Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

I am ultimately on the same side as all Christians

By


I generally try to avoid controversy, for two reasons.

a) I got involved in a heated church controversy in my early days as a blogger, and the hatred and vituperation which came my way affected my sleep and my emotional health. It convinced me that I do not have the stomach for controversy.

b) and most importantly, as Brennan Manning says, “Many of the burning theological issues in the church today are neither burning nor theological.”
People are free to believe what they wish; they will, anyway, whatever you or I say. And Christ will sort out and correct our thinking, in this life or the next.
                                                                               * * *
However, I tried to sort out my thoughts on an issue in the news: Celebrating Civil Partnerships in churches, which is legal in Britain from today.
Here’s my attempt.  Roy says I could have done better. Essentially, what I was trying to say was who am I, and who are you, to refuse to ask God to bless another individual.

Well: more flak than I’ve ever received from anything except in my early days of blogging. Here are a few tweet and DMs.

Gay stuff is the way to tear apart families and christianity. Has nothing to do with your ‘tolerancy’.

“The spread of an anti-family ideology and the abasement of sexual morality appear interconnected.”

In a healthy society the Christian family reflects the splendor of Christ. In dedication to one another, raising children.

“Family” is not a gay ‘relation’. Church acknowledges marriage between man and woman. People like you are very dangerous.
* * *

Well, a good reminder of why I try to stay out of controversy: The burning theological issues of our day are neither burning, nor theological.
I am not going to waste time, anger or emotion over controversy, nor get annoyed with my opponents.
At the end of the day, all those who love Christ, all those who follow him, or who want to, are on the same side. Whether they are conservative or liberal, Catholic or Protestant, straight or gay.
Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus!

Should gay civil partnerships be blessed in Christian Churches?

By

Who is a Christian?
These are the people Jesus invites to be Christians
Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden.
If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
A Christian is anyone who loves Jesus, and comes to him, seeking to follow him.
Who gets to decide if people are indeed Christians?
Two people.
The individual herself, and Jesus Christ.
What about gay Christians?
Well, for almost all my Christian life, I’ve thought the term gay Christian was an oxymoron.
Why? Because of Romans 1: 26-32  Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
How do I read the passage? Straight, I am afraid. Seven year of university study of English literature and writing, and I can’t see any other way to honestly read this passage.   
Kierkegaard said ‘When you read God’s word, you must constantly be saying to yourself “it is talking to me and about me”’
The word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.When I read it today, it convicts me of finding solace and comfort in food and work rather than in God alone. It does not speak to me about a desire to sleep with women, because, you see, I have none.
The Bible is a purifying sword to excise our own cancers and gangrene.
It is not to be used as a sword to pierce someone else’s heart.
That is the job of the Holy Spirit, who will lead all of us who seek him, into all truth. We will just have to allow the Spirit to speak through Romans to those he wishes, and in the way he wishes.
If a gay Christian sees a way to be both gay and a Christian, then that is between them and Christ. And the Holy Spirit.
So should Gay Civil Partnerships be blessed in Churches?
Probably not by clergy who are adamantly opposed to homosexuality, no. That would be asking them to act against their consciences, and would be wrong.
But not all clergy are opposed to civil partnerships.
Besides, an individual cannot bestow blessing or curses on another.
God alone can.
When we bless a marriage, or civil partnership, all we are doing is asking God to bless the individuals involved, in whatever way he chooses.
That is after all his very nature. He is a God of love, a waterfall of love, a river of deep love, in which we are all out of our depths. It is God’s nature and desire to bless, and when we ask him to bless individuals, we are asking him to do something in line with his very nature.
If two men or two women come to church, asking for blessing, surely we can find a way to ask God to bless them, which does not violate our own consciences.
Partly, for our own sakes–to prevent the canker of pride, and judgementalism and cruelty from devouring our hearts–we have to stop placing a burden of judgment and shame on gay people which the rest of us would find impossible to bear. We just have to allow people to make the call as to whether they are Christians or not. And ask God to bless those who want his blessing.
According to Jesus, blessing should not be withheld from anyone. We are to love, do good, bless and pray for even our enemies, even the worst people we know (Luke 6:27). Leave alone those who come to church, asking us to ask God to bless them.
Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus. Teach us to think as you do.
·      * *
So how did a good evangelical girl come to write this post?
Well, I am giving a 50th birthday party this week, which involved some jitters, and looking critically around me, and seizing the opportunity to do some redecorating.
In the thrill of buying this beautiful antique furniture at a good price, I quite overlook logistics. It’s in Suffolk. Google says that’s five and a half hours away.
11 hours round-trip. I’d be exhausted in an hour’s driving. I’d be nervous if Roy drove for 11 hours in an unfamiliar van.
Hearing me anguish, our sweet Polish cleaner, who works for us a couple of days or so a week, offered to go and fetch it for us. He suggests £100, and petrol, and we gratefully agree.
And then, we overhear him talk on the phone to his English partner. He volunteered because Anita was so worried, but he’s nervous; what if the furniture gets scratched, what if his Polish driving habits take over?
The upshot is that Peter drives him all the way and Suffolk and back. These two very smiley, cheerful gay people arrive on our doorstep early next morning with a breathtakingly beautiful table and chairs—without a single scratch.
I had to laugh. It was so much like Roy and I. My heart is bigger and my tongue quicker than my practical abilities. I am always offering to help people—to take a meal around, to have them over if they are going through a hard time, help with information, contacts…—but the person who actually does the cooking or digs out the information turns out to be Roy, since I’ve generally bitten off far more than I can chew.
And I saw the same love between Peter and Lech, in Peter driving 11 hours with Lech to help him earn £100 and get me my table.
And if Pete and Lech, two sweet, smiley, superlatively kind, helpful men want God to bless them, who am I, and who are you, to refuse to welcome them to the Lord’s Table, and to request that the Lord blesses them?

