Archives for 2012

Do not Grieve for All that’s Broken

By Anita Mathias

Bread must be broken to be eaten.

The grain of wheat split to live

The chrysalis crumble for the butterfly,

The egg splinter for the chicken

The snake moult to grow.

And sheets of coloured glass

Must be shattered

To be refashioned

Into stained glass

Through which–

In shafts of radiance

Like the love of God–

Rainbowed light

Can shine,

* * *

And I consider.

Did growth spring green

From my own brokenness?

Yes, it always does.

My rejected manuscript

Got me to hone my craft,

Again, more diligently.

Praise the Lord for Fleas and Lice

By Anita Mathias

Here is Corrie Ten Boom’s famous flea story from The Hiding Place.

We lay back, struggling against the nausea that swept over us from the reeking straw.

..Suddenly I sat up, striking my head on the cross-slats above. Something had pinched my leg.

“‘Fleas!’ I cried. ‘Betsie, the place is swarming with them!’

“‘Here! And here another one!’ I wailed. ‘Betsie, how can we live in such a place!’

“‘Show us. Show us how.’ It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.

“‘Corrie!’ she said excitedly. ‘He’s given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!’

“I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. ‘It was in First Thessalonians,’ I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen.

“In the feeble light I turned the pages. ‘Here it is: “Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all…'” It seemed written expressly to Ravensbruck.

“‘Go on,’ said Betsie. ‘That wasn’t all.’

“‘Oh yes:’…”Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.'”

“‘That’s it, Corrie! That’s His answer. “Give thanks in all circumstances!” That’s what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!’ I stared at her; then around me at the dark, foul-aired room.

“‘Such as?’ I said.

“‘Such as being assigned here together.’

“I bit my lip. ‘Oh yes, Lord Jesus!’

“‘Such as what you’re holding in your hands.’ I looked down at the Bible.

“‘Yes! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all these women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages.’

“‘Yes,’ said Betsie, ‘Thank You for the very crowding here. Since we’re packed so close, that many more will hear!’

She looked at me expectantly. ‘Corrie!’ she prodded.

“‘Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed suffocating crowds.’

“‘Thank You,’ Betsie went on serenely, ‘for the fleas and for–‘

“The fleas! This was too much. ‘Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.’

“‘Give thanks in all circumstances,’ she quoted. It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.

“And so we stood between tiers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.”

“Back at the barracks we formed yet another line–would there never be an end to columns and waits?–to receive our ladle of turnip soup in the center room. Then, as quickly as we could for the press of people, Betsie and I made our way to the rear of the dormitory room where we held our worship “service.” Around our own platform area there was not enough light to read the Bible, but back here a small light bulb cast a wan yellow circle on the wall, and here an ever larger group of women gathered.
“They were services like no others, these times in Barracks 28.

“At first Betsie and I called these meetings with great timidity. But as night after night went by and no guard ever came near us, we grew bolder. So many now wanted to join us that we held a second service after evening roll call.

There on the Lagerstrasse we were under rigid surveillance, guards in their warm wool capes marching constantly up and down. It was the same in the center room of the barracks: half a dozen guards or camp police always present. Yet in the large dormitory room there was almost no supervision at all. We did not understand it.

“One evening I got back to the barracks late from a wood-gathering foray outside the walls. A light snow lay on the ground and it was hard to find the sticks and twigs with which a small stove was kept going in each room. Betsie was waiting for me, as always, so that we could wait through the food line together. Her eyes were twinkling.

“‘You’re looking extraordinarily pleased with yourself,’ I told her.

“‘You know, we’ve never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room,’ she said. ‘Well–I’ve found out.’

“That afternoon, she said, there’d been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they’d asked the supervisor to come and settle it.

“But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?”

“Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: ‘Because of the fleas! That’s what she said, “That place is crawling with fleas!'”

“My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie’s bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.”

* * *

More and more, I have been struck by how the very worst thing that happens in people’s lives sort of morphs into the very best thing. Yes, it makes sense to live in gratitude, praising the Lord anyway.

We don’t have a flea story, but we do have a lice story. When one of my daughters got into a selective private school in Oxford when she was 5. She was a chess and math prodigy, with a whole lot of chess prizes, so was selected by a very ambitious mother as a suitable friend for her hot-housed only child I’ll call Amelie.

Now Amelie had long blonde hair (and this mother would stand the two girls together, back to back, and then tell my girl, “Well, your hair’s long, but not as long as Amelie’s.”) Amelie’s hair was also crawling with lice, and in the break, she’d chase the others tossing her long hair, saying, “Lice, lice.” (A story I never shared with her mother, who’d never have believed it.)

So “lice letters” went home regularly, and every time, this other mother, an ambitious South African who came here, married her professor, breaking up his marriage, phoned or emailed me, telling me of the 45 minute trauma she went through delousing Amelie, and insisting I did the same.

