Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

The Nasrid Palace at the Alhambra (Granada, Spain)

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Detail from a courtyard wall at the Alhambra (stucco above, tile below)

(Thanks, Roy Mathias, for all your help with photographs and writing for this post.)

Click, or right click, on an image to see a larger version.

We have had wanted to visit the Alhambra for many years, and this dream came true in December 2010, while Granada, and the rest of Europe was enduring its coldest winter for years.  Granada is a rugged mountain city with steep winding roads.  The Alhambra is at the top of one of these, and is a large complex including a place, mosque, fort and extensive gardens.

Nasrid Palace (Palacios Nazaries)

The Nasrid Palace is the star attraction.  One enters through a rather disappointing entrance and into a dark hall with a carved wooden ceiling and plaster work.

However, one soon sees the real Alhambra. Here is the first courtyard

and one walks through courtyard after courtyard (details shown later)

Alcove at the Alhambra

(I never did find out what the white bowls were for.)

Water played an important role in Moorish architecture.

Alhambra (Harem courtyard)
Same view of the Harem courtyard at the Alhambra from furtherback.
Alhambra stucco work

Apparently the Alhambra was designed to be renewed and redecorated by successive rulers.  Much of the decoration is plaster, and in parts, which naturally I didn’t bother photographing, on can see it in a state of decay.  The patterns were a combination of geometric patterns, as well as Islamic inscriptions.    For example “The is no Conqueror but God”, the one time battle cry of the Nasrids, is repeated over and over again on the walls.    Here are some details.  One is surrounded by these and can spend a whole day studying the patterns, if if one can’t read the inscriptions.

larger scale view of the same

The top of a pillar — one can see remiains of blue paint.
A little hard to see, but this is a ceiling
Wooden ceiling

Towards the end of the tour one comes to the Courtyard of Lions.  Unfortunately it was undergoing repairs and we saw it only through scaffolding.  These pictures are from the web

A long day pleasant day, with only a few places to sit.

“All I have left is a nuclear bomb”

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My good friend, Paul Miller says, “People say, ‘All I have left is prayer,’ as a euphemism for ‘There’s nothing I can do.’ “ But that is like saying, “All I have left is a nuclear bomb.”
In fact, because of long experience of trying to do things by my own strength and failing, and also experiencing the power of prayer I rather like getting to the point at which I can honestly say, “All I have left is prayer.”
It’s then that I feel excited, hopeful. As long as what I am praying about is in God’s will (i.e. I am not hoping to compete in the Decathlon in the 2012 Olympics, or win the New York Marathon) I feel that once I say, “Done what I can, out of energy, out of inspiration, out of talent. Over to you, God, Please help,” then things are going to get really interesting.
And that’s when I can really relax. Because I believe that if what I am praying is in God’s will, He is, sooner or later, going to hand over the plutonium for a nuclear bomb. Or the bomb itself.
I have numerous examples—my biggest business breakthroughs, elegant and simple but geometrically lucrative ideas came after desperate prayer (which, sadly, followed plodding, exhausting, arithmetical effort).
The idea of breaking my long writers’ block (causing by 4-5 years in business) by blogging came from God too.
One thing I like about blogging is that, well, I need to do it by prayer so much.
Writing is one thing. Getting a finite piece as finished, as perfect as I can.
But blogging is about a whole lot more than writing well. And none of these are my strengths. There is the physical appearance of the piece, for one.
Initially, one needs to network to find readers—which has never been a particular strength of mine. I don’t even like the word: networking. And the way you get known and read in the blogosphere, as advocated by blogging gurus—by leaving comments on other blogs to alert them to your existence, well, I just don’t have the time and energy to do much of that. And then those other building blocks of a successful blog— being blog-rolled, linked to, the appearance of social proof–well, they are given to you by other people. There is nothing you can do to get them.
And so, when stats stall, and my blog does not excite or interest me deeply, leave alone anyone else, well then, it’s time for the nuclear option. To pray for blessing, breakthroughs, wisdom, inspiration, ideas. Insight on how I can do what I do better, more quickly. Ways for my blog to be more of a blessing. I ask that God may bring me readers whom my blog might be a blessing to. And I even pray for some of the specific ingredients of a successful blog—and am surprised at how quickly those prayers are answered, in a small way.
So I suppose the secret is to pray continually as Paul advocated, not just when my stats stall.

