Archives for 2013

Life is not a race. And reading the Bible is not a race. It is more important that we are transformed by it than that we read it in a year. Or blog through it in a year.

So while this year, I have, again, kept up with “listening to the Bible in a year” on my iPod as I walk, I have failed in my hope of systemically blogging through the Bible in 2013. I am returning to it, blogging slowly but surely: a tortoise who will, definitely, plod to the finish line—though it will take more than a year

Genesis

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

A simple majestic statement I totally believe.

Did he do so in six days or six aeons? Well, poets and geologists and astronomers each have their language, their own way of telling truth. The scientists tell us the facts as they know them; writers use metaphors.

I believe both the geologists, the astronomers and the author of Genesis. I believe that the heavens and the earth were created step by step over time (by God). And that he found great delight in doing so.

Gen 1:2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

The yearning we have for order and beauty, the yearning we have to make comes from God in whose image we are formed.

The earth all formless and empty, with darkness over the surface of the deep—it sounds like a writer’s mind, doesn’t it, just before beginning to write?

Gen 1:2 And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And so everything will be well, everything will always be well because we are under the protection of the Spirit who hovers over us

Spirit of God, hover over me.

Flow through me, irradiate me,

Fill me with your words and ideas.

Make me wholly yours.

All is Grace. All is Gift. All is Good, despite our Sehnsucht, indefinable longings!

By Anita Mathias

Caption: The Bay Where St Paul was Shipwrecked, Malta

So it’s the last day of this half-term, and I am tired. And my girls who’ve worked hard, and Roy, who’s woken early to drive them to school, are even more tired.

We are looking forward to the nine days of the half-term holiday—to sleeping in, no stress, family movies… And especially a five day trip to glorious Ffald-y-Brenin in Wales.

* * *

Funny thing is, we had all that—sleeping in, staying up late, family movies, luscious meals, creaking family dinner tables, and bits of travel– last summer (when we squeezed in an epic drive to Copenhagen in our motorhome) and for 24 days over the Christmas holidays (home and Malta).

And towards the end of each holiday, let me be honest, I was actually looking forward for school. For a routine. For those rascally teenage girls to get to bed at a half-decent hour, rather than the early hours of the morning and not sleep in till noon. For the house to be tidy and not have bowls, mugs, plates, juice-boxes, and chocolate wrappers, scattered around couches and armchairs and bedrooms. Or coats, scarves and socks kicked off anywhere. For predictable silent undisturbed hours to sink into reading and writing.

* * *

After weeks of them being home 24/7, I look forward to school. After weeks of school, I want them home.

You know why? It’s because both are good. It’s all good.

Life is good because it’s a gift from God.

* * *

I am going away next week, and am longing to do so. Sometimes, I have had very exciting, dream holidays, full of doing and seeing and learning—Istanbul, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and after a week or so there, I am surprised by a yearning to be home, to spend a day in my pyjamas, reading or playing around with words.

What? I had so yearned to see these magical places. On my first trip to Paris, I heard an American say on the phone in a rich resonant voice, “I am travel weary. I am homesick.” Travel-weary and homesick in Paris? I thought. Yeah, it’s all too possible.

It’s all good, it’s all gift, it’s all grace. That’s why at home, we can think of glorious art, architecture, history, gardens, mountains, forests, and the ocean and yearn to be there. And that’s why, in the middle of Rome or Athens or Madrid, I have had a sudden longing to go nowhere, do nothing, just sit with green tea, God, a book and a laptop.

* * *

“Thou hast made us for thyself, Oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you,” St. Augustine wrote.

This perpetual restlessness in our hearts is meant to lead us to the one who stills all restlessness.

The Germans (of course!) have a word for this restlessness, this indefinable longing: Sehnsucht.

C.S. Lewis describes sehnsucht as the “inconsolable longing” in the human heart for “we know not what.” That unnameable something, desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of The Well at the World’s End, the opening lines of “Kubla Khan“, the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves. (C. S. Lewis, Pilgrim’s Regress).

* * *

The restlessness in your heart is essentially a God-yearning. Don’t confuse it with what you think you desire— finishing and publishing a beautiful book, having a successful blog, travel, stimulating friendships, the holiday cottage on the sea, let’s say.

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them,” C. S. Lewis says in “The Weight of Glory.”“These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

* * *

So listen to your restlessness. Listen to your longings. You are longing for more than Alaska, or Antarctica or the Amazon (places I would rather like to see before I die). You are longing for more than to write a beautiful book (something else I would like to do before I die).

