Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Come and you will see (John 1:39)

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Continuing my blogging through the Gospel of John
35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”
 37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”
   They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
   39 “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”
You know, I would like to know where I was going.
I would like to know where the road ends.
It would be nice.
But, you, Jesus, are compelling,
your eyes, magnetic.
I don’t really have a choice.
The road that leads away from you
seems to lead into a dark, overgrown, dense forest.
I don’t want to enter it.
Following you leads into the light,
and, so Lord, I will follow you.
step by step, and find out where you live.
* * *
Yes, come, and you will see.
I make no promises, but these.
I will give you
myself,
and priceless gifts which can neither be bought,
lost, nor stolen.
I will teach you to give thanks for all things
so that you may progressively see
the joy which pulses through all things.
I will give you my peace,
which will abide unshakeably.
My love for you shall be
water which will quench your thirst.
My body will be real food for you,
as you learn to turn to me with your soul hungers.
My blood will be real drink.
I will give you light,
guidance, for I am the way.
Come to me, come to me,
keep coming, and I will teach you to see
truth.
* * *
Come and you will see.
Words of invitation and danger.
You will not tell us what you are going to show us
 as slowly, imperfectly, often lagging behind,
we follow you.
Glory or Gethesemene?
Or both?
Great fruitfulness,
or the great silence of the desert
in which character is forged?
Fame, our name a household word as yours was,
or the obscurity of your first thirty years?
The love of a circle of close friends as you enjoyed,
or your almost absolute aloneness on Calvary.
Will we experience the miraculous,
feed five thousand from five loaves?
Or will we be shunned and condemned as you were?
I do not know.
But you are too intriguing, Jesus,
for me to do other than what you ask,
and come and see where you will lead me.

First World Christians and Immigration: A God’s Eye View

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The Lord looks down from heaven. He says vast empty expanses in the Dakotas, Montana, Scotland, Canada, Norway and Sweden. He sees staggering wealth, loneliness and depression–and is perhaps surprised.
The Lord looks down from heaven. He sees Bangladesh, Rwanda, India, Ethiopia, Malawi, Vietnam. Starvation. Children dying because the mothers can’t read the directions on the donated medicine. Widespread malnutrition. Bright children pulled out of school to earn a few pennies. He sees them look northwards longingly.
The Lord looks down from heaven at Europe, Canada, the United States. He sees nursing homes where there is little kindness. He sees highly educated, gifted women who could use all their giftedness if they had help with childcare or housekeeping. He sees frazzled women writing facebook status updates, “Busy, busy busy. Stressed, stressed, stressed.”
The Lord looks down from heaven at Africa, Asia, South America. He sees kind competent women who would happily help with their richer sisters with childcare, with housekeeping, so to move to a country in which their own children would get a good education, and a roof over their head and be well fed. These are good desires, are they not?
And the Lord can think of a solution.
Can you?
* * *
And the Lord knows several secrets, which the fearful do not.
2)    The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. He knows the world produces enough food to feed everyone. He knows there will be enough, even if the rich world relaxes its immigration policies. Even if we have open borders on earth, as there are in heaven.
* * *
 Oh Christian, if your country has much of the world’s wealth, and you fearfully keep it for yourself, how does the love of God dwell in you?
I speak particularly to the citizens of America, since, oddly, I and my family are American citizens.
I believe the Lord reads cruel anti-immigrant laws and weeps at Alabama’s shame. I think he would just as soon not be associated with such courtrooms.
Dear American fellow-citizens: If you are not the descendant of native Americans or enslaved black Americans, you are an American citizen because America once opened her arms to tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of teeming shores.
Give as you have received, and you will receive as you have given.
       If you provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
And when you see the naked, clothe him,
  Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
       and your healing will quickly appear;
  Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
        you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. (Isaiah 58 7-9)
* * *
O Christian, there is enough for you and the poor. Kindness and generosity and openness are always good– for individuals and societies. (Witness the success of immigration-based societies like America, Canada, New Zealand and Australia)
 So, please, oh rich Christian brother and sister, if you cannot be an immigration advocate, please do not oppose immigration of your poorer fellow humans to your rich country.
They will add life, colour. They will work hard at needed jobs. They will pay taxes, eventually. They will contribute to your economy. Your mind and hearts will broaden.
There is always enough for the users, the abusers, the makers and the takers, the givers, the receivers, and your life will be enriched by your darker neighbours, their high-decibel music and their high-voltage food.
And perhaps, in that nursing home, when you are gently nursed by the kind Filipina, or saintly male nurse from Barbados when many of your own race scorn such work, or do it with brusqueness or a bad grace, you will be so, so glad you did not oppose immigration.
And, oh rich Christian, in 75 years, 50 years, 25 years, 5 years, today, you might well be living in the last and glorious multi-cultural society
There will be people there from every tribe and language and people and nation. (Rev 5:9).
Yes, jubilant Africans, tiger mother Chinese, the pushy, the noisy, the dirty, the messy, the illiterate, the vociferous, you will soon be elbow to elbow with them.
If you are lucky!
But if we arrive face to face with the King of Kings and have no reference letter from the poor (Matthew 25:31), let’s hope that none of us who selfishly retain the world’s wealth for ourselves, and our own countries will hear what the rich man in the Gospels heard, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony,” (Luke 16:25).

