Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

A Mind of Life and Peace in the Middle of a Global Pandemic

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                                        From a walk by the River Thames.

I have been thinking about this sentence in the Book of Romans, “The mind controlled by the sinful nature is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”

That’s what I am consciously seeking to maintain in these unusual days… a mind of life and peace.

 

Many of the social supports of our lives have been stripped away. In my case, gradually then suddenly, culminating on March 23rd, my German classes, Book group, Writers in Oxford meetings, church small groups, supper clubs, yoga classes, personal training, Ramblers walks, parties, lunches with friends, travel, cultural activities, church itself, all stopped.  Of course, we can still talk to our friends and family on the phone, or on video calls, and I do, but it’s not the same…

However, reviewing my list, I see many fun, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally nourishing activities, just too many of them. Lockdown made Roy and me realise that our lives had become too full, too rich, too busy, too fun, too fast-paced. And so I have decided not to clutter up this God-given season of quietness with the many Zoom activities I have been invited to—Bible studies, group catch-ups, writing retreats, yoga classes, prayer meetings… but to have just a few meaningful one-on-one conversations instead. I have decided to embrace this season of quietness, and time, time, all the time I have ever yearned for. 

Of course, this free time is complicated. Following the news and this real-life tragedy unfolding around us is distracting, infuriating and distressing. We read of the suffering of the poor; fulminate at inept leaders, and manipulative ones who squeeze this for political advantage. We feel powerless to stop coronavirus, and powerless over the length of lockdowns. Some of us might wistfully think of the hopey days when Britain decided to go for herd immunity and life continued as normal… but then, who wanted to be in the herd infected by Covid-19, a particularly gruesome infection if you are not fit?

* * *

Britain’s six-week severe lockdown is disorienting for human beings who are social animals, shaped, defined, refined by social interactions.

And in this time, it is important to guard our minds and spirits. To have minds of life and peace.

Many of us embarked on this enforced retreat with enthusiasm. Britain went on a shopping spree…buying fitness, gardening, and DIY stuff and lots of books. Writers hoped to write their best work, their personal King Lear.  Everyone hoped to emerge from quarantine with decluttered homes, pretty gardens, fitter bodies, and finished work.

And, of course, with God’s help, we can achieve these goals, dreams and ambitions, partly or wholly. There is no reason we cannot sleep early and wake very early without the interruptions of social, cultural, intellectual, creative or gym activities on other people’s schedules. Or get stronger as we lift weights. Or declutter. Or write.

In this period of “world enough and time,” it’s the mental game that’s crucially important, as I tell my daughter Irene, who is preparing for her Oxford University finals, in Medicine, taken online.

 

These are three practices I am finding helpful.

1 Be Mindful of the Mind. Maintain a mind of life and peace. I am using the brilliant Headspace app, which has brief meditations, targeted interventions, when I am aware that I am stressed, distracted, or down-spirited. Meditation can change one’s mood and mental state as effectively as chocolate or sugary treats can while improving one’s health. Phew!

Since I formally learned meditation at first at a  beginners and then at an advanced meditation course at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, a ten minute meditation almost always suffices to calm, still, and focus my mind.

 

2 Be Mindful of the Body. Keep your body well-stretched, well-exercised, full of energy. A happy body, a happy mind, and a happy creative spirit are inextricably connected; I wish I’d learned that decades earlier. Scripture interestingly calls our bodies, “The temple of the Holy Spirit.” We experience the shalom, the love and blessing and goodness of the Father not only in our minds, and spirits, but in our well worked-out vibrantly alive bodies.

I walk every day, often 4 to 4.5 miles, either with my husband Roy or alone, praying, and then listening to the Bible or an audiobook.  And because I have so much extra time now, in lockdown, I am alternating periods of sitting (reading, writing, meditating, praying) with physical activity (decluttering, gardening, Yoga with Adriene on YouTube, and Alisa Keeton’s Revelation Wellness workouts, which aim at movement as worship and has dance, weights, HIIT, cardio and flexibility workouts).

And in a life-changing intervention…I started housewalking last autumn, introduced to it by American blogger, Jean Wise, who used it to lose 100 pounds. Though I walk outside whenever possible, in England, in grumpy seasons, it can rain for hours, it gets dark early. And when it does, I download an audiobook onto my phone, and just walk through my house, which is, fortunately, large and rambling, until I have my goal steps (10,000 to 13500)!  If I get bored or tired, I say, “Keep walking. You are actually reading.” Which I am! (I’m currently listening to Hemingway’s memoir A Moveable Feast), not his best work, but I am charmed and engrossed by it.)