Christ is a Miracle Himself (Philip Schaff, The Person of Christ)

By

From Philip Schaff, The Person of Christ

“No biographer, moralist, or artist can be satisfied with any attempt of his to set forth the beauty of holiness which shines from the face of Jesus of Nazareth. It is felt to be infinitely greater than any conception or representation of it by the mind, the tongue, or the pencil of man or angel. We might as well attempt to empty the waters of the boundless sea into a narrow well, or to portray the splendor of the risen sun and the starry heavens with ink. No picture of the Saviour, though drawn by the master hand of a Raphael or Drer or Rubens; no epic, though conceived by the genius of a Dante or Milton or Klopstock,—can improve on the artless, narrative of the Gospels, whose only but all-powerful charm is truth. In this case, certainly, truth is stranger than fiction, and speaks best for itself without comment, explanation, or eulogy. Here, and here alone, the highest perfection of art falls short of the historical fact, and fancy finds no room for idealizing the real; for here we have the absolute ideal itself in living reality. It seems to me that this consideration alone should satisfy any reflecting mind that Christ’s character, though truly natural and human, rises far above the ordinary proportions of humanity, and can not be classified with the purest and greatest of our race.

Christ’s person is, indeed, a great but blessed mystery. It can not be explained on purely humanitarian principles, nor derived from any intellectual and moral forces of the age in which he lived. On the contrary, it stands in marked contrast to the whole surrounding world of Judaism and Heathenism, which presents to us the dreary picture of internal decay, and which actually crumbled into ruin before the new moral creation of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth. He is the one absolute and unaccountable exception to the universal experience of mankind. He is the great central miracle of the whole gospel-history. All his miracles are but the natural and necessary manifestations of his miraculous person, and hence they were performed with the same ease with which we perform our ordinary daily works. In the Gospel of St. John, they are simply and justly called his “works.” It would be the greatest miracle indeed, if He, who is a miracle himself, should have performed no miracles.
Here is just the logical inconsistency, contradiction, and absurdity of those unbelievers who admit the extraordinary character of Christ’s person, and yet deny his extraordinary works. They admit a cause without a corresponding effect, and involve the person in conflict with his works, or the works with the person. You may as well expect the sun to send forth darkness as to expect ordinary works from such an extraordinary being. The person of Christ accounts for all the wonderful phenomena in his history, as a sufficient cause for the effect. Such a power over the soul as he possessed, and still exercises from day to day throughout Christendom,—why should it not extend also over the lesser sphere of the body? What was it for him, who is spiritually the Resurrection and the Life of the race, to call forth a corpse from the grave? Could such a heavenly life and heavenly death as his end in any other way than in absolute triumph over death, and in ascension to heaven, its proper origin and home?
The supernatural and miraculous in Christ, let it be borne in mind, was not a borrowed gift or an occasional manifestation, as we find it among the prophets and apostles, but an inherent power in constant silent or public exercise. An inward virtue dwelt in his person, and went forth from him, so that even the fringe of his garment was healing to the touch through the medium of faith which is the bond of union between him and the soul. He was the true Shekinah, and shone in all his glory, not before the multitude or the unbelieving Pharisees and scribes, but when he was alone with his Father, or walked in the dark night over the waves of the sea, calming the storm of nature and strengthening the faith of his timid disciples, or when he stood between Moses and Elijah before his favorite three on the mount of transfiguration.
Thus from every direction we arrive at the conclusion, that Christ, though truly natural and human, was at the same time truly supernatural and divine. The wonderful character of his person forces upon us the inevitable admission of the indwelling of the Divinity in him, as the only rational and satisfactory explanation of this mysterious fact; and this is the explanation which he gives himself.”
                                                                                                        * * *

