Archives for February 2016

Leaving “A Little Juice”—One Secret of Persisting in Running, Writing, and Living Well

Eric Liddell: When I run, I feel his pleasure.

Haruki Murakami has a strange and wonderful book called “What I Talk about When I Talk about Running.” What he talks about when he talks about running is running, yes, but also writing hard, and living hard, and the art of success, and the freedom of discipline.

In a wonderful Japanese reflection on theodicy he says,

“When I think about it, having the kind of body that easily puts on weight is perhaps a blessing in disguise. In other words, if I don’t want to gain weight, I have to work out hard every day, watch what I eat, and cut down on indulgences. Eventually, your metabolism will greatly improve, and you’ll end up much healthier, not mention stronger. You can even slow down the effects of aging.

People who naturally keep the weight off don’t need to exercise or watch their diet. Which is why, in many cases, their physical strength deteriorates as they age. If you don’t exercise, your muscles will weaken, as will your bones. Those of us who have a tendency to gain weight should consider ourselves lucky that the red light is so clearly visible. So this physical nuisance should be viewed as a blessing. Of course, it’s not always easy to see things this way.”

“Now, after years of running, my musculature has changed completely,” Murakami reports. He develops the body of a runner, which is apparently so distinctive that New Yorker writer Mark Singer tracked down a genius marathon cheat, Dr. Kip Litton, because he did not have “the classic lean and loose-limbed runner’s physique.”

(And yes, musculature does change, infinitesimally. I started my most recent running programme in January, and bought a body composition Tanita scale which reports that I am slowly gaining muscle, while losing another three pounds, bringing my cumulative weight loss to 25 pounds! I have much more to lose, yes, but yay for more muscle and a better metabolism which, like compound interest, gives back while you sleep.)

* * *

I have had many stabs at running, and have always loved it…but, ironically, my temperament has tripped me up. The standard training programmes recommend training every other day, but I enjoy it so much that I try to run every day, and then injure my feet, ankles or knees! Or develop colds and coughs. And then stop!

This time, in addition to using a high-quality rebounder, and doing some yoga, so as to get stronger and prevent injury, I am using a Couch to 5K programme with bouncy Christian music, and, far from charging ahead, am actually repeating workouts because I like the songs.

Also–which, oddly, I did not do before–I am recording my distance and speed daily, and trying to beat them, thus harnessing my natural competitiveness–against myself. This ensures I run fast enough to get a runner’s high, and have my brain flooded with the exhilaration of endorphins, serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine.

The other thing I am doing is not going too far, just under 3 miles. I think this will help me persevere in the long run. I had built up to 4.25 miles 3 years ago, but it was agony—feet, shins, thighs, every muscle in pain. This time, I am building up slowly, so I stick at it for life. I return from my run, and know I could just about do another half mile, but do not. I am leaving some juice in my body for tomorrow.

* * *

Hemingway recommended a similar pacing in one’s writing life. “The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck.”

Stopping when you still have juice, before exhaustion or boredom set in, not wringing out the last drop of blood from yourself or others, I am discovering that this is the key to persistence in all long-term disciplines, whether a lifetime of reading, or writing, or prayer, or Bible study, or running!

* * *

I was inspired by reading of Rev. E. H. W. Nash, called Bash, who led an extraordinarily fruitful life after symbolically handing over to Jesus the keys to every room in the house of his life.

So, over several days, I have been handing over the keys, seeking Jesus’s wisdom on my use of time, on my schedule.

I am a night person: I get going slowly, and do most of my reading and writing in the evenings. But is this genetics and internal unchangeable circadian rhythms–or well over thirty years of bad habits?

After much prayer, and some discussion with my spiritual direction about my schedule, I recently felt led by Jesus to stop writing at 9.30 p.m., a time of the evening when, being a night person, there is still a lot of juice left in me. But if I squeeze it all out, I will be up at 1:30 a.m., and wake late and tired, once again missing the beautiful sunrise God has made!! So I have started stopping writing and blogging at 9.30 p.m., which has become the magic hour when I make the Cinderella-switch from Human Doing to Human Being.

That suddenly opens time for other joyous trivial things that I might not have had time for… reading books, most of all; reading my favourite bloggers; sharing my favourite pictures on Instagram; scanning a few tweets. Tidying up a little. Doing some yoga. Maybe eventually weights. Tasting the joy of life. And I sleep better for the period of decompression.

Scripture describes human life as a race we should run to win, and perhaps a trick of living well is to leave a little juice–for the end of the day, for the end of our decades, and so to finish our days and our lives well.

To still be dancing, aged 106, when the evening comes.

