Archives for December 2013

I Said to the Man who Stood at the Gate of the Year

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’

And he replied,

‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’

* * *

King George VI ended his famous 1939 Christmas message with these words. (Listen here.)

They were written by an unknown poet called Minnie Haskell. She wasn’t credited.

“I read the quotation in a summary of the speech,” she told The Daily Telegraph the following day. “I thought the words sounded familiar and suddenly it dawned on me that they were out of my little book.”

Minnie Haskell published 3 books, none of which were successful. Sadly, even the rest of this poem was not particularly good.

* * *

A lifetime of writing, and you are remembered for 4 lines.

Success or failure?

* * *

If you are a writer or an artist and say, “failure,” well, you are in trouble.

Because there is something mysterious about art.

Art is the spark

From stoniest flint

That sings

In the dark and cold, I’m light.

The craft can be learned by study and practice, but the spark in art which speaks to other people–that is a gift from God. It cannot be learned or simulated.

And we, ultimately, cannot control whether our work has that spark that will live longer than we do.

All we can do is tell the truth, as beautifully as we can.

* * *

And that is why these four lines, which are all that Minnie Haskell is remembered for, are apt as we enter a new year we cannot control.

‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’

Opening a New Chapter, a New Year, under God’s Secret Service Protection

By Anita Mathias

Image: Christ in glory in front of the Heavenly Jerusalem, (Mosaic, Burne-Jones, St. Paul’s within the walls, Rome)

I listened to the entire Bible on my iPhone this year—the NIV’s dramatised edition– as I walked the country trails around Oxfordshire.

And the year dies spectacularly as one walks listening to Revelation—chilling, majestic, dramatic.

His eyes were like blazing fire, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. And coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

¹⁷When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever!

Oooh, listening to it was like a worship experience in itself.

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne⁸And the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. ⁹And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
¹⁰You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”

¹¹Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. ¹²In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!”

¹³Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honour and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”

¹⁴The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Doesn’t it make you just want to worship too?

Revelation is so sheerly beautiful that I was grateful I was alone as I walked through country footpaths, icy rain blowing into my face, along with hot spontaneous tears I could not hold back as I listened to the sheer chilling beauty of that mysterious book.

* * *

The door I close, no one can open, and the door I open, no one can close.

What a wonderful verse for the New Year!

No ramming open of doors shall be done this year; no time-consuming hustling; with God’s grace, no manipulation— just a gentle leaning into the force-field of God’s power, a gentle knocking, a gentle using of the greatest and most powerful lever in the world, which is prayer.

And the doors he opens not all the enmity or envy or malice in the world can close, and the doors he closes, we will have the sense not to try to force open.

* * *

The week between Christmas and New Year is a strange week, a melancholic, dreamy in-the-womb kind of week, a time of rest before new beginnings.

We consider our year, and relive the past, even as we look to the future.

And those who read (or listen) through the Bible in a Year listen to Zechariah, Malachi and Revelation, to the dramatic end of the world in eternal time, even while we prepare for a New Year, with new beginnings, new goals, the opening of new doors.

Christ’s amazing self-revelation repeated through Revelation is I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the A and the Z.

A year closes in which his grace has shielded us, and a new one opens, in which his love will protect us.

“Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders.” Deut. 33:12.

The goodness of God trails and shadows us throughout our lives. We are always under his secret service protection.

In which I Remember that God Loves Me

By Anita Mathias

Nowadays, when I look around my house and see mess, or when my eyes fall on expensive books I have bought but haven’t read, or I remember a project I started enthusiastically but haven’t completed, I tell myself the same thing: “God loves me.”

When my blog is not growing; or I have been snubbed; when I realize I came across too strong, like an exuberant puppy; when I have just indulged in momentary pleasure which will be pain on the scales, I remember it, and say, “God loves me.”

I started telling myself that to comfort myself. “Oh Anita, it does not look like you will achieve your writing goals today; God loves you. You haven’t lost weight this week; God loves you.” And I believed it intellectually.

But now, I truly believe it. The knowledge wells up within me. It is the beat my pulse returns to—God loves me.

God loves me, God loves me: it has become the cry of my heart, as if reminding myself of a floor beneath which I cannot fall. All shall be well because God loves me.

It is no longer something I consciously remind myself of. It is something my heart reminds me of: “Anita, God loves you.”

Oh girl with the messy house, God loves you. Oh girl so overwhelmed with her to do list that she’s stopped looking at it: God loves you. Oh sedentary girl who succumbed to sweet temptation, God loves you. Girl struggling with envy: God loves you. Girl who got distracted instead of writing: God loves you.

Groggy morning or too late night; disciplined day or fractured one; day when I made a fool of myself, or was ever so wise; good day, bad day, it a “God loves me” day.

It’s become the drumbeat of my heart, a reminder, comfort and also sheerest fact: “God loves me.”

