Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Archives for June 2011

Bees, Permaculture and Blessing

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We are soon to be beekeepers.


We have ordered a queen bee, a nucleus of 5 frames of bees, and a hive and all the accoutrements.

Now, I know nothing about beekeeping I hasten to add–and, having arrived at middle age fully cognizant of my limitations, will not be practically involved in beekeeping. (I have ordered the hat, veil and gloves for myself, but the full head to toe suit for Roy.) 

Roy’s father and maternal grandmother had backyard hives, and so he has absorbed some beekeeping lore from them.

A hive of bees in the backyard apparently “blesses” the entire garden. The flowers pollinated are bigger and brighter. Vegetables pollinated by bees are bigger. Your harvest of fruit increases exponentially, tempting to me since I have a small orchard, though a continually expanding one as I learn more about forest gardening.

Bigger vegetables, brighter flowers, bountiful harvests of fruit. Introducing bees to one’s garden certainly resembles the blessing of God.

Carol Wimber in her amusing book “The Way it Was” writes lyrically of the joyous few months after she and John Wimber became Christians. Joy filled their hearts, the songs flowed, lyrics flowed. “Even our gardens were more brighter, more lush and verdant.” Or something like that.
                                          * * * 

The honey from local bees–and how can one get something more local than from the bottom of the garden?–is meant to protect one from hayfever, which is tempting to me, as I have an odd form of hay-fever that hits in the last week of June/early July. Some people have said that it’s probably an allergy to the grass pollen and mould spores in the garden and orchard. I am currently trying a radically sugar and carbo free diet to see if that helps. I know my allergies are far worse when I have sugar!
                                           * * *

We are also experimenting with permaculture. Our garden/orchard is huge–1.5 acre, and I could like to plant it intensively–fruit, veggies and flowers, but spend no more than 1 an hour a day, and 2 on Sunday in the garden (with Roy spending a bit more than that). 

So I am trying to learn permaculture techniques to minimize labour in the garden. People estimate that one can grow enough fruit and veggies to feed one’s family as well as having a pretty flower-filled garden with no more than a few hours a week in the garden (which I need for the exercise, tranquillity, and the opportunity for clear thinking and praying it affords) if one uses the techniques of permaculture.

These involved minimizing human labour with techniques such as chipping all garden waste to make thick mulches which dramatically decrease the amount of watering and weeding. Roy really enjoys this–turning our unruly hedges, prunings and garden waste into mulches, which will soon become nutritious compost and increase the soil’s fertility for future years

Another permaculture technique we are adopting is focussing on perennial vegetables. We’ve planted 40 asparagus crowns, 
rows of strawberries, perennial onions, and some old English traditional vegetables–lovage, good King Henry etc. 
                                      * * *

A permaculture idea which is interesting me is creating a tight ecosystem in the home and garden in which nothing is wasted. Our ducks eat our table scraps. We eat their eggs. Their waste and the egg shells go into the compost. The rabbits eat the garden waste (well, the things they love, apple branches, hawthorn, willow, all fruit tree branches, twigs), their nitrogen rich droppings go into the compost. All paper and cardboard–and about a third of our household waste–goes into the compost.

Compost itself is magic–all this waste becoming black, rich, nutritious soil.

Our garden is all organic, of course, and we are learning as much as we can of natural methods of pest control, as with the birds in our five feeders, who are, of course, sheer delight!

And I do love gardening–but I go into the garden with my timer on my iPhone set for an hour, so that with the pleasures of being out with the birds–and now the bees!!– I do not entirely lose track of time.
                                         ~ ~ ~

It is my first year, well to be precise, my fourth month of gardening in England, though we gardened intensely and intensively in America for 7 years, so I have much to learn.
Any ideas or tips will be welcome. 

Should Yoga Scare Christians?

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   Should Yoga Scare Christians?