Handel’s Vision of Heaven and the Composition of the Messiah

By

 My father had trained and worked as a Chartered Accountant in England in the forties and early fifties. When he returned to India, he brought with him some precious possessions—among them LPs of Beethoven, Mozart….and Handel’s Messiah, conducted by Malcolm Sargent.

He used to sit, rapt, listening to Mozart’s Fortieth Symphony or Beethoven’s Fifth. I enjoy classical music if I can do something physical while listening to it, something like housework. The Messiah, however, is different.

It has always transported me into a state of bliss. It is surely among the most beautiful pieces of art ever produced.

* * *

I decided to research its composition.

The years immediately preceding the composition and premiere of Messiah were artistically and financially disastrous for George Frederic Handel. In 1737 he suffered a stroke but eventually recovered enough so that his playing was unaffected.

However, the grandiose style of Italian opera for which Handel was best known was dwindling in popularity, so much so that after 1741 he stopped composing opera altogether. Meanwhile, he witnessed the bankruptcy and failure of two of his own opera companies in the 1730s.

Handel was a shrewd and practical composer; he saw the public’s waning interest in the musical form that had been his bread and butter for many years and started composing in a format he hoped the public would prefer, the oratorio.

He had written eight oratorios before the Messiah. Then Charles Jennens, a wealthy merchant gave Handel the libretto for a new oratorio that he fashioned from passages taken from the Old and New Testament dealing with Christ’s life on Earth and his sacrifice of his own life.

Jennens’ text caught Handel’s imagination, so he began working on it at a feverish pace, finishing it in twenty-four days. During that time, he never left his house and barely came out of his room. A servant who brought him his meals said, “He was praying, or he was weeping, or he was staring into eternity.”

Just after writing the “Hallelujah Chorus,” Handel said, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me and the great God Himself.”

The Hallelujah Chorus surely provides among the purest five minutes of pleasure that art can provide. See it burst upon tired shoppers in a random act of beauty and generosity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE

 

Sources

Redigging Ancient Wells

By

An artesian well

The main thing that Isaac, whose name means laughter, did was re-dig the wells that his father, Abraham, had dug, and which his enemies had blocked out of envy, spite, insecurity, and orneriness.

And once the wells were unblocked, he could settle down, and there was prosperity.

I have blocked wells in my life—I am working on a book which I have long longed to write. Other writing projects are on hold until this one is completed.

And I need to regain my habit of reading, which used to be the great joy of my life, and find slots of time to do so. I need to start gardening again.

The ancient wells, which gave us joy and life are perhaps clues as to the work we are meant to do in the world.

* * *

Isaac re-dug the wells. Three times. It takes effort, energy and persistence.

Apparently, it’s something one must do oneself. (God won’t send an angel to dig the wells for you).

And I have come to a spacious place in my life in terms of time, health and peace to redig the ancient wells.

But, Lord, I pray for strength and soft soil that the flowing artesian well within me might burst forth into beauty.

What are the blocked wells in your life which might need to be re-dug?

 

The Best Writing Advice: Love your Reader

By

 Undercover Readers
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/lesbryant2/4058975175/

Don Miller says that this is the best writing advice: Love your Reader.The golden rule is also a good blogging precept: Write the kind of posts you would really like to read. Ask yourself: Would I like to read this? What would reading this do to me? If you wouldn’t care to read it on someone else’s blog, chances are nobody will want to read it on yours.

* * *

I can’t get enough of grace, of the deep love and mercy of God. And that’s fortunate—because grace and the love of God are some of the few things I can’t get too much of which are actually good for me. All the others things involve spending too much, or eating too much, or sitting too much, or…you get the picture.

And this is one way to blog daily without exhausting oneself, without boring oneself, without repeating oneself. By dipping one’s cup into the deep wells of the loving creativity of God: God’s stream of thoughts, which outnumbers the stars. (Psalm 139:18).

* * *

How exactly do we love our readers?

Well, for starters, we give them grace, rather than the law. Peter, who knew the disgrace of failing—lying, betraying, being pushy and envious–in public, eventually had little time for the law. Didn’t work for him; won’t work for us.  The question he asks the council of Jerusalem changes the course of church history: Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” (Acts 15:10).