1001 Gifts #5: Living in England

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I’ve lived in Oxford for 10 and a half years now, in two instalments, and still love it.
I read a email yesterday from an American friend who did some ministry in London earlier this month. “We were immersed in British culture. We loved their sense of humor. If I added these six words to my vocabulary, I might pass as British: brilliant, lovely, fabulous, fantastic, cheerio, and really. As in, “that was a brilliant seminar, really lovely, just fantastic”.”
Well, I must say, in that case, people in London are certainly more positive than those in Oxford, where “not bad” passes for commendation. But yes, when the English succeed in getting themselves enthusiastic, they are really enthusiastic; things are indeed brilliant, lovely, fabulously fantastic.
I read a Lonely Planet guidebook on the flight over from the US to Britain in 1994. It remarked that contrary to the stereotype of buttoned-down reserve, the greatest pleasure of travelling England is the English themselves.
The English do indeed cultivate humour like as a sixth sense. Perhaps they need it to deal with the notorious British weather, and cold, old houses without central heating.
                                               * * *
And indeed, as the guidebook said, one of the best things about living here is the English themselves, their eccentricities, their passions, their funny hobbity ways, and, yes, their sense of humour, evenly distributed across every spectrum of society.
Roy and I had supper with an Oxford friend of mine in an posh old house in Surrey. In her house, nobody ever locked the loo. Well, Roy, like Alice, seeing a key turned it. And it stuck, stubbornly.
The only locksmith who picked up his phone on Sunday evening had to drive nearly 90 miles to get to us, in deep country. Jane and I passed him his slides beneath the bathroom door, giggling like schoolgirls, and being a true intellectual, indifferent to his surroundings, he sat there and continued his research, while Jane and I had a longer and lovelier catch-up than we had bargained for.
 Two hours later the locksmith comes, gets Roy out, and says gleefully, “You must be relieved.”
Had he been choking on that pun all evening? “Working class English people are very witty,” explained Jane, who comes from well-known High Tory political family.
* * *
In fact, most English people are. We often have people over for a meal—a form of fun and recreation both Roy and I enjoy. British people, at least in Oxford, pride themselves on speaking well and amusingly, and such evenings are always fun.
The only chink in the British sense of humour is that they totally fail to see how funny they appear to people from elsewhere, To Americans, in particular (who are like brash Romans, compared to the cute hobbity culture and mores of sections of English society) but also to the French, as I realized through hours of French conversation with tutors, and Germans…
I remember a surreal episode in the New Wine Conference when Carl Medearis, an engaging American speaker continually laughed at his hosts, in the sweetest manner. At how seriously they took their tea and biscuit breaks, and how restive they got when these were delayed by an overrun. At the charming place names, like Shepton Mallet, where the conference was held. This stream of quips was received by the audience in stony silence.
At the long-awaited tea and biscuit break, Roy tells the man next to us in the queue. “The only question is “Do Brits find Americans funnier, or do Americans find the English funnier?” ”
The man stared. “What’s funny about the English?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.
What indeed?

Santa Maria Maggiore and the Pantheon: some pictures

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Okay, last on Rome for a while. Roy has been writing up our trip before it blurs into the mists of memory.

Santa Maria Maggiore is one of the twenty “Santa Maria” churches listed in our guide to Rome, and one of the five great basilicas of Rome.  The first time I saw the church it was summer and it was so crowded that the only part I could see easily was the wonderful ceiling:

and here’s a detail

Here is a statue of Pope Pius IX praying in front of a reliquary supposedly containing fragments of Christ’s crib.   Notice the wonderful coloured marble on the walls.

 The Pantheon was originally a Roman temple completed by Hadrian almost 1900 years ago, and looks solid enough to stand another 1900 years. 

Anywhere else in the world such an ancient monument would be a major attraction, but here the square it is on is a convient parking lot, with a statue of a friendly elephant

and a cafe where we happened to meet Zoe’s maths teacher.   