The two girls were best friends, and genuinely fond of each other, but Amelie, who was a little politician was always grieving my daughter. “No, you sat with me last time, it’s X’s turn. I’ve invited X for a play date. Invited Y for a sleepover. No, you are now not my best friend.” My daughter is the faithful sort who has just a few deep friends, and this was throwing her into turmoil.

Finally, I had enough of the lice emails, since I was pretty sure that my daughter was getting them from Amelie, and told the other mother that if Amelie dealt with her lice, the problem would be solved. She was furious, told the teachers that Amelie wasn’t to sit near my daughter, and retaliated by having a party, and inviting the whole class except my daughter (Amelie’s supposed “best friend.”). Yeah, that’s what we are coming too–grownups behaving like children. I have no idea if this is a recent development or was always the case!

Well, much heartbreak. But that definitively ended the very competitive and fraught “best friendship” which had caused so much heartbreak, grief and volatility for 3 years.

My daughter formed other friends. She is a straight arrow with a warm, loving loyal heart. She’s had the same group of friends for the last 4 years, who are devoted to her and vice-versa, and is now very happy. She loves school, loves her friends, and is excelling academically and is very happy socially. She’s also very popular in her gang of seven girls, in which she a leader.

And what’s more, as I suspected, once the mother broke off her friendship with the other girl, she’s never had lice again. We had struggled with it for 3 years, and now, she’s foot-lose, lice-free and happy.

It took those pesky little creatures to break off a frenemy relationship which would have marred her school-life.

Yeah, praise the Lord even for fleas and lice!!

The Most Effective Time-Management Tool I Know

By Anita Mathias

Martin Luther

The last 7 days have been exceptionally busy.

Last Thursday, Zoe’s school had a long University open day in which we decided that Zoe should have a gap year, and apply in 2014 for admission in 2015, rather than 2013 for 2014.

On Friday, I hosted a brunch for the women’s group I am co-leading, then had a meeting with my co-leader and the leader of the cluster group in St. Andrew’s, Oxford. St. Andrew’s has a lot of support, oversight (and meetings) for the leaders of small groups. My church in America had it too, and while it takes time both for leaders and those providing oversight, it prevents the painful toxic situations that regularly occurred in small groups in my previous Charismatic church in Oxford—so that’s good!

On Saturday, I spent the day in London with my university friend, Jane and her family.

On Monday, I had tea in the Kilns, C.S. Lewis’s beautiful house with the acting warden, Malissa Kilpatrick.

On Tuesday, I had a fascinating stimulating coffee at the Ashmolean with Malcolm Guite, poet and priest, talking about G.K. Chesterton and Charles Williams—about whom Malcolm knows an enormous amount and talks captivatingly and engagingly. Well, talks like a poet!!

Wednesday we spent at Tearfund’s headquarters in Teddington, near London. I was to have coffee today with an academic who teaches English, and is interested in women writers in particular, but both of us were shattered!!

And in between, we had our bedroom recarpeted, which meant taking out and putting back everything (well, our housekeeper did it, but some of it in the wrong places) and taking out and putting everything back in the garage, which we got carpeted as part of its transformation to a games room.

Interestingly, until today, when the strain of the unaccustomed extroversion told on me (I am basically an introvert, as, or more, energized by Bible reading, prayer, writing and reflection than by a party or coffee, though those energise me too) I was quite calm. Today, I declared a Sabbath, took the day off to rest and catch up with sleep, and decided to work on Sunday instead.

I’ve managed to write through this busy week, with two full days in London, producing both daily blog posts, and working on my memoir. I think it was because I managed to pray through the week.

* * *

Praying when you are very busy is amazing. It’s like entering a tardis. You feel stressed when you enter it. The world seems too much with you. It presses in on you. There is simply too much to do, but you cannot do anything much because you are stressed.

And you enter the sacred zone of prayer, remove your shoes for you are on holy ground, and enter eternity: the presence of the Blazing Bush which burns and is never consumed. And it’s as if time pushes outwards, enlarges around you in silent, ever growing ripples, becomes unconcernedly silent and vast.

You enter deep peace. You are in some indefinable way changed and transformed, and can now face the challenges of your day steadily, methodically and with peace. When you leave your prayer room, it’s as if everything that happened before happened yesterday, and today is now a new day.

For me, praying when busy is no longer an option, but a necessity. I simply get too stressed to tidy the house for guests, to read or write or blog if I have been rushing around too much, or fretting, and need to take the time to rest, and soak in God’s presence until I am calm and clear-headed again.

* * *

Martin Luther wrote intriguingly “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.”

Ah, there speaks a man who know what it was to rely on God!! And no doubt in prayer, God told him what to focus on in his seminal books. (Jack and Rose Marie Miller have been transformed, for instance, by Luther’s Commentaries on Galatians and Romans, and have transformed many others in turn through their Sonship Course). How to get to the heart of the matter with his students. How to deal with tricky pastoral issues. How to answer letters pithily, with no extra words, and which letters need not be answered. How to focus on his resident students intensely, but briefly.