You are really yearning for the infinite sea of God. For the ocean of God to pour into your spirit, and for your spirit to pour into the ocean of God now and in eternity. You are yearning to abide and dwell in Him, and be filled with his spirit, which Jesus says is possible in this life. The things of this world for which you think you yearn are just signposts to the things which will truly satisfy your soul.

This world, this life, which lies, “before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new,” is a gift, a love-gift from God. Its loveliness is designed to delight, but not entirely satisfy our hearts. Only the Giver can do that.

Zapping Negativity and Worry Through Prayer and Faith

By Anita Mathias

Dr. Barbara Fredrickson in her book Positivity ( Norman Vincent Peale with data) says that “experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio to negative ones leads people to a tipping point beyond which they naturally become more resilient to adversity and effortlessly achieve what they once could only imagine.”

And how do we do experience three positive emotions to one negative one?

Well, here’s one way for a Christian: We interject prayer into our lives, until it becomes as instinctive as breathing. Okay, let’s start small: As instinctive as worrying!

Some examples…

It’s University application season, and parents and children are getting nervous. None of us wants to drop the ball. My daughter Irene is applying to one of the most competitive courses in one of the most competitive Universities in Britain.

We can do this two ways…though worry and anxiety and striving, or in peace and quiet and trust and prayer from which the wisdom and strategies we need will blossom. I know which path we are going to take. So each worry, I plan to turn into prayer, so that, whatever the outcome, with God’s help this is going to be the most prayer-soaked University application ever.

* * *

I now try to add a 50 percent margin to everything I do. If I think it will take 30 minutes to get to small group, or to German class, I leave 45 minutes early, and use the extra time to practice German on Duolingo or catch up with email, and replies to Facebook comments or tweets. And this injects serenity into my day.

And what when things go wrong, as things are apt to do, and I am rushing somewhere and sense time is against me? I relax. I do my Duolingo. I listen to my book on tape. I breathe. I close my eyes and pray (Roy drives!) about the next things in my day. I do not look at the time. Half the time, we are not late after all, and when we are… well, at least I don’t know how late. Being stressed about the outcome won’t change it, but using the time to retreat into the cave of God, there’s holiness and peace and wisdom and strength in that.

* * *

I’ve blogged for over five years now, and every now and then I hit a wall.

And the wall—a temporary plateau in subject matter, style and audience–is an important thing for a blogger to hit. Otherwise, we can go on autopilot, saying the same things we’ve said before, boring ourselves and the world!!

When I used to hit a wall, I would feel I should blog up, write more mandarin posts, carefully written, long, on subjects likely to speak to or engage many people. Yeah, sounds to me like a recipe for writers’ block, insecurity, frustration, weariness and stress. For it’s best to blog your weekday self, not your Sunday best!

But now that I am tired, when I hit a wall, I blog down. Share little things which interest me, a bit like Facebook. Share my fears, failures and worries. Find my subject matter in honesty about what it’s really like to follow Christ. Find newness in honesty, the best place to find newness!

And then I pray—for ideas, for time, for energy, for readers, for deeper surrender, for the ability to abide in Christ ever more deeply, to burrow deeper into his heart, and record what I overhear as Isaiah did. Prayer thus converts the butterfly flutter of fear when stats plunge into faith and assurance, which is a sine qua none for writing well and quickly.

* * *

I have lost 24 pounds since changing my diet, but as anyone who tries to change their body knows, scales have a mind of their own. And when they tilt upwards, I have learnt that there is only one thing to do to keep focused—return to thanksgiving for all I have lost. Renew a commitment to health, to 10,000 steps a day, and more fruits and vegetables!

Ask Christ “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” to show me the best way to get strong.

And my heart and emotions are stabilized and, indeed, hopeful.

* * *

Prayer calms me, opens my mind up to possibilities, reassures me of an infinite power beyond myself. I work in a more assured and relaxed way.

These are the benefits of prayer, if there were no God.

But, of course, there is a God and so prayer has a power whose limits we can only guess.

Many things happen in our lives, and in other people’s lives because we have prayed.

So much so, that as Mark Batterson says, the transcript of our prayers can become the transcript of our lives.

The Pomodoro Technique, Decluttering, and Progress on New Year’s Goals, Week #5

By Anita Mathias

Looking across the Avon from the RSC, Stratfrord.