 

3 Be Mindful of Your Emotions.

I am trying to train my thoughts and emotions not to give way to negativity or annoyance or restlessness or down-heartedness or impatience at this lockdown.

Beyond the jokers and movers and shakers and doomsters and gloomsters who make the decisions which govern our lives is God. God who has a purpose for this primitive, medieval quarantine, even if it was imposed by mass hysteria. God who can bring good from the mistakes of governments, as he can from our mistakes.

God who can create good from all things, including a virus–both for our own lives and for the world.  

Our lives are not entirely our own, and we do not control the plot. God does. And lockdown and coronavirus is what God has permitted for this time of our lives. It takes faith to accept it from his hands, and thank him.  Counting blessings on my fingers helps, even the blessing of the longest stretch of free, quiet, uncommitted time that I have had since I was a schoolgirl, and since Puritan ideas of using time well and making each hour golden entered my life.

Living with gratitude in each season for its goodness is perhaps the most important ingredient for a happy life…that, and living with love. I sometimes remind myself, “If you cannot live with appreciation and gratitude, why are you even living?”

** *

And, if you have time  to read my story of a really inspiring life, perhaps check out

 The Story of Dirk Willems: The Man who Died to Save his Enemy on Amazon.com

and on Amazon.co.uk

Images of some walks in Oxford https://www.instagram.com/p/B_w1URkJ8Vy/

On Yoga and Following Jesus

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I returned home from boarding school in Nainital in the Himalayas, aged ten, to find everything in my father’s life had changed. He, aged 56, had taken up yoga. And so our mornings became dramatic with simhasana, the lion’s roar, which punctuated the  hour long yoga session, which was precious to him, and soon became indispensable to his peace, mental wellness, ability to cope with stress, and, of course, to his physical strength and flexibility.

His hour of yoga, to which he added an hour-long walk, brought mental calm and physical strength, and changed the texture and course of his life. He worked a demanding job as Controller of Accounts at Tata Steel and after his retirement worked as Financial Controller at Xavier Labour Relations Institute, XLRI, Jamshedpur, the local Business School, retiring for the second time at 68. He continued daily yoga and walking for the last 33 years of his life, until he died close to his ninetieth birthday. (It was only in the last few weeks of his life, when he was crushed and burdened by clearing out and selling his in-laws house which my parents had inherited—along with a lawsuit from disgruntled family members who wanted it–that he abandoned these disciplines, a parable for me on not bequeathing clutter, and never abandoning exercise).

For most of my life, I did not exercise. As a Christian, I observed that the Bible was silent about it, referring to running and walking as metaphors, not injunctions.  Shouldn’t the fitness developed by the tasks of our life, and maintaining our homes and gardens give us the strength we need for our lives?  Do we need the extra fitness developed by running, lifting weights, or yoga? Each time I see super-fit people grunt as they lift super-heavy weights in the gym, I still wonder if we really need that high degree of fitness.

However, I am not physically strong, and becoming stronger would give me the physical strength and mental energy necessary for the many sedentary hours that I would love to spend reading and writing. Also, the 10,000 to 13500 steps I aim to walk every day is transforming my life as it gives me the opportunity to explore so much more of this green earth.

In The Joy of Movement: How Exercise Help Us Find Happiness, Hope, Connection, and Courage psychologist Kelly McGonigal  says “being active increases all the other joys in your life: it improves your relationships, it helps you focus, it improves your mental health, it can help people recover from depression and grief.  People who exercise on any given day have better social interactions with other people, and being physically active reliably increases your optimism, your hope, and your sense of energy,” (in Gretchen Rubin’s summary.)

Though I have lost 53 pounds over the last few years by pretty much cutting out sugar, chocolate, wheat, rice, potatoes and other starchy carbs,  and more recently fruit, beans, lentils, milk, and starchy vegetables ( I know, I know, but it’s a short-term thing), I have more pounds, more stone, to lose. And so, I exercise some.

And yoga has been as much of a blessing for me as it was for my father. Not being naturally coordinated or athletic, I am not a gifted yogi; however, yoga classes provide me a quiet space for an hour to move my body, stretch, think and even pray. And the thinking is better for the movement.

I started yoga with a Can’t-Do list. Holding Down Dog was tiring, and adding a Three-Legged Dog seemed a step too far, and then adding “Knee to Nose,”— outrageous!  Holding planks was excruciating, side planks were nigh impossible. And Wild Thing… are you kidding? Tree, Eagle, Floating Half Moon, forget it.

