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Archives for October 2011

Curses: Medieval Idea or Scriptural Reality?

By Anita Mathias

Our family listened to Louis Sachar’s children’s book Holes on CD.It, roughly speaking, is the story of how a broken promise brought a curse on a family, and how the curse was broken generations later by keeping that promise. It is a story of redemption.
And so our family discussed curses. The theme runs right through Scripture from Genesis, through Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, Haggai, Malachi, culminating, perhaps, in the chilling curse pronounced on themselves and their children by the Jewish elders in Matthew. I wouldn’t be surprised if curses (and blessings) were mentioned in every Old Testament book.
* * *
When I was a new Christian, I was given Derek Prince’s book, “Blessing or Curse?” I believe God is a whole lot more merciful than one might deduce from reading that book which details all sorts of things one could do or had done which might bring the shadow of a curse upon one’s life.
Reading it terrified me for some years, until I came to this formulation, to which I still hold: Christ became a curse for us on the cross. We who are grafted into him, and live in him, now partake of the blessings of dwelling in him. (If however, we truly do abide in him.)
* * *
What I have, however, seen in my own life, in other peoples’ lives, and in Scripture which is akin to a curse is judgement.
It’s correction. When we are going in the wrong direction, and our lives are governed by idolatry–of success, money, sex, shiny progeny, whatever–God may deliberately slow the waterfall of his blessings down to a trickle so that we may seek him rather than his gifts.
And deliberate, long-continued in, unrepented-of sin does slow down the flow of God’s blessings, so that we feel we are living under a cloud. There is then a pervasive sense of futility and dread of failure, a sense of planting much, but harvesting little, of money disappearing as though in a coat with holes (Haggai 1:6).
* * *
Sometimes one sees families for whom everything seems to go wrong. I’ve known a few. In reflecting on them, I realized that in every case, they were selfish, self-focused families, who did not put themselves out to help anyone else, and sometimes seemed over-avid for assistance from other people.
(I am reading John Piper’s book A Hunger for God, which in passing discusses this phenomenon of individuals and families living under a cloud. The way to break this cloud, he says, is to reach out to someone else, invite someone over for a meal, do something for another family. Give. Bless. Yes! And what a wonderful bringer of “rain” those simple actions are.)
* * *
The theme and reality of judgement is repeated throughout scripture. God’s people are blessed extravagantly. They grow complacent. They sin. God withholds his blessing. He sends discipline, even punishment, often using enemy nations to mete this out. Then they repent, God forgives them, and blesses them extravagantly again. Eventually the cycle repeats itself.
It’s the same pattern in the lives of individuals. Blessings–complacency–sin–judgment–repentance–blessing.
Sometimes, even while outwardly busy and bustling, churches too can operate outside the blessing of God. They can use human means of manipulation to raise money and volunteers to run ministries geared towards enticing more people through the doors to give and volunteer. They become no better than a club.
If, however, God has plans for the church, then in mercy, he might send judgment. Money may dry up. Bullying clergy may find good staff leave, to be replaced by inferior people. The best people in the congregation leave. There is apathy. Hurt feelings. A passive consumer mentality. Things dwindle–money, manpower, ministries, as a vicious circle sets in…
                                             * * *
This is how Scripture describes these periods of judgment which feel very like a curse.
5Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”9“You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Haggai 1:6.
Or
This is what the LORD says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who draws strength from mere flesh
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6 That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives. Jeremiah 17.
·      * *
I used to read these passages and shudder. For years, through my twenties, and thirties and early forties, until 3-4 years ago, I felt there was a shadow over my life. I was not successful or fruitful in what I did.
In retrospect, I do think the spigots of heaven were only trickling over me. I was not living in love, but rather living selfishly. Though I was a Christian, my day was not tuned into the waterfall of God’s presence and grace and power.
