Archives for 2011

What do a medieval church in Oxford and an Indian orphanage have in common?

I read a chapter from my first book, Wandering Between Two Worlds at St. Nicholas Church, Oxford, last Saturday at a benefit reading for Divya Shanti, an orphanage in Bangalore.

One gets spoiled in Oxford, as events are rarely mediocre. My fellow readers included the poet, professor and editor, Jon Stallworthy– I owned anthologies of his when an undergraduate!–the novelist, Lorna Fergusson; a GP who writes about snails, and an American poet and playwright. And a minor bonus is that my book is now in the top 60 in the Religion section in Amazon. Not bad for a book published 4 years ago!!

Another way one is spoiled in Oxford is the wealth of history. St. Nicholas is a pre-medieval church, granted in 1122 to the canons of St. Frideswide’s Priory by Henry I. It has the oldest continuously used chalice in Britain, I was told–continuously used from the middle ages.

Since, for now, we go to an enormous church, 1200 or so regular attenders, we have had no experience of small Anglican parish churches. This congregation seemed lovely, warm, and supportive, and I was really impressed that they have adopted Divya Shanti, an Indian orphanage which they support regularly. It must be easier to get things done in a small church. They seemed cheery and good-natured, and worked together happily.

The reading raising over £1000 for a library for the school and orphanage. It illustrates Mother Teresa’s axiom that perhaps all we can do is remove drops from the ocean of misery–but the ocean would be greater were they there.

I thought too of Loren Eiseley’s starfish story.

Loren Eiseley, while writing his book The Unexpected Universe, was walking along the ocean in Costabel early one morning. It was shortly after a storm had subsided and as he continued walking, he noticed that thousands of starfish had been washed up on the beach. Ahead of him was a gigantic rainbow of incredible perfection shimmering into existence. At the base of the rainbow stooped a little boy, gazing fixedly at an object in the sand. Eventually, he flung the object far beyond the breaking surf.

Eiseley went up to him and asked, “Son, what are you doing?” The little boy answered, “I’m throwing starfish back into the sea because if I don’t they’re going to die.” “But there are thousands of starfish. In the larger scheme of things you’re not going to make much of a difference to all these starfish.”

The little boy looked up at him, stooped down again to pick up another starfish and, gently but quickly, flung it back into the ocean. “It’s going to make a big difference to that one” he replied.

Eiseley was embarrassed, uncomfortable with the contrast of the little boy’s youthful, innocent love for the living with his own hardened, “mature” indifference to death. He had nothing to say and left, continuing to walk on the beach but unable to get the picture of the little boy out of his mind. It was a moment of truth for Eiseley, of deep soul searching and self-confrontation. In time, he returned to the star thrower, silently picked up a starfish and spun it far out into the waves. “I understand.” he said quietly. “Call me another thrower.” Together, still under the hues of the rainbow, they spent hours throwing starfish back into the ocean.

http://www.adifference.com/starfish-story.htm

Here’s a couple of links to Divya Shanti, the orphanage the church supports.

http://www.divyashanthi.org/Educational%20Programme.php

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The Greatest Secret in the World by Og Mandino

By Anita Mathias

The Greatest Secret in the World
by Og Mandino

I greeted this day with love in my heart.
I praised my enemies.
I thought “I love you” silently to all I met today and I loved myself enough to protect my body from overindulgence and my mind from evil and despair.

I kept myself away from those whose weeping and complaining are contagious.

I avoided negative thoughts or words.
I tried to complete one more task when it was time to journey home and I did not allow the day to end in failure.

I refrained from all self-praise.
I learned at least one new thing about my profession today.
I concentrated on making each project better than the last.
I kept the market place and home separate from each other in my thoughts.

I greeted this morning with gratitude for the gift of another day.
I mourned not yesterday’s mistakes and defeats.
I wasted none of my precious time on foolishness.
I treated everyone with tenderness as if I would see them no more, and I truly lived this day as if it were my last.

I avoided all negative thoughts of failure and despair by making my actions control my thoughts.

I smile often.