The Oxford church I used to attend, St. Aldate’s, had a deliverance ministry written by Neil Anderson called Freedom in Christ. It required you to renounce various things. Including yoga.
I went through the course with two rather unintelligent but dominant women who over a exhausting period of 4 hours insisted I read out the book, orally recanting and renouncing and repenting of lists of things, no matter whether I had done them or not, or even knew what they were.
“What’s this?” “Never mind, repent and renounce it.” I did it to speed my exit!!
Putting yoga on this list is an example of Christian narrow-mindedness. Yoga is a system of exercises and deep breathing, which calms body and mind. It brings a relaxed calm of mind and clarity of thinking by stretching every muscle in the body—and in the process, giving one immense flexibility.
Yoga was originally an ancient Hindu spiritual practice, of course, but a Christian can use its system of slow stretches and deep breathing to calm their mind, to think about important, even spiritual things, to focus on Christ. This is particularly true in a class, in which the instructor tells you what to do, and you do it with your mind in a calm, alive state.
Yoga is particularly good for recognizing the body-mind connection celebrated by the ancient Greeks–a healthy mind in a healthy body. It is difficult to have clear, inspired, creative thoughts–or even pray and reach a breakthrough– in a stiff, restless, tense and uncomfortable body. Conversely, a restless, stressed, hyper mind causes physical restlessness and discomfort.
The Benedictines realized this mind-body connection when they balanced prayer, study and physical labour. 
Yoga both calms the mind by exercising the body, and relaxes the body by calming the mind.
There is no inherent opposition between yoga and Christianity. I often pray or think while doing yoga in a class.
My father took it up in his late fifties, and practised it for 30 years, dying a very fit and limber 89. 
I do yoga off and on, and when I am practising it regularly, I find it clears my mind, stills my emotions, helps me feel calm and even happy, and I am, of course, a whole lot more flexible and energetic. 

Who then will be saved?

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Paul’s Sublime Statement on the Justice of God


Romans 2 Blog Through the Bible Project


Romans 2:5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.


 12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.


I have known smug Christians who are convinced that they are going to heaven because they have their theological boxes ticked, because they believe the right things about Christ, whereas those who far excel them in mercy, justice and kindness are going to hell, because they do not believe in Christ. 


What kind of justice is that? Not God’s. 


Here Paul has a statement which is at odds with smug parochialism.


I cannot do better than quote it.


6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”


7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.


 8But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger

9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile;

 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile

11 For God does not show favoritism.

12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.

 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law

. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)

 16 This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

God looks at people’s hearts and lives, not just their creeds.

Those whose profession of faith is letter-perfect, but whose heart and life belies their faith may have a few surprises coming.

Similarly, those who have what Tertullian called an anima naturaliter Christiana, a “naturally Christian soul,” who have been kind, generous, merciful, compassionate, unselfish, sacrificial, have behaved like men fashioned in the image of God, might have a few pleasant surprises in store. 


And for Mr and Mrs Average–not too bad, not too good? I believe mercy will rule.
                                 * * * 
 I do believe in standard reformed theology–that I am grafted into Christ, that when God sees me he sees Christ, that he accepts me because Christ paid the punishment for my sins on the cross.


However, I also believe that all the gentle kind Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims and Jews who believe what they have been taught will also find mercy because of the content of their lives and characters.
                                  * * * 
C.S. Lewis has a scene in The Last Battle in which though who were taught to worship Tash, but whose life had a nobility and purity that resembled the followers of Aslan in fact enter with Aslan into Aslan’s Own Country. 

I believe that too. 

Emeth the Calormene, the Tash-worshipper went through the stable door and was accepted by Aslan. Aslan explains that he and the vile god Tash have nothing in common. “We are opposites.” Yet Aslan accepted Emeth because  “no service which is vile can be done to me and none, which is not vile, can be done to him.”


Emeth continues,  
“Then he breathed upon me and took away the trembling from my limbs and caused me to stand upon my feet. And after that, he said not much, but that we should meet again, and I must go further up and further in. Then he turned him about in a storm and flurry of gold and was gone suddenly.
“And since then, O Kings and Ladies, I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but a dog – ” (p.155)

I posted this passage with some misgivings on my Read through the Blog and was not entirely surprised to receive three reproving comments.