However, I have been doing Yoga for over three years now, two or three times a week if possible, in classes at the gym. I often shyly go up to the front (though, sadly, the yoga class convention is that the inexpert hide at the back and imitate, while the skilled go in front). But up front, close to the teacher, I can watch carefully and imitate. I realise how I have unconsciously been taking short-cuts and not been pushing my body to the full reach and strength of the pose. And I realise that if I take my time, and am perhaps a few seconds behind everyone else, I can, I really can, get my body briefly into the poses I thought I was too weak or balance-challenged for. Hello Side Plank, Tree, Wild Thing, Floating Half-moon, Malasana: Yogic squat,  and “Warrior Three.”

And, since when it all fades away, what I am through and through, the most essential thing about me, is that I am a Christian, a stumbling Christian, as faltering and bumbling a Christian as I am a yogi—as I do yoga (you probably saw this coming!) I sometimes reflect on following Christ.

When, aged 17, I started my zigzagging adventure of trying to follow Christ, there were things I thought I could never do. Forgive the sociopaths in my life—are you kidding? Keep my temper when those around me were losing theirs? Nah. Consistently practice the empathy required to treat others as I would like them to treat me? Think before speaking or writing when I am angry? Keep my eyes on Jesus and check in with him in everything I do? Live in love? Be gentle. How?

I am not a good Yogi, and I am a limping Christian.  However, as I follow the teacher as precisely as I can, I find my body becoming stronger and more flexible, and my mind more calm and more peaceful. And as I read or listen to a chapter of the Gospels every day, as I try in small things to do what Jesus says, as I increasingly decline to do what he specifically tells us not to do (“do not judge,” “do not worry,”) I find my life more blessed, more guided, more open to his inspirations, more happy, and more peaceful. The progress in both these areas is, of course, probably only visible to me, and to God, and that must suffice.

* * *

The best book I know on using exercise to improve our ability to think, read, write and create fast is

Spark: How Exercise will Improve the Performance of Your Brain, by Harvard psychiatrist, John Ratey  on Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk

And if you have extra reading time, perhaps read my art-inspired illustrated story Francesco: Artist of Florence on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. I am very fond of it.

I am doing Yoga with Adriene during lockdown, but normally do yoga in real life with Lisa Cuerden.

Image source: Pixaby Creative Commons, CCO Public Domain

Silver and Gold Linings in the Storm Clouds of Coronavirus

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So, over the last two weeks, life, as I knew it, has been unrecognisably altered.

While this is just a drop in the ocean of virus-sadness, we were about to go to Prague on holiday when the Czech Republic closed its borders to British citizens (and BA promptly refunded us, thank goodness.) (And, probably, the holiday in Vienna in May, for which we had paid a deposit, will get refunded too!)

Then as government guidance tightened, things I could never have imagined happened. Oxford University shut down, taking with it the German class I was taking, which gave me much intellectual pleasure and joy. My daughter Irene, third year Medicine, Christ Church, Oxford University, had her Pharmacology exam on March 18th cancelled, and suddenly came home, earlier than planned, following her college’s desperate request to students. And it looks unlikely that Christ Church will reopen next month, let’s see.

The Church of England closed, in effect, and our church shut its doors, ending some church activities I enjoyed… a monthly supper club/small group I enjoyed, a monthly church supper and the Lent supper series, (which commenced with a wonderful talk by N.T. Wright. I was impressed by his encyclopaedic knowledge of, and excitement about Scripture. Aged 71, he almost bounced as he spoke in a great rush of enthusiasm!)

I had to close down a supper club/classics book group I run, and which I love. (We were reading Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey).  Writers in Oxford, a society I belong to, closed down, along with their enjoyable drinks evenings. The Oxford Literary Festival for which we had tickets was cancelled. Parties were cancelled.

The gym closed down, and I lost yoga classes, and personal training with weights. And goodness, The Ramblers, with whom I enjoyed walking, closed down. And over the weekend, some outdoor things we go to have closed… Blenheim Palace, the Oxford Botanical Garden, Harcourt Arboretum, even The National Trust, for heaven’s sake.

And now: it’s lockdown! We are only allowed out to buy essentials like food, and, thank goodness, to exercise outdoors.

