Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Archives for July 2010

Christians like Trees. Who bear fruit as they learn to trust

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Christians like Trees. Rooted in trust and faith

Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
Don’t you love this image of stability and permanance–a tree planted by streams  of water, yielding its fruit in season, with leaves which do not wither, prospering in whatever it does?
To be like a tree, with deep roots, not moved and shaken by the winds of chance, adversity or even good fortune.
There is the opposite image in Jeremiah.
Jer 17:5 This is what the Lord says:“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,mwho depends on flesh for his strengthand whose heart turns away from the Lord.n
Jer 17:6 He will be like a bush in the wastelands;he will not see prosperity when it comes.He will dwell in the parched placeso of the desert,in a saltp land where no one lives.
Jer 17:7 “But blessedq is the man who trustsr in the Lord,whose confidence is in him.
Jer 17:8 He will be like a tree planted by the waterthat sends out its roots by the stream.sIt does not fear when heat comes;its leaves are always green.It has no worries in a year of droughttand never fails to bear fruit.”
It’s interesting to see how seriously God takes trusting in oneself rather than trusting in him. The one who trusts in flesh, himself, or in other people, is actually cursed, according to this passage. “He will not see prosperity when it comes.”

How many people do you know who are prosperous, but do not see prosperity, either through over-spending, through bad luck, or through fear, or miserliness?

But the one who trusts his dreams to God does not fear in a year of drought, its leaves are always green, he always bears fruit.

Trusting in God, of course, implies leaving our dearest dreams in his hands. He may say yes, bless and fructify them. Or, he may have other dreams for us.

Francine Prose on the pleasures of writing non-fiction vs. fiction

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Sandy Asviratham interviewing Francine Prose.  She’s enjoying the break that nonfiction represents.  “It’s so much more fun, because I can use the skills I’ve figured out as a novelist to create narratives, but since the story is there already, there’s no terror that you’re not going to find a way out.”  At this stage, is she able to trust the process of tale-telling when she sits down to face the blank page?  I don’t think you ever get to that point of complete trust.  But somehow, it gets done.”

Art, a staff to help us bear the ills of life.

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I am looking forward to spending the day at the Ashmolean tomorrow.
Watching Kenneth Clark’s Civilization has rekindled my interest in art.
 
Art is a staff to help man bear the ills of life. It sweetens life.  Since man can only concentrate on one thought at a time, it temporarily drives grief from your mind, leading to a temporary forgetting of grief. Like spirituality, it is a life-enricher and life-enhancer,  the sugar and MSG of the mind.
 In my opinion, Art is one of the greatest sweeteners, among the sweetest things, in our human experience!! Along with friendship.
And here endeth my rhapsody!!

A very relaxing Friday evening writer's party

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Watched Zoe in Noel Coward’s manic Hay Fever, then went to a writer’s party (smuggling the girls, who were not invited, into a corner of the beautiful North Oxford garden.) Our host, the designer for the current Doctor Who, being filmed near Cardiff, had designed his garden using clever tricks of perspective to make it appear larger. He showed the girls interesting architectural elements salvaged from skips which he’s using in this Dr. Who.


Had some really good, congenial literary conversations which does not always happen at these parties.

The shepherds are senseless and do not inquire of the LORD Jer. 10:21

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The shepherds are senseless
and do not inquire of the LORD;
so they do not prosper. Jer 10:21

A church with a pastor who does not know how to really pray will soon become a country club!
Not just shepherds. No one who does not enquire of the Lord will prosper as he otherwise could have. Because he is firing on one cylinder, his own, not a billion, his own and God’s.

Remembering to enquire of the Lord is a learned skill. We only acquire it slowly.

It continually astonishes me how much I do without enquiring of the Lord. Which turns out to be suboptimal, sometimes wasted effort.

A recent example. Over Easter, in France, I heard the Lord suggest I take up blogging. On my return in mid-April, I did. My blogging proved relatively successful.

In less than three months, my blogs shot up the UK ranking charts.

However, instead of resting content with my God-given success, I decided to read up on blogging, and learnt that the A list of bloggers and blog rankings is Technorati top 100. And, without enquiring of the Lord, decided to get my blog or blogs there. How? Adding a post each day that my blog ranking on Technorati slipped by even 1. So yesterday, I wrote 10 posts on my three blogs, and did not work at all on writing my books which is my true calling.

Today, I realised that getting into the Technorati top 100 was not a calling God had given me. Writing my second and third book is.

So, I have decided to limit my posts, no more than four a day.

And leave the rankings to the Lord. He can get me into the top 100 if it is his will. As a gift, not as something I have sweated for.

The blogs are monetized, and earn something daily through Google adsense. They thus help to support my family. So I will increase postings if Google adsense income drops (and also work smarter rather than harder, learning some of the techie things to do with adsense, blogging and SEO that one needs to know for successful blogging). But I will leave rankings in the hands of the Lord.

A very good place indeed to leave anything and everything.

The Writing Process

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The Writing Process
 As humility comes before honour (Book of Proverbs),  the moment of horror and despair in writing, the moment when you feel you know nothing at all, is the precursor to the flood of insight and intuition.
That moment of despair, helplessness and dread often precedes light.

You begin with confidence.  You move to a place of blackness, dread, fear, chaos, and despair, and slowly, you write your way out of that place.
The process of planning a birthday party is a bit like writing,  “I don’t know how to do it, I won’t be able to do it, I don’t want to do it, It may not be any good,” sheer despair, and then as things begin to coalesce one feels better and better, until finally one is confident.

Vermeer–Artist of Domestic Peace

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So one can be so quiet, so quiet, so still and peaceful in the midst of domesticity!

That the hands work is no excuse for the mind not to think.

You can almost hear the silence.  The milkmaid serenely fills her earthenware bowl.  “The Young Woman with a Jug” pauses to dream out of the window.  The lacemaker is lost in her work. 
 I gaze at Vermeer’s women.  I trust most things that help me lose track of time–reading, writing, gardening, hiking, the sea, art galleries, prayer, sex, good movies, good conversation.  
Vermeer’s women lose themselves is: housework.  It glows!  Is this domesticity?  Can it be?  That’s the way I want to live my life, like “Woman Holding a Balance,” slowly, tranquilly, not fighting the irrelevant relevant, the distracting, trivial and necessary tasks of my days, but embracing them as an oasis of contemplation in which desert flowers may bloom.
Vermeer’s paintings, poems one might say, on the radiance of domesticity are more moving when we learn of the hurly-burly of his household–a wife, eleven children, and a feisty mother-in-law.  Those paintings that could have been called “Shanti, shanti, shanti” or “Tranquility” instead of “Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window” are probably sighs of yearning, images of an elusive Eden.  They hint how manual work–if used as time for contemplation–might be redeemed,

A mystic moment in everyday life, Poem by Rabindranath Tagore

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Here’s one of my favourite Rabindranath Tagore poems from Geetanjali

I ask for a moment’s indulgence to sit by thy side. The works 
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards. 

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, 
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil. 


Now it is time to sit quiet, face to face with thee, and to sing 
dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.