, I think,
(15:21):
as we just hear, the prodigalson, one very much told
separately.
And I think what if you always,every time you told that one,
you had to connect it to God isa woman searching for a coin and
God is a father searching fornot one but two sons One son
that is close but distant insome way and one son that is far
(15:44):
away but closer to his heart insome way?
And what if we connect thesetwo and we say it's always God
as mother and God as father andyou can never separate the two?
Because I think when weseparate them without meaning to
, I think we bring alienationinto that story, because it's
(16:06):
all about men, the prodigal son,the two sons and the father.
Where is the mother in thisstory?
We don't get a female presencein that story at all.
We don't get a female presencein that story at all and you
would probably know this, asfemales in the church, women in
the church, very often you'renot represented, whether from
(16:29):
the pulpit or leadership, or instories that are told or in
authors, theological authors,that we are reading.
We're just not represented.
And these can all be very goodauthors and good preachers and
good leaders that we have, butthey will never walk through the
world as a woman, so they willnever see things that we see,
(16:53):
and I think we need thatperspective.
So, I'd almost want to likewrite, write an expansion, or
write, uh, some kind of shortstory based on this woman
looking for a coin, and expandit a bit so it carries the same
kind of weight that the that weput on that story of the the
prodigal son, and we've so muchtalked about who the father is,
(17:15):
and I think, well, who's the?
Who's the woman searching forthat coin?
What are her qualities, what isshe like, what came before and
after this?
And really explore that.
And I think only a woman couldreally tell that story, and from
a particular point in time aswell.
I think we have to be a littlebit aware of that as well.
(17:36):
So I would love I mean I'mexcited now to kind of explore
her story a little more, becauseshe's intriguing, she's a
strong woman, she's persistent,she is faithful, she is
committed.
It seems she has some kind ofgood standing with her neighbors
and her community because she'shospitable, she invites them
(17:58):
all to come and celebrate andshe's extravagant in some way.
I think this amount of coinswould have been a bit of a
significant amount.
So, as we see, the story of thefather and the prodigal son is
extravagant in sharing withothers.
So is this woman very centeredon her search, because there's
(18:21):
something precious that shewants to recover, but there's
also.
She cannot celebrate that alone.
She has to celebrate and inviteothers into that joy.
Just a few thoughts on that.
Heather Drake (18:34):
That's beautiful, brilliant, brilliant, exciting.
What you said inspired me tothink about something that
Shelly and I were talking aboutearlier today how Jesus asks
that, wherever his story wastold, that the story of Mary
would the mandate to tellanother part of the story, and
(19:01):
so I love what you offered andjoin with you in telling that
story.
And again, then, that leads meto believe that telling the
story of a shepherd reminds usof God's connection and care for
creation and our responsibilityto care for the earth, to care
for creation, to trust that Godis coming for it.
(19:22):
But then how do we participatein that?
So such brilliant, wonderfulimaginations that we have
together.
But I'm excited about that.
But talk for a moment, shelley,join in here on the story of
Mary Magdalene and what it meansto us and how we tell a better
story by telling her story aswell.
Shelly Shepherd (19:41):
Yeah, I'm excited to hear this, matt,
you're asking me.
Dr. Matte Downey (19:45):
I thought Shelley was going to give us an
exposition here on MaryMagdalene.
I was going to sit and listen.
The instructors for me herehave been Catholic because they
really did not drop the Marystory and have heightened it.
And I used to because I read alot of theology and the place
(20:06):
where I went had a lot ofCatholic scholars and they would
give me text to read and onehad a whole chapter on Mary and
I would roll my eyes and go, ohmy goodness, no, I'm writing
about Jesus, I'm not writingabout Mary here.
But you know I had to read thechapter and I just look back and
go see that was my not beingcurious.
(20:28):
I was just, you know, certainof my stance, but I did get more
curious about Mary as well andpeople who have studied all the
Marys and kind of put theirstories together and what they
have to offer us.
But I feel I'm very much stilla student in this, in learning
that these are the people thatJesus chose to surround himself
(20:52):
with and these people choseJesus.
It's a both-and two-way street.
And then their stories werehighlighted by the writers of
the Gospels for a reason that Imean the writers all being men,
mostly in very patriarchalsociety, and highlighting so
(21:13):
many women some named, some notbut making sure that these get
into the story.
And I think I don't want tooverlook that and just take it
for granted, because I've heardit so often that when we talk
about Mary, his mother, when wetalk about Mary one of his
closest companions, that alwaysseemed to be there, she was like
(21:34):
I don't know, I'd have to readup on this, but I don't think
Jesus ever rebuked her as adisciple.
And the male disciples wereoften told you're not getting it
.
Oh, come on guys.
No, don't do that, don't befighting for prominence.
Come on, mary's not doing that,she's not doing that.
(21:55):
She is almost our most faithfuland most receptive disciple,
that we have, an example to usall, and I think that is
difficult for a church thatbecame very much steeped in
patriarchy within the next fewcenturies after Jesus to accept
(22:16):
that our example is a woman, ofbeing really a faithful and true
disciple.
Heather Drake (22:24):
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If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a
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Shelly Shepherd (22:44):
Thank goodness for the Catholic Church
recognizing that Mary Magdalenehad a better story to tell.
Even I think it was what 1969or 70 that they decided okay,
we're going to put MaryMagdalene front and center and
(23:05):
maybe even reverse some of thestory that had been told about
her in the past.
So grateful for the Catholicsbringing that to us Beautiful.
Dr. Matte Downey (23:17):
Yeah, and I could tell the most complete
story I can, and yet only maleleadership allowed in the
Catholic church.
So they have given us a greatgift in preserving and
highlighting the story of Maryand then not done such a great
job in enacting it in theirgovernmental structures.
So something to learn from thattoo.
Shelly Shepherd (23:38):
Yeah, that that's a whole other podcast I'm
sure for us to think about,because I was in a similar.
I was getting ready to say Iwas in a similar group last
evening with a group oftheologians one philosopher and
three theologians and we weretalking about the one had just
(23:59):
last year had done the Caminopilgrimage, and so there was
quite a bit of conversationabout around it.
And then he invited anotherconversation that he was doing
another trip to Nicaea this yearand was inviting people to that
.