And no doubt, prayer gave him peace and energy. Renewed him. He could work peacefully, efficiently and in a directed way for the rest of the day.

It’s one of those counter-intuitive things that show us that ultimately we don’t control our lives. That if the Lord does not build the house, in vain do the builders labour. I’ve been discovering recently that if I take the time to exercise vigorously for an hour the rest of my day is far more productive. Or if I have a 30 minute afternoon nap. Or a good night’s sleep. Or pray!!

* * *

I am just learning to pray. I published an article in The Christian Century in 2000 called Learning to Pray, and now, 12 years later, I am still learning. I guess I will always be.

But it really is the most important time-management, productivity and efficiency tool. God through his goodness, in a session of desperate prayer five years ago, gave me a business idea which I could implement and enjoy implementing, and which now wholly supports my family. If I had not prayed, earning the same money would have taken thousands more hours!! He told me to blog during a prayer walk, and I have never enjoyed any sustainable work more than I enjoy blogging. (Well, I love writing poetry, but I know, from experience, I could not write poetry every day. Inspiration would run dry. I’d get bored!!)

I pray too about how to entertain, and frequently am given simple, doable menus, and tips on getting the house ready which are far, far simpler than what I would have done without prayer. God often tells me how to deal with my teenagers or husband or tricky people if I ask (though, sadly, I ask less often than I should!)

* * *

I wonder if we only really, really learn to pray when we reach the point of desperation, when we cannot do life on our own. Sadly, it was the case with me.

To be honest, the things I pray over are just the tip of the iceberg of the things I need to pray over—and that’s just in my own life!!

Balancing blogging and writing; how to do social media efficiently but not time-consumingly; mothering; being a friend to Roy; losing weight; waking early; financial decisions; garden decisions; house decisions; purchases…oh there is so much wisdom I need just for my own life, for starters, and yet, how slowly I learn the habit of praying over everything.

Oh what grace we often forfeit,

Oh what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry,

Everything to God in prayer…

A Day at Tearfund’s Headquarters, learning about the Real Hunger Games

By Anita Mathias

Matthew Frost, CEO of Tearfund

Simon Jenkins, Dave Walker, Pete Phillips, Anita

Richard Littledale

I spent the day in the Tearfund offices in Teddington, near London (invited as part of their first Bloggers Day) and met several other bloggers and digital media people whose work I knew—Richard Littledale, the blogger; Simon Jenkins, the editor of the wonderfully irreverent Ship of Fools(check out what they say about your church; or, on second thoughts, perhaps you better not); Dave Walker, artist of the hilarious churchy cartoons for The Church Times; Pete Phillips who teaches theology at Durham, Liz Clutterbuck, etc.

I knew very little about Tearfund’s work, and am always eager to understand more about the causes and solutions of poverty—and I am glad I went.

Matthew Frost, the CEO of Tearfund spoke grippingly for a couple of hours on Tearfund’s work. (Read Matthew’s take on the Real Hunger Games.)

He used a story of “Tom and Margaret” from Uganda who were converted, and thereby gained hope. They were particularly struck by the feeding of the 5000. They worked in a quarry for six months, and saved money. They bought chickens, sold the meat and eggs, bred them; and then bought goats with the proceeds. Sold milk and meat, bred them, and bought citrus trees with the proceeds.

All this with the help of the local church supported by Tearfund.

Matthew felt that the key to their transformation was that the gospel offered them hope.

* * *

This is a familiar rags to riches romance. Why doesn’t it happen elsewhere in Africa, and the fourth world? I remember asking my friends who worked with desperately poor people in Mozambique and Sierra Leone about whether the poor could grow tomatoes in pots; keep laying hens. No, she said, deferring gratification would be too hard. It would be too tempting to have chicken for dinner.

So interestingly, the way Tom and Margaret broke out of the cycle of poverty was the way Dickens recommends as the surest means to happiness, and the idea at the heart of Rob Parson’s simple but practical book, “The Debt Trap.” “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”Somehow or the other, consume just a little bit less than you earn. Somehow or the other, save just a little bit every month. Eventually invest it in capital goods (which help you earn more) or in income-producing investments.

* * *

I sat next to the dynamic young Jay Butcher at lunch. Jay was converted in his final undergraduate year. He was to be an aeronautical engineer. Well, Jesus wrecked that!

He interned for a church after graduating, read the Old Testament, and heard the scalding, uncomfortable call in Amos and Micah for compassion on the poor. He worked with a Human Rights organisation for a couple of years, and then joined Tearfund.

He’s a passionate and charming Campaigns Officer—and learnt all his skills on the job!! He’s working on the Unearth the Truth campaign now, which is lobbying the EU for full transparent disclosure of transactions of multinationals in Africa. £3000 is lost every second due to corruption. It simply vanishes. Africa is very rich in natural resources, and the sales of its natural resources—gold, oil, diamonds, mining rights, land—brings it 9 times the aid it receives. However this money largely vanishes into the pockets of the corrupt, or into private Swiss bank accounts. Corruption is possibly Africa’s largest problem. (And so you can see how non-taxable enterprise—the hens, goats, garden model might well offer hope to her people.)