Thank you to Kelli Woodford for her hospitality!

Anita’s Christmas Letter

By Anita Mathias

The mosaic of Christ Pantocrator which we saw last week (Monreale Duomo, Sicily)

Merry Christmas, dear readers, and here’s my short and sweet Christmas letter.

2013 was a full year, and a good one.

We put 2012 to bed in Malta, which we loved. Neolithic temples, Crusader towns, and fabulous beaches.

January

Zoe was accepted by Jesus College, Cambridge to read Theology.

February

We spent a few days in Fflad-y-Brenin, a retreat centre in Wales. Very wet.

Resolve: Do not go on holiday in England in February if you can avoid it.

March

Enjoyed my church’s (St. Andrew’s, Oxford) weekend away.

April

Enjoyed Handel’s Messiah at Good Friday at Royal Albert Hall. Foretaste of heaven.

We spent a week in Corfu—which I loved, gorgeous beaches and mountains.

May

My friend Jules invited me to the revival meetings at Cwmbran, where I experienced God’s presence.

June

Yeah, it’s been quite a year of God-chasing. I went on a retreat at Harnhill Retreat Centre, Gloucestershire, with powerful prayer ministry.

July

Zoe graduates from Oxford High School winning the Head’s Award for Academic Excellence, her school’s Award for Academic Excellence in Religious Studies, and a Commendation for Achievement in Philosophy and a commendation for progress in French,

Irene visits First World War battlefields; we stay home

Irene, who is growing in her faith, spends a week at Lymington Rushmore Christian Camp. She starts a baking blog, Life Among the Cupcakes.

I voluntarily took part in the Race for Life, first race since forced to run in school.

August.

We visit Switzerland, Italy (Lucca, Pisa and Genoa) and France—Laon, Troyes, all in our trusty campervan, which I love.

September

Roy and I visit the romantic walled cities of Tuscany with Kim and Penelope Swithinbank & their friends, on our first trip away without children in 19 years. Loved San Gimignano, Volterra, and Siena.

Zoe leaves to the School of Ministry at Catch the Fire, Toronto for her gap year. She has heard excellent speakers; has done some preaching; some prophetic evangelism and outreaches; and discovered nascent spiritual gifts of preaching, prayer ministry and prophetic ministry. She believes she would like to do some form of Christian ministry as her life work.

October

A week in Cornwall, for half term. Loved the beaches, but it was rainy.

Resolve: Do not go on holiday in Britain in October, if you can avoid it.

November

I was nominated for “Tweeter of the Year” and so attended the Christian New Media Awards Conference and dinner in London. Met lots of interesting British social media people.

And heard Heidi Baker in Birmingham. Heidi has made preaching into an art form (listen to her on Youtube), but listening to her is both utterly convicting and inspiring at the same time.

December

Zoe home for a week.

Roy, I and Irene have just returned from a week in Sicily. Enjoyed the ancient Greek Temples, and the nature reserves, and the Byzantine mosaics at Monreale.

Other highlights—I’ve lost 11 pounds this year, by eating a whole lot more vegetables and fruits (discovery: green smoothies!!) and a whole lot less sugar and white flour, and longish walks. Total weight loss since Nov. 2012—16 lb.

Doing a bit better with my perennial struggle to balance blogging with its attendant distractions (Facebook, Twitter, emails, comments) with serious reading and writing. Am getting going with my book.

Spiritually, I have reached a calm, settled place, and am really experiencing the love of God. Blogging with its introspection and encouragement to change has been psychologically and spiritually good for me, though since I am trying to write a book, it’s been more haphazard than I would wish.

Zoe will be volunteering in the Bridge, Gadsden, Alabama, in January. The rest of her gap year is still jelling, but we are sure that she and Roy, Irene and I will taste the goodness of the Lord next year too.

And this is my wish for you, friends—“to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13)

Happy Christmas, and very happy 2014

Anita

The Stunning Mosaics at Monreale Cathedral, Palermo, Sicily

By Anita Mathias

A guest post written by my husband, Roy

We had a peaceful afternoon exploring Monreale Cathedral and the adjacent 12th century Benedictine Cloister with its 200 twin columns each with intriguing individually carved capitols. Monreale Duomo is a 12th Century cathedral with some of the world’s best mosaics. The mosaics are far more extensive than those in St. Mark’s in Venice. I have only shown a few here.

The mosaic of Christ Pantocrator is 20 metres high (Monreale Duomo)

Here is the full view of the apse

Altar and Apse (Monreale Duomo)

There are several rows of mosaics, retelling events from the Old and New Testaments. Here is the section for Noah’s Ark (not usually seen in church art), the tower of Babel and the beginning of Abraham’s story

Noah’s Ark (Monreale Duomo, credit)

and a detail of Noah releasing a dove and a raven eating drowned people

Noah releases a dove. (Monreale Duomo)

Here is Jacob’s dream of a ladder to heaven:

Jacob’s ladder. (Monreale Duomo)

Here is Paul being lowered out of Damascus in a basket.