The series of minor losses is a bit like old age is supposed to be, when friends die, work ceases, and life shrinks. In the beginning, I thought: the gym would stay open, my favourite Parks and gardens would stay open, I could exercise in them. I couldn’t imagine Church closing or the University and my language class or The Ramblers. But no…

* * *

Is my gloom, after all, shade of his hand, outstretched caressingly? Francis Thompson asks in a favourite poem “The Hound of Heaven.” In that poem, the narrator tries to find solace in love, in friendship, in nature, but God blights these things, determined that the poet should first find joy and comfort in Him. “Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face,” William Cowper writes.

“God so loved the world,” Jesus states, early on in the Gospel of John. And that stands true in the time of Coronavirus. Over 99.99% of the British population, and of the world’s population are not ill, as I write, though thirty percent of the world’s population are under lockdown.

It is a time of worry and economic shaking for most of us. But this slice of silence and solitude and precious freed-up time is also a God-given opportunity to do some of the things we’ve long claimed we wanted to do–things essential or important to our spiritual health and wellbeing, which we have allowed to get crowded out by the urgent, and trivial.

Britons have embarked on a lockdown spending spree… exercise equipment, DIY stuff, seeds, gardening tools, sewing machines, knitting stuff.

For me, health permitting, this enforced stillness and peace is a time to

  • Make great headway with, or even finish, a big book project so often interrupted by distraction, both internal and circumstantial.
  • Get my house completely decluttered. It’s tidy, but I could get rid of a goodly percentage of my stuff.
  • Get as strong as I can be through fast walking and lifting weights at home. And continue losing weight without being thrown off course by travel (hotel breakfasts and restaurant dinners!) and parties and meals at friends’ houses, with food that’s not on my ketogenic meal plan.
  • Wake early, now that our evenings are more under our control without going off schedule after returning late from book groups, supper clubs, small groups, German class, etc.

My daughter Irene is home, and so is my husband. It is a time to bond more deeply and invest in some of the most important relationships of my life without all the distraction of social life.  In enforced togetherness, some relationships dramatically improve, others implode. It looks, so far, as if our marriage is going to do better without busyness, rushing around, social life and distractions.

* * *

Human lives are like a well-structured novel with several plots simultaneously in play. There is the plot we seek to write, which usually involves elements of love, success, wealth, and fun. This plot can be affected by other people’s actions as they pursue their own wonderful plans for their lives. In this case, researchers posit, someone selling illegally trafficked pangolins in a “wet” market in Wuhan, China, has affected the lives of millions of people thousands of miles away, among them the heir to the British throne; the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; and a woman leading a quiet life in  Oxford, England. And then there is the plot God is trying to write. And one element of this plot is that we get to know him better.

The Apostle Paul wrote that he counted everything as rubbish, garbage compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ,  his Lord. I am Bible-walking every day during part of my 4.25 mile walk, and listening to the Gospels, praying through them, enjoying Jesus, his humanness and quirkiness.  His first miracle was multiplying wine at a wedding, how human, how wonderful!  He’s no-nonsense. He hates cant and religious hypocrisy. He tells the truth, and tells it straight.  He’s brilliant, ingeniously sidestepping people’s traps. If we make time in this quiet season to deepen our friendship with him and with God, it will be, by far, the most important relationship of our lives, especially when the winds rage and the waves beat.

* * *

I have only been under lockdown once before, when I was seventeen, in my hometown of Jamshedpur, India. I read Catherine Marshall’s Beyond Ourselves, and made a commitment to follow Christ. And though I have done so unsteadily, and often badly, it has been the most important and most blessed commitment of my life. May this lockdown will be a similarly blessed turning point, for you and for me, and may our best work, our King Lear and Pilgrim’s Progress (written in quarantine and in prison respectively) get done.

And it’s possible that when “normal” life resumes, it will be forever changed. Creatives welcome a day free from engagements, or a cancelled activity with joy and uplifted spirits. It follows that we often view a day with a church small group, a writerly activity, or a social activity with a corresponding unconscious lowering of our spirits.

Many habits will be broken in this period. Perhaps if our small group or activities leave us more emotionally depleted than energised, we will stop going. Perhaps if we worship God better in the great cathedrals of river and fields and forest than indoors, or even in church, we will do that more often (heresy!). Perhaps we will re-evaluate our activities, pruning the inessential and everything which does not give us joy and energy.

Long cocooning can be a time of intense inner and directional change. Perhaps we will come out of cocooning alive, joyous, and with wings. May it be so. Amen.