The Tearfund staff seemed happy and charming. I would have imagined that people who see poverty, corruption and injustice on a daily basis would become bitter and angry. (Well, I fear I would!) But perhaps, like “Tom and Margaret,” they have hope. Campaigns do work eventually, Jay said, perhaps not as thoroughly as campaigners wish, but they do work, incrementally.

Matthew Frost said, “Prayer is the most significant development intervention there is.” And that brings hope to Uganda, and hope to London!

The Uses of Failure

By Anita Mathias

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
-Thomas Edison
Image Credit

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

Lauren Winner kindly sent me her book, Still about her divorce and mid-faith crisis.

I was struck by these sentences: I simply could not stay married. I came to believe that I could not do this thing I had said I would do; I could not do it. I was unable to do it. It is a mark of my charmed life that is was the first time I had ever tried to do something, and simply failed. And it was a failure: a spectacular, grave, costly failure.

I wondered: Is that indeed a charmed life? Not knowing failure? Can you imagine the stress levels if you’ve never failed, cannot fail? If failing is not an option?

· * *

The first failures of a normally high-achieving person are dreadful and humiliating.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real, Sylvia Plath writes.
Yeah, failing feels like hell; well, your first big failure, and your second… After your third, you shrug. Failure is now an option. Not so bad, not so unthinkable. You are released into creativity.

* * *

Here are my three biggest failures to date: I went off to be a nun with Mother Teresa, when I was 17, left for the rest of my life I thought. I went up to boarding school to say goodbye to the nuns, went and said goodbye to my grandmothers and aunts.

And then, 14 months later, it was all unendurable. Oh, but the praise I had received. I had a stash of letters praising me. I belonged to a prominent Catholic family, and everyone had heard of it; everyone was predicting I would be the next Mother Teresa. And I was just 18 now. And leaving. Oh dear!!

At night, I stood before a statue of Mary (haven’t prayed to Mary since then…) and touched her feet in a sentimental gesture the other nuns did as they passed, and said, “Well, if I have to leave, give me TB, so I will have an excuse.”

No, no TB. I had to face failure and leave. And then, after a month at home, I coughed blood, I had a shadow on the lungs. The TB I had foolishly prayed for appeared, but too late to be a convenient excuse… Lesson: do not pray foolish prayers!!

Other failures: I had an undergraduate degree from Oxford, and was accepted to a Ph.D on the mythopoeic imagination of Milton. (I don’t have the faintest idea now about what I might have written, but apparently I then had some ideas on the subject. Well, John Carey interviewed me, and I convinced him.)

All I had to do was get a First. I thought I might; my tutor thought I might when she wrote my Ph.D reference. But I did not. Oh the shame! I was shattered! So no Oxford Ph.D for me. In fact, I moved left, from English to Creative Writing. Too crushed to apply to competitive US universities, I applied to schools with lots of funding, and went to the University which offered me the most money, the Ohio State University. Probably the right choice: I learned a lot about the craft and techniques of writing which I might not have in a snobbier school.

The third failure, the one which broke my pride was when my first book manuscript, which I was so sure would be published, which I struggled to write when Zoe was a baby, which I had told everyone about, was turned down by the publisher and agent. I was crushed!

* * *

But I learned my lesson. I no longer defined myself by what I did. When people asked, I used to say I was a writer, I’d done xyz, I’d won xyz. Once I moved back to England from America, I waffle, “a bit of blogging, a bit of writing, a bit of business” and turn the subject to the other person. It’s setting up high expectations for yourself, or allowing others to hold them for you that makes failure so crushing. Being someone who does “a bit of this, and a bit of that,” well, that gives you the freedom to experiment and fail!
* * *

Both Roy and I were high-achievers, and, by temperament, very hard on ourselves and other people. Both of us found it very hard to accept failure, stupidity or mistakes, our own, or each other’s.

When I started a publishing business–in which I didn’t quite know what I was doing, was partly learning from books, kind friends, and the internet, and partly inventing it as I went along–I made lots of mistakes. Some of them, of course, expensive ones!!

Roy would get cross. “Price to sell,” he’d say. “Oh, you under-priced!” he’d say. Oh the second-guessing.

In the summer of 2007, just when our publishing business was getting off the ground, I read Carol Wimber’s book “The Way it Was” about John Wimber, and how they established The Vineyard Movement at high speed. “Who were we to think that we were so smart that we should never make mistakes?” she wrote. They tried something; if it took, great. If there was a firestorm, they dropped it. And the willingness to experiment and fail meant they established the Vineyard at lightning speed.

That idea set me free. Who am I that I shouldn’t make mistakes? All human beings are limited. All human being make mistakes! Who am I that I should never get things wrong?