And I said, well, I said I'mplanning to attend a pilgrimage
(24:20):
with Mary Magdalene in Francethis year, and with just a hint
of sarcasm, one of thetheologians tilts his head and
says Mary Magdalene.
And I was just waiting for himto say something, you know
something else behind it.
But he said I think she's inthe Bible, right?
(24:40):
And so here we have these, youknow, very seasoned theologians
talking about this story that inthe gospel says anytime this
story is told, her story will betold.
And yet he was surprised thatthere was even a pilgrimage or a
(25:02):
feast of Mary Magdalene.
And so I'm with you there issome kind of patriarchal divide
that we still find ourselves in,for sure.
But the beauty of her story.
If we're going to talk aboutthe story for a few minutes, the
beauty of her story is that wecan actually see ourselves very
(25:27):
clearly in many, many ways inthe story of Mary Magdalene, and
I think that's what makes her,as this role model, so powerful
in the gospel stories.
Powerful in the gospel storiesEven if you don't use her gospel
.
That's in the non-canonizedsection of the Apocrypha we
(25:49):
still get in the canonizedversion of the Bible.
We still have this ability tosee ourselves in Mary Magdalene
and that just is like soexciting to Heather and I in
many, many ways.
So we love that story.
We love it so much.
And there's something else thatI wanted to dip into.
Heather, if you have something,jump in.
(26:09):
Yep, okay, in chapter three ofGo Wide you talk about, the
divine is always in motion,always moving towards us, and
this is the whole story really.
God is not static, notcommitted to the status quo, not
a set of laws or attributes,but alive and moving and
(26:31):
responding and interacting.
Some call it the divine dance.
What a beautiful paragraph thatis.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthe movement.
Are you talking about thespirit there, or are you talking
about a different kind of dancewith God.
What is this piece that's?
Dr. Matte Downey (26:51):
a good question.
What is that?
I think what I'm talking aboutmostly is the relational aspect
of we're always in relation andI see God I have a whole chapter
on Trinity there of reallyseeing God as always being in a
community, so always relating toothers, not as this singular
(27:14):
one above everyone else makingdecrees and laws and making sure
everyone stays in line, butreally a community within God's
self.
So there's always, when youtalk about relationship and not
doctrine, you're immediatelyinvoking a different kind of
paradigm for talking with how werelate to God.
So the movement is I mean, weall have relationships.
(27:37):
Some of, have you know,especially family relationships,
I think, can be very closerelationships.
Some of us have you know,especially family relationships,
I think, can be very close.
These are always moving.
There's always like there'snothing static about
relationships.
I don't think Certainly.
There's strands, consistentstrands that are through them.
You know that, you know there'sa sense of faithfulness and we
(27:59):
know what this person is like,but then they surprise us as
well and then they do somethingthat we, you know there's a
sense of faithfulness and weknow what this person is like,
but then they surprise us aswell and then they do something
that we're going oh, I didn'tknow they had it in them.
Or children as they mature.
They're like somethingblossoming and opening in front
of our eyes and going wow, lookat all this imagination and
capability and wonder.
And I think that's how we'remeant to interact with each
(28:23):
other and with creation.
Look at this coming into beingand the coming into being never
stops, right.
I mean, I have trees.
I'm in a fairly newneighborhood.
It's well new, it's 20 yearsold and every year I look at the
tree outside my front windowand I go look at you, you just
grew another couple of feetAmazing, how did you do that?
(28:43):
And there are new leaves, andthen there's some older leaves,
and then there's newer bark andthen there's some scars.
I'm just going you are adifferent tree, but the same
tree, but you're kind of adifferent tree every year and
I'm so excited by this growth ofthis tree, this becoming a very
mature tree in front of my eyes, that every year I notice
(29:06):
there's something new anddifferent.
But still something totallyfamiliar about that and I think
that's what I'm talking about isthat we are always being
invited to become more.
Like you talk about a betterstory, we're always invited to
become better, more whole aspeople.
We're invited to participate incommunities and make them
(29:29):
better and more whole.
We're invited to be betterneighbors all the time.
This is just an invitation to.
We have endless capacity forlearning, I think, and that is
that's basically my my thing.
I'm a learner.
I love being part of a learningcommunity and I love being an
educator in learning communities, because there's always
(29:50):
something new happening.
It is so exciting.
I mean, the best thing for meis when I'm in a classroom and
people do something and theydiscover something new and I'm
like vicariously just having thebiggest moment of joy in my
life because I'm going, someonediscovered something new,
(30:10):
because we were together and wewere doing something.
So that's just my paradigm.
This gets me very excited islearning and discovering new
things and seeing that we canalways do more, learn more, be
more as we turn our eyes outward, to this wonderful world, this
(30:31):
created world that we are partof, and the more we explore it
and learn about it, the morewhole we become in some way and
the bigger our experience is.
Heather Drake (30:43):
In the message translation of Ephesians, the
book of Ephesians, there's apart that says that you will be
made whole and holy by God'slove.
So the invitation into wholeness, into holiness, into belonging,
into embodiment, into theritual and the mystery, is an
invitation, we think, into thebetter story, into the bigger
(31:05):
story that God's telling that wewould actually mature into more
loving people, more gentlepeople, that our kindness would
just be known to everyone.
But I think it takes a lot ofbravery and courage to step out
of spaces and thoughts that arevery structured or very limiting
and open yourself up to an ideaor a practice that widens the
(31:31):
scope, that increases thecapacity to see things
differently, not just intheological works, but I think
that in that beginning, when youdo open up to God, that you
will see it everywhere in thatsame way.
But that practice of themystery, that practice of a
bigger thought, those are thekind of things that I think take
(31:51):
so much courage and I wouldlove for us to talk about.
How do we engage or how do wepractice our own courage to be
able to say if I stop thinkingthis way, what will happen?
Is it possible that a betterthing could happen if I would
allow a new thought, a newlearning, a new understanding to
(32:12):
come.
Dr. Matte Downey (32:12):
Yeah, that's really, really good, and I think
my theory on this is that we donot feel that we are loved or
beloved, as you are prone to say, I'm told.