***

 If you’d like to read my book of essays, Wandering Between Two Worlds, which includes my conversion narrative, here it is: on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

Trust: A Message of Christmas

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He came to earth in a  splash of energy

And gentleness and humility.

 

That homeless baby in the barn

Would be the lynchpin on which history would ever after turn

Who would have thought it?

 

But perhaps those attuned to God’s way of surprises would not be surprised.

 

He was already at the centre of all things, connecting all things.

* * *

Augustus Caesar issued a decree which brought him to Bethlehem,

The oppressions of colonialism and conquest brought the Messiah exactly where he was meant to be, the place prophesied eight hundred years before his birth by the Prophet Micah.

 

And he was already redeeming all things. The shame of unwed motherhood; the powerlessness of poverty.

 

He was born among animals in a barn, animals enjoying the sweetness of life, animals he created, animals precious to him.

For he created all things, and in him all things hold together

Including stars in the sky, of which a new one heralded his birth

 

Drawing astronomers to him.

And drawing him to the attention of an angry King

As angelic song drew shepherds to him.

 

An Emperor, a King, scholars, shepherds, angels, animals, stars, an unwed mother

All things in heaven and earth connected

By a homeless baby

The still point on which the world still turns. The powerful centre. The only true power.

The One who makes connections.

* * *

And there is no end to the wisdom, the crystal glints of the Message that birth brings.

 

To me, today, it says,

“Fear not, trust me, I will make a way.”

 

The baby lay gentle in the barn

And God arranges for new stars, angelic song, wise visitors with needed finances for his sustenance in the swiftly-coming exile, shepherds to underline the anointing and reassure his parents.

 

“Trust me in your dilemmas,” the baby still says,

 

“I will make a way. I will show it to you.”

Happy Christmas everyone.

Life- Changing Journaling: A Gratitude Journal, and Habit-Tracker, with Food and Exercise Logs, Time Sheets, a Bullet Journal, Goal Sheets and a Planner

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 So, when I monitor and record my behaviour, I am far more efficient, happy, and confident that I can actually make a change.

Toni Morrison said, “If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, why then you must write it.”

Well, no journal existed which tracked all the things I like to track, so I designed one for my daughters, myself–and for you, if you’d like to get one. A lovely 406 page journal!

There are the sections.

1 Gratitude Journal. Hey, this one is a life-changer. I record ten reasons for gratitude every night, and in the course of it, I frequently find that what I has thought of as a ho-hum day, with the everyday frustrations and irritations was in fact full of tiny, unnoticed goodnesses—the stretching of yoga class, the beauty of my golden retriever, the faithfulness of my labradoodle, a husband who loves me, birds at my feeder. It changes your mood, and your perspective on the day, and those who develop the habit of recording blessings report being 25% happier.

2 Habit Tracker. It’s useful to note down the habit you are trying to develop, and get it down before developing the next one. It takes about 66 days to create a new habit, researchers say. (The four foundational habits to master, incidentally are getting better sleep, exercise, eating healthily, and decluttering/efficient home organisation.)

3 Food Journal. Those who record their food intake lose TWICE as much weight as those who don’t. I’ve struggled with remembering to food journal, but this time round, am having better, though not perfect, success.

(A tool that’s helping me is to rate my hunger before eating on a 5 point scale

1 Very Hungry, 2 Hungry 3 Content. No need for any food at this time. 4 Satisfied 5 Gluttonously full

and only eating at 1 or 2.)

4 Exercise Journal…My Fitbit HR keeps track of my steps, calories and active hours.  I personally need to take 11,000 steps, and to burn 2400 calories a day to lose weight (at present). When I hit a plateau, I increase these, and add in resistance training, weights and additional yoga.

My step goal shapes and defines my day, of course, and the increased steps and mileage also have powerful creative benefits. “Engaging in physical activity before engaging in a creative act is very powerful,” neuroscientist, Shane O’Mara, the author of In Praise of Walking: The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us writes.

Haruki Murakami, author of “What I talk about when I talk about running” is, of course, the sensei of using physical activity to enhance creative activity.

5 I resort to keeping time sheets, whenever I wonder where my time is disappearing to. It takes five minutes to do, but can save hours of wasted time. A game I play with myself is to try to get more done at an earlier hour than I did the previous day, and to inch up my productive hours. So, of course, the journal has time sheets.

6 Again, I haven’t had written goals in the past, but for the last 18 months, I have been using Bill Hybels’ 6 by 6 method of goal-setting, and have found it useful. There are sheets for yearly, monthly and weekly goals.