I was totally enamoured with writing and success at it, and if I had been successful then, I would have been condemned to a life of hard work, burn out and idolatry of writing.
 An editor who had worked with me in my early thirties, Ted Solataroff wrote a famous essay called “Writing in the Cold.” In this, he said that a writer’s life is an exchange of one level of uncertainty, and disappointment for another. Anxious till the first publication of a poem, let’s say; anxious till your book is published; disappointed when you don’t win prizes; disappointed when you don’t win bigger ones.
The only way I could be happy as a writer would be to turn over management of my writing to God. And if I had had early success, this would have been hard to do.
The motor of my life was writing, and success at it. I read and wrote till exhausted, and it took less and less time each time to reach burn-out. I didn’t know how to pace myself.
·      * *
·       
What changed? For most of my life, I have been rather selfish. I was born to parents in their late forties, and praised and indulged. Nuns at school were rather fond of me and gave me more leeway than the others had, perhaps because I was creative and unusual and a good student academically (though always known as “the naughtiest girl in school.” I married someone who is unselfish and nurturing.
However, in Oxford, the girls were doing well but not brilliantly at the State schools we put them into. I like schools with high expectations for every student. I thought my girls would rise to them (and they did). When I was invited to dine at High Table at my old College, Somerville, I asked the Dons where they sent their daughters. Without exception, it was to a high-performing school, Oxford High School, among the top ten or so in the country. Which would cost £20K a year for both of them.
Asked why he climbed Everest, Mallory said, “Because it was there.” I guess I chose the best school around for the same reason. Because it was there. Because they have studied Chinese, Classical Greek, Latin and French. Because they’ve thrived.
Paying for it was not as easy as I blithely imagined. I was confronted with a challenge I did not have the experience or energy to solve with my own strength and wisdom.
And it was through a period of exhausting overwork in the publishing company I founded to pay for school, that I learned to hear God’s voice, listen to his precise guidance, and dwell in the waterfall of his wisdom and guidance.
Most days now, I feel like I don’t know how to do anything without relying on God. Some days I take 2, sometimes 3 short rest breaks, and literally lie down and pray because joy and energy can ooze out of me, and I need to pray to recover purpose, direction, vision and joy. And to check in with God to see if he has any better ideas for what I was purposing to do next, and next, and next. (He almost always does).
And that’s a better way of doing life than by will-power and ambition. And I wouldn’t have come to it without brokenness.
And when I returned to writing (well, blogging actually) my style had changed, become more lucid and less contorted, and I began to find writing easy, satisfying and joyful. In the past, I had driven myself through ambition. Now in blogging, I try to listen to what God is saying to me, and write it down quickly and relatively easily, and there is great joy in it.
And laying the idol of writing down for a few years to give the girls “an unbeatable start in life,” sort of dispelled the cloud which selfishness and relational failings have brought over my life. I now feel that I do live under God’s blessing. And that is where I want to live for the rest of my days.
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7
·      * *
·       
Interestingly, John Piper’s suggest on how to disperse a cloud over your life (if you sense one) –i.e generosity towards God and people–is the same as in Scripture. Give. Serve. Bless.
And there are simple checks one can run on one’s life if you don’t sense the fullness of God’s blessing on it.
Am I doing anything which I cannot ask God to bless? Then, stop. Repent of it.
Are there logjams of unforgiveness? Forgive. If you cannot immediately forgive, ask God to start melting and changing your heart towards those you need to forgive.
Picture the waterfall of God’s beauty grace and power flowing through you and your life. Will it meet any impediments? Any ugliness? Ask God to show you what these things might be, and resolve to remove them.
One of the stupendous things about God’s economy is that we get things simply by asking for them. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. John 15:7. The catch as the astute reader will notice is the abiding.
And when we do repent, ask, abide, as surely as seed and rain and sun produce a harvest, we slowly move into the realm of blessing and abundance.

