• Facebook
  • Twitter

Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

  • Home
  • My Books
  • Essays
  • Contact
  • About Me

My Great-uncle Norman, a pious crook (From my memoir, “A History of My World.”)

By Anita Mathias


  My grandmother’s house, Palm Grove, was dark and cavernous, its high ceilings and stone floors keeping it as cool as a morgue.  Its red tiles, like those of many old houses in town, were stamped Mssrs. Joseph Lobo and Son, the factory of my Granny’s father who left it to his naïve, sweet third wife and young widow, my great-grandmother Julianna.

Julianna, baffled, sold it to her nephew for “a song”—the factory and the goodwill, as her son Norbert discovered when he tried to establish a tile company with the family name.  “The goodwill?  Yes, I signed that.  He said that meant I had no bad feelings.” 
When Julianna’s debts to my grandfather Piedade grew beyond hope of repayment, she signed over Palm Grove to her son-in-law.  So Norbert did not even inherit the ancestral home. Sad, guilty about this, my grandmother, Josephine, Julianna’s daughter, invited Norbert, her younger brother to stay with her in his straitened old age, obviously deriving great comfort from her end being so close to her beginning.
Wiry, ectomorphic Norbert was nimble, spry, Old Father William, a familiar sight around Mangalore, as he hopped on and off buses almost until his death at 102.  A brusque old man with a savage wit.  “How obsequious they were; now, when we pass the paddy fields, they show us their bums,”—he rudely demonstrated—talking of land Granny had lost to her tenant farmers under India’s socialist land-to-the-tillers legislation intended to crush the power of the zamindars, feudal landowners, who kept peasants in generational virtual serfdom.
(In this excerpt, I tell how each Norbert said the whole rosary, aloud, kneeling, hands outstretched cruciform. When yet, he beat and brutalized his dog sheerly make him a savage watchdog. And while he prayed….)
In the gathering darkness of the compound, dhoti-clad men, respectful of Norbert’s communion with the Almighty, waited.  They watched the gaunt man kneel, cruciform, his El Greco face taut.  “Arre Baap.  He must be ninety.”  
How bland would pastures be without baa-baa black sheep, and how boring cupboards without their skeleton.   
 An in, an in; Norbert claimed he had an in.  Everyone’s secret fear: that this is exactly how the world works, always an inner circle inner-er than your own; the kingdom, the power and the glory transmitted through loops closed to you.
Norbert said knew someone who could swiftly get them passports, visas, jobs in the Gulf, quite literally Mecca to those who, though scornfully treated by arrogant Arabs, returned in airplanes uncomfortably overfull with food processors, color televisions and VCR’s, and having saved for neon houses, their children’s education, and their own old age.  “But hurry, hurry,” his friend had only twenty-one openings.
Being told to “Hurry,” should be a signal to “pause”–as the once-burned learn.  But with shimmering hope, they sign documents without reading them, embark on a frenzy of borrowing, and other no-nos as they glimpse this beautiful shore on which one will be rich, and one will be glorious.  Of course.
 He got his twenty-one.  Who daily, weekly, waited outside the columned porticoes of Palm Grove for news of their emigration.  His mind filled with holy harmonies—Father, forgive them, he goes out to meet them after evening prayers, radiant, reproachful, a Lord of the manor to recalcitrant serfs.  “O ye of little faith.”  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  They wait, clutching hope.
And who would suspect that octogenarian, validated by his lengthy prayers, his silver hair, and his “good family,” who in bank, boardroom, or monastery, serving God or mammon, rose to the top through nature and nurture–their dominant spiritual gene (a genetic trait, I suspect) and “the three I’s: intelligence, integrity and industry,” which the community told itself complacently were Mangalorean virtues.
I wouldn’t have suspected Norbert.  Neither did they, as they handed over borrowed money.  The days became months, interest inexorably compounding, compounding.  The would-be émigrés suspect; are smooth-talked, white-haired, blue-blooded out of their suspicions–furiously suspect–know.
They visited his niece Ethel, a well-known plantation-owner, weeping: “How can God let this happen to us?”  And, “What a disgrace,” my Aunt Ethel said with widened eyes.  “One of them committed suicide.” 
A clerk in the electricity board who had handed over the small dowry garnered during a quarter century of penny-saved-penny-gained, scrimping, shaving, saving, short-shrift thrift begun with the birth of his five daughters.  How replace the nest-egg he’d gathered, painful paise by paise?  How face beginning again?  His body swung metronomically from a ceiling fan.
 Then, a copycat suicide.  His nephews confront Norbert.  “What money?” he asks, the injured, sinned-against, his role played so long that he forgot it was a role.  (The bare-faced liar, the red-handed thief are as insulted by accusation as the lily-handed.)
Norbert warns against tormenting him because God has been for him, visiting strange calamities on past persecutors.  But ultimately: “I don’t have it.”  He didn’t–still the simple rainment, starched white cotton shirt and pants; he still skipped off and on buses; ate abstemiously at his sister’s table. 
But where was the money?  Good cop, bad cop, cajoling, threats.  Private detectives.  How exciting! I felt I was observing my very own Agatha Christie novel. I pumped, overheard, circuitously questioned, sat still as the proverbial owl: “The more he listened the more he knew, and oh, how wise that little owl grew.” 
He had donated the money to the local cloistered nuns whose prayers, behind high walls, rose like incense as they ceaselessly interceded for the sins of the world!! 
 My aunts and uncles visited the nuns. A fool and his money are soon parted,” my father lamented ruefully when he spotted money in my purse (just as he reflexively said when we saw graffiti, “The names of fools, like their faces, are often seen in public places.”) 
The nuns were not fools.  “But how do you know the money he gave us was that money?  And anyway, we have spent it.”  Good cop, bad cop, cajoling, threats, to retrieve blood-money from the treasury.  With no success.
When I left the country, Norbert, then ninety-two, was still, with variegated inventiveness, blood-sucking fresh suckers.
Goals
Start Date—August 27th, 2012
Completion Date—August 31st, 2013
Word Count Goal-120,000
Words per day Goal—470
Progress (Aiming to write 6 days a week, excluding Sundays)
  