7 I have started keeping a one-sentence Bullet Journal. I often write 1-3 pages in my journal when I can, but this is a counsel of perfection, and it’s better to keep a Bullet Journal than nothing.

8 And of course, there’s a To-Do and Planner section.

So, that’s it, guys. I hope you will get one for yourself or for your children if you think it might be useful.

Some Useful Books

LIFE-CHANGING JOURNALLING is available on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk  (paperback) and in Hardback Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Shane O’Mara In Praise of Walking: The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us on Amazon.co.uk and on Amazon.com

James Clear: Atomic Habits, on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. 

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

On Loving That Which Love You Back

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I’m reading Sarah Bessey’s “Miracles and Other Reasonable Things” sent me by her publisher for review.

One thing that struck me was her distinction between self-care and self-comfort in times of sadness, stress and boredom.  Bessey explains that she “numbs out in times of stress; I can use anything from food to wine to books to television to shopping.”

This is self-comfort she explains which FEELS good; self-care, on the other hand, CREATES good in our lives, the lives of our family and friends, and in the world.

I, personally, have used the first and last on the list, but I am learning not to comfort myself with things that will cause future sadness when I am tired, bored, angry, sad, or stressed, but instead to love the things that will love me back.

So chocolate, or comfort eating, or zoning out on social media or online magazines and newspapers will not love me back, but cause future sadness at the weight gain, or wasted time. I am now more regularly rating my hunger on a five point scale, and praying for the bread of the Holy Spirit rather than eat when I am not hungry, but am bored, or stressed, or low-spirited.

The things which will love me back are a long walk, yoga, meditation, decluttering, gardening, reading something challenging and nourishing, prayer, Bible-time, dance, gym-time, hanging out with friends, or with family. Interestingly, none of these cost money, or hardly anything, and they all leave me stronger, mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally.

And that’s the difference between self-care, and self-comfort. Sugar, and chocolate (or coffee) give the brain a sudden rush of serotonin and stimulation, a certain “change of state,” but a certain descent , the need for more, and weight gain or sleep loss.

The slow steady ways of self-care take a bit longer to change one’s mood, but they leave no regret.

I, like many Christians, often forget that the love we are called to includes loving ourselves just as as much as we love anybody else. That love includes looking after after ourselves as a wise parent would look after a recalcitrant toddler.

Sarah Bessey Miracles and Other Reasonable Things on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

“An Autobiography in Five Chapters” and Avoiding Habitual Holes  

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 (All images taken on this summer’s memorable trip to Iceland)

Earlier this year, my husband Roy and I took a mindfulness course through the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, a truly mind-expanding experience (a wonderful thing in mid-life, when we can ossify in our thoughts and habits unless we make a conscious effort to change).

The teacher read this poem to us, and it felt like an electric shock.

 

An Autobiography in Five Chapters (by Portia Nelson)

I

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I fall in.

I am lost…

I am hopeless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I’m in the same place.

But it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in… it’s a habit

My eyes are open; I know where I am;

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.

* * *

I thought about mistakes I’ve made, unhelpful habit-patterns, holes I have fallen into–inadvertently, the first time, and then again, without analysing or accepting culpability for my actions, and then repeatedly, out of bad habit.

But there other options exist… I could side-step the hole.

Or go down a different street.

* * *

So, Roy and I began thinking about holes we tumble into, and how to circumvent them. For instance, we left on a 15 day trip to Iceland just after the Meditation course. I love travel, but usually pack an hour or so before we leave. Which means running through the house to run laundry, gather up books, clothes, toiletries and electronics; it’s stressful, and I am frequently still packing when the house-sitters come, and I feel sad that I was not able to tidy up for them as well and hospitably as I would have liked, and I invariably discover I need some toiletries or better walking shoes or eye-masks, but there’s no time to get them.

Well, this time, I started packing a full 10 days in advance, a pomodoro a time. We were renting a camper van, which meant taking more gear, and I decided to buy good hiking layers for Iceland. (We wore 4 or 5 layers in July and August, can you imagine?–because we hiked up to glaciers, took boat trips in glacial lagoons, and it was  chilly!) I also bought a duplicate of almost everything I take in my suitcase or hand luggage when I travel, so that next time packing will be super-easy, with a pre-packed suitcase. (In fact, we are going to Porto soon to celebrate our thirtieth wedding anniversary, and the suitcase is already packed!!) Anyway, I was packed before the house-sitters came, and even got to clean and declutter.