Filed Under: random

A few photographs from our trip to Lee Abbey, Devon

By Anita Mathias

Cheviot goats imported from Northumberland


The Lee Abbey Beach
Gorgeous Exmoor
Zoe and Me

No iPhone signal, but the ocean compensates!
Mathias women


Filed Under: random

Christian Blogging: Ministering Without Preaching

By Anita Mathias

(My post was originally published as part of the Big Bible’s DigiDisciple initiative.)
  Typewriter Art
Christians who are digital natives will, quite possibly, encounter two ministries of the Word each week–the Sunday sermon and Christian blogs.
A bad sermon tells you what you should do. It lays down the law. Your shoulders hunch when you hear you should give more to pet projects, pray more, read your Bible more, love more. More, more, more.
* * *
Now, who in their right minds, would come to blogs to be told what to do? Not I.
Like everyone else, I know what to do, you see. The trouble is the doing of it. As Portia says in The Merchant of Venice
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to
do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s
cottages princes’ palaces. I can easier teach
twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the
twenty to follow mine own teaching.
* * *
The effective Christian blogger, the digital disciple, ministers the word, but without overt preaching. She has to.
She does not have the preacher’s advantages: the captive audience, the theology degree, the automatic respect.
And so, she must be winsome. Like the poet of old who beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margin with interpretations, but cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion–and with a tale forsooth he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner (Sir Philip Sidney. Apology for Poetry).
While our intention might be to bless, trust is not instantly handed to us. Yeats wishes for his daughter,
“In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned.”
 So too for the blogger: trust is not had as a gift, but trust is earned.
How? Paradoxically, by sharing our weaknesses, rather than our strengths.
A blogger could tell us of hours in prayer, scripture study, fasts, watchings, and we will feel tired, one more To Do.
But tell us how the Christian life really plays out: how you can snarl at those who delay you on your way to worship God on Sundays; how you can feel maddened by noise during your lovely quiet times; how you knew someone was gossiping at prayer request time but asked a curious question in the guise of concern; how you medicate yourself with chocolate rather than Scripture, because, let’s be realistic, it’s quicker. How you love Scripture and prayer, but sometimes find them boring; how you love Christ and love your children, but, frankly, find this whole Proverbs 31 business hugely overrated!
And because we too have visited those shadowlands, we’ll laugh, and we’ll believe you.
And then, when you tell us of prayer, visions, revelations, high altitude glories, we’ll believe you too, because you have earned our trust when you told us of the muck and mud, the disgraces and breakthroughs which are the Christian life.
While the preacher shares the conclusions, the QED of the theorem of faith, the personal Christian blogger, the confessional blogger, shares the process—the falls, the slipping backward, the rare raptures.
* * *
Above all, she tells a story. A story unique in that no one–not the author, not the readers–no one but God himself, knows how it going to end. And as she tells it, she understands it better: the story of her own life.
It’s a story which can be read in multiple ways. Very post-modern! She may think it’s a straight narrative, but there are at least four narratives, mirroring the four quadrants of human personality:
1.    The things we know about ourselves, and everyone else knows.
2.    The things we know about ourselves, but no one else guesses, and we would die rather than confess. 
3.    The things which are glaringly obvious to everyone else, but which we are oblivious to. Bloggers, despite themselves, make these dreadful revelations about themselves—unwittingly revealing their emotional contours, their prejudices, their fears, their secret patches of pride, shame and sensitivity. Many personal blogs can be decoded by an alert reader. Anyone who chronicles the ongoing story of their personal or spiritual lives on the web makes these unconscious revelations, and must make peace with this.
 4. The last quadrant, is the vast, deep submerged world of buried potential–the heights of love and nobility to which we are capable of rising; the depths to which we are capable of sinking; talents and abilities unguessed at, save by the Creator, who alone knows how it is all going to end, and, I like to think, reads the unspooling account of our spiritual and actual lives on our blogs with interest, tenderness, and not a little amusement!

Filed Under: random

Thought for the Day: Consistent Effort, No Matter How Small

By Anita Mathias

File:Eaglecreek-28July2006.jpg

“I still don’t get why people are so surprised that the turtle beat the rabbit over the long run. Consistent effort, no matter how small, sparks magic, fills sails, butters bread, turns tides, instills faith, summons friends, improves health, burns calories, creates abundance, yields clarity, builds courage, spins planets, and rewrites destinies.”

Signed
The Universe
I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau

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One Way To Get A Lot Done When You Are Very Busy

By Anita Mathias

“On a typical day I am charged with the pastorate of three congregations. I teach regularly at the seminary. I have students living in my house. I am writing three books. Countless people write to me. When I start each day, therefore, I make it a point to spend an hour in prayer with God. But if I have a particularly busy day, and am more rushed than usual, I make it a point to spend two hours with God before I start the day.”—Martin Luther

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Vignettes from Family Life

By Anita Mathias

You know your daughter is doing A level philosophy when you say, “I can’t make myself pack till the last moment” & Zoe says, “Nonsense. That’s a fatalistic approach. Jean-Paul Sarte would be shocked!”

 Zoe effortlessly did something on my new MacBook which floored me and Roy. Zoe, I said, amazed, we’re floored. No, you are not flawed, mum and dad, she said in all seriousness.you’re just old.”
Irene stands in front on the mirror, with a beanie hat on, trying to sneer . “Don’t I look really dodgy?” Zoe, “Nonsense. You can’t look dodgy with a dimple.”
We try to hike the Valley of Rocks in Exmoor. I tell Irene, “The First Rule of Mountains: Things change. Be prepared.” I stride off. She joins me 20 minutes later. It is a bright, sunny day, but she has brought 1) an umbrella 2) a coat 3) hat, gloves, muffler, 4) A bag of snacks 5 A book in case she gets bored 6) A torch.
“Don’t be so literal-minded, Irene,” I now scold.
Roy and Zoe get stuck into sorting out our bookshelves, and I fear they will not eat till they are done. Roy was to fix lunch. “We have human bodies,”I remind him. “And human bodies need food.” “You have a human body, but the face of an angel,” he tells me. I wander off, digesting this happily, forgetting lunch.
I hear him say, “They say, ‘Flattery won’t get you anywhere. It’s not true!”

