Archives for 2012

Ten Spiritual Lessons I Learned while Running a Small Business

1) Everything starts with a good idea. And good ideas can be birthed in periods of intensive prayer.

2) There is no area of our lives which God cannot invade.

Interestingly, it was a cognitive shift for me to realize that God cares about the business I run and about how I run it—-about money–because he cares about me.

3) A good business idea will meet people’s needs. Look out for what needs exist in the areas in which you might like to work. Doing well by doing good, serving while making money, is a brilliant business strategy. I learnt this lesson, memorably, while visiting Wall Drug in the Dakotas.

4 Good ideas are not born in a vacuum. They rise out of the ashes of other things you have tried, and at which you might have failed.

People rarely stumble upon perfection immediately–the right genre to write in, the right business, even the perfect arrangement of plants in a garden. (Most good gardeners will move a plant three or four times until they find the right place for it, and most beautiful gardens are the third or fourth ones the owners have planted.)

If you need to start a business, and have no better idea, start small in an area in which you are passionately interested to develop skills, experience and ideas. Sell books on Amazon. Your favourite things on Ebay. Write and sell ebooks. Grow and sell plants. Start small and work in the field you are interested in—you will soon understand the market, see gaps in the market, areas in which you can serve, and do good while doing well.

5 Beware of Greed

If a business is more or less successful, then, you will make money–more or less.

And you must ensure that you are emotionally detached from the money—that you do not obsess over the trajectory of sales, spreadsheet graphs, and bank balances.

Because money is an excellent servant– Somerset Maugham likens it to a sixth sense without which one cannot properly appreciate the other five!!– but an insatiable master. “He who loves money will never have money enough,” (Ecc 5:10)

6 The Pricking of Griefs

A business will not be devoid of hassle, no more than any other vocation on earth. In the world you will have trouble, as Jesus forewarned his disciples in his last conversation with them.

However, with a certain detachment, one can conduct it in peace, because one lives in Christ–at a very good address indeed. Definitely on the right side of the tracks!

One can train oneself to work at a steady, measured pace, without overworking at the expense of rest, relationships, and physical health

Proverbs again has something to say about this, “Do not wear yourself out to become rich. Have the wisdom to show restraint.” (Proverbs 23:4)

So while hassles are an inevitable part of work and life, overworking leads to an accumulation of hassles, to a piercing with many griefs.

It is important to set limits on how many hours you will work.

7 It’s just money.

That’s a really useful mantra.

You, being human, will make errors, which will lead to financial loss, sometimes trivial, sometimes more serious.

You will sometimes lose money because of other people’s errors.

You will sometimes lose money because of other people’s dishonesty.

And then, there is no point stewing about it. No point fretting. It’s just money.

Do not fret; it only leads to evil. Psalm 37:8

If however, a work relationship causes consistent stewing, stress, and aggro, and cannot be resolved, it’s perhaps time to sever the work relationship and move on.

As far as possible, do not worry, or lose your peace about money. It’s just money, an inert substance, which is given to you by your heavenly Father, and can be given again.

One’s peace; mental, emotional and physical health; relationships and happiness–these on the other hand are precious–priceless!!-– and cannot be easily recaptured if frivolously squandered by stewing about money.

Think rationally, not emotionally when it comes to conflicts or decisions to do with money. What is the outcome you want to achieve? Work towards that, realizing that it may well not be achieved. Either way, be at peace.

I think the non-violence Jesus recommended in the Sermon on the Mount is a sensible business practice. It is better to lose small amounts of money than waste time and peace contending with an aggressive person.

9 Optimism is a lucrative mental and business habit.

While there is some truth to that old statement in the Desiderata, “Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery”–and one learns the truth of this the hard way–optimism is a great business habit.

Through trial and error, I’ve realized that most people are honest. There are some dishonest people, but it’s cheaper and a better business practice to believe that people are basically good, as the founder of Ebay, Pierre Omidyaar did, (though Calvin would disagree) than muck around with registering and insuring everything.