If we do not know that we areloved and we are secure and safe
in some part of our environment, we are so afraid it will be
(32:33):
taken away and everything willcrumble if this thing is taken
away and we're in survival mode.
Really, we feel threatened allthe time.
You can't be curious if you'rethreatened and I acknowledge
(32:56):
there are people in the worldthat are in dire circumstances
and are legitimately they areliving in threatening
environments and they are insurvival mode and I am not
asking those people to jump intocuriosity or learning or
anything like that who havepretty physically, we're secure
(33:19):
that in some way we have to finda way of knowing that we are
not under threat in our faith.
This is not a threat to ourfaith.
For someone to ask a question orraise questions about what
Jesus was saying or what thenature of God is, or how we
relate, or who's in or who's out, or what does God love and what
(33:42):
does God not love or accept,like these are not threatening
questions.
I think that Jesus shows usthat people were asking him
questions all the time.
He loved to ask questions.
Questions are not threatening.
They're how we learn togetherand they're very legitimate.
And I think knowing that that'slike it's creating this
(34:04):
atmosphere of we're all studentsand we're expected to learn and
we can ask stupid questions andwe can say, well, I don't know,
or I didn't know that, or oh, Ithought this is that.
Is that not correct?
Am I mistaken?
You can say all of that and noone thinks any less of you,
because we're in this classroomof creation where we learn from
(34:26):
everyone and everything andthere's a humility to it.
Instead of yeah.
I think sometimes we are taughtas Christians in the West that
we are the superior people, thatwe have the answers, that we
know these things and we havefound the one right way and we
need to kind of teach others oreven impose it on others, and I
(34:47):
think that's a lack of humility.
We have so much to learn fromother people, people with
different experiences fromcreation, from our indigenous
neighbors and friends, fromother cultures, even other
religions and ways of being.
We have so much to learn.
There's no way just one segmentof society has all the wisdom
(35:09):
in the world.
I just can't believe thatthat's how creator, the creator,
who's invested in diversity andmultiplicity, as we see in the
Genesis creation stories, Ican't believe that it would all
end up with.
And there's this one narrowgroup of people that have all
the wisdom.
I don't think that's the story.
Shelly Shepherd (35:32):
It's good preaching.
We call that good preaching,good teaching, good preaching.
Yeah, I do think that there's afear that inhibits that courage
sometimes, particularly indenominations or faith circles
(35:52):
where women do not have a voiceof themselves, without a male
presence or that male headshipthat they're taught.
I do feel that fear is oftenthe sideways place that we find
ourselves in sometimes, and sochange is difficult to make.
(36:16):
When you're afraid, you mighthave the wherewithal to make the
change, but sometimes fearkeeps you bound, keeps you in
the same place.
Heather Drake (36:29):
That's why I'm so excited about everyone telling
the better story that God islove, that the scaffolding that
we've built our faith around hasbeen fear.
And there's another way ofseeing who God is our place in
the world, our place with eachother in that true belonging.
And it comes from thescaffolding of love that we can
(36:50):
grow together.
But we would have to choose adifferent way of examining the
world, the lens that we seethings through and how we
participate with one another.
Dr. Matte Downey (37:02):
Yeah, definitely, and I think it's a
matter of almost retraining andI'm probably speaking to those
who have been formed within thechurch or some faith tradition.
It's a matter of retrainingourselves and then helping
others to kind of step out ofthat fear.
Because I'm a fearful person.
(37:23):
I just grew up as a fearfulchild.
I had a nightmare last nightabout drowning in the ocean.
But I'm just a fearful person.
That's how things come out.
I automatically want to stayaway from dangerous things and
not take risks.
And I married a risk taker,someone who's like always no, go
(37:46):
big, do it, try it all.
There's just no fear in him atall and I think this is good for
me.
We are good for each other.
So this idea of fear, my fears,are diminished or dealt with or
shown to be.
They have no substance by beingin a community or a
relationship with others who canspeak truth to me, who can
(38:09):
reassure me, who can walk withme and show me that the path
isn't that as scary as youthought.
Just take one step and thenanother and then another.
And I remember some of myprofessors in school.
My first reaction he would saylet's do this and I go what?
My first reaction is freak out,and I think he got to know me.
(38:31):
It's like just give her aminute to calm down, she'll
actually think about it, come upwith a first step, or maybe we
come up with it together.
And as soon as I know the firststep, all my fears, they're
just gone, because I have a planof action, but it gets.
It just seems overwhelming atfirst.
So I don't know I'm ramblinghere about my own thing.
(38:51):
But I know fear, right, andI've had to develop tools and
ways and a community so thatfear doesn't run my life, so
that fear doesn't come and justtake over a moment when I'm
being invited into bravery orcuriosity or community or
commitment, that I don't letfear block that.
(39:13):
So I've had to learn tools toovercome that and say thank you,
fear, thank you for you knowyou're raising warning signals.
I hear you Like I don't deny itI go, I am genuinely feeling
fear.
I acknowledge that fear, I letit process through my body.
I calm myself down, however Ineed to, and then I say, okay,
and now?
What do we do Now?
(39:34):
What do we do?
Thank you, alert system, youare working wonderfully, got it.
But what do we do now, becausewe can't be paralyzed.
This calls for some kind ofaction, and fear, for me, is a
paralyzer or a runaway, and Ithink, well, I don't want to run
away and I don't want to beparalyzed.
I want to take good actionwhich makes the situation better
(39:54):
in some way, and that's aprocess for me.
And I think, well, if I caninvite other people to just
process that instead of, if theyhave a fear reaction or a I'm
threatened reaction or an angryreaction or whatever legitimate,
got it, but don't get stuckthere.
Let's find a way to go.
(40:15):
Acknowledge that anger.
It's a response.
It's a legitimate response tosomething I'm feeling.
Threats remind ourselves we areloved, we are safe, we have good
people around us who arecommitted to our well-being.
We have a good creator who isalways near us, in whatever form
(40:36):
we may see, and just remindourselves that we are beloved.
We're not always safe 100%, wecan't be, but we are beloved.
We can have courage, we canmove a step forward.
We can take that next right.
I think Anne Lamott talks aboutthis too.
(40:57):
Take that next best step.
Just what's the next one thingthat you can do?
That one right thing, and do it.
