Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

I don’t have time to maintain these regrets  

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Gaudi mosaic

My daughter Zoe introduced me to this song by John Mark Macmillan: I don’t have time to maintain these regrets

I am a memoirist (and also a restless, tiptoes person full of hope for the future).

However examination of the past is rarely without regret.

If only. I wish I had

But that’s it!! No more looking back in sorrow.

Love’s like a hurricane, and I am a tree

Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.

I don’t have time to maintain all these regrets

When I think about how he loves us.

* * *

Besides, the past is never past (as Faulkner famously said). It is the introduction of an ongoing story. Its reverberations continue through space–time; beauty can still emerge from  disasters.

Glorious mosaics are fashioned from shards of shattered glass.

2000 year old seeds have been germinated.

Entire towns in Yorkshire or Wales are built of stone plundered from destroyed monasteries, like Rievaulx or Tintern Abbey.

God can build castles out of the glorious ruins of the past.

He can use the ancient smashed goblets to make stained glass or kintsugi.

 

Tea bowl with #kintsugi

I truly believe it. We can write off no experience as wasted because we do not yet know what God will make of it.

So Martha faced with the stench of her brother Lazarus, dead four days, tells Jesus, “Even now, God will give you whatever you ask.”

Even now, God can somehow combine all the things I am tempted to regret: anger, self-pity, unforgiveness, fear, sloth—into art which lives.

Even now, God can combine hazy memories, half-read books, broken friendships and wasted days into art that is different, new and shimmering, an iridescent morpho butterfly shimmying from a drab chrysalis.

* * *

And so I will not give way to regret. Because I have a very clever Redeemer.

All the sadness, the mistakes, the sins, the waste of the past have made me who I am: a woman who is, today, the Beloved of God. (As I always was, always was, even when I didn’t feel it in my bones, as I do now.)

The novelist and essayist Cynthia Ozick says she read 18 hours a day when she was training to be a writer. Joyce Carol Oates has published over 50 novels, 30 volumes of short stories, and 52 volumes of children’s stories, poetry, young adult fiction, essays, memoir and drama. She writes from 8 to 1 in the morning, from 4 to 7 in the evening, and then reads or writes at night. (John Updike had a similar schedule).

I read this, and inwardly writhe. As a writer, I wish I had read more, and wish I had written more.

When I was younger, I wanted to write like Salman Rushdie, or Vladimir Nabokov or Laurie Lee or William Faulkner or Toni Morrison. I haven’t read as much as they, or practiced as much as they have.

And so my thoughts and sentences may never have the depth and richness of one who has single-mindedly trained her mind and pen.

But, no longer trying to imitate the singing-masters of my soul, I now write simply and transparently, pages which can be grasped at the first reading. I write differently, and for a different audience.

But it is the audience God had prepared for me to speak to before the beginning of time, before the Big Bang, before Planet Earth spun into being, before the dinosaurs prowled the earth, before the saber-toothed tigers.

* * *

The race is not to the swiftest, nor favour indeed to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, but time and change happen to them all. (Ecc. 9:11).

And that is most true when it comes to creativity!

I love Solomon’s observation, and often pray for luck—being neither as swift, nor as wise, nor as understanding as I could be.

But creativity is like the wind which blows, and we cannot see where it comes from or where it goes. The best read do not produce the best writing, which speaks to the most people. Those most diligent in practicing their craft do not necessarily produce art which changes lives, which makes the world happier.

Creativity is the art of combining—things you’ve read, and things you’ve done, and things you’ve thought and felt and heard, and all those 10,000 hours of practice to make something entirely new. And the value is in the combination, not in the raw materials.

Look at Gaudi’s mosaics….

Art is the spark from stoniest flint that sings in the dark and cold, I’m light.