Holy Trinity Church, Stratford Upon Avon

Swans on the Avon

Amaryllis in bloom

I’ve experimented with the Pomodoro technique, and think it, more or less. suits me. It’s a way of keeping focused and averting distraction by working in an absolutely focused way for 25 minutes, and then taking a 5 minute break (to tidy, do weights, stretch or do yoga etc.) After 4 pomodoros, you take a twenty minute break.

It works well for me, because I got to garden during my 20 minute breaks for the first time this year, and also because the rooms I work in became incrementally tidier because I tidy up during my 5 minute break. Also, I get perspective on what I am writing, and feel fitter and more oxygenated. And one’s metabolism improves.

I hope to build in weights and yoga during my 5 minute breaks.

A major negative is that it introduces a distraction every 5 minutes, but one hopes an oxygenated, stretched body will be able to concentrate for longer.

* * *

I do a weekly blog-post on how I am doing with my New Year’s Goals, largely to keep myself accountable.

The nature of the beast, is that there will be spectacular weeks and ho-hum, failure-ish weeks. This was the latter.

Accountability on a blog is a powerful thing, what blogger Tim Challies calls Accountability Through Visibility. And for accountability to inspire you, and, well, keep you accountable, you have to be honest about your failures—and successes.

Bad weeks are par for the course. Here’s an early Christian story

A monk looking for some guidance and encouragement goes to Abba Sisoius and asks:
“What am I to do since I have fallen?”
The Abba replies: “Get up.”
“I did get up, but I fell again.”
“Get up again.”
“I did, but I must admit that I fell once again. So what should I do?”
“Do not fall down without getting back up.”

Anyway, here goes.

1 First Things First

Roy and I had got out of the habit of date nights or focused talk, so we had a very focused talk last evening on contentious topics. So contentious that we often had to follow the rule each person gets 2 minutes on a timer with no interruptions!! But we worked out an excellent, viable schedule for Roy, and cleared the air!

And had a couple of gorgeous family dates—watching Murray Watts ‎“Mr. Darwin’s Tree,” acted by Andrew Harrison–a sort of memoir of Darwin, in the form of a monologue. Verbally rich, poetic, bursting with energy, brilliantly acted. Loved it!

And a day at Stratford-on-Avon watching The Winter’s Tale, that bitter-sweet story of jealousy, madness and restoration. Loved the walk by the river Avon afterwards, looking at the crimson skies.

And spent a few hours over lunch with Reverend Lesley and Alan at their spacious Vicarage.

So not stacks of writing done.

2 Writing

Finished a little book I am planning to self-publish after an additional four revisions. And blogged.

“I still don’t get why people are so surprised that the turtle beat the rabbit over the long run. Consistent effort, no matter how small, sparks magic, fills sails, butters bread, turns tides, instills faith, summons friends, improves health, burns calories, creates abundance, yields clarity, builds courage, spins planets, and rewrites destinies.”

	Time/week
	Dec. avg.	Goal: Jan 28	Achieved	Goal: Feb 4	Goal – year end
Writing	7h 10 min	10 hours	7 hrs 40 m	9 hrs	35h
Social media	11h 17 min	3 hrs30 min	5 hours 30	3 hours 30	3h 30min
News, Blogs, Magazines	5h 21 min	3 hours30 min	4 hrs 13	3 hours 30	3 hours

And here’s how I felt this week

Spiritual Gimmes: The Prayer of Bankruptcy

And

R.I.P. Buttercup Duck and Accepting Your Actual Life

And here’s what inspired me

Les Miserables: The Film Akin to a Spiritual Experience

3 Fitness and Weight

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau

Got back into walking after a slowdown caused by two weeks of ice and snow.

Week of	Goal	Actually done
	(km)	(km)
Jan-07		29.6
Jan-14	33.6	Ice 13.6
Jan-21	14.96	snow 16.4
Jan-28	19.69	23.36
Feb-4	25.69

Weight—A week in which I slipped up, dealing with stress with chocolate, cheesecake, icecream and crisps instead of prayer and exercise. Sorry, Jesus!

But now it’s a new week—and with God’s grace, I will rely on God’s power more, and lean more, and abide more.

A cumulative loss of 5 pounds this year.