Optimism and trust are good business strategies. Fear and suspicion on the other hand, are costly emotions–costly in terms of time, peace, mental and physical health–AND financially costly.

10 Enough

New technologies, the internet, social media are turning the traditional ways of doing business upside down.

There is a lot of money to be made.

But I don’t need to make all of it. Certainly not now.

“To the one who pleases him, God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner, He gives the task of gathering and heaping, only to give to the one to pleases the Lord.” Ecclesiastes 2:26

God save us from the task of gathering and heaping, and teach us the meaning of enough.

The Lord is my Pacesetter; I shall not rush.

When to Keep a Secret and When to Refuse To

By Anita Mathias

Image Credit

I once attended a rather toxic Charismatic church in England. There was a sentence you heard rather often there, and it was, “Don’t tell anyone.”

The leader’s wife (untrained, and not particularly intelligent, who proudly and accurately publicly described herself as a “rhino,”) was then the paid women’s “Pastor.” She was always meddling in church affairs and politics, causing messes and dramas , and then acting abusively and sadistically.

And then, after something cruel or stupid she said or did, came her trademark sentence, “Don’t tell anyone.”

* * *

I was chatting to a friend who had been emotionally abused and isolated by this woman, which seriously affected her health. Sure enough, she was asked “not to tell anyone” while the woman “sorted things out.” Which, of course, she had no intention of doing. My friend obeyed. So did I for a while when told the same thing, but then, I finally told my blog!! Obliquely, but not too obliquely!!

So there’s an example of a secret you should never keep: If you’ve suffered spiritual, emotional, verbal or physical abuse, or know someone who has, never agree to keep it secret. If you’ve been bullied to promise to keep the bad behaviour, abusiveness and wrong-doing of those in power secret, sin boldly, and let it be known. Appropriately and effectively though—and these aren’t always the same thing in a circle-the-wagons culture.

Keeping the secret of other people’s abusive behaviour will only enable them to continue and accelerate their spiritual or emotional abuse of other people. Never do so.

* * *

And when should you be silent? And secret?

Perhaps about sharing things which put you in a very good light. Which might make people envious of you.

And this does not come easily to me. Chronologically, I am middle-aged. Inwardly, I am a happy child. If I make unexpected money, or have unexpected success, or something wonderful and exciting happens, it comes naturally to me to bound up to all my friends and tell them. To tell my blog. And my facebook.

And expect everyone to rejoice with me at this magical event. Even if, well, windfalls are not falling around them too.

* * *

This excited expecting-the-whole-world-to-rejoice-with-you got Joseph into trouble.

He was the favourite son, who alone had a richly ornamented robe. His brothers hated him. And in this atmosphere, he excitedly shares his dream with them—his brother’s sheaves bow to his; the sun and moon and eleven stars bow to him.

Exciting dreams. Dreams which shouted out to be shared. But dreams which should not be shared. There was nothing to be achieved in sharing them; all that would happen is that the owners of the eleven sheaves would be put out and cross and feel insecure.

Which is what happened.

* * *

Joseph’s dreams were given to him for his own future preparation. And to strengthen him in the decades during which the destiny tarried. They were not to be shared, because there was nothing in them to build and strengthen anyone else. They were meant to be a private heads up and encouragement to Joseph.

* * *

And the reason that God sometimes reveals the dreams and destiny he has for us in advance is that dreams can be deferred—can take decades to be fulfilled.

Heidi Baker shares how God gave her a powerful vision of her destiny when she was 16, and some of those things took decades to be fulfilled—and some things have still not been fulfilled. But they are the North Star of her life.

For myself, I felt God tell me what he wanted me to do when I was 21—and it has still not been fulfilled, though I have proceeded more or less steadily in that direction.

