Archives for August 2013

Platinum and Rubies: In which a Story can Change the World (A guest post by Deidra Riggs)

I am delighted that blogger Deidra Riggs is here to grace my space today. Welcome, Deidra!

It happens nearly every time I’m in a crowd. The Jazz Festival downtown, a train platform, a concert or conference in a massive arena. When walking through crowds at the airport in Chicago, or San Antonio, or Denver, or New York, or wherever it is my travels have taken me I hear myself think, “All of these people…all of these thousands of people, and I’ve never met a single one.” If my husband is with me, I say it out loud.

“What?” he asks me, trying to maneuver his roller bag through the sea of feet in pumps and platform shoes and patent-leather Stacy Adams or plain old flip-flops. Everyone. Going somewhere.

“Oh, you know,” I say, “the same old thing. God knows every single person here, and I’ve never seen them before in my life.”

“Yep,” he’ll say. “He does.”

On the trips I take solo, walking through those crowds, I often get an overwhelming sense of just how much love God has for us, and how much He has invested in every single story.

Other times, I find myself at a stoplight in the town where I live. I’m waiting for the light to turn green, wondering what to cook for dinner, when someone walks in front of my car, crossing the street from one corner to the other.

I look at the way she holds her purse, or the way his wallet makes an impression in the back pocket of his Levi’s 501 jeans, or the way she flicks the ashes from her cigarette, or the way the collar of his plaid shirt lies flat against the nape of his neck, and — just like that — I’m knocked off-kilter by the stories I don’t know. I ask God to keep her safe, and hold him close, and shore up their stories before the calendar turns too many pages.

:::

I eat a giant hamburger, and then go back for one-half more because the guy in charge of the grill has outdone himself. Overhead, two airplanes fly in formation, and in the yard two of the young men kick a soccer ball back and forth. It’s a church cook-out, and this group is still getting to know each other. They are young — part of that age group researchers say are leaving the church. I’m all for research. But this is real life, and these are real people with real stories to tell.

We eat grilled jalepeno peppers stuffed with cheese, and jell-o salad with banana slices suspended inside, and we chew on asparagus right from the grill. There are introductions between those who have not yet met, and I wipe up the drink I spilled on the patio. When the last brownie has been eaten, the group moves inside to sit in overstuffed couches beneath the ceiling fan.

Tonight, the plan is for each of us to tell our story. There are ten of us, and we are told we can pass when it’s our turn. No pressure. No obligation. But no one passes. And the sun has dropped below the rooftops of the house across the street when the last story has been told. And I feel as I’ve been given a gift like rubies in a platinum ring and I want to slip it around my finger — the finger with the blood line that runs straight to my heart.

:::

Across the table, my friend is helping me get ready for a speech I have to give. “When a speaker says, ‘Let me tell you a story,’ what happens to the audience?” she asks me. I nod at her. She puts her elbows on the table in front of her, and then she puts the fingers of her left hand into the palm of her right hand.

I get it.

“Stories are so powerful,” I answer. “They draw us right in.”

“Just like Jesus…and all His stories,” my friend answers.

And now I’m nodding because I really do get it.

Be generous with your story, I hear in my heart. Or maybe it’s my soul. It’s that very same place that spills over when I’m in the airport or sitting in my car, waiting for the light to turn green, or under a ceiling fan with a gift of platinum and rubies dancing in my ears.

Your story? It is platinum and rubies. Your story can change the world.

Deidra Riggs is a writer and speaker. She serves as managing editor at TheHighCalling.org, and is a monthly contributor to incourage.me. As president and owner of JumpingTandem, she invites people to the table by producing retreats, conversations, and other events designed to inspire individuals to pursue the dream(s) God has uniquely designed for them. Deidra also facilitates conversations which encourage churches and church leaders to increase their understanding of different races, cultures, and ethnicities. You can connect with Deidra at her blog, deidrariggs.com. Deidra is married to Harry Riggs. They are the parents of two adult children, and the happy renters of an empty nest.

The Jesus Prayer: A Prayer to Pray when you are Struggling

By Anita Mathias

Kneeling with Giants by Gary Hansen

I was so angry with my husband Roy one night recently that I could not sleep. Oh yes, the sun well and truly went down on my anger.

And the hours passed (or I assume they did—I never look the time during sleepless nights, it makes me more stressed) and I was still awake, and still furious.

Normally, when it cannot sleep, I welcome it as a playdate with God. I pray through my life, asking for wisdom and blessing and guidance in every area of my life. I pray over my involvements, activities, and future. I pray for everyone I care about.