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Back! And raring to get going!

By Anita Mathias

Greetings, readers. I’ve been in an Abbey with no wi-fi and no internet for 5 days. No mobile phone signal either.

At first, I felt a bit disoriented, to be honest. We own a business: was is thriving, or were there fires? (It throve in our absence, Someone Else took over.) And when the background noise of social media is turned off–Facebook, and the relationships in it, Blogging, and all the friends and relationships that engenders, Twitter, email, and there is a great silence, it takes a while for your breathing to adjust. To enter long slow time. That’s why I need at least ten days to thoroughly unwind, to hear God’s vision, direction and correction for my life. (But given that I had that in August, I didn’t really need it so soon.)
Believe it or not, I drove to the next towns, Lynton and Lymouth to get online on the first two days. How odd! And when neither my iPad nor my 3 mobile broadband could get a good signal, actually knocked on a guesthouse, and asked to pay and use their Wifi. Yeah, chutzpah! (We do this on our travels in Europe, with great success–as we had with this most charming woman in Lynton. She refused payment, as we suspected, though we left some. The Croft Guesthouse in Lynton, Devon by the way. Beautifully furnished, warm and welcoming.)
By day 3, I thought this was nuts. I could get along just fine without the web and the web without me… And quite enjoyed our separation.
And used it to catch up with a big task which I might have put off for much longer had I the distractions of the internet.
I had been writing a big memoir of an Indian Catholic childhood, time in a boarding school with German and Irish nuns, and work with Mother Teresa off and on from 1991 to 2006. Several chapters have won prizes, including a National Endowment for the Arts Award of $20,000, a State Arts Board award of $6000 and been published in a range of places from national magazines to literary journals, sometimes at $1000 a piece! But when it came to agents and publishers in 2006, I found a famous English agent who wanted changes, and an American agent, who wanted different changes, and didn’t see how to make them, and got depressed, and founded a publishing business instead.
Well, that’s the one piece of unfinished business in my life. I do not want to die without finishing and wrapping up that book: I have poured so much thought and love and passion and beauty into it.
And so at last, I had time to sort out the pieces into chapters, the chapters into sections, and looking at it after 5.5 years, I see to my relief that is a good book. Interesting. Much of it (though not all of course) is well-written.
And so I am going to go back to revising and rewriting it with joy and confidence, without the angst that it might not find a publisher.
Because you see it WILL find a publisher. And that publisher will be me.  I know enough about marketing now to know I can find readers for my book. I will get it professionally edited, of course, but will only accept the suggestions that find an answering echo with me (something one can’t do with professional writing.)
Will it be less good because I plan to get two professional editors, and then accept or reject their suggestions using my own judgement? In some ways, perhaps, and in others, no. It will retain its uniqueness.
It might be, as Touchstone would say, “A poor thing, sir, but mine own.” And there is a great pleasure in having a piece of writing exactly as you wanted it (though as I said, I will of course take advice in what Pope called, “the last, the greatest art, the art to blot.”)
When Milton felt frustrated at the slow pace of his writing, he comforted himself by saying, “All is, if I have grace to use it so.”
Same here. So that is what I need: grace. Grace to focus, grace to prune off distractions. Grace to turn off the pleasant distractions of the internet and focus. Discipline to keep fit so I can write, and discipline to write.
I need to dwell in God’s waterfall, since by myself boiling down and condensing and shaping that massive manuscript (I don’t dare number the pages, but it’s big) in addition to continuing to run this blog may be too difficult a task for me.
In one way, it’s good to have your back against the wall, face to face with a task too great for you, to learn how to rely on grace and God’s power.
And, honestly, I know very little about this in practice 🙂
Open the floodgates of your waterfall of creativity above me, Oh Lord. Let me dwell in it!

Filed Under: random

poustinia, retreats, and the ocean restoring the soul

By Anita Mathias

Catherine Doherty, a friend of Thomas Merton, popularized the poustina monastic experience. A little cabin in the woods, where you went off to live simply and be with God.