Here was my response

  Hi, I agree, God would not have sent Jesus to die that horrific death–nor would Jesus have voluntarily endured it– if there was any other way that man could be reconciled with God.

However, Jesus tells us that he will say, “I never knew you,” to people who worked miracles in his name, and also Matt. 25, that he will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my father, enter in” to those who think they have never known him, but have been kind to numerous people they have encountered.

While I believe in hell, I simply cannot believe that people are condemned to hell because they have not believed in Christ. Christ himself did not say that.

Acts 10: 34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.

Romans 2:6 6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.”

I am aware that on this point alone I diverge from the standard evangelical interpretation of these Scripture–and on this point, I have always diverged from it.

I simply cannot believe that God will condemn the many kind, gentle, lovely people I have met on my travels who have never heard about Christ to torment.


Christ’s sacrifice on the cross could well have been more all-encompassing and all-sufficient than we realize.

I have to add that I am no theologian, however  🙂

Repent and Believe the Good News

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 Image :downeyubf.com



 Mark 1: 14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

The first thing Jesus says in this first appearance in Mark’s Gospel, the first Gospel to be written is “repent.” 

He tells people that it is now the right time to live as citizens in the Kingdom of God, as subjects of the King, their lives surrendered to him.

What they have to do is to repent, to stop doing the wrong they were doing, and to believe in what Jesus taught.

All very well. It’s when the wrong thing is so profitable, or convenient or comfortable or easy or tempting, that repentance is hard.


And of what should we repent? I sometimes imagine the waterfall of God’s spirit, and power flow through me. What impediment might it find? Of that, I need to repent.
                                    * * * 

Time to pause and reflect.


Because a little bit of sin and wrong-doing is like mould. It will spread and spread, and overwhelm one’s immune system, and cause seriously respiratory illnesses, and even death.

Better clear the mold out of one’s life immediately! 

Hebrews 121 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.

                                   * * *

And the second imperative is like the first. Believe the good news.


And what is so good about the news Jesus told us?


That we are told that God cares  for the birds of the air, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without his eye being on it.
  
That just as he puts it into our hearts to care for them, to put out fat and nuts and seeds for them, he himself cares for them.

And even more for us

And we are not just urged but commanded not to worry.

That prayer to our Father works.

That we are to forgive those who sin against us, and not carry the backpack of hatred and longing to revenge. That we can hand that backpack to God to deal with as he pleases. 

That, incredibly, unbelievably, we are forgiven, because Jesus paid the penalty for our sins on the cross.

It’s all good news, isn’t it? And, luckily, we are commanded to believe it. 

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My Week in Facebook Status Updates

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Irene’s (in red) 12th birthday party in our conservatory

 Fab, busy fine-tuned day. Got Zoe off to the Lake District for a week’s post-GCSE holiday–9 teens together in the Lakes, absolutely no adults. Fingers crossed! Transported Irene to a friend’s iceskating party & back, then on to drinks to celebrate the wedding of lovely Lesley Fellows, blogger extraordinaire (revdlesley.net) and Alan Crawley. And then gardening in late June’s golden light!