Packing was always a hated and dread task– and I am so happy I have found a non-time-consuming way to do it: buy a duplicate of everything I normally take , and always keep a suitcase packed…

It takes analysis to figure out holes, and how to avoid them. For instance, we booked our trip to Iceland after reading in our guidebooks that while 5-7 days on the Ring Road that circles the country is the minimum, fourteen days are even better. So, we booked fourteen days! We hiked up volcanoes, took boat trips on glacial lagoons among icebergs, walked on iceberg-littered beaches, and among geysers, saw basalt columns, puffins and seals; soaked in hot pools surrounded by mountains; climbed up to more waterfalls than I’ve ever seen in a fortnight, but realised we could easily have seen our personal wish-list in fewer days, if we had read the guidebook, and made a list. (Things like a steep 45 minute walk up a barren Mordor-like landscape to see a volcano’s crater, or climbing behind slippery rocks to get behind a waterfall were not for me, when there were easy-to-access volcanoes and waterfalls). And Iceland is an expensive country to spend an unnecessary day in.  So, though I always read the guidebook on the plane out, and love the serendipity of unplanned travel, I decided I am going to plan an itinerary, ideally before I have even bought the tickets.

I love the poem’s premise: we can avoid habitual mistakes by analysing the holes we can fall into, and, then, take a different road.  Another hole I have fallen into is a form of ghosting. Because I dislike difficult, tense, emotional conversations, I can sever a relationship with, say, a spiritual director, or church, or small group,  or someone who was working for us with an email or by simply stopping showing up.  So, once warm relationships go into limbo, and this is annoying and unsatisfying for the ones ghosted, and leaves me feeling guilty, and without the benefits of maturity that confronting difficult things gives us. I have had to end two relationships this year… one was a warm professional relationship which had definitely come to its natural end. I tried to sever it by email, but he really wanted  a face-to -face, so we had it, and it was a good meeting, and provided a sad but satisfying closure to the relationship which had served us well, but now clearly needed to end. Similarly, I left an activity I was involved in with a frank and mature discussion with the leader, which strengthened our relationship, though leaving was the right thing. And each time we end things well we gain courage and kindness for the next time, which is of great importance, because after all the ending defines the book… Scarlett re-marries Rhett, or doesn’t; Jon Snow occupies the Iron Throne, or doesn’t… Endings define the story!

Other holes I’m avoiding. Because we are self-employed, and our work is portable, my husband Roy and I travel a lot. We are suckers for those super-cheap airfare and hotel deals to Europe, and had 10 short breaks in 2018. And six so far this year, including Cordoba, Berlin, Krakow, Iceland, and New York, for my niece Kristina’s wedding, and soon, God willing, Porto. However, sadly, it can take a while after travel to recover my good habits and work routines.  Also, I gain weight most times I travel (eating out for every meal can do that to you!) which which can take time to lose. So I am now trying to craft a life in which I travel slightly less frequently for energy, freshness, joy and excitement it gives me, but instead pace myself by taking a stimulating break each week. We went to a Pompeii exhibition at the Ashmolean last week, and recently to a story-telling session of The Kalevala with my book group, and a classic movie night at a friend’s house—Pasolini’s Oedipus!! (Alternatively, I could keep travelling, an activity I adore, and simply became more active to walk off the delicious holiday meals. But some change is necessary.)

Life’s more fun, when we keep revising it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shining Faith in Action: Dirk Willems on the Ice

By

Each time, I hear or recount the story of Dirk Willems, a Dutch Anabaptist hero of the Reformation, I find myself moved to tears. And so I wrote down his inspiring story in a little book, The Story of Dirk Willems. The opening pages are here. And here is the climactic scene:

When Dirk Willems was arrested in Holland in 1569, he refused to recant the radical reading of Scripture which had set his life ablaze with purpose and joy. The Crown confiscated all his property for its own uses, and he was sentenced to be “executed with fire, until death ensues.” Willems was imprisoned at the Palace in Asperen, until May, when he was to be publicly burnt at the stake.

Autumn passed, and it was winter. Looking out of the prison window one December night, Dirk Willems noticed that the moat around the castle had frozen solid.

His heart beat faster. Had the Lord provided a means of escape? Might the Lord Jesus enable him too to walk on water?

Willems ripped his bedsheet, knotted the rags together, tied one end to the window and slowly climbed down, the cloth supporting his body, grown skeletal on meagre rations in the long months of imprisonment.