Roy and I had an experiment of this when we joined a Christian community called Pacem in Terris in Minnesota, oh, I guess 19 years ago, for a brief retreat.

We lived in the snowy woods, in a simple pine heated cabin. The hosts brought us a simple breakfast and lunch in a basket—bread and cheese, as I remember, and we joined them for dinner.

We went to seek God. I remember reading that when one goes on retreat to seek God, the first thing you become aware of is your overwhelming tiredness. It’s okay then to spend the first day sleeping. You do not realize how tired you are until you give yourself permission to rest.

It astonishes me when we go away to rest and renew to discover how tired I really am. I woke late yesterday, prayed, wanted to study a bit of scripture, but instead felt sleepy, and napped. And I napped in the afternoon too, and briefly before dinner. What? Could I really have been that tired? All the adrenalin has drained out of me, and I am suddenly aware of the physical tiredness, and the sleep lag I have been keeping at bay with thermoses of green tea!!

I slept 12 hours last night. Roy is exhausted too. He sleeps when I do, around midnight, but then wakes the girls up at 7.15. After a whole term of this, he’s tired too.

I am really enjoying being in Lee Abbey. I sat in the sunroom of our cottage today, and watched Red Admiral and Painted Lady butterflies outside in the garden, then walked down to the beach, and sat on the rocks, relaxing.

Never miss a chance to go to the beach: That is one of my life’s resolutions.

Now playing family games–Anagrams, a Victorian word game. Word and knowledge games are my favourite, perhaps because I am not as patient and as good at strategy games as my family (everyone else is brilliant at chess, for instance).

I think going away for a few days gives one a change to take a break from one’s work, and see it in perspective, to have good family time and family bonding, and often to come back with new ideas, new energy, and new perspective on one’s life.


Lee Abbey has a private beach 250 metres from our cottage, and I love sitting on the rocks, and watching the tide come in.

tomorrow to hike on exmoor, amid the sheep, goats and ponies, and walk on some more beaches.

Filed Under: random

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Wandering Between Two Worlds: Essays on Faith and Art

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Recent Posts

  •  On Not Wasting a Desert Experience
  • A Mind of Life and Peace in the Middle of a Global Pandemic
  • On Yoga and Following Jesus
  • Silver and Gold Linings in the Storm Clouds of Coronavirus
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  • Life- Changing Journaling: A Gratitude Journal, and Habit-Tracker, with Food and Exercise Logs, Time Sheets, a Bullet Journal, Goal Sheets and a Planner
  • On Loving That Which Love You Back
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Childhood, Youth, Dependency: The Copenhagen Trilogy
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Amazing Faith: The Authorized Biography of Bill Bright
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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Stephen King