Friend, Come Higher

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Peter, from Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth
  
“You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter, the rock). John 1:42


Yes, I do know you.
I see you

and know you better than you know yourself.

I know you are friable.

I know you can crumble,

though these things may surprise you.

But your strength shall emerge from the weakness

you shall thoroughly conquer,

and thoroughly renounce.

I am calling you

from being Peter, the impulsive,

to becoming Peter who unshakeably loves me,

who is built rocklike on the bedrock of me.

I am calling you from being a fisherman

to being a fisher of men.

Following my will

will always lead you upward and onward

to a higher place.

Friend, come higher.

Come follow me.

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Come and you will see (John 1:39)

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Continuing my blogging through the Gospel of John
35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

 37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

   They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”

   39 “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”

You know, I would like to know where I was going.

I would like to know where the road ends.

It would be nice.

But, you, Jesus, are compelling,

your eyes, magnetic.

I don’t really have a choice.

The road that leads away from you

seems to lead into a dark, overgrown, dense forest.

I don’t want to enter it.

Following you leads into the light,

and, so Lord, I will follow you.

step by step, and find out where you live.

* * *

Yes, come, and you will see.

I make no promises, but these.

I will give you

myself,

and priceless gifts which can neither be bought,

lost, nor stolen.

I will teach you to give thanks for all things

so that you may progressively see

the joy which pulses through all things.

I will give you my peace,

which will abide unshakeably.

My love for you shall be

water which will quench your thirst.

My body will be real food for you,

as you learn to turn to me with your soul hungers.

My blood will be real drink.

I will give you light,

guidance, for I am the way.

Come to me, come to me,

keep coming, and I will teach you to see

truth.

* * *

Come and you will see.

Words of invitation and danger.

You will not tell us what you are going to show us

 as slowly, imperfectly, often lagging behind,

we follow you.

Glory or Gethesemene?

Or both?

Great fruitfulness,

or the great silence of the desert

in which character is forged?

Fame, our name a household word as yours was,

or the obscurity of your first thirty years?

The love of a circle of close friends as you enjoyed,

or your almost absolute aloneness on Calvary.

Will we experience the miraculous,

feed five thousand from five loaves?

Or will we be shunned and condemned as you were?

I do not know.

But you are too intriguing, Jesus,

for me to do other than what you ask,

and come and see where you will lead me.


Write down the Vision and Make it Plain

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Write down the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it (Habakkuk 2:2).
Bill Johnson (in The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind: Access to a Life of Miracles) says he writes down God’s ideas and revelations about his life and other matters, as they are revealed to him.
I think I am going to change the way I write my blog and write down what I hear God say to me as he says it (rather than note down the idea in a single phrase to develop later, because later I often do not remember what I meant, and, unbelievable though it may seem at the time of vivid revelation, may not even remember all the details and fullness of the idea God gave me.)
In that way, writing down ideas as they occur to me, I might be able to develop my blog while, ironically, spending less time on it!!
That will be great, as I am really longing to go back to mainly writing books, rather than blogs (rather than mainly writing blogs).
John Piper writes that there are eyes in pencils and in pens. In writing down the vision, one sees it more clearly.
Before guests, or the cleaners arrive, bad housekeepers have a flurry of putting things back in the right place. The organized housekeeper does not have this; she has been tidying as she went along.
At present, I have been setting a dedicated hour a day to blog, and letting it spill over, if the post is not finished in an hour. However, if I keep “writing the vision, and making it plain,” God willing. I will no longer need to dedicate an hour to blogging, but will have a little stash of blog posts—which I have always yearned to have, but never managed to create.
I have been the kind of blogger who finishes writing, and then hits “publish,” and, generally speaking, posts written that way are more mediocre than those carefully written, rewritten and polished!

Writing God-whispers as you hear them. The exciting holy ground where a prophetic ministry (if that’s not being 

I have news for you: Ninth Century Irish poem

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I have news for you:

The stag bells, winter snows, summer has gone
Wind high and cold, the sun low, short its course
The sea running high.
Deep red the bracken; its shape is lost;
The wild goose has raised its accustomed cry,
cold has seized the birds’ wings;
season of ice, this is my news.
Anonymous

Scribbled by a monk on the margin of his manuscript in ninth century, Ireland.