Heather Drake (41:05):
It was our joy to have you listen to our
conversation today.
If you would like furtherinformation or for more content,
visit us atexpansionistheologycom.
Heather Drake.
Welcome to the ExpansionistPodcast with Shelly Shepard and
Heather Drake.
In each episode, we dive deepinto conversations that
challenge conventional thinking,amplify diverse voices and
foster a community grounded inwisdom, spirit and love.
Hello, this is Heather Drake,and I'm with Shelly Shepard and
(00:22):
our friend Dr Matte Downey, andwe're excited to be having a
conversation today, one thatexpands our imaginations into
what it looks like to practicean expansive theology and to
live an expansive story.
Shelley, it's good to actuallybe with you again.
Shelly Shepherd (00:41):
Yes, thank you, heather, good to see you.
Heather Drake (00:43):
Our podcast is now over a year old, so we're
excited about that, and we'recertainly excited to have a
conversation with what feelslike a new friend, and so I want
to introduce our listeners toDr Matte Downey, and I found her
things, I think, through thealgorithm, through the spirit,
(01:03):
through common ideas, andstarted listening to some of her
little reels and reading herposts, but also then reading her
work and her book.
You want to tell us a littlebit about your book and about
what's the message that you wantto spread.
Dr. Matte Downey (01:25):
Welcome, Matte , it's good to have you.
Yes, Hi, thanks so much forreaching out and having me.
I love to be with you and getto make new friends as well and,
if I might, the first thing Ikind of like to do if I'm doing
something public-facing, is todo territorial acknowledgement.
I live in Montreal and that ison the unceded indigenous lands
(01:47):
of the Ghanian Gehaga Nation,also known as the Mohawk Nation,
and I'm grateful for theirstewardship of lands and waters
and so much more for manygenerations and up to this day,
and I hope to be a good neighborwith my indigenous brothers and
sisters.
Heather Drake (02:03):
That's beautiful, and so I come from Ocala, not
originally, but for the past 30years, and so on this particular
land, it is the Seminole andthe Creek Indians, and we also
give thanks for their presencecurrently and also what they
have offered to us.
Shelly Shepherd (02:20):
Yes, and in San Diego.
The native history here is theKamai Indians, and those that
settled here were initially fromthat Kamai tribe.
Dr. Matte Downey (02:36):
Matte tell us about Go Wide.
Oh, yes, well, I think it'skind of encapsulated in the
title I hope Go Wide, and that'sit.
It's a verb in there too.
It wasn't the original title ofI hope Go Wide, and that's it.
It's a verb in there too.
It wasn't the original title ofthe book, but that's what we
landed with Go Wide and thisidea of we're always being
invited to be learners, to becurious, to expand our ideas,
(02:58):
because, I mean, we can onlyreally look through one set of
eyes.
That's our eyes and ourexperience, and that's wonderful
.
But it's also a limitation.
And I think it's an invitationfor us to really engage with
people who see the world andexperience the world in
(03:19):
different ways than we do, thanwe do, and realize that the
story is so much bigger and somuch more beautiful and so much
more complex than if we just arelooking through our own eyes
and interpreting things throughour own experience.
And that's really what I triedto bring to this book, which is
quite theological.
It has a little bit of anacademic flavor to it, but don't
(03:43):
be alarmed, I tried to write itreally excessively.
There's stories and anecdotesand it is primarily focused on
the stories in the biblicalnarrative, and I mean almost
half of the Bible is narrative,so it is a very strong genre and
way of communicating.
We find that in the teachingsof Jesus too, narrative stories,
(04:04):
parables.
I mean very, very strong way ofcommunicating.
We find that in the teachingsof Jesus too, narrative stories,
parables I mean very, verystrong way of communicating.
And so with this book I reallywanted to invite people to think
maybe about things they hadn'tthought about before, just
because, you know, especiallyfor those of us who grew up in
the church, we get told Biblestories and we hear sermons and
(04:26):
we just kind of take it in andwe become indoctrinated.
And that's not a bad wordnecessarily.
It just means that we all growup in a certain way of.
We are told things and webelieve them, we take them on as
our own, but as we adult morewe kind of can question some of
those things and that's a verygood process too and expand on
(04:48):
what we have inherited as ourfaith traditions.
So really the book is takingfamiliar biblical stories, for
the most part familiar biblicaland theological doctrines, and
pulling at them a bit and sayingcan we see these maybe from a
different perspective?
Have we thought about it inthis way, and what might that
(05:09):
mean?
Going forward for how we canlive more expansively and more
inclusively and, like you say,live a better story, live into a
better story?
Heather Drake (05:19):
I think, where we find ourselves in the world
right now, that we are on theprecipice of needing a much
better story, and I am a personthat was very influenced by CS
Lewis and by Tolkien, especiallyin my very early years, and so
this understanding that there isa deeper magic still, that
there is a story, that if youknow the story underneath it, it
(05:40):
can anchor you in joy, it cananchor you in incredible hope,
even when things around youdon't necessarily look hopeful
or look like places for joy.
So I invite a furtherconversation between us going
how do we open our eyes orpractice our holy imagination to
be able to change perspective,to maybe have the courage to say
(06:05):
I've only always seen it thisway.
Is it possible that there isanother way of seeing this, of
viewing this, of living this,and how that draws us, I think,
deeper into the story of Jesusand what he offers to us?
Dr. Matte Downey (06:20):
Yeah, definitely.
I think there's a lot of thingsthat we can do, and what I do
now I don't even teach intheology now what I do is I
teach storytelling and writing,and there's so many things that
we can learn from this the waywe tell our stories, who's
telling the story?
But I go back to the storiesthat Jesus told and he used this
(06:41):
very much as a teaching tooland an engagement tool.
So telling parables andparables are basically puzzle
stories and they're meant tochallenge and engage the hearers
and the readers and get them towrestle with some of their
assumptions or presuppositionsor things they might think.
(07:03):
Well, that's just the way it is.
And suddenly they go wait, wait, what's he talking about?
And one of the primary thingsthat parables do is invite us to
ask who are we in this story?