Grace rather than the law. The positive rather than the negative. There is a place for negativity and opposition, of course. If Christians hadn’t bitterly opposed other Christians, slavery might still exist because of the scriptural injunction, “Slaves, submit to your masters.”  Women would not be ordained because of “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.” And how unfair for one gender to always be preached at by the other!

* * *

And speaking of preaching: Don’t do it in blogs. People do not come to  blogs to be told what is good to do. They come because they are bored, they feel a little empty, a little depressed, perhaps; they come seeking stimulation and interest, inspiration and fullness.

If they are Christians, they probably have shelves of Bibles and Christian books, telling them what is good to be done. They do not come to your blog for that. They know the many good things they could be doing instead of reading blogs—housework, exercise, Bible study, prayer.

But they come to your blog for a little bit of beauty, a little bit of grace, a little bit of comfort, the energy to go on, perhaps.

So what is this reader offered? Law or grace?  Preaching or the honey of the Holy Spirit? If a reader came to your blog weary and heavy-laden, harassed and helpless, exhausted and overwhelmed, would this be an energizing hope-filled post or make their shoulders sag deeper?

* * *

As I grow older, I dislike what smacks of the law and burden-loading. I dislike preachiness, and tacking-on additional burdens to simple faith and grace.

I like hope-filled blogs, full of the wonder of the spiritual life and spiritual discoveries. Because Christianity is really a hopeful religion, full of Can-do and God’s infinite power, which is available for us who believe. Full of the power of prayer, and the infinity of grace. It’s annoying when it becomes a soul-shrinking, guilt-inducing To Do list.

* * *

Sometimes I feel we need to hear “Relax, God loves you,” in a hundred different ways. Relax, God is your Father. Trust God. Consider the lilies. In everything, give thanks.

Is that all Christianity is? No, of course, not. But if it takes seven compliments to undo one negative word, then we need to hear that God loves us, and delights in us seven times for every time we are reminded of the good Christian things we fail to do.

* * *

There are two yardsticks for our endeavours: temporal and eternal.  One might succeed brilliantly (or not) by temporal measures, which in blogging would be the quality of writing, readers, followers, ranking, and all that jazz.

But there is also an eternal standard. My friend, singer-songwriter Debby Barnes, ends her haunting song, In the End, by asking,

Was there any love there in the end?

And that is a scary and chastening question we will all be asked one day.

* * *

 

My blog post was first published in the Big Bible’s Digidisciple project.

C.S. Lewis’s Five Commonsensical Rules of Good Writing

By

  1. C. S. Lewis What really matters is:–

    1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

    2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’timplement promises, but keep them.

    3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”

    4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”