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Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life
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Opened Ground: Poems, 1966-96
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anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford # Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford #walking #tranquility #naturephotography #nature
So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And h So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And here we are at one of the world’s most famous and easily recognisable sites.
#stonehenge #travel #england #prehistoric England #family #druids
And I’ve blogged https://anitamathias.com/2020/09/13/on-not-wasting-a-desert-experience/
So, after Paul the Apostle's lightning bolt encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he went into the desert, he tells us...
And there, he received revelation, visions, and had divine encounters. The same Judean desert, where Jesus fasted for forty days before starting his active ministry. Where Moses encountered God. Where David turned from a shepherd to a leader and a King, and more, a man after God’s own heart.  Where Elijah in the throes of a nervous breakdown hears God in a gentle whisper. 
England, where I live, like most of the world is going through a desert experience of continuing partial lockdowns. Covid-19 spreads through human contact and social life, and so we must refrain from those great pleasures. We are invited to the desert, a harsh place where pruning can occur, and spiritual fruitfulness.
A plague like this has not been known for a hundred years... John Piper, after his cancer diagnosis, exhorted people, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer”—since this was the experience God permitted you to have, and He can bring gold from it. Pandemics and plagues are permitted (though not willed or desired) by a Sovereign God, and he can bring life-change out of them. 
Let us not waste this unwanted, unchosen pandemic, this opportunity for silence, solitude and reflection. Let’s not squander on endless Zoom calls—or on the internet, which, if not used wisely, will only raise anxiety levels. Let’s instead accept the invitation to increased silence and reflection
Let's use the extra free time that many of us have long coveted and which has now been given us by Covid-19 restrictions to seek the face of God. To seek revelation. To pray. 
And to work on those projects of our hearts which have been smothered by noise, busyness, and the tumult of people and parties. To nurture the fragile dreams still alive in our hearts. The long-deferred duty or vocation
So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I have totally sunk into the rhythm of it, and have got quiet, very quiet, the quietest spell of time I have had as an adult.
I like it. I will find going back to the sometimes frenetic merry-go-round of my old life rather hard. Well, I doubt I will go back to it. I will prune some activities, and generally live more intentionally and mindfully.
I have started blocking internet of my phone and laptop for longer periods of time, and that has brought a lot of internal quiet and peace.
Some of the things I have enjoyed during lockdown have been my daily long walks, and gardening. Well, and reading and working on a longer piece of work.
Here are some images from my walks.
And if you missed it, a blog about maintaining peace in the middle of the storm of a global pandemic
https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/  #walking #contemplating #beauty #oxford #pandemic
A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine. A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine.  We can maintain a mind of life and peace during this period of lockdown by being mindful of our minds, and regulating them through meditation; being mindful of our bodies and keeping them happy by exercise and yoga; and being mindful of our emotions in this uncertain time, and trusting God who remains in charge. A new blog on maintaining a mind of life and peace during lockdown https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/
In the days when one could still travel, i.e. Janu In the days when one could still travel, i.e. January 2020, which seems like another life, all four of us spent 10 days in Malta. I unplugged, and logged off social media, so here are some belated iphone photos of a day in Valetta.
Today, of course, there’s a lockdown, and the country’s leader is in intensive care.
When the world is too much with us, and the news stresses us, moving one’s body, as in yoga or walking, calms the mind. I am doing some Yoga with Adriene, and again seeing the similarities between the practice of Yoga and the practice of following Christ.
https://anitamathias.com/2020/04/06/on-yoga-and-following-jesus/
#valleta #valletamalta #travel #travelgram #uncagedbird
Images from some recent walks in Oxford. I am copi Images from some recent walks in Oxford.
I am coping with lockdown by really, really enjoying my daily 4 mile walk. By savouring the peace of wild things. By trusting that God will bring good out of this. With a bit of yoga, and weights. And by working a fair amount in my garden. And reading.
How are you doing?
#oxford #oxfordinlockdown #lockdown #walk #lockdownwalks #peace #beauty #happiness #joy #thepeaceofwildthings
Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social d Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social distancing. The first two are my own garden.  And I’ve https://anitamathias.com/2020/03/28/silver-and-gold-linings-in-the-storm-clouds-of-coronavirus/ #corona #socialdistancing #silverlinings #silence #solitude #peace
Trust: A Message of Christmas He came to earth in Trust: A Message of Christmas  He came to earth in a  splash of energy
And gentleness and humility.
That homeless baby in the barn
Would be the lynchpin on which history would ever after turn
Who would have thought it?
But perhaps those attuned to God’s way of surprises would not be surprised.
He was already at the centre of all things, connecting all things. * * *
Augustus Caesar issued a decree which brought him to Bethlehem,
The oppressions of colonialism and conquest brought the Messiah exactly where he was meant to be, the place prophesied eight hundred years before his birth by the Prophet Micah.
And he was already redeeming all things. The shame of unwed motherhood; the powerlessness of poverty.
He was born among animals in a barn, animals enjoying the sweetness of life, animals he created, animals precious to him.
For he created all things, and in him all things hold together
Including stars in the sky, of which a new one heralded his birth
Drawing astronomers to him.
And drawing him to the attention of an angry King
As angelic song drew shepherds to him.
An Emperor, a King, scholars, shepherds, angels, animals, stars, an unwed mother
All things in heaven and earth connected
By a homeless baby
The still point on which the world still turns. The powerful centre. The only true power.
The One who makes connections. * * *
And there is no end to the wisdom, the crystal glints of the Message that birth brings.
To me, today, it says, “Fear not, trust me, I will make a way.” The baby lay gentle in the barn
And God arranges for new stars, angelic song, wise visitors with needed finances for his sustenance in the swiftly-coming exile, shepherds to underline the anointing and reassure his parents. “Trust me in your dilemmas,” the baby still says, “I will make a way. I will show it to you.” Happy Christmas everyone.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/24/trust-a-message-of-christmas/ #christmas #gemalderieberlin #trust #godwillmakeaway
Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Gratitude journal, habit tracker, food and exercise journal, bullet journal, with time sheets, goal sheets and a Planner. Everything you’d like to track.  Here’s a post about it with ISBNs https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/23/life-changing-journalling/. Check it out. I hope you and your kids like it!
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