Summer garden joys–Irene bouncing in the sprinkler, in her swimsuit, listening to her iPod, wrapped in multiple layers of bubble wrap. Will it survive? Let’s see. Realizing how sharp Jake’s olfactory senses are compared to mine. He drops his yellow-green tennis ball amid clumps of plants, and looks at me as if I’m daft when I can’t smell it. Black crumbly compost I’ve made myself. Smells good!
Roy and I working in the garden together come to an epiphany almost simultaneously. “Zoe, you should become a farmer.” Zoe, patiently, wearily, “Yes, mum and dad, I’ll use my state of the art education to become a farmer.” Perhaps it takes middle age to attain wisdom!
We’re going to be beekeepers. Ordered a Queen Carnolian Bee & 5 frames of bees, a hive and accoutrements. Largely to pollinate our orchard, veggie garden & flowers, partly coz local honey is good for hay fever allergies; natural (not sugar fed) honey is good for colds, coughs & the immune system; & coz we like honey. Not because we’re crazy! Roy’s dad and grandmum kept bees, so we’re hoping he’s absorbed some lore!
Okay, today is not only the longest day of the year, but the last day of Zoe’s GCSE exams. National exams taken at 16 for my overseas friends. Mandatory Math, Science and English and 5 options. Zoe took Latin, Ancient Greek, French, History and Drama. They started on May 16th!! Everyone’s weary! Now Zoe gets 2.5 months off before A levels–French, English, Philosophy and Theology.
Quack. Quack! Latest addition to the Mathias symphony/cacophany. Roy and I bought two snowy white laying ducks, one Aylesbury, sweet, fat and contented, and one Indian Runner, gawky with an impossibly long swannish neck. This improbable Laurel and Hardy pair are comical, noisy and adorable. We bought them, on impulse after a lovely visit to National Trust Manors, Snowshill and Chastleton in Gloucestershire.
Ah, have been eating the 1st strawberries from our garden. The sweetness far surpasses store-bought! 1st strawberry success! Went on an interesting escorted tour of Merton and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The head gardener of Corpus deliberately leaves weeds in his wildish garden. Blink!! Oxford’s lovely now. “And that sweet city with her dreaming spires; she needs not June for beauty’s heightening! Matthew Arnold
Thanks God for weekends. Irene’s was fabulous–early lunch here & a second lunch with her friend Phoebe, early dinner at Phoebe’s & second late dinner here. And youth group at church and Sunday school. She has become a church goer again after we changed churches. Yay. And we’ve spent hours taming our garden, neglected for 5 years, while Zoe studied for her last 4 GCSE’s. She’s done this week at last. Good weekend!
  • Zoe, “I wish it were as easy to buy time to read books as it is to buy books.” Amen!

Top of Form
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067. Or something like that anyway. Irene and her friend, Lisa, who is Chinese are competing to see how fast they can work out the value of Pi mentally. They’ve got to 35 places. Roy says he, and his friend, David Wong-Toi who was Chinese, did the same thing at breaks. What’s up with Indians and Chinese?

Personality Types–The Planter and the Finisher

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Imae: Joyce Kimball Smith




Roy and I were chatting with someone who’d worked as a psychologist. After an hour or so together, he guessed that on the Belbin Personality Inventory, I would be a Planter, and Roy would be a Completer/ Finisher.


According to Wikipedia, Planters are “creative, unorthodox, and a generator of ideas. If an innovative solution to a problem is needed, a planter is a good person to ask. A planter will be bright and free-thinking. Planters can tend to ignore incidentals, and refrain from getting bogged down in detail. A planter bears a strong resemblance to the popular caricature of the absent-minded professor.”

The Completer Finisher on the other hand “is a perfectionist and will often go the extra mile to make sure everything is “just right,” and the things he or she delivers can be trusted to have been double-checked and then checked again. The Completer Finisher has a strong inward sense of the need for accuracy, and sets his or her own high standards rather than working on the encouragement of others. They may frustrate their teammates by worrying excessively about minor details, and by refusing to delegate tasks that they do not trust anyone else to perform.”

Though Roy and I have extremely exasperated each other over the last 21 years–and might continue doing so for the next  21!!–we are, in many ways, a good team, a well-matched mixture of inspiration and perspiration, of ideas and detail-oriented, often boring and sweaty implementation.
                                    * * * 

The psychologist was probably right. Whenever Roy and I have taken personality profiles, we turn out as diametrically opposite. On Meyers-Briggs I am ENTP. He was ISFJ, if I remember correctly.

A wonderful pastor of ours, Bob Hopper, who spent time with us when we fairly newly-wed gave us the DISC personality inventory.