I moved swiftly.
I raised my voice to strengthen my confindence.
I made allowances for the moods of others and I refused to allow any setback or problem to discolor my day.

I laughed at the world and at myself today.
I refuse to take too seriously my petty understandings.
I laughed at my problems, my heartaches, my failures, even my successes.

I maintained my perspective by telling myself throughout the day, “This too shall pass.”

I put off no distasteful chore for another time.
I moved swiftly from task to task to avoid diversion and temptation.
I overcame my fears through action.

I prayed today. I repeated a familiar prayer but I also spoke a few words of my own asking for guidance and thanking my Creator for giving me the privilege of making something of this day, and my life.
* * *I looked up this book after reading this review. It sounds intriguing.
David Cooke writes “I was intrigued by Mandino when the author of a book I found helpful said he has read this over a 100 times and it was the most life-changing book he had ever read. It is a very profound little read and I read it in one sitting. There is a nugget or two that could really make a difference to the way you do life. The book contains twelve ‘habits’ that you are encouraged to get into your thinking over a period of 45 days. He promises you will end up earning more money at the end of reading it!! The idea was born as a book to help salesman become more effective but has since been extended as a life manual. Now, of course we already have a life manual don’t we (well done, class) but this book is not without considerable merit. Reading this might change your life and Mandino certainly wrote it for you hoping so.”

Why is forgiveness so difficult?

By Anita Mathias

What’s so hard about forgiveness? Partly, that it is an offence against justice. Someone has wronged us, someone owes us, and we simply have to let it go.

Not a good business practice. And on the face of it, a risky relational practice.

Not let it go once, but seventy times seven. Seventy times seven.

Sheer madness.

Like, like, um… um…

Giving money generously when you still have a mortgage to pay, children to educate, an old age without adequate stock and shares to see you through? That dream holiday which may never become a reality.

And more, you give it to faceless people you will never see, this side of eternity.

Why?

Compassion. And….

When I force myself to be generous to those in greater need, with money I should rationally keep for myself, I remind myself that someone sees. An mighty, magnificent audience. Of One.

Who sees what I have done in secret.

And in my time of need will give me what I need, full measure, pressed down, flowing over.

How do I know this?

Two ways. Because Jesus says so, and I believe what Jesus says by faith. Everything he says which I have tested empirically has been true, so I also believe what I haven’t had empirical evidence of. (Like, um… hell!)

The other way is I know it’s true is that in my own experience, I have received what I have given many times over. Not necessarily from those I have given to, in fact, generally not. Someone was watching; someone was keeping track, that someone gave me what I needed when I needed it, many times over, that Someone is good and I trust him.

* * *

One of the hardest things about forgiveness sometimes is our sense that if we are silent, no one will ever know how we were wronged.

And if the injury or abuse happens in a church context, that the perpetrators will continue to sport burnished haloes in front of the church, while we, well, we know that inside they are “full of dead men’s bones and wickedness.”

It hurts when people have got away with sinning against us. When everyone thinks they are very fine people indeed, while we, we know otherwise.

That’s where faith comes in, and the connection between giving and forgiving. Just as we are content to give knowing that no one will ever know but Christ alone, so too we forgive knowing that God saw everything, he observed it, and it is in his hands. And he will see justice done.

So we are releasing the debt owed us, the sins against us into the hands of a powerful God. He will deal with them with the same combination of justice and mercy as he deals with us.

We can forgive, partly because we are transferring our case to a higher court. And the verdict is up to it.

The Father saw, the Father knows, the Father will deal with it as he thinks best. And that is enough.

This is Stage 1 of forgiveness. Stage 2 is to love your enemies. I haven’t reached there. And the parable which I am considering in my Blog Through the Bible Project merely considers Stage 1.

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

Matthew 18
²¹ Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Yeah, he’s showing off. Showing off his magnanimity. Hasn’t got it. ESV note: Within Judaism, 3 times was enough to show a forgiving spirit.

²² Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Don’t keep track. Keeping track reveals that you might not have really got the heart of forgiveness, which is letting go of wrongs in mercy, as God lets go of your offences

Love means losing track. Love means a lifestyle of forgiving. Letting offences go almost as soon as they occur. Which is the royal road to happiness.