So if you take some of theparables that Jesus told quite a
few parables with landownersfeaturing as a major character,
(07:28):
and the way I was taught thesewas you know, god is the
landowner, but the people thatwould have been hearing these
stories would not have beenlandowners.
They would have been peoplemore on the bottom edge of
society, poorer people, peoplethat were struggling to make
ends meet, and landowners wereseen as the people who took
(07:48):
advantage of them.
And so just to assume that alandowner is the good person
that's challenged or that thelandowner is God, because then
you're superimposing these twothings together.
When landowners were seen asthe people in power who took
advantage of others, and when weimpose that on God, then
(08:08):
suddenly we got to wrestle withsomething right.
So I think this was I firstread this, I think Amy Jill
Levine, who's a Jewish NewTestament scholar and talking
about this really questioningour assumption that the power
person in a parable is alwaysGod, because sometimes that
(08:28):
person in the parable is notacting justly and we're invited
to observe that and go well,what do we do about that?
Who are we in this story?
Are we identifying with thelandowner?
Are we identifying with theslaves or the servants?
Who are we identifying withright?
And there's no neat and tidyanswer.
(08:49):
There's no one.
Here's one moral thing, pointthat you get from the story and
there you go, all finished.
No, it's always like you goaway wrestling with these ideas
and trying to really go how arethese relationships working?
Are they just?
Are they unjust?
What is what action am I beingcalled to what way of living in
(09:13):
a better way with others am Ibeing called to?
Shelly Shepherd (09:16):
I love that.
Wow, that was just amazing.
Thank you for that explanationand deep dive on the parable, on
the parable of the puzzle, thepuzzle parable Something in your
work that I noticed you talkabout storytelling connecting us
as humans, and it invitesshared vulnerability
(09:40):
vulnerability, and I'd like foryou to maybe talk a little bit
about that.
But also, when you bumped intothese places of what's going on
in the context of this story,who's in the story?
(10:02):
Who's left out of the story?
How do you, how do you wrestlewith or process or get others to
interrogate the text, like youjust described, like how do you
invite people to do that so thatthey have a different way of a
different lens, or they flip itand can see it uh, you know from
(10:24):
a different lens, or they flipit and can see it, you know,
from a different position orpreference.
How has that worked for you?
Or how do you get other peopleto do that?
And then maybe you could talkabout how this vulnerability
plays into our storytelling.
Dr. Matte Downey (10:38):
That's a really good question, and maybe
you can tell me how to getpeople to do that.
I mean, you can invite people.
Definitely.
You can present something andsay have you thought about it?
This way?
I try not to present things asit's a finished statement here.
You should never that.
I try to invite people toconsider something and ask
(11:00):
questions and invite them to becurious, and that can be
threatening to people that findsafety and stability in
certainty, and so you can'talways get over that hump, so to
speak, but you try.
You keep inviting people to becurious and maybe that's all you
(11:22):
can do and encouraging them.
And the thing that is reallyimportant to me as an educator
is creating a safe space forpeople to express their
questions, their doubts, theirimperfectly formed ideas and
share parts of themselves thatfeel kind of vulnerable or like
(11:42):
they're opening themselves upit's a bit raw, maybe and to
give a space where they say thatis welcome here.
You are totally okay to bringthat question and say I don't
know what to do with this orthis makes me mad when you ask
me to engage in it this way,like just tell us what's going
on and we will process ittogether, because together we
(12:03):
will always have a more completeand full perspective than just
one person trying to do thatthemselves.
So yeah, there's that communityaspect of we learn as a
community.
We don't learn individually,which we kind of do.
That's a western model that wesit at home, we read our bible
by and maybe some othercommentaries or voices and books
(12:26):
, which are all great, I do allof it but this idea of learning
in community is a different wayof engaging with the biblical
text, with each other, with thedivine, with even how we see
Jesus.
So I think it's helpful.
When we do it in community andwhere people feel okay to just
(12:47):
honestly express themselves,something really special can
happen, and transformational aswell.
Shelly Shepherd (12:53):
And don't we wish we would have had that
invitation when we were growingup to just be in a safe place
and kind of share whatever waywe saw the particular story that
was being shared.
But thank you for that.
Heather Drake (13:08):
So, based on what you've just said, I want to
invite us to take a moment andlisten to the story, or the
parable that Jesus offers.
When Jesus tells us that God islike a woman who looks for a
lost coin, that's one of myfavorite parables, to start with
, when we're talking about Jesusand about his telling us a
(13:29):
better story of who God is.
I think that I grew up in churchand I grew up in the holiness
Pentecostal tradition, and inour particular church we went
seven days a week, so I alsohave heard the stories many,
many times and engaged in acertain way.
And then, when I started anexpansion journey and looking at
(13:50):
things and going, if I turnthis on its head or if I look at
it from this perspective, whatcan I see?
And I felt like this was one ofthe parables that had the least
amount of talk time and I waslike, why have we excluded this
parable that God is like a womanwho is searching for a coin?
And so I would love to talkabout the fact that Putting
(14:15):
yourself in the position of acoin, the one that God is
searching for is a reallybeautiful way of connection and
reminding all of the lost coins,that God is coming for us in
really beautiful and inrestorative ways.
But I wonder what you couldshare with us or see in that
(14:38):
particular parable that might besomething that we haven't seen
before.
Dr. Matte Downey (14:41):
Oh, the pressure's on.
I think again, I don't alwaysremember these things.
Despite having read the Biblemany, many times, I don't always
remember all the details.
I think that's one of a sectionof parables describing the
kingdom of.
Heather Drake (14:56):
God.
God is like a shepherd and Godis the father with the prodigal.
Dr. Matte Downey (15:01):
Yes, so I think it's important and I have
done this in the past.
I think I might have presented apaper on this where reading
them in conjunction with eachother and how they all add and
build on each other and show usdifferent perspectives, and the
one that God is like a womansearching for a coin, I think,
(15:21):
as we just hear, the prodigalson, one very much told
separately.
And I think what if you always,every time you told that one,
you had to connect it to God isa woman searching for a coin and
God is a father searching fornot one but two sons One son
that is close but distant insome way and one son that is far
(15:44):
away but closer to his heart insome way?
And what if we connect thesetwo and we say it's always God
as mother and God as father andyou can never separate the two?