Now all I could think was Roy’s terrible wrong-headedness (it was very late at night, remember!) I was too stressed to pray in tongues, which is what I often do late at night.

And I knew I was not repenting, not obeying Jesus’ command to forgive. But at that moment, I had not reached the emotional point of being able to forgive. I was still too outraged.

So how could I pray?

* * *

Turns out there is one prayer you can still pray when you have not reached the point of repentance, when you are still stuck in the quicksand of sin, and are longingly looking at heights, at the stars. One prayer we can always pray when we feel lost is the Jesus prayer,

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, repeated again and again in tune with your breathing, until your pulses calm, the prayer prays itself in tune with your heartbeat, and you become the prayer and the prayer becomes you.

* * *

I went to a Festival of Prayer at Ripon Theological College, Oxford, earlier this month, which highlighted contemplative forms of prayer. A treat to find robed Franciscans and Benedictines wandering the campus; I started thinking of The Name of the Rose!

Anyway, I loved my seminar on the Jesus Prayer with Hugh Wybrew. He told us of The Pilgrim’s Tale, discussed more extensively in Gary Neal Hansen’s comprehensive book, Kneeling with Giants (which looks at the prayer practices of Benedict, Luther, Calvin, Ignatius, Teresa of Avila, with an eye to what we can learn from them).

The Pilgrim prayed the Jesus prayer through the day until “his life became so steeped in the Jesus prayer that he prayed it in his sleep. He woke to find his lips forming the words, over and over.”

The prayer was saying itself in his heart, the Spirit was praying it in his heart, the Jesus prayer had become embedded in him, was praying itself through him and in him.

It became “the unceasing, self-activating prayer of the heart,” “a self-igniting flame of prayer.”

* * *

When I come to the Jesus prayer, or, for that matter, to yoga, and begin to pay attention to my breathing, I am astonished at how short and quick it is, how rushed and intense I have been, though I have not been aware of it.

The Jesus prayer is a way, as Hansen says, of drawing the intellect into the heart, of stilling both mind and body through long slow breaths breathed in tune with the prayer, of approaching God in worship with one’s whole self, mind, spirit and body.

I pray it when I am stressed, when I want to calm down, or as a prelude to prayer. I pray it when I am too anxious or distracted or tired or sleepy to pray coherently

I pray it when I need more of God’s mercy, and that is my deep desire, undeserving, impulsive me, so prone to selfishness, so prone to sloth: Mercy.

And who of us does not stand in need of more of God’s mercy?

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

Learning to Listen: A Guest Post by Diana Trautwein

By Anita Mathias

I am honoured to host Diana Trautwein. Listen up as she teaches us to listen well!

Many years ago, one of my dearest friends pinpointed a particular problem of mine: I wasn’t really listening when she talked to me.

Oh, I was physically present, with my body turned towards her, ‘hearing’ her words. But I was not truly listening. She told me that I seldom made eye contact and seemed to be constantly distracted by everything else that was going on around us.

Ouch. Her words stung, as the truth so often does.

After a minute or two of denial, I had to admit that she was right on target. I had this habit of trying to multi-task when someone was talking to me.

I too often chose that time to scan the room, or the patio, or the restaurant — wherever the conversation was happening — to be sure I wasn’t missing something important going on around me.

As if the person in front of me was not important enough.

Or, I would busily scan an invisible list in my head, checking off tasks that needed to be done.

As if life is all about how much we can do, accomplish or perform.

Almost always, I found myself so concerned about my own response to whatever I was hearing, that I had little interior space to simply receive the words of another as the gifts they were.

As if my words, my stories, my experiences were of more intrinsic value than the other person’s.

I was there. But. . . I wasn’t. Physical presence? Yes, assuredly. Emotional presence? Not so much.

For most of my life, I have been a busy person, involved in numerous activities and commitments. From family to church to philanthropic groups to running a small business from my home, to attending seminary, to working in the parish setting — I’ve kept my plate full.

My friend’s words came when I was a seminary student, still managing a floral business, and also serving as a pastoral intern at the church we both attended.

I was over-extended, over-tired and emotionally overdrawn. The well was dry.

Listening, really listening, to anyone became increasingly difficult for me to do. Something had to give, priorities needed to be realigned, and I desperately needed to learn what it meant to pay attention to the lives and stories of other people, most especially people near and dear to me.

At about the same time, I began to learn more about the spiritual disciplines and practices of the Christian church, both ancient and contemporary. And it was here that I began to find my way to the center, the center of myself and the center of my faith.

It was here that I began to learn how to listen.