²³ “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. ²⁵ Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

A talent was worth about 20 years of a day laborer’s wages.

²⁶ “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

I grow more aware of cancelled debts as I grow older. I am amazed at the things God hasn’t punished me for, which he overlooked, which I appear to have got away with it. At his loving kindness, mercy and forgiveness of me, despite the many wrong things I have done.

²⁸ “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.^[

A denarius was the usual daily wage of a day laborer

He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

²⁹ “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’

³⁰ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. ³¹ When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.

³² “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’

That is the motivation for forgiveness which Christ offers us. That God has had mercy on us. That we haven’t had to pay up for all our sins and offences. So we just have to let some things go, into oblivion, or into God’s hands.

³⁴ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
v.34 is almost literally true. We do live in a kind of torture, until we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.
Wherever we go, if the offence comes to memory, it brings pain with it, and we re-injure ourselves.
As long as the memory of something makes you really angry, you have not totally forgiven–and are therefore liable to re-injury from the memory of the old offence.

Forgiveness is ultimately a miracle. We can only do it if God gives us the grace to be able to. If God changes our hearts.

Change my heart, oh Lord. Give me some of your grace and graciousness.

Christ, who is Sovereign over all, cries: ‘Mine!’

By Anita Mathias

“What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects – with their Christianity latent.”
C. S.Lewis

Interestingly, that is the calling I have been hearing of late–“little books!”,

Abraham Kuyper, Dutch theologian and politician writes, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which, Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’ ”

Bono, ““If the truth sets us free and it does … Why aren’t Christian singers allowed to ring true?”

“We need more stories and songs that “tell the truth,” as Walker Percy wrote in Signposts in a Strange Land, especially about the human condition. True stories that transform lives and societies. More Uncle Tom’s Cabins and less “little books about Christianity.”

Read the whole of the thought-provoking post from which these thoughts were excerpted.

http://claphamgroup.com/featured/bono-asks-can-christian-artists-ring-true/

Possible Answers to Prayer

By Anita Mathias

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Possible Answers to Prayer

Your petitions – though they continue to bear
just the one signature – have been duly recorded.
Your anxieties – despite their constant,

relatively narrow scope and inadvertent
entertainment value – nonetheless serve
to bring your person vividly to mind.

Your repentance – all but obscured beneath
a burgeoning, yellow fog of frankly more
concspicuous resentment – is sufficient.

Your intermittent concern for the sick,
the suffering, the needy poor is sometimes
recognizable to me, if not to them.

Your angers, your zeal, your lipsmackingly
righteous indignation toward the many
whose habits and sympathies offend you –

these must burn away before you’ll apprehend
how near I am, with what fervor I adore
precisely these, the several who rouse your passion.

Scott Cairns, Compass of Affection (Brewster Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2006), p. 91.

Read more: http://theconnexion.net/wp/?p=9324#ixzz1FpLaOtVL
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Time and Money

By Anita Mathias

A very pink Irene and I hiking in the Everglades National Park, Florida

“Time” and “Money.” Titles of two very successful US magazines. And two of most people’s biggest preoccupations.

And that’s not a bad thing, necessarily. I know people who have one –or even both–of these preoccupations removed from their lives–and they are NOT happier for it.

I have friends and relatives who have plenty of money, and so do not work. But are left with a lot of restless, undirected energy.

And worse, and almost unthinkable to me, I have acquaintances and relatives for whom time hangs heavy–who do not have anything pressing, compelling or interesting to do with their time. And who are consequently sad and lethargic.

Not having as much as we might wish of either time or money adds the adrenalin and slight stress to our days which makes them more interesting.
* * *

I really hate the axiom, “Time is money.” Not that I deny it. It’s true in the way the E.M. Forster says, “Yes, oh dear, yes, the novel tells a story.”

And time is partly for taking our five talents and making them ten, as in the Parable of the Talents.

Though the idea that “time is money” adds an element of stress and poison to it. Because time is for so much more than making or saving money. It is for us to love God. To love people. To enjoy nature. To enjoy ourselves. To be happy.
* * *

I discovered the time-money connection again today. Or maybe organization=money.