And that helped me enormously in business. Try something, risk it, we might get it wrong, make a mistake, lose money. Or we might not. Conversely, we might make a lucky bet, make a lot of money. “Who were we to think that we were so smart that we should never make mistakes?”

The willingness to fail releases creativity. And the failure and successes of the business helped me in blogging. I post almost every day, which means inevitably that some posts will be slight, some will bore some people, some will fail.

There is nothing like blogging daily to get you used to keeping the car moving, keeping writing, even if most posts sadly are less than your best because of the limitations of time and energy. There is nothing wrong with sometimes failing in a blog post. You still learn things you can use in a successful post. You still develop writing skills. You learn what you can do well–and what you cannot bring off!! And you conquer the fear of failing which might prevent you writing or sharing anything in the first place!!

* * *

I had lunch and went walking on Saturday with an old friend of mine from my undergraduate days in Oxford who has rarely failed. Her parents were a long serving Tory MP and a director of a famous, fabled investment bank. She went to England’s most exclusive girls’ boarding school, then on to Oxford, where she got a First, and eventually a Ph.D. Got a job in Management in a leading FTSE company, and earned more than her husband, a consultant in a top London teaching hospital. Brilliant, pretty, extremely well-dressed, nice, with integrity. A straight arrow.

So she adopts her only child 7 years ago, from a nation known for their intelligence. And recently got him into a leading private school in London. She said that nothing, no university she had applied to, no exam she had taken, no job she had applied for, had every stressed her as much as getting this boy to a leading private school.

I have observed her consumed by this all year, and wondered why. I suddenly realized. She would have felt she had failed as a mother if her adopted son did not get into this posh school near their house. And she had rarely ever failed. She had always systematically set herself to succeed. Failure was not an option.

* * *

I am at the other end of the school saga, and last week attended an applying to university evening at my daughter’s school in Oxford. Haggard strained faces! Those who had themselves been to Oxbridge, and were successful were stressed about whether their daughters would follow their route. Those who had been to a mediocre university, but had nevertheless been successful wanted their daughters to have a better chance in life. And there were the haunted faces of those who had neither been successful in higher education or in life, but so wanted more for their daughters.

It’s a highly selective, highly competitive school. Like Lake Wobegon, everyone acts as their child is brilliance itself. The school’s self-esteem policy prohibits disclosure of marks. And then suddenly, in this pack of geniuses (if you believe their parents) some go to Oxbridge, and some go to Loughborough. No wonder, there were such strained faces.

I would have got as stressed as my old college friend if I had not failed before. If I had not learned that it’s okay to fail; it’s not so bad, you shrug your shoulders and get on with life. So truthfully, I am not stressed about university admissions. If she does not get into her first choice of university, I will feel as I have failed as an involved parent—and that will be true, because we have been distracted parents. We’ve left their education to the girls and the school. But knowing I’ve failed, well, it’s happened before. It’s part of being human. It no longer has the terrible shame it used to have for me.

Okay, I am trying to talk myself into sense. To tell the truth, they had representatives from Oxford, Cambridge etc. talk about interviews and personal statements and university visits and it seemed to us, Roy, me and our daughter a bit much to handle in the pressured final year at school. So she’s decided to do a gap year, and do her university application in the autumn, and then an amazing voluntary internship somewhere—24/7 prayer perhaps, Soul Survivor, Lee Abbey, the possibilities are endless.

So will I get stressed about university admissions when it finally comes time? Well, I don’t intend to stress. And if I do, I can always read this!

How many plagues does it take?

By Anita Mathias

Image Credit

The Plagues of Egypt are darkly spectacular, aren’t they? Locusts, darkness, hail, gnats, flies, boils, darkness…. It certainly seemed that someone was trying to get the Egyptians’ attention.

But the economic benefit of the free slave labour of the Hebrews was simply too good, too advantageous to be easily given up.

And so, amid escalating warnings, and signs from God, guaranteed to get anyone’s attention, Pharaoh refuses to let the Israelites go.

* * *

Of course, when misfortunes increase and escalate, it is not necessarily a judgement on sin, or God trying to get our attention so that we more thoroughly revise your life according to his guidelines. It wasn’t in Job’s case.

But sometimes, as C.S. Lewis says, God uses pain: accumulating dire consequences, as a megaphone to get our attention.

* * *

He often has in my life. As I have shared in this blog, I had a fiery temper—which, of course, is upsetting to everyone, the angry person, the victim and the bystanders. Oh nothing is worse than losing your temper, repenting, and losing it again.

And when I mean a fiery temper, sadly, I mean just that. When we were first married, almost 23 years ago, and got furious with each other, things flew through the air—fax machines, vases, antiques, whatever was at hand. (Fortunately, neither of us had a particularly good aim, but still–a very expensive sin!!)

About 11 years ago, I talked and prayed it through with two friends, one a saintly older mentor, one a trained counsellor who worked with me as a friend, and I did learn how to get my anger under control. Learned to tell my grievances to God, rather than the person. Learn to work out my anger in housework or exercise or gardening rather than in angry speech, which weakens my mind, spirit and character, and weakens the listener.