I, interestingly, was at the extreme end of the charts for DI traits(dominance/dynamism, influencing). Roy, predictably, was at the extreme end of the charts of SC traits (steadiness, conscientiousness). Both of us were right at the bottom of the charts for the opposing attributes, DI for Roy, SC for me.  (Bob pointed out that my psychological profile was the same as his, and typical of pastors!!)

Hey, I could sue the match-maker, were it not I myself!! And, if people who are diametric opposites manage to weather the years in which murder, bloodshed, and front page news are not remote possibilities, they have a good chance of having a balanced, creative and wise partnership.
                                 * * *

I have a first cousin, Chris whose passion is founding businesses. He has founded a large number which he has sold for staggering sums. Bought much an island off Spain, bred polo ponies, and then founded another company, and another and another, selling each as it was established and profitable. He’s now involved in social and philanthropic investment (which is something I would be very interested in, had I the funds).

Funnily enough, I know that impulse. I was consumed by establishing the publishing company which now supports our family. Lived, breathed it. In fact, once when while Roy and I animatedly discussed business at dinner, we saw tears stream down the face of Irene, aged 8. “She’s literally bored to tears,” Roy said, with amazement. She was!!

Now that it is established, I find it less interesting. I have been able to hand it over the daily details of running it to other people, which is fortunate, as I am now able to return to writing.
                                   * * * 

But I understand well the impulse that makes the opening stages of a project more compelling than the mid or endgame.
                                        
But few of us can spend our lives starting things. 

I have started three major enterprises (for me) in the last four years–a publishing company, blogging seriously, and a large garden, which is an experimental permaculture, forest garden, with perennial fruits and veggies. (Will blog later on that). And I am, of course, continuing to write, which is really my life’s deepest passion.
                                           * * * 

I love the early stages of a project–the optimism, the hope, the dizzy excitement, the sense of unlimited potential, the thrill of hunches and intuitions working, how compelling it all is.

The later stages, however, offer rewards–more and more rewards for less and less work: the rewards of virtuous circles, of reaping what you have sown. More predictability. In a publishing company, your back list continues fruitful, so there’s less need to publish new titles; in a blog, if it’s compelling, your readers keep increasing so that successive posts find an ever larger audience; in a garden based on perennial fruits and vegetables, you harvest more and more with ever decreasing fresh plantings. 

How strange to find the sowing phase more compelling.
                                        * * * 

I said to Roy half-facetiously, “Roy, if I get any more ideas, for any more projects, stop me.”

The projects I have on hand are life-time projects–writing books, writing a blog, and gardening–and I honestly hope not to inaugurate any more, but see these to ripeness and fruition.

So help me God!
                                   








God praises those who are Christians inwardly, whose hearts are circumcised

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Circumcision of  the  Heart

Image: holyspiritinteractive.net


The Jews and the Law

 17 Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; 18 if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; 19 if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— 21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

25 Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. 26 So then, if those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? 27 The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.
 28 A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29 No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.

Paul’s sardonic inquisition of the Jews could also apply to smug and self-righteous Christians.

He mocks the Jews who are proud of their law, who boast of their special relationship to God, who are convinced that they know his will and approve of what is superior, who are convinced that they are guides to the blond, lights for those who are in darkness, teachers of the foolish because they have in the law, in scripture, the embodiment of knowledge and truth. Yet, they secretly do the very things the excoriate others for doing.

Circumcision does not make a Jew. Ticking the right belief boxes does not make one a Christian.  True Jews have their hearts cleansed and purified by the Spirit. True Christians have their hearts cleansed and purified by the spirit

These true believers may or may not be praised by other people, but God praises them. 

Hospitality–Max Lucado, Thought for the Day

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“IF WE WAIT until everything is perfect, we’ll never issue an invitation. Remember this: what is common to you is a banquet to someone else. You think your house is small, but to the lonely heart, it is a castle. You think your living room is a mess, but to the person whose life is a mess, your house is a sanctuary. You think the meal is simple, but to those who eat alone every night, pork and beans on paper plates tastes like filet mignon. What is small to you is huge to them.”

– Max Lucado, Outlive your Life

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