Somehow, in one of these sexist bastions that persist even in families who pride themselves in thinking for themselves– unconventionally when necessary–the assumption was made that the mother was genetically best suited for mending.

And so, when we moved in to our home almost 5 years ago, and Roy and the girls brought me shirts which needed buttons, or uniform which needed hemming, I pointed to the shower in our bedroom, in which there was a plastic crate, and said “Toss it there.” And so over 5 years, people have kept tossing clothes which needed seams or hems reinforced or buttons sown. As the pile grew and grew, it looked more and more daunting, like more than an hour’s work. I guess I procrastinated stopping everything to make that hour.
* * *

Yesterday, on our weekly home loving and odd job day, Friday I decide to deal with it.

I can say one thing in favour of massive procrastination: It immensely reduces your work load.

Irene was six when she started tossing things into the boxes in the shower. I find all sorts of cute girlie pink dresses. She is now a cool teen, who lives in her Gap skinny jeans, and Zara tops.

Okay, the dresses go into the Oxfam bag. Ethereal little Laura Ashley creations. Her once favourite dresses from Monsoon which have a trailing hem. Lots of bits of school uniform. We evidently had forgotten that they lived in the shower, and had bought more expensive school uniform. Ouch!

5 shirts of Roy’s. “Roy,” I say firmly, “Let’s sort this out once and for all. Women do not have a gene for sewing buttons. It’s not like child-rearing or breast-feeding. Your fingers are as competent as mine.”

“Don’t be mean,” he says plaintively. “You know I hate mending. I have so many more interesting things to do.” “Ditto. Ditto,” I say, firmly. And so he sews his own buttons on, and now has 5 additional shirts.

Wow!

And I, I discover at the bottom, clothes I had forgotten I ever owned. Three pairs of favourite cords which lost buttons at the period of stress/comfort eating/weight gain when we moved in here. They are mended, and fit me!! I also now own a refound cloth carry bag, a sweater, and a pj top. However, I had replaced them, forgetting they were in the shower, and now my drawers are bulgy again But that’s tomorrow’s problem, when I might again need to cut off my nose to make more room on my face, in Irene’s phrase.

So, we ask the cleaner to clean out the shower. “Does it work? ” he asks surprised. “Of course, it works,” we say. “We started chucking clothes to mend in there five years ago, and so have never used it. The expression on his face makes us laugh, and he laughs too.
* * *

Last time and money thought, and I think our lives would have been happier if had sorted this out earlier. Time is always more precious than money, because money spent can be earned again, and money earned can be used to buy time (by farming out whatever work can be farmed out, cleaning, housekeeping chores, gardening, business admin).

And I think the best use of time is to ask God what he wants you to do with it–and then go do that.

Is God in Everything? Hannah Whitall Smith. Quote for the Day

By Anita Mathias

Hannah Whitall Smith’s “The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life.”

Chapter Twelve: “Is God in Everything?”

“All things work together for the good of them that love the Lord.”

I learned this lesson practically and experimentally long years before I knew the scriptural truth concerning it. I was attending a prayer-meeting, when a strange lady rose to speak, and I looked at her, wondering who she could be, little thinking she was to bring a message to my soul which would teach me a grand practical lesson. She said she had great difficulty in living the life of faith, on account of the second causes that seemed to her to control nearly everything that concerned her. Her perplexity became so great that at last she began to ask God to teach her the truth about it, whether He really was in everything or not.

After praying this for a few days, she had what she described as a vision. She thought she was in a perfectly dark place, and that there advanced toward her, from a distance, a body of light which gradually surrounded and enveloped her and everything around her. As it approached, a voice seemed to say, “This is the presence of God! This is the presence of God!” While surrounded with this presence, all the great and awful things in life seemed to pass before her—fighting armies, wicked men, raging beasts, storms and pestilences, sin and suffering of every kind. She shrank back at first in terror; but she soon saw that the presence of God so surrounded and enveloped herself and each one of these things that not a lion could reach out its paw, nor a bullet fly through the air, except as the presence of God moved out of the way to permit it. And she saw that if there were ever so thin a film, as it were, of this glorious Presence between herself and the most terrible violence, not a hair of her head could be ruffled, nor anything touch her, except as the Presence divided to let the evil through. Then all the small and annoying things of life passed before her; and equally she saw that there also she was so enveloped in this presence of God that not a cross look, nor a harsh word, nor petty trial of any kind could affect her, unless God’s encircling presence moved out of the way to let it.