4 Domestic Order

Some before pictures of bookshelves to work on this week, and my closet

1-DSCN6115_cropped

2-DSCN6132 Well, thanks to walking was able to fit into some cords and jeans just when I was about to give them away. Tidied two dressers and one tallboy. Gave away some books, and gave or threw away 3 pairs of sweats and trousers!

Sorting out my clothes took a while, and I may or may not recover the time. However, it will be easier to find matching clothes when I go out, and so perhaps I will find it easier to be on time. And every area of your house you tidy sort of makes it easier to keep the rest tidy—less of the broken window effect.

I have decided to be minimalist and only wear my favourite colours–red, purple (and colours in between such as cranberry, crimson and burgundy) and peacock blue and stop buying and get rid of other colours. So with some wardrobe staples of black and white cords, turtlenecks and blue jeans matching will no longer be a problem, and I will also get by with fewer clothes.

And here’s the result of a hard day’s work organizing my dressers and an empty bookshelf

BEFORE- some empty

AFTER

Before pictures of my clothes drawers

04-DSCN6073_edited 02-DSCN6071_edited 01-DSCN6070-edit 11-DSCN6080_edited 10-DSCN6079_edited 09-DSCN6078_edited 08-DSCN6077_edited 06-DSCN6075_edited 05-DSCN6074_edited

03-DSCN6072_edited 07-DSCN6076_edited

AFTER reorganizing and giving away some:

DSCN6133_cropped DSCN6136_cropped DSCN6135_cropped DSCN6134_cropped 14-DSCN6131 13-DSCN6130 12-DSCN6129 05-DSCN6122 08-DSCN6125 06-DSCN6123

Minimalism and Simplicity

By Anita Mathias

I love Joshua Becker’s blog Becoming Minimalist and the idea of Minimalism.

The only thing is– minimalism is not particularly a Biblical idea (not opposed to Biblical ideas or values, just not one of them). Abundance is more of a Biblical idea.

And I am too old and too tired to commit passion to something which was not one of Jesus’s values.

Simplicity, on the other hand, simplicity IS a Biblical value.

So I am going to pursue simplicity in all things–and blog about my pursuit as I get deeper into it.

Joshua persuasively describes some of the benefits of minimalism.

Are any of you pursuing either minimalism or simplicity? Tell me about it, please.

In which a Single Tweet–140 characters–can make things happen

By Anita Mathias

Poetry makes nothing happen, Auden wrote despairingly. And can tweets, 140 curt characters, make anything happen?

Yes, they can.

* * *

The precious jewels I hold in my heart, which change the way I see and think and live, are all tweetable.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. Thoreau, Walden (134 characters).

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (135 characters).

Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. Blaise Pascal sums up his deepest spiritual experience (31 characters).

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Gandhi, (55 characters).

Or Ann Voskamp writing of Hagar, dying of thirst within a bowshot of a well, There is always a well. All is well. (38 characters).

Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. C.S. Lewis (66 characters)

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver.”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” C. S. Lewis. 132 characters

* * *

And the ideas of the said King which mean the most to me, and are most life-changing are eminently tweetable.

Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 63 characters.

He who seeks to save his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will find it. 114 characters.

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be measured to you. 125 characters.

Yet to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. 96 characters.

Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 125 characters.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Trust in the Father, trust also in me. 101 characters.

* * *

Once we have done the hard work of thinking, our brain instinctively sums it up in a memorable “tweet,” I believe. Mottoes, goals, eureka moments, epiphanies: we unconsciously summarize these in epigrams. Short and sweet. Less is more. Brevity is the soul of wit.

Good politicians instinctively realize that “tweets,” aphorisms are the most effective and best-remembered part of speeches.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. Churchill, 61 characters. (I guess that’s what George Osborne’s offering us!)

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. (140 characters) Churchill, 3^rd June, 1940.

And across the pond:

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. 110 characters Abraham Lincoln, Gettyburg Address

Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country. J.F. Kennedy, Inaugural Addess, 82 characters

Read my lips: no new taxes. George Bush, 24 characters

Yes, we did. Preisdent Obama, 10 characters

* * *

And today’s tweets? Do they make a difference?

It depends on who you follow. But, I am guessing that a steady drip of tweets of wisdom, encouragement, and a Godward gaze from @nickygumbel, @johnpiper, @annvoskamp, @rickwarren, @maxlucado (to name some prominent tweeters) surely makes a difference to their readers. Or those of @richardrohrofm, whose most recent tweet is

When younger, I praised God as a worthy exercise and song. Now there is a kind of praising that instead–sings me and sings through me. Wow!