Zoe and Irene with two friendly soldiers

  

 

St Paul’s Within the Walls, one of the loveliest churches in Rome

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(We had two laptops, one ipod and one ipad stolen in Sweden which had ALL the photographs from our trip in April to Ravenna and Bologna, our July trip to Strasbourg, and half our August trip in Sweden. So we’ve got motivated to post our pictures from our other trips online.
My husband Roy has helped me a lot–a lot!–with this post. Just in case you notice any difference in style. Just saying:-)

On arriving in Rome our first stop was–wait for it!–St Paul’s Within the Walls, the American Episcopal Church in Rome—the first non-Catholic church in Rome.  An unusual lovely little church decorated by the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones in mosaics.  It is not well known, and rather hard to find in guidebooks.  (If you are interested in visiting, it is on Via Nazionale, Rome). Remarkably we had seen the painting these mosaics were based on up close at an exbibition at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford a few months earlier.  The mosaics are much more striking than the paintings.

The dome above the altar in St. Paul’s within the Walls

 Just above the arc of flowing water there are inscriptions in Hebrew and Greek — the former the beginning of Genesis, and the latter the beginning of Revelation.  Here are some details

Detail — angelic choir

Even higher than the angelic choir, Burne-Jones placed a mosaic of Christ crucified on the Tree of Life with Adam and Eve (and Cain and Abel, who are very rarely pictured, let alone as babies.)  The inscription, in Latin this time is
IN MUNDO PRESSURAM HABEBITIS SED CONFIDITE EGO VICI MUNDUM
(‘In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.’ John 16.33)

The catalog from the Oxford exhibition states

Burne-Jones was especially pleased with the design ‘it said as much as anything I have ever done’ … but acknowledged that ‘everything is done to make it not a picture … and few will understand it’. When the large body colour version was shown at the New Gallery in 1888 ‘no one even looked at it’.

Apparently
The last and most dramatic design was never executed: an apocalyptic vision of Satan and his angelic army swarming out from the gate of heaven, a dark regiment of beautiful knights who might have stepped straight from the chorus of Parsifal.
The walls are decorated with tiles by William Morris.
A delightful and truly unique church to discover in Rome, the city of churches.

1001 Gifts: My Border Collie, Jake, and All the Dogs I have Loved

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My husband and daughters would flee if they read this title, because I do get maudlin about my dogs.
But honestly, what’s not to love? For me, the doggie smell, the shed fur, the muddy paw-prints are nothing compared to the constant loving friendship, the happy tail which expresses their joy, their melting expressive eyes, their sheer joy when accompanying you on a walk, the way they follow you around the house, their delight when you return which makes a house truly home. I would like to have dogs as long as I live, and the thought of living without animals or a garden makes a nursing home unthinkable. It’s dramatic to say “I’d rather die,” but I guess without a garden and pets I soon would.
Soon after we moved to the country, to a idyllic quiet spot perfect for a writer—no neighbours to the left or right , behind or in front of me—a couple of local teens broke into our house. Well, I happened to be there at the time, and told them off, though they had been quietly ferrying stuff out of the house before I noticed their presence. We have an old rambling kind of house!!
Well, the police suggested country remedies—a gravelled driveway, geese (we have ducks instead) and a dog.
Roy wanted to wait till we had settled, but what a trump card! The police said we should get a dog!!
So we called all the Rescues around, describing what we wanted—a dog, any dog, fearsome to intruders, but a good family dog.
Someone said “Oh we have just the dog for you, a collie.”
Dear Reader, such was my ignorance, that I imagined a collie look like this
Kuvasz
like the sheepdog the English nuns had in my boarding school, Saint Mary’s Convent, Nainital. I went there when I was 9 and irrepressible. I ran out of the classroom every time I saw that dog, and my teacher ran after me, and the three of us chased each other round and round the skating rink.
Well, it turned out Jake was a special kind of collie, a short-haired Border Collie, and he is wall-eyed—he has one beautiful brown eye, and one beautiful blue eye. I think he’s beautiful, but a blunt friend of mine said she thought he wasn’t a looker.
Perhaps that explained why he was not adopted for 18 months, and lived alone in a concrete tiny room. And he a border collie, a breed which needs, and thrives on exercise.
When we went to see him, all he wanted was for me to throw a stick for him to retrieve. “He could do it all day,” the lady said. Well, yes, particularly if he had lived in a concrete cage! He has brought me so much joy, it hurts to think of those 18 months wasted alone in his cell.
Well, I didn’t immediately take to him, particularly. As I said, all he wanted to do was retrieve a stick. He’s not the sort of waggy, friendly, heart-meltingly adorable dog that you immediately love. He’s more reserved, takes his time to make up his mind about you, is more English, if you like.
But my neutrality didn’t seem a good enough reason to banish him to loneliness in a cold, unheated concrete cell, and so we brought him home.
Working dogs decide who the Alpha animal or human is, and commit their loyalty to them. Classic one man or one woman dogs! Well, Jake decided I was the Alpha female (way to go, Jake!) and committed his love to me. And by the evening, I too was fast in love.
Border Collies are the smartest breed of dogs, followed by poodles, German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers, and Doberman Pinchers. (I have owned 1 German Shepherd and 2 Golden retrievers). They are reputed to understand up to 165 words and have the cognitive ability of a two and half year old.
Jake understands everything I say to him (well, obviously, I don’t talk theology or poetry to him, nor do I present the Gospel). I speak to him in a clear, distinct, simplified Dog English, though I sometimes feel I am insulting his intelligence.
I have the best commute in the world, from my bedroom to my study, which is on the upper floor of a detached little house in our garden. I tell Jake, “We’ll go Up,” and there he scampers. His favourite phrase is “We’ll go for a walk,” and then he goes wild with joy. The only problem is that I am exhausted, and he’s just got going. He understands things like Stay, Wait, Kitchen, and of course, food. 