Every single book I read, prayer retreat I attended, or class I took pointed me in the same direction: learning to still myself from the inside out. Let me hasten to add that I still do not do this perfectly — far from it. But I am on the road, learning as I go.

Along the way, I have learned to talk less and to listen more. The practices of centering prayer, lectio divina, breath prayers, the Jesus Prayer, the exercises of St. Ignatius — each of these and all of these help to point me in the direction of stillness, silence and attentiveness.

Over the course of the last twenty years, I have discovered deep reservoirs of grace and compassion that are available to me if I will take the time to dip my toes into the waters of my own baptism. And then those same gospel gifts are passed along through me as I take what I’m learning into conversations, email correspondence and spiritual direction sessions.

Listening became an important part of my own spiritual journey, so much so that I began to prayerfully discern God’s call for me to enter spiritual direction and then to offer it. Last year, I completed three years of study and practice, and now meet monthly with several people. Together, we sit in the presence of the Holy Spirit and listen to how God has been at work in their lives since last we met.

And, by the grace of God, I no longer scan the room, peruse an invisible list of tasks, or assemble a clever response to whatever I’m being told.

Instead, I listen, with my ears, with my eyes and with my heart.

Diana R.G. Trautwein

Married to her college sweetheart for over 45 years, Diana is always wondering about things. She answers to Mom from their three adult kids and to Nana from their 8 grandkids, ranging in age from 3 to 22. For 17 years, after a mid-life call to ministry, she answered to Pastor Diana in two churches where she served as Associate. Since retiring at the end of 2010, she spends her time working as a spiritual director and writes twice weekly on her own blog, JustWondering, monthly at A Deeper Family, occasionally for Prodigal Magazine, and soon, occasionally for She Loves Magazine. For as long as she can remember, Jesus has been central to her story and the church an extension of her family. Not that either church or family is exactly perfect . . . but then, that’s what makes life interesting, right?

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth (Part III)

By Anita Mathias

Part III of my extended puzzled meditation on Jesus’s Beatitude “The Meek Inherit the Earth.” Part I is here and Part II here.

Okay, but how do the fiery become meek?

Being meek, I’m guessing, is a learned trait. Moses, later known as the meekest man on earth, once, impulsively, killed an Egyptian he saw bullying a Hebrew.

The murder resulted in decades of “slow time,” hanging out in the wilderness in solitude, until he slowed down enough to notice the bush burning in holy ground. And, at the risk of his life, he learnt to obey, becoming someone to whom God spoke “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” (Ex 33:11).

We become meek the same way we develop any of the traits Jesus prizes, like agape love.

Firstly, we ask Jesus to change our hearts and create in us a gentle spirit like his.

And secondly, when he sends us “practice papers,” we try to pass them. People may provoke and annoy us. Will we answer with patience and wisdom and leave the issue in the hands of him who judges justly? Or flare up, answer harshness with harshness, defend ourselves and attack?

Jesus, the Meek, Gentle Man who Changed History

Jesus went to his death with the gentleness and dignity which were foretold of him.

He will not storm or rage,

Nor will his voice be heard in the streets. (Matt.12 19-21)

As a sheep before its shearers is dumb,

So he opened not his mouth. (Isaiah 42:2)

The die was cast against him by the time he faced Annas, Caiaphas and Pilate. He was a man caught in a machine. Had he protested, stormed, raged, cried, cursed, denounced, or created a scene, he would have still died.

But had he not behaved with self-possessed meekness and quiet dignity-(so unusual for a tortured, brutalized man standing trial for his life that Pilate awed, and a little afraid, asked him, “Who are you? Are you a king?”) the death of this innocent Lamb of God who atoned for the sins of the entire world would not have reverberated down the centuries.

The hardened Roman centurion, observing him die, would not have said, “Truly this man was the son of God,” as we say 20 centuries later, as we watch “The Passion of the Christ,” for instance.

And sometimes the meek die with the most toys too.

Here’s a common one from the Book of Untrue Proverbs: He who dies with the most toys wins.

He who dies with the most holiday homes, swimming pools, tennis courts, fancy cars, private planes, boats, jewellery and companies wins.

But read between the lines of their obituaries, and you’ll often find isolation, joyless self-indulgence, depression, paranoia, bizarre eccentricities, addiction, infidelity, divorce, familial breakdown, and lawsuits.

Conversely, however, the blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no sorrow to it (Proverbs 10:12). Jesus says that it can be our father’s good pleasure to give us the things the pagans run after—(which may take the form of giving us the good sense and opportunity to enjoy things without owning them) and, besides, the beautiful Kingdom.