Paul lowered in a basket. (Monreale Duomo)

Perhaps the most interesting are the artist’s view of heaven.

Angel's offer praise around the throne. High above the altar. (Monreale Duomo)

Angels (or winged creatures?) offer praise around the throne. High above the altar. (Monreale Duomo)

The apse also has mosaics of the Virgin, and saints

The north transept is rather different, being decorated in marble.

Decorative pillar, north transept. (Monreale Duomo)

Crucifix behind the altar in a side chapel off the north transept. (Monreale Duomo)

Here’s Jonah (a little indistinct) being thrown overboard to the whale

One sees the Arab influence in the floor mosaics

Geometric designs showing Arab influence. (Monreale Duomo)

Monastery cloisters are generally very peaceful meditative places, and Monreale’s is no exception. There main attraction are the twinned pillars, each pair has individually carved capitols. Unlike the mosiacs in the duomo which display the progression of Biblical history, there appears to be no pattern in the capitols, each is a surprise.

Choistro dei Benedettini. (Note Arab influence)

Of course, Adam and Eve were there, but not in any special position:

Adam and Eve.

and here is Samson (identified for us)

Samson

but most of the capitol sculptures were more obscure scenes of battles, real and mythological creatures

Capitol showing a variety of animal heads.

An acrobat. (This position, also shown on the body of some of the pillars, clearly signifies something)

A hapless creature trapped when one of the columns was being positioned

A assortment of columns in the corner with a fountain.

A final view of the exterior of Monreale Duomo

Monreale Duomo (exterior).

The Stalingrad Madonna: Life, Love, Light at Christmas

By Anita Mathias

The Stalingrad Madonna (credit)

Translation: Christmas in the Cauldron (German term for Fortress Stalingrad).Light, Life, Love.

Writer Mark Stibbe blogged about the worst moment of the battle of Stalingrad, when 300,000 troops of the German Sixth Army were trapped in the destroyed city of Stalingrad, without adequate winter clothes, almost out of food, fuel and ammunition. The attackers became the besieged; the Red Army surrounded them by Christmas 1942.

At the darkest hour, the soldiers walked into a small underground chamber to pay homage to a picture drawn by Lieutenant Kurt Reuber, Protestant Pastor, artist, staff physician, and Panzer division commander, a friend of Albert Schweitzer who was conscripted into the German Army.

The image, 3 feet by 4 feet, of the Madonna and Child, entranced the soldiers

One of the only 6000 Sixth Army soldiers who survived later wrote this, For me that Christmas was heavenly. I felt there was a bridge that stretched over the entire earth, the starry sky and the moon, the same moon that my family could see in Germany.”

* * *

Kurt Reuber wrote: I wondered for a long while what I should paint, and in the end I decided on a Madonna, or mother and child. I have turned my hole in the frozen mud into a studio. The space is too small for me to be able to see the picture properly, so I climb on to a stool and look down at it from above, to get the perspective right. Everything is repeatedly knocked over, and my pencils vanish into the mud. There is nothing to lean my big picture of the madonna against, except a sloping, home-made table, past which I can just manage to squeeze. There are no proper materials and I have used a Russian map for paper. But I wish I could tell you how absorbed I have been painting my madonna, and how much it means to me.”

“The picture looks like this: the mother’s head and the child’s lean toward each other, and a large cloak enfolds them both. It is intended to symbolize ‘security’ and ‘mother love.’ I remembered the words of St.John: light, life, and love. What more can I add? I wanted to suggest these three things in the homely and common vision of a mother with her child and the security that they represent.

He added I went to all the bunkers, brought my drawing to the men, and chatted with them. How they sat there! Like being in their dear homes with mother for the holiday.

Later, Reuber hung the drawing in his bunker,

When according to ancient custom I opened the Christmas door, the slatted door of our bunker, and the comrades went in, they stood as if entranced, devout and too moved to speak in front of the picture on the clay wall…The entire celebration took place under the influence of the picture, and they thoughtfully read the words: light, life, love…Whether commander or simple soldier, the Madonna was always an object of outward and inward contemplation.

The Madonna was flown out of Stalingrad by a battalion commander who was one of the last soldiers of the encircled German Sixth Army to be evacuated.

Reuber was taken prisoner, and died of typhus in a Soviet prisoner of war camp in 1944. Of the 95,000 German prisoners of war taken at Stalingrad, only 6000 survived, and returned to Germany.

Self Portrait Kurt Reuber (credit)

The Caucasian oilfields of Russia were Hitler’s target, rich and tempting. But it did not make sense to leave a major Russian city unconquered, especially one named after Stalin, whom Hitler despised.

