Archives for August 2011

A seal like holiday: Lake Vanern and Lake Vattern. But challenges ahead!!

The break-in to our motor home was a bit of a shock. I suppose we were very trusting/careless. Roy wasn’t sure if he locked the motor home. He left the two laptops on the bed, with just a towel over them, left Irene’s ipod touch charging, and left my iPad, in a backpack in the unlocked cupboard. All very professionally taken in the hour we left the camper.

We probably will travel with laptops again–we are digital citizens after all, and the internet–researching things, checking things, blogging, running our business, reading news, writing to people, being wired–is +part of our lifeblood!! However, we will, almost surely, carry them with us in a backpack, and not leave anything valuable in the car!!
* * *

The rest of the holiday, however, was tranquil. I enjoyed lolling seal-like on the rocks on Lake Vanern, the largest lake in Sweden, four times the size of greater London. Irene and Zoe and Roy swam out to islands, and I joined them a bit but sensibly desisted when the water felt so cold that it was as if I was being bitten. Lake Vanern stretches as far as the eye can reach. It’s like an inland ocean. I had two days praying on the rocks while the girls swam, made barbeques and explored. I feel all prayed up, and envisioned, and have a clear vision, purpose and direction for the year to come.
* * *

Yesterday: Vadstena on Lake Vattern. The Klosterkyrkan was grey, imposing and “humble” on the outside was built according to the specification of Saint Birgitta, Patron Saint of Sweden and Europe (a Swedish Joan of Arc) who saw the yet unbuilt church, abbey and monastery in visions. Inside, like a Tardis, it has rich, colourful medieval art.

The Palace nearby is on the shores of Lake Vattern. We walked by it and enjoyed a most beautiful sunset.

Had a lovely day canoeing on Stockholm’s archipelago today.
* * *

But, but, but…somewhat embarrassed to admit this…. We really are experienced travellers, and generally come to Europe 6 times a year, in every school half term. However, we totally underestimated Stockholm traffic. Thought we had left plenty of time to get to the airport, but the traffic at 5 p.m. was a nightmare, we crawled at a snail’s pace, and missed our flight!!

So are flying out tomorrow! Spending the night in an expensive 4 star hotel. Disorganization is expensive.
* * *

I have another prayer request, PLEASE, dear blog readers. The first 48 hours in England are going to be super challenging. We arrive at midday on Wednesday (rather than 10 p.m. Tuesday). Zoe and Irene leave for India on their own midday Friday to visit my mother. It’s their second time flying alone to India. We leave for the Greenbelt Christian artsy festival on Friday evening.

In those 2 days, we have to get lots of present shopping done for their India trip, get badly needed haircuts for me and Zoe!!, get packed for India and Greenbelt, wrap up business stuff, run laundry, report losses to insurance, all while keeping the house tidy for our wonderful friend and housesitter! And Zoe gets her GCSE (national schoole exams taken at 16) results, which might determine what she chooses for her A-lovels. All doable with prayer and keeping on an even keel. Please pray for us.

Dreaming in Scandinavia: In love with Scandinavia

By Anita Mathias

I love Scandinavia.

The reason one loves places is mysterious and buried in childhood. I loved exploring Norway a couple of summers ago. When I mentioned this to a Norwegian, he asked, mystified, “Why did you want to go to Norway?”

Why indeed? I think it comes down to a book of Norse mythology I had when I was little, which I read numerous times.

Odin, Freya, Thor, Loki, Balder, the Ragnarok: It resonated with me. I longed to see Scandinavia, which was Asgaard, as far as I was concerned.
* * *

I lived in America for 17 years–in Columbus, Ohio, New York, California, Williamsburg, Virginia, and Minneapolis,Minnesota. The only places in which I felt happy and at home were Binghamton, New York and Minneapolis, Minnesota,

Minnesota was full of Scandinavian-Americans–Norwegians Swedes and Danes. I felt the most accepted and at ease and comfortable there. I also picked up a bit of a taste for the food!!

Funnily enough, though I’ve always travelled as much as I could afford, it’s only recently that I’ve been able to visit Scandinavia. I think the fact that it was reputedly the most expensive region on earth put me off. Travel when one hemorrhages money is no fun at all!!