Every time I declare I have won a victory over my temper, I find myself losing it!! so let me just say this; I am better at saying nothing, and thinking things over. Not getting started with the angry, futile words which raise adrenalin. Working out my bad temper in exercise. Praying over it when calmer. Thinking about the outcome I want to see, and purposefully working towards it. Oh I can’t tell you what a victory just shutting up and saying nothing feels like to someone who always had a bad temper.

The plagues–the destructive consequences of anger on health, mental health, sleep, creativity, weight, and happiness got me to this point.

* * *

Roy and I were both very messy which set up vicious spirals in our lives. Mess and clutter: it gets you late; causes frustration with lost things; compromises your productivity, mental health, happiness, your family’s serenity. It’s very expensive: things get broken, misplaced, unnecessarily replaced. It’s not good academically for your kids. Or for your own creativity.

When we moved from a large house in America to a smaller house in Oxford, the clutter and mess seriously affected my happiness, well-being and shalom. About 4 years ago, we started the process of becoming tidy and orderly, with the help of bi-weekly housekeeping help. Haven’t got rid of everything, but do declutter almost weekly, and every month get rid of several boxes of things “neither beautiful not useful” in William Morris’s words.

* * *

Is it too fanciful, too superstitious, too medieval, to imagine plagues might accumulate if you are headed in the wrong direction, so that God can get your attention?

So in which areas do I see warning signs? One is being overweight! Being overweight has all sorts of consequences, in energy, in self-image, in self-confidence, productivity etc. It also has physical consequences, which are now manifesting themselves.

If you have been overweight for much of your adult life, losing weight is like a radical conversion experience—a radical change of life. Building in exercise daily, especially with weights perhaps to change one’s metabolism. A radical change in what you eat, and when and why. Finding other strategies to replace comfort eating—such as prayer. It has to become a priority, which is hard. I have lost 6.5 pounds over the last 2 months—and oh my, what work it took!!

* * *

Whereas “sin” or noxious habits brings “plagues” or, in modern terms, a vicious spiral of negative consequences, there are converse habits, which bring a virtuous circle of good and blessed consequences. One is exercise, which returns the time expended in it through increased productivity and deeper sleep.

Another habit which sets up virtuous circles is waking early. I’d so love to wake “very early in the morning, while it was still dark,” like Jesus, but because I am a night owl, and can think and write creatively until quite late in the night, this has always evaded me.

However, there are so many benefits to waking early—an increased opportunity to get things done; and a better prayer life (one can certainly pray better earlyish in the morning, than the last thing at night). Then, one is certainly less likely to bicker, row and get grumpy first thing in the morning. And far less likely to waste time idly surfing the internet first thing in the morning.

I remember a talk by Jack Miller of World Harvest Mission which made fun of Samuel Johnson (Dr. Johnson’s) resolutions to wake earlier. “I am resolved to wake at noon tomorrow. Though it be late, it is still earlier than the time I woke today–which was two o’clock,” he read from Johnson’s journals.

And so it goes, through the decades, as recorded in Johnson’s journals: going to bed at 2, or 3 or 4 a.m. after nights at clubs, smoking and drinking, waking up in the afternoon, excoriating himself, resolutions, failure.

The audience roared with laughter. I found it tragic. Miller concluded that that this cycle of resolution and failure was because Johnson, a Christian, did not know how to rely on the power of God.

How do we learn to rely on the power of God? Only through failure, which teaches us that we cannot do it by ourselves? So I guess I am turning over these two areas of long failure—weight and waking early to God, asking for his guidance in them, and begging him to show me his power and grace in these areas.

I’ve read that one is never too old to build more muscle mass through weight lifting. One can do this in one’s nineties. Similarly, one can increase one’s metabolism at any stage of life.

And it is never too late to revise one’s life. Our conversion is a once and for seismic event, the acceptance of Jesus as our Lord, but conversion is also a daily, life-long event, turning to him again, and again, relying on his grace and strength to be disciplined in our eating, in our relationships, in our sleeping, in our waking, in our areas of strength and weakness.

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ within me,
Christ below me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right hand,
Christ on my left hand,
Christ in my sleeping,
Christ in my waking….
Amen.

Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ by Dallas Willard. (A Guest Post by Paul Hughes)

By Anita Mathias

Please click here to see this post on my new blog, with up to date comments.

Can We Love Chocolate Cake?

Dallas Willard and a Disciplined Life

By Paul Hughes

Renovation of the Heart:

Putting on the Character of Christ

Renovation of the Heart has influenced me more than any other non-fiction book. And it did so when I understood it and when I didn’t. This remains odd to me how a book can serve and work, whether I notice it at the time or not.

I know it is central to book magic, of course. But as Dr. Willard himself would say, there is “knowing” and there is knowing.

There is “intellectual apprehension” and there is interactive relationship.

It’s not the only lesson he’s taught me.