Because I think when weseparate them without meaning to
, I think we bring alienationinto that story, because it's
(16:06):
all about men, the prodigal son,the two sons and the father.
Where is the mother in thisstory?
We don't get a female presencein that story at all.
We don't get a female presencein that story at all and you
would probably know this, asfemales in the church, women in
the church, very often you'renot represented, whether from
(16:29):
the pulpit or leadership, or instories that are told or in
authors, theological authors,that we are reading.
We're just not represented.
And these can all be very goodauthors and good preachers and
good leaders that we have, butthey will never walk through the
world as a woman, so they willnever see things that we see,
(16:53):
and I think we need thatperspective.
So, I'd almost want to likewrite, write an expansion, or
write, uh, some kind of shortstory based on this woman
looking for a coin, and expandit a bit so it carries the same
kind of weight that the that weput on that story of the the
prodigal son, and we've so muchtalked about who the father is,
(17:15):
and I think, well, who's the?
Who's the woman searching forthat coin?
What are her qualities, what isshe like, what came before and
after this?
And really explore that.
And I think only a woman couldreally tell that story, and from
a particular point in time aswell.
I think we have to be a littlebit aware of that as well.
(17:36):
So I would love I mean I'mexcited now to kind of explore
her story a little more, becauseshe's intriguing, she's a
strong woman, she's persistent,she is faithful, she is
committed.
It seems she has some kind ofgood standing with her neighbors
and her community because she'shospitable, she invites them
(17:58):
all to come and celebrate andshe's extravagant in some way.
I think this amount of coinswould have been a bit of a
significant amount.
So, as we see, the story of thefather and the prodigal son is
extravagant in sharing withothers.
So is this woman very centeredon her search, because there's
(18:21):
something precious that shewants to recover, but there's
also.
She cannot celebrate that alone.
She has to celebrate and inviteothers into that joy.
Just a few thoughts on that.
Heather Drake (18:34):
That's beautiful, brilliant, brilliant, exciting.
What you said inspired me tothink about something that
Shelly and I were talking aboutearlier today how Jesus asks
that, wherever his story wastold, that the story of Mary
would the mandate to tellanother part of the story, and
(19:01):
so I love what you offered andjoin with you in telling that
story.
And again, then, that leads meto believe that telling the
story of a shepherd reminds usof God's connection and care for
creation and our responsibilityto care for the earth, to care
for creation, to trust that Godis coming for it.
(19:22):
But then how do we participatein that?
So such brilliant, wonderfulimaginations that we have
together.
But I'm excited about that.
But talk for a moment, shelley,join in here on the story of
Mary Magdalene and what it meansto us and how we tell a better
story by telling her story aswell.
Shelly Shepherd (19:41):
Yeah, I'm excited to hear this, matt,
you're asking me.
Dr. Matte Downey (19:45):
I thought Shelley was going to give us an
exposition here on MaryMagdalene.
I was going to sit and listen.
The instructors for me herehave been Catholic because they
really did not drop the Marystory and have heightened it.
And I used to because I read alot of theology and the place
(20:06):
where I went had a lot ofCatholic scholars and they would
give me text to read and onehad a whole chapter on Mary and
I would roll my eyes and go, ohmy goodness, no, I'm writing
about Jesus, I'm not writingabout Mary here.
But you know I had to read thechapter and I just look back and
go see that was my not beingcurious.
(20:28):
I was just, you know, certainof my stance, but I did get more
curious about Mary as well andpeople who have studied all the
Marys and kind of put theirstories together and what they
have to offer us.
But I feel I'm very much stilla student in this, in learning
that these are the people thatJesus chose to surround himself
(20:52):
with and these people choseJesus.
It's a both-and two-way street.
And then their stories werehighlighted by the writers of
the Gospels for a reason that Imean the writers all being men,
mostly in very patriarchalsociety, and highlighting so
(21:13):
many women some named, some notbut making sure that these get
into the story.
And I think I don't want tooverlook that and just take it
for granted, because I've heardit so often that when we talk
about Mary, his mother, when wetalk about Mary one of his
closest companions, that alwaysseemed to be there, she was like
(21:34):
I don't know, I'd have to readup on this, but I don't think
Jesus ever rebuked her as adisciple.
And the male disciples wereoften told you're not getting it
.
Oh, come on guys.
No, don't do that, don't befighting for prominence.
Come on, mary's not doing that,she's not doing that.
(21:55):
She is almost our most faithfuland most receptive disciple,
that we have, an example to usall, and I think that is
difficult for a church thatbecame very much steeped in
patriarchy within the next fewcenturies after Jesus to accept
(22:16):
that our example is a woman, ofbeing really a faithful and true
disciple.
Heather Drake (22:24):
We want to pause and take a moment and let you
know how glad we are that you'vejoined us.
If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a
friend, and if you found theconversation intriguing and want
to know more about what we'relearning or how you can join our
online community, visit ourwebsite at
expansionistheologycom.
Shelly Shepherd (22:44):
Thank goodness for the Catholic Church
recognizing that Mary Magdalenehad a better story to tell.
Even I think it was what 1969or 70 that they decided okay,
we're going to put MaryMagdalene front and center and
(23:05):
maybe even reverse some of thestory that had been told about
her in the past.
So grateful for the Catholicsbringing that to us Beautiful.
Dr. Matte Downey (23:17):
Yeah, and I could tell the most complete
story I can, and yet only maleleadership allowed in the
Catholic church.
So they have given us a greatgift in preserving and
highlighting the story of Maryand then not done such a great
job in enacting it in theirgovernmental structures.
So something to learn from thattoo.
Shelly Shepherd (23:38):
Yeah, that that's a whole other podcast I'm
sure for us to think about,because I was in a similar.
I was getting ready to say Iwas in a similar group last
evening with a group oftheologians one philosopher and
three theologians and we weretalking about the one had just
(23:59):
last year had done the Caminopilgrimage, and so there was
quite a bit of conversationabout around it.
And then he invited anotherconversation that he was doing
another trip to Nicaea this yearand was inviting people to that
.
And I said, well, I said I'mplanning to attend a pilgrimage
(24:20):
with Mary Magdalene in Francethis year, and with just a hint
of sarcasm, one of thetheologians tilts his head and
says Mary Magdalene.