    5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

From

C. S. Lewis’s Letter’s to Children

Party Jitters and Seeking His Face

By

The said table, flower-filled here after my birthday party!
Of late, I am trying to seek Christ’s face (2 Chron 7:14) in everything. And not to do things—little or big– before I have sought his face, and his wisdom on the matter.
Now this is no easy matter for me. By temperament, I am quick-thinking, quick-talking, decisive and energetic. And impulsive! With me, thought rapidly becomes action.
So seeking his face, for me, is a matter of slowing down, and growing in wisdom.
Seeking his face also means re-examining “the things I always do,” “the way I always do things,” and “just the way I am.”
Heck, I am a human being, not a fossil. If I am not doing things in the way Christ would want me to do them–the wisest and best way!–I can change.
                                                   * * *
So I guess, this is an anecdote about something I launched into without seeking his face, and how I sought his face midway.
Roy and I celebrate our birthdays once every ten years—you know, whenever a 0 appears in our ages. Our fortieth birthdays were great fun, and we have lovely memories.
And, well, there’s a birthday coming up next month. I devoted some thought to this. I wanted to invite lots of people, everyone I am friends with and liked, but the logistics of providing a meal for loads of people–cooking, heating, serving and clearing up—were too daunting. So after much thought, we are having an open house with cake, mince pies, mulled win and snacks—and NO cooking at all.
*                                                          * * *
So far, so good. Then, unfortunately, I remembered Flylady.
Sigh. This domestic diva for the born undomestic suggests seeing your house and your garden from the point of view of someone just entering for the first time.
So I look at the garden, and I see how the shrubs need a good pruning, and every thing needs cutting back. It’s a bit too overgrown. It’s too cold for me to do it and besides I’d rather write. I don’t have the heart to get Roy to go out to do it in the cold, so I hire a gardener to do 8 hours of work. Not cheap, but I will enjoy my garden more.
* * *
Step inside, look up, see cobwebs. Engage the cleaner for a special pre-party session.
And then start looking around at the conservatory furniture. Our cherry veneer table and white damask covered chairs were bought in 1993, before our first child was even serious considered. White damask seated chairs after 17 years of girls and their friends, and many, many pets?? Yeah, time for an upgrade.
I shop antique stores on line, and buy a beautiful Edwardian cherry mahogany dining table and matching chairs.
And then, I look at our coffee table positioned under a fig tree in our conservatory, which dropped figs on to it, which affected the veneer. It was too large anyway. I look at antique tables online.
Then I notice that rabbits have gnawed the bottom of our ten year old couch, and puppy paws (our puppy’s, and the cleaner’s who brings his puppy; yeah, I’m that kind of an employer!!) have frayed the fabric. I look online for leather couches.
You might have noticed that the party is becoming rather an expensive proposition by now.
Well, so did I.
· * * *
Time for me to seek his face!
And so I set my timer for an hour, and lie face down, and seek his face about this party, and how to do it, and how he wants me to do it.
· * *
If Jesus were to throw a party…
Everything in my life is coming down to this. How would that amazing, that most marvellous of men, that moral genius, that intellectual genius, that man who has so ravished my heart and my thinking–how would he do things?
How would Jesus handle a blog if he were me? How does he want me to do it?
How would Jesus handle Twitter if he were me? How does he want me to do it?
How would Jesus throw a party if he were me? How does he want me to do it?
·                                                                                                         * * *
Sigh. Relief. The bottom line is:
None of these things I am fretting about really matter. Doesn’t matter if the conservatory is not the cleanest, though I am going to pay for it to be cleaned. Doesn’t matter if the garden is not at its winter best, though, ditto.
Furniture? Doesn’t matter. No one who’s coming expects me to be a domestic goddess—and if they did, they’ll soon expect otherwise.
So peace…
* * *
What is a party about anyway–which we forget in our over-perfectionistic, too-perfect society?
It is not a performance, a time to show off your cooking skills.
It is not an occasion to get out your crystal and candles and pretend to be Martha Stewart—though no harm in a bit of bling, if you already own it.
It is not about you.
It is not about you.
*                                                              * * *
It is about love, most overused of words. It is about people.
It is about welcoming people, being delighted to see them, enjoying them.
and making sure they enjoy themselves.
* * *
And so, while I am probably going to upgrade the sofa and the coffee table before the party—we are going to do it anyway, so why not use the party as an inciting event?—I am going to relax about the party. I am going to enjoy it. I am going to look forward to having lots of my friends together, at the sameish time, though it’s a drop-in open house.
I am going to invite people into my less than perfect house, and accept the fact that I am a woman who loves reading, writing and thinking, but have, unfortunately, little talent or interest in the noble arts of interior decoration or cooking, or the throwing of flawless parties. So I am going to stop trying to appear what I am not
But just enjoy everyone who comes, and hope they enjoy it too.
And I am going to make a list of those who’ve RSVP’d and off and on, pray for them, pray for a blessed fortnight, and that they enjoy the party as much as we intend to. There is no surer way of feeling love for people than praying for them.
*                                                           * * *
Okay, I have a little story about the Edwardian cherry mahogany table and chairs. Roy and I love antique furniture of solid wood—but hate shopping. Which presents a problem!!
So we spend a day looking at dining tables and chairs online, and get very stressed. They are not cheap—the ones we were looking at ran from £500 for just the table to £2500 for the set. And go up another 2 grand, and oh, the lovely stuff! What to choose?
We both got stressed and confused, and I couldn’t hear God’s voice.
So I settled down to pray with a timer set for an hour, for wisdom re. the antique dining table and chairs, and general party wisdom and peace.
And I hear God say, “Seek my face, enjoy me, and after this, I will tell you what to buy.”
So I call out to Roy to stop looking. “I will choose something,” I say.
And then, I expectantly surf. I have heard God tell me he will help me choose something, but what, where? We have done our research over a day of fretting rather than praying, and now have a good idea of prices. But I know that God will tell me when I see it.
And I find it. I love it, Roy loves it. It’s a private sale. We get a price we couldn’t have dreamed of.
Oh, if only I had prayed first. How much trouble I could have saved.
Here it is. Solid cherry mahogany, and the last dining table and chairs, God willing, I will ever buy.
Now, how I wish I had prayed instead of stressing.
I am rather getting into the habit of saying this, aren’t I?