He tiptoed onto the ice. And it bore his weight.

The stars shone bright in the frosty night. He skidded across the pond, remembering the nights of his youth, skating with his friends who loved the Lord Jesus on the frozen ponds of Rotterdam. He felt as if he were flying.

The Lord Jesus was rescuing him from his enemies.

* * *

“Stop! I command you in the name of the Duke of Alva: Stop!” he heard the palace guard shout, but using his last reserves of strength, Dirk slid across the ice of the moat, the Hondegat.

Behind him, the guard, “the thief-catcher,” raced across the ice, handcuffs in hand, closing in, closing in.

“Lord Jesus, I ask in your name! Help me. Please,” Dirk prayed as he slid across the ice.

And now he scrambled onto solid ground. He kissed the icy earth.

Delivered by Jesus.

* * *

“Willems, help me! Help me, please.”

Dirk turned round. The ice across which he, grown emaciated in captivity, had slid, lithe as a cat, had cracked beneath the weight of the burly thief-catcher. He could no longer see the guard’s body, just his thrashing hands, one of them gripping handcuffs.  As the man grabbed at the ice, it shattered into a myriad pieces.

The guard was drowning.

As Dirk paused beneath the starry skies, the words of the Lord Jesus, which he had recited to himself, again and again, through hungry days and sleepless nights returned like distant music.

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who persecute you.

 Do not resist evil.

And Paul’s words: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

 

“Dirk Willems, help me. Help!” the guard gasped, clutching the ice which splintered as he grabbed it, only his head now visible, and his hand, his hand with the shackles.

Under the silent stars, Dirk halted. Prayed. And then, “I will do it for the love of the Lord Jesus,” he decided in a rush of resolution.

For the love of the Lord Jesus whom he had resolved to obey in all things; for whose sake he had chosen imprisonment rather than pretend to accept Catholic doctrines he did not believe; for the love of Jesus whom he had decided to follow, whether it led to happiness or death, Dirk Willems turned around.

He glided on the ice as far as he dared, and extended his hand to his enemy, the guard. And pulled him to safety.

They stood on solid ice. His voice quavering with cold and emotion, the guard said, “Thank you, Dirk Willems.”

* * *

But the Burgomaster, who stood watching outside the Palace walls, called out across the moat, “Remember the oaths you swore to the Duke of Alva, thief-catcher. You swore to catch criminals and deliver them to justice. I command you in the name of the Duke of Alva, seize the heretic.”

The thief-catcher hesitated. Then muttering, “Forgive me,” he grabbed Willems’s wrist, clapped the handcuffs on him, and dragged him across the drawbridge, back to the castle.

* * *

Willems was now confined to a small, barred room at the top of a tall church tower, his feet cramped in wooden leg stocks. He was tortured. He did not renounce his faith.

On 16 May 1569, he was led out to be burned to death outside Asperen.

* * *

It was a blustery day.  A strong east wind blew the flames away from his chest, after they burnt the flesh on his lower body. His suffering was long and lingering. Willem’s loud cries were heard in the town of Leerdam, towards which the wind blew.

“O my Lord, my God,” he called out, over seventy times.

Finally, unable to watch his torment, the supervising judge wheeled his horse around and commanded the executioner, “Dispatch the man with a quick death.”

* * *

Sometimes we walk through a dark forest by the light of a star which had died ten thousand years ago.

Dirk Willems, fool for Christ, you are one of the “children of God without fault who shine like stars in the sky.”  Your light still blazes five hundred years later.

We, who are amazed at your goodness, salute you.

We are astonished by your love for Scripture: you did not compromise your understanding of it, even though that meant imprisonment and the loss of your property, your freedom, your health, and your life. We are stunned by your integrity.

But, most of all, we are moved by how you helped your enemy, though it meant your certain death.

We are inspired by how you kept your eyes on the Lord Jesus through the long agony of that barbaric burning.

We believe that, as you died, heaven opened, and you saw Christ standing at the right hand of the Father, ready to welcome you.

And we know you are with him, shining, in the great golden cloud of witnesses, the communion of saints which sweetens the earth.

Dirk Willems, this world was not worthy of you. You did not get to write your story, but you lived a beautiful one.

Thank you.

* * *

If you know someone who might like a copy, it’s available on

Amazon.com (Paperback) and Kindle

Amazon.co.uk (Paperback) and on Kindle

If you’d like to support me by buying a paperback or Kindle book and leaving a review, I will, of course, be very grateful 🙂