And I was just waiting for himto say something, you know
something else behind it.
But he said I think she's inthe Bible, right?
(24:40):
And so here we have these, youknow, very seasoned theologians
talking about this story that inthe gospel says anytime this
story is told, her story will betold.
And yet he was surprised thatthere was even a pilgrimage or a
(25:02):
feast of Mary Magdalene.
And so I'm with you there issome kind of patriarchal divide
that we still find ourselves in,for sure.
But the beauty of her story.
If we're going to talk aboutthe story for a few minutes, the
beauty of her story is that wecan actually see ourselves very
(25:27):
clearly in many, many ways inthe story of Mary Magdalene, and
I think that's what makes her,as this role model, so powerful
in the gospel stories.
Powerful in the gospel storiesEven if you don't use her gospel
.
That's in the non-canonizedsection of the Apocrypha we
(25:49):
still get in the canonizedversion of the Bible.
We still have this ability tosee ourselves in Mary Magdalene
and that just is like soexciting to Heather and I in
many, many ways.
So we love that story.
We love it so much.
And there's something else thatI wanted to dip into.
Heather, if you have something,jump in.
(26:09):
Yep, okay, in chapter three ofGo Wide you talk about, the
divine is always in motion,always moving towards us, and
this is the whole story really.
God is not static, notcommitted to the status quo, not
a set of laws or attributes,but alive and moving and
(26:31):
responding and interacting.
Some call it the divine dance.
What a beautiful paragraph thatis.
Talk to us a little bit aboutthe movement.
Are you talking about thespirit there, or are you talking
about a different kind of dancewith God.
What is this piece that's?
Dr. Matte Downey (26:51):
a good question.
What is that?
I think what I'm talking aboutmostly is the relational aspect
of we're always in relation andI see God I have a whole chapter
on Trinity there of reallyseeing God as always being in a
community, so always relating toothers, not as this singular
(27:14):
one above everyone else makingdecrees and laws and making sure
everyone stays in line, butreally a community within God's
self.
So there's always, when youtalk about relationship and not
doctrine, you're immediatelyinvoking a different kind of
paradigm for talking with how werelate to God.
So the movement is I mean, weall have relationships.
(27:37):
Some of, have you know,especially family relationships,
I think, can be very closerelationships.
Some of us have you know,especially family relationships,
I think, can be very close.
These are always moving.
There's always like there'snothing static about
relationships.
I don't think Certainly.
There's strands, consistentstrands that are through them.
You know that, you know there'sa sense of faithfulness and we
(27:59):
know what this person is like,but then they surprise us as
well and then they do somethingthat we, you know there's a
sense of faithfulness and weknow what this person is like,
but then they surprise us aswell and then they do something
that we're going oh, I didn'tknow they had it in them.
Or children as they mature.
They're like somethingblossoming and opening in front
of our eyes and going wow, lookat all this imagination and
capability and wonder.
And I think that's how we'remeant to interact with each
(28:23):
other and with creation.
Look at this coming into beingand the coming into being never
stops, right.
I mean, I have trees.
I'm in a fairly newneighborhood.
It's well new, it's 20 yearsold and every year I look at the
tree outside my front windowand I go look at you, you just
grew another couple of feetAmazing, how did you do that?
(28:43):
And there are new leaves, andthen there's some older leaves,
and then there's newer bark andthen there's some scars.
I'm just going you are adifferent tree, but the same
tree, but you're kind of adifferent tree every year and
I'm so excited by this growth ofthis tree, this becoming a very
mature tree in front of my eyes, that every year I notice
(29:06):
there's something new anddifferent.
But still something totallyfamiliar about that and I think
that's what I'm talking about isthat we are always being
invited to become more.
Like you talk about a betterstory, we're always invited to
become better, more whole aspeople.
We're invited to participate incommunities and make them
(29:29):
better and more whole.
We're invited to be betterneighbors all the time.
This is just an invitation to.
We have endless capacity forlearning, I think, and that is
that's basically my my thing.
I'm a learner.
I love being part of a learningcommunity and I love being an
educator in learning communities, because there's always
(29:50):
something new happening.
It is so exciting.
I mean, the best thing for meis when I'm in a classroom and
people do something and theydiscover something new and I'm
like vicariously just having thebiggest moment of joy in my
life because I'm going, someonediscovered something new,
(30:10):
because we were together and wewere doing something.
So that's just my paradigm.
This gets me very excited islearning and discovering new
things and seeing that we canalways do more, learn more, be
more as we turn our eyes outward, to this wonderful world, this
(30:31):
created world that we are partof, and the more we explore it
and learn about it, the morewhole we become in some way and
the bigger our experience is.
Heather Drake (30:43):
In the message translation of Ephesians, the
book of Ephesians, there's apart that says that you will be
made whole and holy by God'slove.
So the invitation into wholeness, into holiness, into belonging,
into embodiment, into theritual and the mystery, is an
invitation, we think, into thebetter story, into the bigger
(31:05):
story that God's telling that wewould actually mature into more
loving people, more gentlepeople, that our kindness would
just be known to everyone.
But I think it takes a lot ofbravery and courage to step out
of spaces and thoughts that arevery structured or very limiting
and open yourself up to an ideaor a practice that widens the
(31:31):
scope, that increases thecapacity to see things
differently, not just intheological works, but I think
that in that beginning, when youdo open up to God, that you
will see it everywhere in thatsame way.
But that practice of themystery, that practice of a
bigger thought, those are thekind of things that I think take
(31:51):
so much courage and I wouldlove for us to talk about.
How do we engage or how do wepractice our own courage to be
able to say if I stop thinkingthis way, what will happen?
Is it possible that a betterthing could happen if I would
allow a new thought, a newlearning, a new understanding to
(32:12):
come.
Dr. Matte Downey (32:12):
Yeah, that's really, really good, and I think
my theory on this is that we donot feel that we are loved or
beloved, as you are prone to say, I'm told.
If we do not know that we areloved and we are secure and safe
in some part of our environment, we are so afraid it will be
(32:33):
taken away and everything willcrumble if this thing is taken
away and we're in survival mode.
Really, we feel threatened allthe time.