Mosaic from the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia (Ravenna)

 

So what I am going to do as a writer is to put it all into His hands–everything I’ve read and heard and thought and felt and experienced–and ask him to make of it an entirely new thing:

Such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enameling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing 

 

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  1. Hi! I am visiting from Coffee for your heart. I don’t really know what to write to you, because I was overwhelmed by what you wrote here. I enjoyed reading and it meant a lot to me, you’ve mentioned so much here that touched my heart. I don’t know where to start, so I’ll just share with you my favorite sentence and what feeling I am left with after reading this.

    “God can build castles out of the glorious ruins of the past.(…)We can write off no experience as wasted because we do not yet know what God will make of it.”

    It seem like God has poured out some of his wisdom through your words. God bless you.
    I sit back with a feeling of peace and gratefulness.

    -Ava Sophie

  2. This moved me to tears, Anita. I’m struggling right now with my place as a writer and what exactly God wants me to do. Sometimes I, too, feel led to as you write – “no longer trying to imitate the singing-masters of my soul, I now write simply and transparently.” I far too often compare myself with other writers and fall short, but I’m trying to remember God has His own place for each of us. Thank you for reminding me God still builds castles out of glorious ruins.

  3. Linking up next to you at Bonnie’s and I’m so glad I did! 🙂
    What a beautiful piece of encouragement!
    The artwork is amazing!

    Blessings,
    Krista

  4. Anita, this is such a freeing and encouraging post for all writers/poets/creatives! So many mourn their lack of time, health, energy and experience as they set about the task of creating something of lasting beauty for His glory. But it is heartening to know that we offer God our seemingly ‘little’ and ‘not enough’ in our eyes and He makes much of it. I love these lines in particular:”Even now, God can combine hazy memories, half-read books, broken friendships and wasted days into art that is different, new and shimmering, an iridescent morpho butterfly shimmying from a drab chrysalis.” Yes, He can! All is redeemable, able to be restored, renewed and refined in the Potter’s hands. Thank you for a glorious reminder. I needed to hear this today. 🙂 x

  5. I missed reading your writings for the past ten days .. Was on the Santiago Compostela and just back on Saturday.. This was so beautiful to read. And reading about Martha… And to think about the way she transformed… “To I beleive “.. Thank you Anita

    • Wow, I would love to do the Santiago Compostela. Did you walk the whole thing? How many miles?
      Thank you for reading!

  6. I don’t read nearly as much as I used to. It seems that, these days, I only have patience to read snippets of things. Perhaps that’s a consequence of my sense of being rushed, as well as having too much access to everything extant on the Web. I suspect that I am not the only one with this problem. Ironically, although it’s now technically more convenient than ever to broadcast millions of words, we seem to be returning back to the brevity forced upon ancient tellers of parables. And so, I think your ability to write in such a clear and compelling way in a short space is fitting for this era.

    Frequently your writings here instantly convey the heart of God to me. Again today I needed to be reminded of his love, as expressed in his ability to make something new out of what I have wrecked. Thank you!

    • “Frequently your writings here instantly convey the heart of God to me.” Wow, thank you so much. That’s the sweetest compliment.
      I have a book called “The Shallows” about how the internet has changed our brain, and our capacity for concentration. Fittingly, I’ve just skim-read it.

  7. Thank you for teaching me about kintsugi. I had never heard of it before and it is beautiful.

    God bless
    Gail

  8. LA, Welcome back. You’ve started reading me in 2011/12 when I had just left a toxic Charismatic church situation, and joined an Evangelical church, and was re-examining everything I believed on everything controversial!! I am now more settled, and mainly exploring Christ, and the mysteries of God’s love of us… More contemplating with wonder than with a zillion questions (in this season). …
    Thanks for commenting.

  9. A prodigal daughter returns! I knew my schedule would permit me more time this summer! And what a nice entry to come back to! When reexamining my past, I tend to say “Next time I’ll…” rather than “I wished I had…” it creates a nice balance between examining the past yet looking towards the future. Great post and I’m looking forward to reading more!