Last summer, I spent a day lying on the rocks on the beach in Sweden where we were on holiday, and the sense of the presence of God was very strong. I could almost sense Jesus lying next to me, smiling, telling me his plans for the rest of my life, and smiling, almost laughing at my surprise.

I shared it with Roy, who told me not to share it, as some of my friends might not necessarily be pleased. And so I didn’t. That prophetic vision was given to me, and for me, and it’s changed the way I work and organize my life. It was not given for anyone else.

* * *

I have been reading R. T. Kendall’s brilliant book, The Anointing, which he defines as the presence of the Holy Spirit which makes difficult things easy when you are operating in it. And so I have been praying for an anointing, a filling of a Holy Spirit, on my life and work.

And I felt God give it to me, though not in the area in which I was praying for it–but in an area in which I am a whole lot less confident and more diffident (though in which I have worked successfully in the past). Again, I feel I received this to help me with bold, confident and decisive action—but that the specifics of this “anointing” are for me alone, and not to be shared.

I wonder if this is almost a rule of thumb in the spiritual life. The wonderful Norwegian writer, O. Hallesby, said that one’s secret life with Christ in the secret places of prayer is like a cosy, warm Norwegian cottage in a blustery winter. If you talk about your prayer life, you open the door, and cold wintry blasts enter.

Things which build other people up: share them. But things which make you look good—“Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips.” Proverbs 27:2.

Children, of course, are unabashed about sharing their excellencies. Your own children will always happily tell you how great and marvellous are. And the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

So I guess, we need to strike a balance between a childlike, happy spirit, and sharing too many things about which we are glad—but which might, by the very contrast, make other people feel sad. And so we might escape the traumas that Joseph’s jealous brothers put him through!!

Thomas More, “A Man for All Seasons” and the Price of Integrity

By Anita Mathias

A Man for All Seasons

I love A Man for all Seasons, Robert Bolt’s portrayal of the tragic, infuriating Thomas More. We recently saw it acted in The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, in which many of the characters, More, Wolsey and Cranmer had worshipped, and in which Cranmer was sentenced to death.

Thomas More was, by all accounts, a remarkable man. Erasmus saluted him as one “whose soul was more pure than any snow.” Jonathan Swift said he was “the person of the greatest virtue this kingdom ever produced”. Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper said More was “the first great Englishman whom we feel that we know, the most saintly of humanists, the most human of saints, the universal man of our cool northern renaissance.”

Robert Whittington in 1520 wrote of More: “More is a man of an angel’s wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons.”

He was imprisoned, and ultimately lost his life for what appeared to his wife and more friends with a better grasp of political expediency as minor matters—refusing to sign the Act of Successionor approve of the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon.

But he was right. Henry was a classic, insecure bully, demanding ever greater total allegiance and proof of it. If More had given in, ever more would have been demanded, until there was a price he could not have paid, and then he would, very likely, have died anyway, but as a bitter, compromised man. That’s what happened to Cromwell, and Wolsey, and then to Cranmer under Mary.

Every man has his price, goes the cynical saying. Well, not everyone, fortunately. There are men of integrity, or stubbornness, who will not compromise their integrity for the whole world. (My own father was often like this, often annoyingly so!) Thomas More, proud of, and defined by, his integrity, was rather lose his wealth, and life than substantially compromise his integrity.

The story of Thomas More who refused to sign and loses his life, is in ironic juxtaposition to Richard Rich, who betrays, and toadies up to the right people and gains great wealth—Leez Priory, and a hundred manors in Essex during the Dissolution, spoils which remained in the family until the nineteenth century. During the final years of the reigns of Henry, Edward, and Mary, he was in favour of whatever religion was in power.

The play is a brilliant illustration of Jesus’s maxim which the playwright, Robert Bolt has More ask Rich, “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?”

Even on a purely temporal basis, it seems to ask if it is worth gaining power and success at the cost of one’s integrity? As we see Thomas More in prison for years, and then beheaded, while Cromwell and Richard Rich flourish, the question is not merely academic.