However, both our trips have been in camper vans; we’ve picnicked for one or two meals from the excellent grocery store fare, eaten out for just one or two meals a day, and have not found it too expensive. The lovely Allemannsratt, every man’s right, allows you to camp or motor home free and wild, with certain commonsense restrictions. I think few things compare with the thrill of waking up facing the sea one day, a lake another, in the midst of a pine forest on the third day…
* * *

I just love Scandinavia in summer–the clear crisp air; the expanses of water; the lakes, the pine and spruce forests, the rocky beaches, the relaxed, quietly happy people who leave you alone as long as you are not being inconsiderate, but will be helpful, polite and friendly if you need help, and who all speak English with charming accents; the ghosts of the Vikings and Thor in the strapping athletic blonde long-haired giants; the excellent food, the sense of relaxation, the beauty, the wilderness.

Finances and health permitting, I would like to return to Scandinavia for the next two summers–to Iceland and Denmark, perhaps.

Dreaming on Sillvik Beach, Gothenburg, Sweden

By Anita Mathias

Today was one of those unplanned perfect days which travel sometimes hands us as a gift.

We asked one of those friendly smiley Swedes (Gothenburg, reputedly the friendliest place in Sweden, is renowned for them) to recommend a beach.

Sillvik which we went to was gorgeous–rugged, rocky, all yellow and purple: purple heather, yellow wildflowers.

Last night we sat on the rocks, seemingly just made for seals, watching the sunset.

Today was so perfect, the weather so springlike, just right, and the bay so peaceful, that I basically lay on the rocks all day, resting with God, talking some, listening some, just resting. (Luckily, the rest of my family are more mountain-goatish, so they hiked far out, retrieving me for an excellent Swedish meal in a nearby cafe.)

It was time to pray through my life.

I have a dream and vision for where I might go over the next few years–with my writing and my blogging– and wanted to check it out with Christ and make sure it is Christ’s vision too–and that it comes from Christ. I think it does.

It is foolish to invest time or energy in anything, any plan, any vision, unless you are sure that it is also God’s plan and vision for your time and life. “If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do the builders labour. In vain is your earlier rising, your going later to bed.”

I think what the dream I have comes from God. Lying on the rocks, I could sense Jesus next to me.

“Lord,” I said.

“Yes?” he answered, and I could feel him turn to me, smiling, knowing already the question I was going to ask him with such intensity and excitement namely,

“Is this dream and vision I have indeed your dream and vision for me?”

And I felt him smile and nod.

I believe it is, and will increasingly check it out with him in the next days and weeks.

As I told the kids later, the most significant things in a Christian’s life are not necessarily what Wordsworth calls,

The best portion of a good man’s life
His little, nameless unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.

but the actions and decisions which spring out of prayer.

Dag Hammarskjold, Sweden’s Noble Politician and Secret Mystic

By Anita Mathias

Enjoyed the Domkyrkan in Uppsala, Scandinavia’s largest cathedral, built in competition with the people of Trondheim, Norway. Very pretty, with flowery paintings on the noble stone.

It had a shrine to Dag Hammarskjold, the noble Swedish politician, who was in secret a committed evangelical Christian and a mystic.
Dag Hammarskjold–son of a Prime Minister of Sweden– was interesting: His vivid and intense spiritual life was kept secret while he ascended politically–Chairman of the Reserve Bank, Cabinet Minister, Secretary-General of the United Nations. After his probable assassination while trying to broker peace in the Congo,his journal, Vagmarken, Markings, which he had written since he was 20 was discovered–and published.
And here are some reflections from Markings

For all that has been
— Thanks.
For all that shall be
— Yes.
We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.

Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.
I don’t know Who — or what — put the question, I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone — or Something — and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.
Never, “for the sake of peace and quiet,” deny your own experience or convictions.

The longest journey
Is the journey inwards.
Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them.

Dreaming in Uppsala: Carolus Linnaeus’s Garden

By Anita Mathias

So, here we are in Uppsala. Drawn here largely by Carolus Linnaeus who invented the botanical system of classification for minerals, plants and animals. First name for the genus, the second for the species, as in Homo Sapiens, the wise man, or the knowing man.

An inspirational professor, he packed his students around the world to return with botanical samples; they even joined Captain Cook’s expedition to Australia. Linnaeus joined and financed some of the earliest plant-collecting expedition to the Arctic, and we were thrilled to see these rare plants in his garden.

We thoroughly enjoyed the garden–especially since, thanks to Linnaeus, we could identify the plants. As plant lovers who love travelling, we make a point of learning the Latin names as well as the common names of plants we grow and interesting plants we encounter, so that botanical gardens everywhere are equally interesting–even when the common names are in Swedish!!