Her difficulty vanished. Her question was answered forever. God was in everything; and to her henceforth there were no second causes. She saw that her life came to her, day by day and hour by hour, directly from the hand of God, let the agencies which should seem to control it be what they might. And never again had she found any difficulty in an abiding consent to His will and an unwavering trust in His care.

Glory in the heavens and on earth, words. Psalm 19. Blog Through the Bible Project

By Anita Mathias

Psalm 19

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

² Day after day they pour forth speech;
   night after night they reveal knowledge.
³ They have no speech, they use no words;
   no sound is heard from them.
⁴ Yet their voice^[b] goes out into all the earth,
   their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
⁵ It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
   like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
⁶ It rises at one end of the heavens
   and makes its circuit to the other;
   nothing is deprived of its warmth.

Does your life feel flat? Do you find it hard to glimpse the glory of God.

What is glory anyway? The glory of God?

Be quiet and still at night, and look up at the heavens. At its infinity, spreading everywhere you look.

See its changing moods, white as I write. Sometimes a glorious blue, sometimes dappled with clouds, red in the morning, rose turning to vermilion in the evening, the most glorious sapphire in the night. Sometimes a Giotto-blue.

The moon, floating in the wide expanses. The silent, eternal stars. “Le silence eternel de ces espaces infinis” as Pascal puts it.

The things God made speak of him without words in a way Francis of Assisi who is reputed to have said, “Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary use words,” would have approved of.

⁷ The law of the LORD is perfect,
   refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
   making wise the simple.
⁸ The precepts of the LORD are right,
   giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
   giving light to the eyes.
⁹ The fear of the LORD is pure,
   enduring forever.
The decrees of the LORD are firm,
   and all of them are righteous.

¹⁰ They are more precious than gold,
   than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
   than honey from the honeycomb.
¹¹ By them your servant is warned;
   in keeping them there is great reward.
¹² But who can discern their own errors?
   Forgive my hidden faults.
¹³ Keep your servant also from willful sins;
   may they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless,
   innocent of great transgression.

¹⁴ May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

And now David moves to another glory of God: His revealed word. It refreshes the soul, makes wise the simple, brings joy to the heart, and helps one to see clearly.

As such, these words are more precious than much pure gold.

Wow. I come from a culture in which gold is treasured like, well, gold.

And the word of God is more precious than gold.

I have decided to make it more precious to me by increasing the time I spend with it. People who treasure gold and wealth–and the latter has some importance in my life–spend time earning it. So people who truly treasure God’s word as more precious than gold spend time with with it. As I have resolved to do.

It is also sweeter than honey. For much of my life, until the last few months really, I have been addicted to sweet things, chocolate in particular.

God’s word is sweeter than honey.

I am trying to remember to turn to God rather than to the blood sugar and energy rush of sugary things and chocolate when I need a spike in mood.

God’s word warns us of danger.

And there is great reward in obeying it. Reward from God who can more surely give us the best and surest rewards there are.

David asks forgiveness for his hidden faults, the sort of sins of which we may not be fully aware of at the time of commission, and for which we need a Nathan to announce to us, “You are the man.”

He also asks God to preserve him from wilful sins (as opposed to spur of the moment sin).

I love his concluding prayer,
   May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
   be pleasing in your sight,
   LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Okay, so here’s my challenge to myself, and my dear readers (and I am so honoured that you are reading along).

Do we truly believe that God’s word is more precious than gold, sweeter than honey, and provides great rewards to those who keep it.

Then, let’s look at our schedules, and see where we can carve out time to spend more time with it.