Day 24—10652 words written (388 behind)


More from my site

  • Rosaries at the Grotto: The One Holy Catholic Church in Jamshedpur, India, where I grew up (From my memoir “Mind Has Mountains”)Rosaries at the Grotto: The One Holy Catholic Church in Jamshedpur, India, where I grew up (From my memoir “Mind Has Mountains”)
  • Goodbye to EverestGoodbye to Everest
  • The Leap Years of My LifeThe Leap Years of My Life
  • Poems on Marriage from Wendell Berry and R. S. ThomasPoems on Marriage from Wendell Berry and R. S. Thomas
  • Wait for the Holy SpiritWait for the Holy Spirit
Share this...
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter

Filed Under: random

« Previous Post
Next Post »

Sign Up and Get a Free eBook!

Sign up to be emailed my blog posts (one a week) and get the ebook of "Holy Ground," my account of working with Mother Teresa.

Join 634 Other Readers

Follow me on Twitter

Follow @anitamathias1

Anita Mathias: About Me

Anita Mathias

Read my blog on Facebook

My Books

Wandering Between Two Worlds: Essays on Faith and Art

Wandering Between Two Worlds - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Francesco, Artist of Florence: The Man Who Gave Too Much

Francesco, Artist of Florence - Amazom.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

The Story of Dirk Willems

The Story of Dirk Willems - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk
Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
Runner Up Christian Media Awards 2014 - Tweeter of the year

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
  • Trust: A Message of Christmas
  • 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
  • “An Autobiography in Five Chapters” and Avoiding Habitual Holes  
  • Shining Faith in Action: Dirk Willems on the Ice
  • The Story of Dirk Willems: The Man who Died to Save His Enemy

Categories

What I’m Reading

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Barak Obama

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance- Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

H Is for Hawk
Helen MacDonald

H Is for Hawk - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Tiny Habits
B. J. Fogg

  Tiny Habits  - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

The Regeneration Trilogy
Pat Barker

  The Regeneration Trilogy  - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Archive by month

INSTAGRAM

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!
Load More… Follow on Instagram

© 2020 Dreaming Beneath the Spires · All Rights Reserved. · Cookie Policy · Privacy Policy

»
«