Linnaeus had a sense of humour–naming a small and insignificant weed after one of his critics. He started his botanical walks through his gardens early each morning, in his nightshirt, to the astonishment of his students. “Nature does not wait for powder and wig,” he’d explain.

A Swedish saying, “God created, Linnaeus organized.”

Organization is in fact a much valued and dominant Swedish trait!

In which I have my mind and experience broadened

By Anita Mathias

Life in a small English village can have its surprises. We knock on our neighbour’ door (who runs multiple small businesses, jam, and eggs and hens) to discover he is in “a session.” A what? Turns out he is a medium, and is in a séance. He runs a spiritualist church. Oh!!

And, over the last month, I realized–somewhat to my embarrassment at how long I had taken to realize this–that the two of the people, outside my nuclear family who contribute the most to the smooth and happy (in one case) and wise and happy (in the other) functioning of my life were both gay!!

One of these is a lovely Eastern European who comes over two or three, times a week to help out with cleaning and odd jobs in our house and garden. He is very practical and basically does whatever needs to be done without being asked to, can fix anything, clean everything, make anything work. Builds things like bookshelves or raised beds for the garden, repairs garden equipment, mows grass, prunes hedges and brambles, converting it to mulch.

He drives the girls around when we need an extra pair of hands, runs the laundry when necessary, folding it beautifully, sorts out kitchen drawers and the fridge. He helps out with pet care. He tidies the girls’ rooms. I have come to rely on his visits, when he sweeps through the house, getting everything into the right place, and everything clean and well-functioning. He is the most likely person to know where things are in the house since he tidies it weekly. He housesits when we travel.

I wondered why a pleasant, cheerful and superlatively kind man like him was not snapped up. He’s become a friend of ours, since he’s here so much, and as I said, has become quite indispensable to me. And so when I suddenly noticed a thick gold ring on his wedding finger, I asked, surprised, “You’re married?”

He put his head to one side, and toyed with the ring almost coyly, rotating it lovingly. “It’s a ring,” he said, “A gold ring.”

Okaaayy, I left it at that.

And somewhat reluctantly googled him. Yes, he is married. To a nice young man who had also come over to help him with some carpentry projects for us. Oh dear. How clueless of me!

I am so glad I did not know until we had all got very fond of him, because, to be honest, I might not have hired a gay man to work so intimately with our family in our house and garden, and to drive our girls when necessary and tidy their rooms etc. etc.. Not out of homophobia, but because it would simply have been too exotic for me. Too unfamiliar. But now, of course, it makes no difference to me. He’s a fabulous person, and I know it.

· * * *

There is another cool person I know whom I’ve recently discovered is gay: a senior and well-respected Anglican clergyman. Roy and I trust his wisdom, counsel, perspective and sense of humour. He can pick out blind spots in our peripheral vision, and help us see them. He can suggest very practical solutions to the problems we face, so much more that we are amazed we didn’t see them. Can defuse tension with humour.

His insight and wisdom is startling; I wish I had his ability to see people and their problems so clearly, and to suggest practical solutions. We value his blend of erudition, common-sense and humour, and are fond of him. Again, his sexuality, of course, does not matter to me at all now, but, had I known it because I came to respect and value this very clever man for his wisdom, experience, kindness and sense of humour, he would have seemed too exotic for us, his experience too alien to ours.

Sooo…. time for my mind to be broadened.

* * *

Is homosexuality innate, ontological and genetic or a choice? With the 20/20 vision of hindsight, I would say ontological, rather than a choice. I am now amazed I didn’t immediately pick it up in both these superb people. (Neither did Roy, I hasten to add!)

Blogging and Thick Skin

By Anita Mathias

Rachel Held Evans observes:It’s no secret that blogging requires thick skin.

Each post subjects your ideas, interests, and feelings to the scrutiny of other people, who through the anonymity of the internet are more likely to tell you exactly what they think. A single post might lead some to call you a hero and others to question your humanity.

I used to be incredibly sensitive to criticism. So one of the many reasons I love blogging is that it has forced me into a healthier relationships with feedback.

I’ve started owning what I have to say and I’ve stopped taking criticism so personally. I’ve become less swayed by the reaction of other people, less vulnerable to the ups and downs of public opinion.

In short, I’ve grown thicker skin.