From our retreat at Ffald-y-Brenin, Pembrokeshire, Wales

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Enjoying our retreat at Ffald-y-Brenin in Pemrokeshire National Park in Wales.
It was running at full occupancy, and as Roy Godwin explains in his book, The Grace Outpouring,when there is a rumour that Jesus is to be found there, it draws crowds.
The place has been soaked in prayer and blessing, as Roy Godwin says, and there is something in the air. Our daughters had been given the bigger rooms with the bed and chairs facing the window, whereas we had the smaller room, with the bed and chairs facing away. Not good for someone who loves to read and write in bed facing a window. I wanted to swap rooms. A mini-tantrum ensued.
I tried blessing. “X, I know you are going to surprise us all with how good and kind and loving and understanding you are going to be.”
She pouted, but never mentioned it again, whereas normally, she would have persisted and pressed until she got her own way. Magic in the air, huh? The girls seems to be enjoying a mixture of prayer, Bible reading, and their own secular reading, and study, in Zoe’s case.
There is healing and faith in the air. I prayed for healing for the adrenal fatigue which I had suffered from for several years, since the early years of my marriage really, and perhaps before that. Its main sign was a severely diminished reading speed (from the days in which I could gulp down a book a day, and sit reading for pretty much 12 -14 hours at a stretch, which I used to do until my mid-twenties, very unhealthy).
Somehow, I felt I had been healed of this, and was surprised at how rapidly I was reading again.  I am reading a fairly dense but well-written readable book, Diarmaid MacCullough’s history of Christianity, rapidly and with great enjoyment. Of course, being self-conscious about reading speed and techniques is like watching oneself play the piano or touch-type. You will be watching yourself rather than immersing yourself in flow, and that will slow you down!
Normally, when I have the opportunity to pray for extended periods of time, I have an agenda. I seek God’s wisdom for this, blessing for that, direction for this…
This time, I just wanted to hang out, and see what he might have to say to me. God has been very kind to me over the last couple of years in terms of guidance and vision, and this time I wanted to pray
Search me, Oh Lord, and know my heart
Try me and know my anxious thoughts
I asked God to show me what he might see in me which he’d want me to change.
He pointed out a detail. Ouch!
·      * *
The one sure thing about God is that He is a giver. He is generous. He loves to give to those who slow down enough to receive—love to gives blessings, guidance, vision, wisdom. What James says is really true—if anyone lacks wisdom, he would turn to God who giveth to all generously.
One area God spoke to me was about reading Scripture, and I am going to return to my old habit of reading 5 chapters a day from today.
Another was about writing down the things I hear him say immediately rather than make a note to blog about them later. I am becoming distinctly middle-aged, and sometimes forget the depth of vision behind these scribbled noted.
Some days, in which I am receptive, I might hear God speak several times, and say several things. Other days, when I am dry, distracted, obsessive, hassled, I might not hear anything. So it would be good to cultivate the blog stack. And writing down things as I hear them, or divine them, or sense them, would mean I would have a blog stack without needing to spend the hour a day I spend on blogging (which means I could spend the extra hour to return to writing books, which is where my heart really is).
There is one area of my life in which I lack wisdom—I simply don’t know what to do!! I spent a couple of hours praying about this issue. If Jesus was here, in the flesh, and I asked him what to do about it., I am sure he would tell me. It’s a good desire, after his will. So, perhaps it just takes faith and receptivity to be able to hear God’s guidance, when Jesus is not here in the flesh.
I think we have a lot more wisdom and guidance at our disposal that we don’t avail ourselves of because we do not slow down. So I did, slowed down, about this long-standing question mark and puzzlement in my life, and felt I heard God speak and tell me what to do. More later…
And so I have had 3 days without any internet, or mobile phones. Loved it. Today however, the intensity got too much, and we drove into town to reacquaint ourselves with social media–twitter, blogs, facebook et. al.
But I learnt something–how MUCH one can read and write when the internet is switched off. I am going to turn it off for periods when we get home.

Blog Vacation: Off on Retreat at Ffald-y-Brenin in Wales

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Okay, I am really excited. We’re off to Ffald-y-Brenin in Pembrokeshire National Park tomorrow. It’s a Christian retreat centre, which is a thin place between heaven and earth, with the presence and peace of God powerfully evident. I have felt such a longing for long hours in the presence of God of late–but for a married woman, with children, and other commitments, it’s not always possible. Now, for 5 days it will be!! I am so grateful to our wonderful house-sitter.
There is no internet or iPhone or iPad coverage in the retreat centre, so I will be taking a blog break until the 20th December.
Have a blessed Advent, everyone.
From the Ffald-y-Brenin website.
“There are two things our visitors tend to notice as they arrive. One is the stunning beauty of the buildings, site and surroundings. Unbidden peace seems to invade your heart and mind.

The second is an awareness of the stillness of God’s presence. This has often been called “a thin place” where the veil between heaven and earth has been pulled back. It is easy to pray, to be still, to listen, to worship. It is also a place of joy, of creativity and of learning, a place of encounter.

Visitors coming on retreat at Ffald-y-Brenin tend to find it restful, challenging or life changing, depending on their purpose in coming and God’s agenda for them while they are here.

At its heart, Ffald-y-Brenin is a House of Prayer. Everything that happens is soaked in prayer. Guests are welcome to join with us and gaze into the face of Jesus during our daily rhythm of morning, midday and evening prayer if they choose. Some have deep encounters with God at those times. “