Mentions

Haruki Murakami: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk.

Ernest Hemingway on Writing on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk.

Bash: A Study in Spiritual Power on Amazon.co.uk

Seeking a God’s Eye View of Success

By Anita Mathias

My daughter Irene succeeding at walking.

I was mentored in my thirties by a friend who genuinely knew God, but was nevertheless conservative and sexist, and made me feel guilty about my call to write which he saw as “dabbling.” He felt I should throw myself into housekeeping and childrearing, and would thereby find God at the bottom of the laundry basket.

So I felt guilty and conflicted about my desire for success in whatever I undertook.

* * *

Both of my daughters are successful in what they do; one of them, in particular, is successful in everything she throws her heart into…

I’ve been meditating on success…

I increasingly want to view things the way that Jesus does. “So, Lord, what do you think about success?” I ask.

* * *

“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey God. Then you will be successful in everything you do,” the Lord tells Joshua (Joshua 1:7).

Success is God’s expectation for Joshua. And success is God’s blessing on Joshua.

For God is our father. No loving parent would wish to see their child fail, expect when failing is the only way to learn. I remember Irene walking her first steps with a huge grin on her face, her fat little legs collapsing under her plump baby body, and then she lifted herself up, and continued, still with that fat grin on her face. Not to allow her to fall would be keeping her weak.

So God may allow failures…to teach us our need for him, or to redirect us when we have chosen the wrong path. He might permit physical and mental burnouts to teach us to intersperse mental and physical activity so that both mind and body thrive, and we achieve more in the long run.

In general, however, I believe success is God’s will for his children. For instance, I don’t believe God intends us to start a business and fail. I dissolved the first business I ran soon after my second business went into good profit, because it was unsustainably intensive and lacked long-term potential. It was, in other words, a failure! But the things I learnt from it, and the business books I read while running it, helped me run my second business successfully, while having time to taste the joy of life. So it was both a failure, and a self-taught MBA in the school of experience. These failures God permits; they are slip roads onto the highway of our calling, as a writer might experiment with poetry, fiction, essay and drama before settling on creative nonfiction which uses all these genres.

* * *

In J.R.R. Tolkein’s story “Leaf by Niggle,” Niggle, all his life, tries to complete a huge, beautiful painting, always thwarted by those who commandeer his time, and exploit him for their own ends. He dies with his giant painting unfinished, though one leaf was perfection….

Well, when Niggle gets to heaven, he sees the landscape and forest that he had been trying to paint all his life: complete and perfect. Had be been attempting to recreate what existed in God’s Own Country, or had God, just for the fun of it, created what Niggle had struggled to?

Wonderstuck, “Niggle said, “ ‘It’s a gift.’ He was referring to his art, and also to the result, but he was using the word quite literally.”

Art is a gift of God primarily to the artist herself.

* * *

I believe God intends all his children to be successful–though not all to be equally successful. There are tens of thousands of Christian bloggers, but only a dozen or so who have tens of thousands of readers. Are the rest failures then?

The art we produce, the books, the blogs, the poems, may reach millions, or may only reach thousands, hundreds, dozens, or even fewer… In his mysterious purposes before the beginning of time, God chooses the precise places where people live, the gifts he gives them, and their circle of influence.

However, whether its reach is massive or limited, creativity is the gift of God to us, given for our joy, our pleasure, our delight, our growth, and even our sanctification. Creativity, art, is a gift to be enjoyed for its own sake, for the pleasure of making beautiful things, even while we pray that God may use our creativity to bless many.

Success then is taking the talents we have been given by a God who loves us–one talent, five or ten, and investing them fruitfully.

Success lies in running well in our own lane, enjoying the work of our hands, not worrying about people in more glittering and influential lanes, accepting that, for now, God has given them a different story, a larger lane, and perhaps may give us a larger lane one day, or perhaps not–but either way, the love of God is sufficient to fill our hearts with joy.

* * *

Want a shortcut to success?

I was reading about Rev. E. J. H. Nash, who converted many key players in today’s Anglican Church, including Justin Welby, John Stott, Nicky Gumbel, Michael Green, and David Watson. His goal was to reach England for Christ by evangelizing “the best boys from the best schools.”

When Nash surrendered his life to Christ, he mentally “handed over to him the keys of every room in the house of his life.”

What Jesus put in each room, what he took out, and how he rearranged things was now His responsibility. And Christ gave Nash, nicknamed Bash, a disproportionate influence on the course of Christianity in this nation.