As for me, I want to choose peace and integrity. To say what I believe, and not to pretend to believe what I do not believe, or be who I am not. And, I am grateful I do not live in the reign of Henry VIII, where it often came to choosing between your integrity and your life.

What my garden teaches– Part I (with latest images of my garden)!)

By Anita Mathias

Chives in full bloom in our herb garden

The kiss of the sun for pardon,

The song of the birds for mirth,–
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.

I feel the deepest peace, the deepest joy when I am alone in my garden, and the birds sing. What ecstasy!! A garden of one’s own is indeed a deep joy at the centre of so many lives!

This is our seventh year in our home, but only the second year we’ve gardened seriously.

For the first five years, each summer, I tried to take on the garden with secateurs and weeding, but as I didn’t immediately cover the soil with mulch and fresh plants, put something in as I took something out, weeds took over.

This year as we remove weeds from a bed, we are putting in hellebores, which are my favourite flower, dignified, low-key, restrained, and bloom between December and April, the months when I most need an incentive to get out into the garden.

We will fill the gaps between hellebores with other shade plants–arum, bleeding hearts, heuchera, cyclamen.

* * *

I think I was stymied before because I just tried to remove weeds and overgrowth, but put nothing in its place.

It’s the same with breaking bad habits and addictions. You cannot get rid of a bad temper, or a reliance on chocolate, say, without putting something in its place–a deepened relationship with God, for example, or a taste for Scripture, or a healthier addiction to exercise!

Jesus has a parable of an evil spirit cast out of a man. When he sees his former habitation all swept and empty, he returns with seven others, more evil than himself, and so the latter condition of the man was worst than the first.

This perhaps explains why at the start of every diet, I weigh more than at the start of the previous one, no matter how much I lost on it!!

The food indulgences must be replaced with things to fill the void –muscle mass, or brain-healthy nutritional supplements, or a deepened relationship with God or positive thinking or all of the above—or else one’s latter state can be worse than the first.

Hellebores and Hostas with a ground cover of ivy.

Pyracantha about to burst into flower.

An alpine

Fennel tops

Siberian Itis

What is this beetle eating our mint, and should we be worried?

Welsh Onions, and shredded paper mulch.

White clematis

What is this flower?

Pink and white columbines behind a rose.

Rose in silhouette

A friendly robin in our mulberry.

Jonah Surprises

By Anita Mathias

Image credit

We’ve just finished studying Jonah in the small group I’m co-leading. I really enjoyed its complexity. Some thoughts!

Can you run away from God?

Yes, all the time. We can do precisely the opposite of what we know he wants us to do, in small things, like diet, discipline, or in global matters.

And can we get away with it?

Ummm, yes. Yes, we can go our whole lives doing the precise opposite of what God wants us to do, and may be wealthy, healthy and successful.

There will be consequences, but these may not be apparent. We will however not have the jewels of the spiritual life—peace, joy, shalom, though we many have earthly jewels.

It was “the severe mercy” of God that provided Jonah a chance to repent!

So Jonah’s in the belly of the whale? What turns things around?

He prays to the Lord with utter faith, and astonishingly, he prays in the future tense, as if what he has prayed for has already happened.

I have been banished from your sight,

Yet I will look again,

Towards your holy temple.

I, with a song of thanksgiving,

Will sacrifice to you.”

God Offers Second Chances

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, “Go to the great city of Nineveh, and proclaim to it the message I give you.”

Jonah responds this time. He proclaims, “Forty more days, and Nineveh will be destroyed.” Surely the shortest sermon ever preached.

It elicits a disproportionate response.

Repentance Frees us from the Dreary Laws of Cause and Effect, Sowing and Reaping

God is apparently determined to destroy Nineveh because of its “wickedness.”

But the King does everything to try to avert the dark destiny which appears to hang over the city. He orders the people to fast, to pray, and to repent, “to give up their evil ways and their violence. So that God would relent, and with compassion turn from his fierce anger.”