Reading her post, I reflected that very personal blogging—shared with tout le monde— on a daily basis, as Anne Jackson did in Flower Dust is an unprecedented experiment in the history of mankind. It requires considerable nervous energy—to not only come up with a thought worth sharing, but cast it into a form worth sharing, and then put it out there for the world’s admiration (or secret contempt or pity). And then do it again, the very next day. And again!!

Every now and again, you witness a blogger you follow, Anne Jackson, in the now deleted Flower Dust, temporarily fragment, go through a very, very dark and rough patch—while they keep blogging and facebooking about it—and you read with the grim and horrified fascination of one watching a car crash in slow motion.

And even if one does try to project a favourable image to the world, any personal blogger ends up making witting or unwitting revelations about her character, and blind spots….

Read enough blogs, and you will realize which posts don’t quite ring true—mainly those in which the blogger attempts to project an image to the world which is more favourable than the reality or attempts to preach, rather than share her struggles.

There is nothing like blogging to toughen one up.

It definitely forces one to grow up and, as Rachel says, own what you have to say.

We are all probably born with an innate desire for approval; it’s probably a biological survival instinct.

However, nobody, not even Jesus (who had a perfect character, except that his outspokenness would be considered a flaw by many) won everyone’s approval.

If one blogs every day—as I try to, while at home—one will inevitably write the occasional trite, boring, poorly written post, and one has to make peace with it.

Additionally, you open yourself and your ideas up to the world, and are guaranteed to sometimes disappoint.

I realize that some of my posts will disappoint readers who seeking inspiration—and I myself often read many blogs looking for just that: reminders and encouragement to continue on the narrow road of discipleship.

Some will disappoint those seeking distraction or stimulation, originality or cleverness –and I too read some blogs simply because they make me think.

I have, a couple of times, mentioned the one issue on which I depart from evangelical orthodoxy, and have known my more conservative friends would disapprove if they read it—and they did, and did!

My (on the whole) evangelical orthodoxy probably annoys some of my liberal friends.

And, it’s struck me, that I haven’t yet begun blogging on the whole charismatic side of my faith, though I have been a charismatic with a small c for as long as I have been a Christian.

While, theologically, I am an orthodox evangelical, I am politically rather left-wing, and viscerally opposed to much of American foreign policy, which probably annoys some of my American readers.

Some posts don’t have much to them, and probably disappoint everyone!!

Blogging teaches one to be oneself—knowing that no one will like all your posts or ideas; but all the same, it is important to own them.

I remember an axiom while I was doing a Masters in Creative Writing—one has to write the bad poems, and get them out of the way to get to the good poems.

It’s the same with blog posts. It’s sometimes good to write down an idea that keeps recurring to you, even if it seems unpromising. Perhaps it is calling out to be explored in greater detail; perhaps it needs to be written down so that you think it through more clearly.

Interestingly, the discipline of writing my ideas down and publishing daily has made me more outspoken and self-confident in real life, and far more willing to express my own ideas with quiet confidence, and to own them.

Dreaming in Stockholm

By Anita Mathias

Dreaming in Stockholm

Well, Stockholm was a surprise—totally enchanting: a third
water, and a third parks. Hiked yesterday in a virgin forest National Park,
Tyresta within the limits of Stockholm!!

Wandered today around Gamla Stan,
Stockholm’s medieval quarter, really, really narrow side streets—3 feet across
sometimes, and interesting churches and monuments. Alleys overshadowed by
overhanging pastel coloured buildings.

Then canoed on Stockholm’s canals. Impossibly beautiful.
Interesting Russian style viridian and gold domes—I suppose Stockholm is just across
the Baltic Sea from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The women for the most part are beautiful—in the blond,
blue-eyed, high browed, high cheekboned, oval faced style that Hollywood and
supermodels have made the norm of female beauty. Lots of golden-haired, very
tall Thor-like Scandinavian giants around. The difference from the Russians is
striking, given that that narrow-ish Baltic Sea separates the two peoples. I
guess the Russians are Slavs, while the Scandinavians are Nordic.

I love Scandinavia—our 2009 summer trip to Norway was one of
our travelling highlights. Finances and health permitting, I would like to
explore Iceland, Denmark and Finland over the next 2-3 summers.

Swedish food is surprisingly good. We’ve enjoyed
salmon, crayfish and, of course, Swedish meatballs with lingonberries in
various cafes. Their heavy seeded bread is brilliant with basic cream cheese,
and dilled smoked salmon. Doing some
self-catering. Like the simplebut very high-quality food.