* * *

All these are largely positive tweeters. I wouldn’t long follow a largely negative tweeter: I can generate quite enough negativity for myself, thank you. The thought-provoking, true, optimistic, God-saturated, blood-rosy vision, is just as true as the half-empty glass, so why not contemplate that!

* * *

Our words count. Thinking hard to condense complex thoughts in a couple of sentences is work–and work worthwhile.

Tweeting is good practice for writers. It is training in Orwell’s maxims for good writing:

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use a long word where a short one will do. (104 characters) and in Virginia Woolf’s

Write in the fewest possible words, as clearly as possible, exactly what one means (83 characters).

It’s encouraging, isn’t it? We can express substantive thoughts, capable of changing the way we (and perhaps our regular readers) see and live and rejoice and trust and love in two or three sentences of 140 characters! In a tweet!

(Edited archive post)

The Process of Sanctification: A Guest Post by Kris Camealy

By Anita Mathias

Holey Wholly Holy

I am honoured to host this excerpt from my blogging friend Kris Camealy’s first book, Holey, Wholly, Holy. The best title of the year, isn’t it?

“We are brought down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up and help us; redeem us because of your unfailing love” (Psalm 44:25-26).

We begin collecting wounds and piling on scars from birth. Ejected from the safety of the womb, we immediately meet with a sinful world ripe with suffering. We grow and endure hardships of varying degrees from the mildly wounding to the most atrocious cruelty. We survive deep cuts and gashes and sometimes, if we can manage, we block the memories, and the pain dulls just enough.

But God has something better in mind. We can do more than simply limp along—His desire is for us to be complete. He longs to restore us, to strengthen us for the call He places on our lives.

In pursuit of life, of our own dreams, of our own magnificent imaginations, we have a knack for running right into the boiling furnace without even seeing it coming—“We sow on bright clear days the seed of our own destruction” (Capon 52).

God’s desire for closer relationship with us requires us to be purified. Though He accepts us as we are, He has even better for us. He loves us too much to leave us in our mess. He collects our broken shards and creates beauty from mere fragments, but the process does not come without pain.

The truth of the Christian life is that we grow most in our faith through adversity. When our faces are pressed against the dirt, that’s when our eyes are most open. The weight of the world presses us lower and it’s there, in the spaces where we can scarcely breathe, that we find He is closest, holding our hands, lifting our spirits, filling up the holes in our cracked-up hearts.

Restoration is a process. It’s not that He doesn’t miraculously heal, certainly there’s plenty of testimony to this kind of miraculous, instant healing. But for most of us, soul healing comes slowly—painfully. You’ll know it when He’s calling you toward His refining fire. The smooth surface you’ve long stretched over, covering the cracks underneath, begins to ripple from the heat. Memories surface, old wounds begin to weep—the cracks widen and hurts spill.

This is not a time to turn and run, though that may be our instinct. This is the time to stand still, to listen to what He’s whispering, and to allow Him to strip you of the covers you’ve been hiding under. Trust me when I say you’ve not got anything He hasn’t seen before. Stand in this fire, let Him purify you—this is how He loves us. This is the process of sanctification.

An excerpt from: Holey, Wholly, Holy: A Lenten Journey of Refinement

* * *

Kris Camealy

As a sequin-wearing, homeschooling, mops-coordinating mother of four, Kris Camealy is passionate about Jesus and her family. Her heart beats to share the hard, but glorious truth about life in Christ with anyone who will listen. When she’s not writing, she gobbles up books like they’re going out of print and plays in the kitchen. She’s been known to take gratuitous pictures of her culinary creations, causing mouths to water all across Instagram. Once upon a time, she ran 10 miles for Compassion International, a ministry for which she serves as an advocate. You can read more of her heart-words in her new book, Holey, Wholly, Holy: A Lenten Journey of Refinement, and on her blog Always Alleluia. Find her on Facebook, twitter and Pinterest.

Archives for 2013

The Spirit of the Lord Hovering over the World

All is Grace. All is Gift. All is Good, despite our Sehnsucht, indefinable longings!

Zapping Negativity and Worry Through Prayer and Faith

The Pomodoro Technique, Decluttering, and Progress on New Year’s Goals, Week #5

Minimalism and Simplicity

In which a Single Tweet–140 characters–can make things happen

The Process of Sanctification: A Guest Post by Kris Camealy

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