And God does.

When we have sinned and disobeyed God, there is always this way of re-entering the force field of God’s blessing—we fast, we pray, and we repent, and stop those sinful actions.

God is concerned about both people and animals

But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” Jonah 4:10.

God gives us many chances, but perhaps not infinite chances. The story moves on.

If we reject God’s invitations too often, his loving story goes on, but with us outside it.

God again confronts Jonah, asking him the same question twice, “Have you any right to be angry.”

Jonah has had enough. His answer to the second question is, “I do. I am angry enough to die.”

God justifies his actions, but as far as we know, Jonah does not repent.

His gift was to be a prophet, one who heard God’s voice. His former prophecies, about the restoration of Israel’s former borders, 2 Kings 14:25, had been fulfilled. But we never hear about Jonah again. He is furious with God, with God’s ways, with God’s mercy, and if the word of the Lord ever comes to him again, we never hear of it.

It reminds me of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, who has finally had enough, as he tells us. God asks him the same question twice, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” and when he receives the same answer—after the display of God’s power: the wind, the earthquake, the fire, the whisper, which suggests that Elijah was not really listening or receptive to God’s voice, or “getting it” as prophets must—God moves on, he commissions Elisha. God’s story continues, but Elijah’s role in it is over.

God is incorrigibly merciful and often shows mercy to the undeserving. Sulking leaves us out of his continuing story of mercy and love.

Jonah amusingly tells God off for his mercy. “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

Sulking that God is slow to anger, not executing judgement on those we think he should, cuts us off from the flow of God’s love, mercy and compassion, and we are the losers.

The elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son refuses to enter the house of dancing, music and the fatted calf. Similarly, Jonah cannot accept God’s goodness, and reproaches God. While the younger son and the people of Nineveh rejoice, the good son, and the prophet of God are outside in the fields, outside the happy city, sulking at God’s mercy to the undeserving.

We need to continue forgiving to be in God’s story of goodness and answered prayer (Mk 11:25) and to accept that is a God of mercy and compassion to us, just as much as to those we think are less deserving.

My Sunday walk around my garden and the Oxford countryside

By Anita Mathias

The field next to our garden has two new foals. Though still suckling, they have halters.

Clematis on our garden wall. The flowers change from fuschia to bluish-purple to light mauve as they mature.

A birch in Marston, Oxford, where I was at a tea party today at Paul’s house.

Wisteria covering a house in Northmoor Road, Oxford, reminds us of the wonderful wisteria under which we had tea yesterday at the Watts house.

A view in Marston, showing blue, two shades of green, pink, yellow, and white.

This field adjoins our orchard

When He Breathes the Spirit on me

By Anita Mathias

And he breathed on them, and said, Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22)

I’ve said too much.

I spoke too freely.

And I fear

I have betrayed a confidence

And, oh, of people I care about!

And I feel

Small.

The weight of failure

Shame

Regret

Presses on me.

* * *

And then I feel you

Breathe.

Breathe on me.

Receive the Holy Spirit, you say.

And I too breathe it in,

I let it fill me.

Pulsing waves of mercy,

Waves of love,

Waves of the mystery

That you love me.

You know, I’ve realised this so recently,

And it overwhelms me.

Where should I stray from that love?

Never let me dream of it.

Let me live in it

Right in its waterfall.

* * *

You breathe on me

Until I am full of your love,

And I smile.

Why God is Profoundly Egalitarian and Why we Need More Female Clergy

By Anita Mathias

Image, Dave Walker, and yes, I have met him, and he does exist.

Why God is Profoundly Egalitarian and Why we Need More Female Clergy.

My Eureka moment: Some time ago, in a church I once attended, I listened to a gorgeous friend tell her heart-breaking story of adultery and abandonment. My friend was, understandably, distraught.