You can't be curious if you'rethreatened and I acknowledge
(32:56):
there are people in the worldthat are in dire circumstances
and are legitimately they areliving in threatening
environments and they are insurvival mode and I am not
asking those people to jump intocuriosity or learning or
anything like that who havepretty physically, we're secure
(33:19):
that in some way we have to finda way of knowing that we are
not under threat in our faith.
This is not a threat to ourfaith.
For someone to ask a question orraise questions about what
Jesus was saying or what thenature of God is, or how we
relate, or who's in or who's out, or what does God love and what
(33:42):
does God not love or accept,like these are not threatening
questions.
I think that Jesus shows usthat people were asking him
questions all the time.
He loved to ask questions.
Questions are not threatening.
They're how we learn togetherand they're very legitimate.
And I think knowing that that'slike it's creating this
(34:04):
atmosphere of we're all studentsand we're expected to learn and
we can ask stupid questions andwe can say, well, I don't know,
or I didn't know that, or oh, Ithought this is that.
Is that not correct?
Am I mistaken?
You can say all of that and noone thinks any less of you,
because we're in this classroomof creation where we learn from
(34:26):
everyone and everything andthere's a humility to it.
Instead of yeah.
I think sometimes we are taughtas Christians in the West that
we are the superior people, thatwe have the answers, that we
know these things and we havefound the one right way and we
need to kind of teach others oreven impose it on others, and I
(34:47):
think that's a lack of humility.
We have so much to learn fromother people, people with
different experiences fromcreation, from our indigenous
neighbors and friends, fromother cultures, even other
religions and ways of being.
We have so much to learn.
There's no way just one segmentof society has all the wisdom
(35:09):
in the world.
I just can't believe thatthat's how creator, the creator,
who's invested in diversity andmultiplicity, as we see in the
Genesis creation stories, Ican't believe that it would all
end up with.
And there's this one narrowgroup of people that have all
the wisdom.
I don't think that's the story.
Shelly Shepherd (35:32):
It's good preaching.
We call that good preaching,good teaching, good preaching.
Yeah, I do think that there's afear that inhibits that courage
sometimes, particularly indenominations or faith circles
(35:52):
where women do not have a voiceof themselves, without a male
presence or that male headshipthat they're taught.
I do feel that fear is oftenthe sideways place that we find
ourselves in sometimes, and sochange is difficult to make.
(36:16):
When you're afraid, you mighthave the wherewithal to make the
change, but sometimes fearkeeps you bound, keeps you in
the same place.
Heather Drake (36:29):
That's why I'm so excited about everyone telling
the better story that God islove, that the scaffolding that
we've built our faith around hasbeen fear.
And there's another way ofseeing who God is our place in
the world, our place with eachother in that true belonging.
And it comes from thescaffolding of love that we can
(36:50):
grow together.
But we would have to choose adifferent way of examining the
world, the lens that we seethings through and how we
participate with one another.
Dr. Matte Downey (37:02):
Yeah, definitely, and I think it's a
matter of almost retraining andI'm probably speaking to those
who have been formed within thechurch or some faith tradition.
It's a matter of retrainingourselves and then helping
others to kind of step out ofthat fear.
Because I'm a fearful person.
(37:23):
I just grew up as a fearfulchild.
I had a nightmare last nightabout drowning in the ocean.
But I'm just a fearful person.
That's how things come out.
I automatically want to stayaway from dangerous things and
not take risks.
And I married a risk taker,someone who's like always no, go
(37:46):
big, do it, try it all.
There's just no fear in him atall and I think this is good for
me.
We are good for each other.
So this idea of fear, my fears,are diminished or dealt with or
shown to be.
They have no substance by beingin a community or a
relationship with others who canspeak truth to me, who can
(38:09):
reassure me, who can walk withme and show me that the path
isn't that as scary as youthought.
Just take one step and thenanother and then another.
And I remember some of myprofessors in school.
My first reaction he would saylet's do this and I go what?
My first reaction is freak out,and I think he got to know me.
(38:31):
It's like just give her aminute to calm down, she'll
actually think about it, come upwith a first step, or maybe we
come up with it together.
And as soon as I know the firststep, all my fears, they're
just gone, because I have a planof action, but it gets.
It just seems overwhelming atfirst.
So I don't know I'm ramblinghere about my own thing.
(38:51):
But I know fear, right, andI've had to develop tools and
ways and a community so thatfear doesn't run my life, so
that fear doesn't come and justtake over a moment when I'm
being invited into bravery orcuriosity or community or
commitment, that I don't letfear block that.
(39:13):
So I've had to learn tools toovercome that and say thank you,
fear, thank you for you knowyou're raising warning signals.
I hear you Like I don't deny itI go, I am genuinely feeling
fear.
I acknowledge that fear, I letit process through my body.
I calm myself down, however Ineed to, and then I say, okay,
and now?
What do we do Now?
(39:34):
What do we do?
Thank you, alert system, youare working wonderfully, got it.
But what do we do now, becausewe can't be paralyzed.
This calls for some kind ofaction, and fear, for me, is a
paralyzer or a runaway, and Ithink, well, I don't want to run
away and I don't want to beparalyzed.
I want to take good actionwhich makes the situation better
(39:54):
in some way, and that's aprocess for me.
And I think, well, if I caninvite other people to just
process that instead of, if theyhave a fear reaction or a I'm
threatened reaction or an angryreaction or whatever legitimate,
got it, but don't get stuckthere.
Let's find a way to go.
(40:15):
Acknowledge that anger.
It's a response.
It's a legitimate response tosomething I'm feeling.
Threats remind ourselves we areloved, we are safe, we have good
people around us who arecommitted to our well-being.
We have a good creator who isalways near us, in whatever form
(40:36):
we may see, and just remindourselves that we are beloved.
We're not always safe 100%, wecan't be, but we are beloved.
We can have courage, we canmove a step forward.
We can take that next right.
I think Anne Lamott talks aboutthis too.
(40:57):
Take that next best step.
Just what's the next one thingthat you can do?
That one right thing, and do it.
Heather Drake (41:05):
It was our joy to have you listen to our
conversation today.
If you would like furtherinformation or for more content,
visit us atexpansionistheologycom.
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