I am reminded too of Bill Bright who signed a contract signing over everything in his life to Christ, and said, “The future never looked so bright.” Within a day of his surrender, he received a vision for Campus Crusade for Christ, a massive international Christian ministry with 25,000 missionaries in 191 countries

C. S. Lewis needed to surrender to “the great Angler,” ‘the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England,” to have his imagination baptized, and to be liberated into the freedom, the creativity, the whimsical, playful, and magical combining of all the worlds he delighted in that we see in the Narnia books.

Inviting Christ into every room of your life, and especially into the rooms of your imagination, your creativity, and your work, will yield surprising results.

I must add though that Jesus, the Lion of God, is not a tame lion. He may remove some things, replace them with others, may redirect you to a quieter room for a season–and this season could be a very long one. Or he may almost instantly unleash a flood of words, ideas, connections, and inspiration.

I believe surrender is always accompanied by creativity. Surrender of ourselves to Jesus is a divine exchange, an exchange of our limitedness for his unlimitedness, our smallness for his hugeness, and our puny ideas for his magnificent ideas.

(When I invited Christ anew into every room of the house of my life, I was surprised by a business idea which filled us with purpose and joy, excitement and hope, an idea I could instinctively and immediately tell would work, even on the mundane level that businesses must work, i.e. providing a golden financial return for the investment of time and talent–but which, God willing, will also bless many people.)

* * *

The quest for success in our endeavours becomes light and happy when we love something or someone more than success, when something or someone is more important than success. For me at present, that Someone is Christ.

* * *

I like Samuel’s prophecy over Saul, ^“The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you; and you will be changed into a different person. Then do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you,” 1 Samuel 10 6-7.

So work hard, work joyously, work well, and rest well, and expect the blessing of the Lord on the work of your hands. For the Lord your God is with you.

* * *

References

Tree and Leaf by JRR Tolkein on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

Surprised by Joy, by C. S. Lewis on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

On Not Despising Deliverance

By Anita Mathias

“Do not despise prophecy,” the Apostle Paul says, somewhat surprisingly.

Why would we despise it? Because we tend to suspect what we do not understand? Or because prophecy can attract fools, charlatans, the unstable, and conmen seeking to gain power over others—as well as, of course, those who can genuinely tune into God?

I no longer despise prophecy because of personal experiences with those who genuinely had the gift of prophecy.

* * *

What about deliverance ministries? In the first church I attended as a Christian, in a small American town in the South, an individual gained power by labelling everything untoward as a curse or demon-caused–infertility, miscarriages, ear pain, a fear of flying–and exorcizing people. He offered to baptise me to mark my adult commitment to Christ, and when I spontaneously resisted total immersion (I was afraid, having only learnt to swim as an adult) he halted the baptism for an exorcism. (But I remained nervous!)

Eventually that person left the church, taking the best tithers with him, and founded his own church, heavily based around deliverance—a spiritually unbalanced church which, fortunately, did not survive

So I had question marks about deliverance.

* * *

Around that time, however, I picked up a book by Billy Graham, which surprisingly claimed that 90% of Christians are “demonized,” (as opposed to possessed). A dark power, what Paul calls, “evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, mighty powers in this dark world, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” controlled aspects of their lives. They were not entirely free when it came to their inability to forgive, perhaps; their out-of-control spending, addiction to sugar, alcohol, porn, anxiety, or negative thoughts.

* * *

What happens in deliverance? Someone with greater faith or spiritual authority uses their faith to expel dark powers from areas of your life. Uses their intimacy with God to implore God’s protection, a hedge, a strong tower in that area of your life.

You find freedom. Your sleep becomes deeper and more restful.

* * *

I have been married for 26 years. Anger used to be an issue in our marriage, and we’d get all histrionic and historical, and have time-wasting fights. And since life was short, I no longer wanted to waste time on stupid fights. I wanted to use wisdom and intelligence, stepping back, thinking rationally about the issues, acting using my mind and spirit, not my agitated emotions.

I eventually decided no more. No more fights. I have had enough. I will act with wisdom. It takes two to fight, and I will not be one of the two.

In the Old Testament, people marked important junctures of their lives— a major decision, an encounter with God–by building stone pillars. I wanted to mark my decision. When I visited a worship festival which had a deliverance ministry, I signed up for one on one prayer. The prayer minister was not slick, or well-educated. He called the little area of my life which was out of self-control and Spirit-control “a critter.” He prayed with me to expel it. I sighed and sighed as I physically felt relief, sensed something leaving, something generational, felt a huge sense of relief, lightness and freedom.

Harriet Lerner calls marriage the dance of intimacy. If one partner had strong emotions they cannot process, they can press their partner’s buttons, and start a fight. So they get to avoid dealing with their own discomfort. Eventually, couples get addicted to the adrenalin of anger.