And so Hitler attacked Stalingrad, and, like Napoleon, was defeated by the Russian winter.

Moral: be careful when it comes to attacking others, no matter how much you despise them. Never try to destroy their Stalingrad. Be content with your own oilfields and your own cities, big or little.

* * *

And what when others cast an envious eye on your Stalingrad, and move in to destroy and conquer it?

If you are a follower of Jesus, He has told you what to do. Do not waste time in resistance. “Do not resist one who is evil. If they take your cloak, give them your cloak.”

If they conquer Stalingrad, let them. Do not resist. Do your work elsewhere.

God will not permit evil to prosper for long. Eventually, winter will come. The aggressors will be frozen out and leave.

Normalcy will return, and you will eat the hidden cabbage still fresh beneath the snow in your garden, and go to your secret cellars, to the concealed beets and potatoes, and drink borscht all winter.

And meanwhile, you will have kept doing your work.

The Mental Habit That’s Worth a Trillion Dollars

By Anita Mathias

Grace and Forgiveness

I heard Carol Arnott say that her book Grace and Forgiveness is worth a trillion dollars.

Hyperbole, of course, but (Jesus, forgive this crassness!!) if I were to monetize it, learning and practising forgiveness would easily be worth well over £100,000, perhaps £500,000 in a lifetime. No, more!

Speculative, of course, but that’s possibly the monetary value of the immense productivity which would result from keeping one’s mind free of emotional turmoil and the petty resentments and grievances which so distract and drain one.

And imagine the creativity which would result from stepping into the eternal sources of ideas, the energy which would result from not judging other people, not revolving in your mind the sad old tedious tale of sins they have committed against you, but instead focusing on your own life, goals and purposes.

And of course, one would be SO much healthier physically and mentally if one could forgive, and refuse to judge. Some estimate that 60 to 90 percent of illness is psychosomatic, caused by our negative thoughts. Colds, flu, digestive ailments, allergies flaring up, insomnia, exhaustion—most of us have experienced these after emotional upsets; perhaps prolonged emotional strain could lead to more serious conditions.

* * *

Last week, I got so angry with a member of my family that I took to bed at 9 p.m. so that I would not sin with my words, not crush through a strongly worded expression of anger.

But I tossed and turned as I tried to pray in tongues, and pray the Jesus prayer to mitigate my anger and not judge. Some success, much failure!

Well, anger and judgement are not the best way to get to sleep. I was awake much of the night, my muscles stiff and tense, and slept in till 9 a.m. I would normally have slept for 8 hours.

Wow, how much could I have written in the extra 4 hours?

* * *

Forgiveness as a life-style. Letting injuries go as soon as they surface. I simply must learn it.

For anger is spending your energy in negativity. Judgement is spending our passion in negativity.

If we learned to forgive, we could instead invest that energy and passion in our own lives.

* * *

How do we forgive? The absolute best way is the way Jesus commanded.

We bless the person we are angry with. We pray for them. We ask God to give us a love for them (Luke 6:28) for our sake as well as for theirs, for love is a warmer, lovelier, more energizing thing to have in your heart than prickly, cold hatred.

And “Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” (Luke 6:35).

As a child, we will have access to the goodness of God’s household: financial provision, unleashed creativity, protection from our enemies, answered prayer.

We will pray with power for the greatest block to answered prayer will be removed. We will have fulfilled Jesus’ condition for the cleansing of the heart even before we pray, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them.” (Mark 11:25)

* * *

As Malcolm Gladwell famously noted in Outliers: The Story of Success, it takes 10,000 hours to be a world class expert—in anything.

Prayer takes practice. I pray most effectively (seeing changes in myself, and my life and circumstances) after reading books on prayer and making lists and praying through them. In this respect, the most life-changing books on prayer I’ve read are The Circle Maker and I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes.

Forgiveness too is a learned art. While ultimately, it is a miracle like falling in love, it is also a mental and emotional discipline, which goes through stages, and which we can partly learn from others.

The best books on forgiveness I’ve read are—John and Carol Arnott’s Grace and Forgiveness, and R. T. Kendall’s Total Forgiveness.

* * *

Some things in the spiritual life have disproportionate power; they are the atomic bombs of the spiritual life! Prayer, so quiet, so invisible, makes things happen, in our spirits and in the external world around us. Forgiveness too has disproportionate power.

I have heard Heidi Baker talk about forgiving her daughter’s rapist (an drug addict she had sheltered) and how this forgiveness freed her daughter from nightmares and post-traumatic stress syndrome. If Heidi had not brought herself to do so, she might have continued in ministry, but it would have been a mediocre one, not characterized by miracles and joy as hers is.

For myself, I love it when I come to the point of forgiveness. I love the spiritual power, and the sense of joy and love. And freedom. And best of all, there is a new unleashing of creative power, ideas, stories and blogs!