Going My Way

I first heard Dallas Willard’s name more than 20 years ago, and I think I finally made it through his first major book, Spirit of the Disciplines, 10 years after. Ten years more and I began to understand it.

Which means it’s time to start all over again.

I mean none of this to scare you away from the author, a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, or his books, including the Disciplines, Hearing God, The Divine Conspiracy, and, Renovation of the Heart — the book that, in one sense, completes my travels, and in much another, well … starts them all over again.

In fact, I hope you’re excited.

Because to be honest …

It’s incredible.

Personal Training

It’s also difficult.

The two are related.

It has been this way for me, coming as a woeful pilgrim daily — or at least on those days when not fleeing fearfully — to these ideas and actions … and the often repeated reminders that neither my ideas nor my actions are what’s doing the work.

Or as Anne Lamott says elsewhere,

the things you do that you think keeps the world
spinning, are not what keep the world spinning.

This has been a difficult lesson. Though becoming like Christ is, as Willard says, far easier than the alternative.Not becoming like Christ.

One of Willard’s refrains throughout is Christ’s own comment on walking with Him–My yoke is easy and my burden is light–but if we’re being honest, at first it does feel like what it is: a yoke and a burden.

Conspiracy Theory

His four books fit together, and Renovation is the lead singer in this merry band.

Its subtitle is Putting on the Character of Christ, and Chesterton’s counsel to pay attention to subtitles is vital here. Willard means what he says: his goal is that we put on — as garment or cloak or even, depending on how far gone we are, a mask as in Beerbohm’s The Happy Hypocrite — the very life of our Lord.

That is Dallas Willard’s ultimate aim in this ultimate book, and it has been his life’s work:

That we actually become like Christ, in all we think, feel, say, do, and live.

This is not metaphor or hyperbole. He means it, and the four books build to that end, connecting in the order they were published: Hearing God (originally, In Search of Guidance), The Spirit of the Disciplines, The Divine Conspiracy, The Renovation of the Heart

The first is about talking and listening to God, friend-to-friend.

The second lays the foundation for spiritual disciplines, describing many.

The third moves through the Sermon on the Mount, a sketching of the Kingdom of God.

The fourth unpacks human personality, buffing each part to glossy shine for life in that Kingdom.

Together the four — relationship, disciplines, life in the Kingdom, and total reformation of every dimension of our being — form the basis for Christ’s call, which Willard describes as : A divine conspiracy for worldwide, perpetual revolution.

No problem.

Exodus to En Gedi

Willard’s background is American Protestant. He was born in Missouri, grew up in the heartland, and was an ordained minister before turning to university teaching. He believed he would have greater access to more venues as a professor rather than a pastor.

Well, American Protestants often identify Israel’s religious history with their own —national and personal. They see slavery, redemption, traveling in the wilderness, God’s leadings by cloud and fire, crossing into the promised land, and so on, as mirroring their own journeys, even presaging them.

For good and ill, the kiln of Christianity in the U.S. often forges these connections. For instance, Christians may see our sin, its solution, this life and entering heaven as matching up with Egypt, Sinai, finding giants in the land, and crossing the Jordan.

Willard takes a different route, and it makes a great difference. For him the Christian Journey — culminating in the renovation of the heart — would still set Egypt as the problem and the Exodus as the solution: we are sinners, and saved.

But the giants in the land are the hindrances to complete spiritual transformation, and our crossing the Jordan happens now, in this life,

Smooth Stones

Leonard Cohen says it this way—

It goes like this, the fourth, a fifth,

The minor fall, and the major lift

The baffled king composing

Hallelujah!

— but for Willard, we are not quite baffled kings.

Rather, spiritual formation in Christ makes sense. Renovation of the Heart says several, specific, systematic ways into spiritual formation exist— and I … you … we … can. literally. do. them.

Always.

We can live into Christlikeness. We can know not only What would Jesus Do?but What He actually did and What He is now doing in six areas of the human person, six smooth stones —Thoughts, Feelings, Body, Will, Social, Soul

— and (to mix metaphors) each of these can be seeded, cultivated, and matured into the likeness of Christ. This is, well … the Renovation of the Heart.

However we parse a person — mind/body … body/soul/spirit … physical/emotional/spiritual —it will include all of the above. He couples thoughts and feelings as “the mind” and sees the will as an action of the heart, for instance, but essentially, that’s it.

That’s us.

It’s something Jesus knew, something He did, and something He told us to go and do as well : Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

It can be done.

And More

And for years I tried and tried and tried and tried.

And for all my efforts became a rotten Pharisee.

And I can’t say all of how I changed.

And perhaps you already know.

And then it was all Him.

And the book helped.

A lot.

Chocolate Conclusions

In many of his talks, and not a few of his books, Dallas Willard speaks of love. He says it is to will the good of another, which I would amend as to will and work for the good of another.

He says because it’s about willing the good of another, we can’t — just for instance, let’s say — love chocolate cake. We can’t will its good, he says, because what we want to do is eat it.