Images from our visit to St. John Lateran, Rome

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A photo-essay by my husband, Roy
St. John Lateran (Arcibasilica Papale di San Giovanni in Laterano) is the Cathedral of Rome, and the official ecclesiastical seat of the Bishop of Rome, that is the Pope. However, it is built on a quiet square, surrounded by ordinary Roman houses.

and an obelisk built by Thuthmose IV (ca. 1400 BC), then transported to the Circus Maximus and finally relocated here

Here is the facade and a closed iron gate

The interior decorated from ceiling to floor.

The dome above the apse
This looks almost lime a museum display, but is actually a detail from the ceiling near the altar.
Another detail — it is not easy to take a square shot looking straight up.

And here is view of the whole ceiling above the nave.

The walls — marble everywhere!

The church was empty and we could enjoy the floor which had a variety of simple tessellations that produce a 3-D illusion that the mind can interpret in different ways.  Here is one

The church is attached to to a cloister, which as always has a peaceful beauty:

Notice the variety in the columns

Earlier remains on display:

1001 Gifts # 3: My Body

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1001 Gifts: My Body
Okay, this isn’t a post I ever thought I’d be writing, since you and I have been at war since my teens, but O Body given to me, I am grateful to you.
I am grateful for your sturdy health, for how you rarely let me down, despite the fact I so carelessly neglect you.  I am grateful you’ve only led me to hospital with pregnancies, and then let me out again in 24 hours.
I am grateful for how you affect my mind. How I can run, or do yoga, or run in place or lift some weights, and am so quickly a different person, more energized, more clear-thinking, optimistic.
I love the fact that when I work with you in the garden, we find peace.
I love the way that you are my early warning system. You tell me, in my gut, when I am stressed and uncomfortable before I consciously know it. In fact, I cannot even pray well unless you are comfortable.
You tell me when I am sad before my mind catches on. And then, you and I, we can run to exorcise sadness with exercise.
And what high spirits you have the power to release, when you and I run together trying to outwit the tennis ball machine, or slam the tennis ball, or play table tennis.
I was foolish, oh body. I hated games, I hated walks, I hated exercise. What joys I have missed in my bookish sedentary life.

But, with luck, oh body, if I look after you, and you look after me, we might still have have another 50 years together. And many more Thanksgivings. And believe me, I fully intend to look after you.