* * *

I was mentored by a deep Christian woman, Lolly Dunlap, when I lived in America in my thirties.

Now, I didn’t think I was materialistic then, would have hotly refuted the suggestion, and, in fact, looked down on those whom I judged to be materialistic with a touch of disdain.

But oddly, when I chattered to Roy or close friends, you’d hear me say, “Well, when we make some money we will buy a house on the water; or a vacation home in the mountains or by the sea; a boat, a camper van…”

* * *

Well, Lolly was an absolutely unworldly woman, gentle, generous and trusting. She was constantly giving me gifts, her beloved books, poems she had written, beautifully transcribed, or hand-painted capodimonte porcelain roses!

And, to my amusement, I slowly discovered that this God-immersed unworldly women, married to a church-planter passionate about building Christ’s Kingdom, owned all the things I then planned to buy “when I had money!”

She owned a mountain cabin near Shenandoah National Park with 100 acres around it, from which she could see three states. She had a house on the water in Norfolk. She had a boat. She had a camper van, in which she used to go on long holidays in the lake-filled Voyageurs National Park, Canada.

How did she get all this? Her husband, John Dunlap, was a church planter–one of the post war breed of entrepreneurial, visionary American evangelicals–who founded the famous Tab church in Norfolk (which spawned several daughter churches, including the Williamsburg Community Chapel, which I attended), Triple R Ranch, Norfolk Christian Schools, Norfolk Institute of Learning Disabilities, and a long-running very popular radio programme.

They had three children, and were generous givers who lived simply. However, John Dunlap was an insomniac with a gift—repairing clocks. And so he bought antique broken clocks for a song, repaired them, and then traded them. One weekend, he went to a fair in North Carolina, with an antique clock he’d repaired, and traded up, and traded up, and returned with a used camper van. He similarly traded up from a clock to a boat.

Dunlap inherited $10,000 dollars, and used part of it to buy a cabin and a hundred acres near Shenandoah National Park, as well as Triple R Ranch, a Christian camp that has blessed thousands.

Fear not, little flock, for it is your father’s pleasure to give you the kingdom. So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well, Matthew 6: 31-33.

And so you can die with the Kingdom of God, its righteousness, its shalom and peace (and if it is your father’s pleasure, with the toys which enhance your joy.)

Why is it so hard to believe that the meek inherit the earth?

Because, in the short run, the pushy, the ruthless, the scheming, the manipulative, the deceitful, and those without conscience do seem to win the prize. They apparently get their own way, get away with it.

And this is where practical faith comes in. Christian faith is not mere assent that Christ Jesus was the Son of God, who came to redeem us. That’s just the starting point. Faith is also believing what he taught: that one can walk in gentleness and integrity, and still be given the things the pagans run after (Mt 6:32-33).

Have you—or your children—ever lost something they wanted while they watched more pushy, aggressive or manipulative people get it? I have. But I have not suffered permanent harm because of these out-manoeuvrings, and neither have my children.

* * *

“Manipulate,” literally means taking things into one’s own hands. And then, all you get is what your hands can grab. “God helps those who help themselves” is not in the Bible, contrary to popular opinion; trusting and relying on God, depending on God, however, is a consistent exhortation.

But, in fact, when tempted to take matters into your own hands, to work harder, network harder, hustle harder, it is good sometimes to just stop, and pray for blessing. To re-align yourself with God.

To remember that, ultimately, wealth, power and success are in the hands of God and he gives them to whom he pleases, (I Chron 29:12). To remember that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.

To remember that all things are God’s, and that it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us the things the pagans run after. When the time is right, and as much as is good for us.

The discipline of trusting God rather than taking matters into our own hands, using the weapons of this world is a hard one to learn.

But worth it! The meek might lose battles, but win the war. Lose in the short run, but in the long run, develop some of the gentleness of Jesus. Become the kind of people whom both God and man want to help.

By being meek, we often set the stage for another power to rescue us. It has been so in my experience. And we experience some of the mysterious blessings of God. “You shall inherit what others have toiled for.” (Psalm 105:44). “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 who pleases the Lord.” (Ecc 2:26).

* * *

How can we know that the meek really do inherit the earth? That it is safe to be meek?

We can only know it experimentally and experientially. We just have to try it and see.

And here, I take a deep breath, for meekness does not come easily to me.

But I want to learn of Jesus who was meek and humble of heart. I know his ways are best, and so I am going to set my face to follow him, and so find rest for my soul.

An excerpt from my ebook and paperback, The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth available on kindle and PB on

Amazon UK

Amazon.com

Archives for August 2013

anita.mathias