It’s all right if we can’t love chocolate cake.

As long as we can love each other, it will be Jake.

And we can.

And this book can help.

For more information

Dallas Willard by Dieter Zander

Dallas Willard’s two most recent books are an essay collection, The Great Omission, and Knowing Christ Today, which reflects his current efforts in showing how spiritual knowledge is a realm of knowing, of legitimate enquiry, and of talking about life, the universe and everything. Willard’s website has many dozens of articles, essays, and presentations, from nearly 50 years of teaching, preaching, speaking, and listening. Some of these are beginning to show up as short Kindle and electronic efforts, such as “Getting Love Right.”

About Paul

Paul Hughes is a writer in Southern California. He is married to the beautiful Michele, and between them they have four children, ages 11 to 19. He writes on faith and culture, expressed in the people and phrasing of The Poet and The Priest — reflected on his website, his Facebook page, and Twitter. His books include Your Mom’s a Hypocrite, Tebow: Throwing Stones, and love every day.

What do I really want?

By Anita Mathias

Image credit

“Do I really want to?” I was mentored by a wonderful woman, Lolly,who had the age of 80 started asking herself this question.

She had been to Bible College, and became a minister’s wife at 22. So all her life, she would think, “Should I? Ought I? Is it my duty? Would God want me to? Would people expect me to? Would people be hurt if I didn’t? Would people be happy if I did? Can I encourage someone?”

When she was 80, she was invited to a big happening event in Williamsburg, Virginia. One of the richest families had adopted a child, and had a christening in the poshest hotel in town. It was going to be very posh, very exclusive, money was going to flow. The pastor of our church was invited, and was going happily. He was appalled when he found out that Lolly had been invited too, and declined, though she was also mentoring the adoptive mother.

“Why did you decline?” I asked. This was ten years ago, and I am ashamed to say I used to go to events like this, fund-raising dinners at $1000 a plate, if invited (and paid for!) for silly reasons like the prestige, the cachet, the name-dropping later, being “in.”

“Oh, I couldn’t be bothered,” she said. “I’d rather stay in and read. I am 80 years old. I have done what other people have wanted for most of my life. It’s high time I start asking myself what I really want to do.”

* * *

What do I really want to do? Well, what I really want to do most of the time is read and write and think and pray. I am turning down more and more social invitations, party invitations to do just this after slowing down and asking myself “What do I reallywant to do?”

Isn’t it surprising that so many of us live life on auto-pilot, do what’s expected, fall in with other people’s plans, desires and expectations without asking ourselves what we really want to do?

That’s not to say we shouldn’t do ministry. My first spiritual director suggested that I always have at least one person in my life to whom I give, spend time with, serve, without getting anything in return. He never said why, but I think it’s a good discipline if your work and ministry are visible, as mine are, and give you lots of feedback, attention, affirmation and praise! It keeps you real and humble. I have been given someone to whom I can be a blessing, and I am excited about it. (Of course, it’s someone who will be a blessing to me in turn….but God’s good like that!).

* * *

Where is my heart? What do I really want to do? What am I really excited about? Where are my passions?

Funny how people stop asking these questions.

To celebrate life together, to be together in community, to simply enjoy the beauty of creation, the love of people, and the goodness of God—these seem faraway ideals. There seem to be a mountain of obstacles preventing people from being where their hearts want to be. It is so painful to watch and experience. The astonishing thing is that the battle for survival has become so “normal” that few people really believe it can be different.”

Henri Nouwen, Seeds of Hope

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we constantly say No to our hearts, defer gratification? Why choose duty, and the unimportant shoulds over joy?

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart. W. B. Yeats

* * *

I am listening to The Sacred Romance by John Eldredge (which was recommended, incidentally by Lolly, who loved it) on my iPhone, in little scraps of time, here and there, as I do housework.

Somewhere along the way, we have lost heart. We do things without much enthusiasm, without much joy, in a half-souled way. We become dominated by Shoulds and Oughts, Eldredge said.

If I am doing things listlessly, mechanically, going through the motions, without much joy, I wonder if I am either not doing what God intended, or I am, but I have lost the way.

For instance, I am called to blog, but when blogging becomes a burden, a heaviness, it interesting to ask why. It’s almost always because I am not following my heart. My real interests may lie in little, short, not terribly significant posts like this one. But fear may say, “No. That’s boring!! Write something interesting, significant, ninja-like, meaty, on an important subject.” Say this too often, and you begin to develop blogger’s block, or blogger’s dreariness. Deny your impulses, the little 250 word posts you really want to write, and blogging becomes a burden, a duty, work, rather than joy.

It’s the same with anything. Our hearts give us a clue to who we really are, what we really enjoy doing, what makes us come alive. And yet how often people deny themselves their heart’s desire, stifle it, ignore it, until they get out of the habit of asking themselves what they really like doing, what really makes them come alive.

Two last thoughts, both true (up to a point).

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.” – Howard Thurman

“The vocation God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” ― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

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