What she needs, I thought, as I moved closer, was someone to sit next to her, hold her hand, put their other arm around her, and just listen. For starters.

And then, she mentioned, in passing, that not a single member of the clergy had visited her. My friend had spent hours and years of her life in devoted, humble service and giving to that church.

Ouch. Why was this? Well, my friend was an attractive woman, and the clergy were all attractive young or middle-aged men. The love she needed, the listening, the sympathy, the hug, the hand held, the tissues offered, the components of the full-bodied ministry we need when we are crumbling—well, male clergy could not have offered this to a female parishioner without awkwardness, certainly not in England, or perhaps anywhere…

And our church had NO female clergy. It had “a masculine feel.”

* * *

The very words, “masculine feel,” make me angry. “God has given Christianity a masculine feel. He has done that for our maximum flourishing both male and female,” John Piper says.

Nonsense. If a woman goes to church, and the pastor is male, and the preacher, and the presider, and the readers and worship leaders and elders and deacons, how seriously is she going to be taken? This, unfortunately, is a rhetorical question. I have been to such churches, and I know the answer. A woman will not flourish in such a culture. She might, at most, survive.

And if she has been given gifts in preaching, teaching, counselling, understanding Scripture, or a prophetic insight, how seriously will she be taken in such a masculine-feeling church? Well, to be honest, less seriously that the indispensable women who run the coffee rota, the pot-lucks, and the crèche.

And then, how seriously will she take herself?

And what is this going to do to her self-esteem, her sense of herself as a beloved child of God, on whom has sovereignly been bestowed gifts some male leaders consider their preserve—leading, teaching, and preaching?

If she continues in such a church, it will be dangerous for her. It could very likely lead to depression, frustration, a silencing, the wellspring of gifts given to her for the common good going underground, becoming fetid in silence and sadness.

And this, sadly, has been the fate of too many women I know.

* * *

God did not design Christianity to have a masculine feel. What an outrageous idea! He would never make it so boring. Would men feel comfortable in a church with an exclusively feminine feel—candlelight, flowers, chick flicks, and frequent, perfect mandatory presents? Then why am I supposed to flourish in a church with a masculine feel?

This is what God designed Christianity to feel like, as Peter describes in the first Christian sermon. It is profoundly egalitarian:

In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

   Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
   Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

The Spirit is poured out on all flesh—both men and women. And our church leadership must mirror this.

* * *

Church should have neither a masculine feel, nor a feminine feel, but a human feel. God envisioned it as a magical new creation, beyond male and female, black and white, native and immigrant. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

I know the same man who wrote that also wrote I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.

That’s okay, Paul. I forgive you. We all have our neuroses. But we live two thousand years after you wrote that. You did not declare it was a commandment from the Lord. Nowhere did the Lord command it. Or those who walked with him.

And should women in love with Christ, in love with Scripture, who long to minister, who feel a calling to lead churches, and preach and teach be held back because of what you did not permit 2000 years ago?

Why have we taken our eyes off Jesus? Who came to give life in its fullness to both men and women? Who entrusted the great news of his resurrection to women because they loved him enough to just be there, when the men thought he was history? Why are we focusing on what Paul did not allow?

Generations of women have been silenced, been silenced, because of what Paul did not permit in Ephesus and Corinth and Galatia. No more!

We need women priests and we need women bishops. We need equality.

We need a church which looks beyond male or female, Jew or Greek, to the great truth that we are a new creation, all one in Christ Jesus. Such a church will lead to our maximum flourishing, both male and female.

We need a church in which we women will graciously promise to mention none of the top ten reasons why men should not be ordained if they stop mentioning the one reason we should not be ordained.

We need to tactfully explain to our brothers in Christ that the marriage feast of the Lamb has come, and the bride has made herself ready. And if lace, satin and pearls do not have quite a masculine feel, well then, the masculine feel must go.

The Bride of Christ. Flourishing in a church with a feminine feel?

Archives for 2012

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