After prayer, I found less anger in myself. I might yell a little, and then find I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t summon up the anger, the passion. I realised that to act out would be acting like a fool.

It was as if God had erected a hoop, an invisible boundary around me that I could not cross. I was experiencing the paradoxical freedom of being possessed by God’s spirit… I did not have to retaliate, angry word for angry word, historical accusation for accusation, all that foolishness. I could be still and quiet and write. I could go for a run. I could have a nap.

* * *

The other deliverance was equally astonishing. I was having coffee with a Christian friend, a woman a couple of years older than me, whom I respect and like for many things…her love for people, her spiritual wisdom, her warm heart, her bounciness and cheerfulness. And, since as Thoreau says, “Every man is the builder of a temple called his body to the god he worships,” I admire her too for her body; she’s all muscle. She swims, plays tennis, and runs half-marathons, faster than most men. I once did a run with her, and she did 3 miles in the time I did one. Oh well!

My friend asked, “So how are you really?” And I said, “It is well-ish with my soul, but…” (choose the path of humility, Anita, I said to myself) “I have been told to lose weight for my health and immune system, and, well, I haven’t been hugely successful.”

And then she told me a story I would never have guessed at. This slim attractive woman had been a binge-eater in her twenties. She binged, then purged, so that though she had been twenty pounds overweight, nobody guessed at her secret sin. But she knew. And she could not break her addiction to binges. One day, she cried out to the Lord in her distress, and, she said the only way she could describe it was—she was delivered. She no longer binge-ate; she got a job which required physical activity, and for her to be at her goal weight, and, within the year, she was.

I sighed, and knew that this was a moment for humility. This was a moment of destiny. So I said with simple intensity, “Will you pray for me to be delivered?”

She prayed. Listening to someone pray I can often tell whether they have entered the Throne-room, whether they have connected with God, and, often, I can intuitively tell if the prayer will be answered.

I knew I had been delivered from an addiction to food. I had to wait to see whether the deliverance would work out as the blind man was healed, first by seeing men like trees walking, and then seeing them clearly.

* * *

My daughters noticed the change first. We were on holiday in Tuscany, which has some of the best comfort food on the planet, morish food which releases addictive dopamine, and I found myself eating some of my spaghetti alle vongole, spaghetti and clams; linguine gamberetti, zucchini e zafferano, linguine with shrimp, zucchini, and saffron; spaghetti carbonara; or ravioli with spinach and ricotta, noticing that I was full, and then offering tastes to anyone who wanted them. “Mum, whatever diet you are on, we like it,” Zoe said.

But I was not on a diet. I had begun to find it physically difficult to continue eating once I was full! There was a force within me, reminding me to stop once I had had enough.

The Spirit is a remind-er, Jesus says, an internal reminder, bringing things to our remembrance.

* * *

And then I returned home, and would reach for a snack, and Someone, a kindly Someone, asked, “Anita, are you hungry?” And I would say, “No, but I am sad. I am bored. I am agitated. I am stressed; I am feeling hyper. I need a snack to help me settle down before I write. I need a reward after I write. I need a snack to help me transition between two activities.”

And the Spirit would say, “Ask Jesus to fill your Spirit.”

I would remember: I could ask the Holy Spirit to possess my spirit. Or I could eat a bar of chocolate. I prayed; desire for the stress-relieving snack receded. (And sometimes I succumbed. Sometimes, you see men like trees walking before you see clearly.)

It kept happening. Someone would say something sharp or cross or stressful, and my blood sugar would plunge, and I would think, “I need chocolate. I need a slice of fruit cake.” And then I would think, “Anita, you are not hungry. Might the Holy Spirit do it? Invite him in.”

Voila, 100 calories saved.

I realised that I was rarely physically hungry, so much so that I almost wondered if I were getting ill again, but then I truly skipped a meal, and real hunger returned.

When I was hungry, Someone kept reminding me to ask, “Anita, what will bless your body?” And I would basically cook up a skillet of vegetables, toss in some shrimp or fish, and some noodles or brown rice or pasta. Good for my family, good for me.

And freedom too, to eat the odd bit of chocolate, the odd slice of pizza…

Simple changes, prompted by the Spirit’s reminders: Don’t eat when you are not hungry. Stop eating when you are not hungry. Choose what will bless your body.

I stepped on the scale today. A cumulative weight loss of 24 pounds, the easiest ones after that prayer. (I have more to lose, of course, but, by the grace of Jesus, want to keep my eyes on Him through the process).