Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires
Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art
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| Uppsala cathedral ceiling |
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| Is the lady in grey real?
Some pictures from the greenhouse in Gothenburg Botanical garden. |
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| A pitcher plant or the genus Sarracenia (sometimes called the cobra plant) |
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| Sundew (another carnivorous plant) |
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| Huge pitcher of the tropical monkey cup plant (genus Nepenthes) |
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| Slipper orchid (?) |
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| Some pictures from a sunny day at Europe’s largest lake–lake Vanern. |
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| Warm shallow water |
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| gets cold in the deep |
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| Queen Phillipa |
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| Sunset on lake Vattern |
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| Ragged courgette plants may produce one last harvest |
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| Houttuynia (a variegated herb) |
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| Pigeon’s nest exposed by the falling grape leaves |
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| One last yellow Buddleia |
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| Pepper plant to be brought into the conservatory |
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| Parsley flower/seed head |
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| Duck drying off |
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| A last strawberry |
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| Pak choi (Bok Choi) |
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| Apple mint seed heads (left for the goldfinches) |
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| Medlar (Eastern European fruit) |
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| Raised bed with lamb’s lettuce and spinach |
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| Broad bean (winter hardy I’m told) |
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| Cabbage |
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| What are these lovely berries? |
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| Ducks enjoying fresh water |
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| Ducks about to take the plunge |
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| Herb garden showing plentiful sage
Roy has been working from home since June 2010. He’s become super-organised, and usually has something in the oven for when the girls come home. Lancashire hot-pot today. Beef stew, lamb roast, and roast duck are some of his other specialties. His latest saying, “Men should run houses; we do SO much better!”
3 October
Ah, Roy’s latest culinary achievement–pretty darn good homemade, whole wheat bread. And it wasn’t too hard either. Thanks,Klaudia for giving us the idea. I think he is going to go on experimenting until he’s got it perfected!
12 October Looking forward to a quiet family weekend of movies and maybe board games. Thanks to Ruth and Matthew for introducing us to new ones in my first board games evening in years. I also enjoyed having Lesley Crawley, Alan Crawley, Erika Baker and Klaudia Schwenk here for lunch. They motivated me to get my house all picked up and tidy:)
Cold snap setting in. Grr. And we have booked a beach cabin belonging to Lee Abbey in Exmoor, Devon next week. We are looking forward to a week of some worship and quiet time at the Abbey, along with long walks on the beaches and moors. He leads me by still waters; he restores my soul. In moors of green, he makes me rest, by the quiet ocean.
16 OctoberWomen perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property!
Enjoying Roy Godwin’s “The Grace Outpouring” about the Ffald-y-Brenin retreat centre in Pembrokeshire. Going there in Dec. Has anyone been? Irene, 12 who reads and listens to books on tape constantly speaks and writes like a book. She wrote a brilliant essay, & her teacher accused her of copying it from the internet. She didn’t. It’s just how she speaks and writes. She protested & the teacher said, “Of course, dear. Class, I would rather you expressed things badly than copied off the internet. I too, twice, when younger, was accused of plagiarism because my work was too good. Grrr. The family’s bathroom is full of a dazzling array of haircare and beauty products–NONE of which I have bought or use! Sigh! #motherofIrene! Enjoyed my Zumba class : high energy mixture of salsa, Latin and African inspired dance. Felt high as a cloud doing it. Now, happy but SORE! Well-deserved Booker win for Julian Barnes. Still can’t believe his lovely “Flaubert’s Parrot,” lost to Anita Brookner all those years ago! J B Phillips: “translating the Bible was like rewiring a house with the electricity plugged in.” So too is studying it! Must carve out time! You know your daughter is doing A level philosophy when you say, “I can’t make myself pack till the last moment” & Zoe says, “Nonsense. That’s a fatalistic approach. Jean-Paul Sarte would be shocked!” Zoe effortlessly did something on my new MacBook which floored me and Roy. Zoe, I said, amazed, we’re floored. No, you are not flawed, mum and dad, she said in all seriousness. You’re just old.” Irene stands in front on the mirror, with a beanie hat on, trying to sneer . “Don’t I look really dodgy?” Zoe, “Nonsense. You can’t look dodgy with a dimple.” We try to hike the Valley of Rocks in Exmoor. I tell Irene, “The First Rule of Mountains: Things change. Be prepared.” I stride off. She joins me 20 minutes later. It is a bright, sunny day, but she has brought 1) an umbrella 2) a coat 3) hat, gloves, muffler, 4) A bag of snacks 5 A book in case she gets bored 6) A torch. Roy and Zoe get stuck into sorting out our bookshelves, and I fear they will not eat till they are done. Roy was to fix lunch. “We have human bodies,”I remind him. “And human bodies need food.” “You have a human body, but the face of an angel,” he tells me. I wander off, digesting this happily, forgetting lunch.
I hear him say, “They say, ‘Flattery won’t get you anywhere. It’s not true!” Zoe’s seventeenth birthday party–75 Indian nibbles, trays of pullao rice and naan bread, 5 curries–balti, pasanda, korma, madras, and tikka masala, kulfi and cake. Think we’re set! To be honest, Roy’s cooking one tray, and we are resorting to take-out for the rest–which should be just as or more delicious than our endeavours, hopefully!!
30 OctoberTrying to eat significantly less. Amazing how clear-headed this helps one feel and how well one can concentrate:)
Grieving for the hour of daylight so soon to be stolen from me. Celebrating it with a bonfire for Zoe’s 17th birthday 🙂 #Hatewintertime. A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song. – Maya Angelou Roy’s just returned from our brilliant small group, which, sadly, I decided not to go to today. A member of the group who spends the meeting sleeping explained why. He’s an early riser. “Christians who want to go to heaven should be asleep by 11.” Lol! Never heard that one. Which gives me 48 minutes to be asleep. Good night, world!
Don’t we all need a reference letter from the poor when we meet Christ?
Ann Voskamp Confused. I wrote and spelled Indian English, then British English, until I moved to America in my twenties, and then wrote and spelled American English for 17 years. When I returned to England in 2004, I used American English, though have slowly begun shifting back to UK English. Thank goodness for spell-checkers, since I have honestly forgotten a lot of British spellings. Realised, not realized. Goodness!
13 November Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. It doesn’t mean you have to have lunch with that person. Anne Lamott.
 Okay, we attend a beautiful baptism and confirmation service yesterday. And you know what Roy whispers to me as we exchange the peace? “It’s like Halloween. The inflatable swimming pool for baptisms. The vicar in fishing waders. The bishop in golden vestments. His dishy chaplain in red vestments, carrying an outsize crozier.” Nope, not Halloween. Just a bit Anglo-Catholic!
14 NovemberLesley Crawley, Alan Crawley, thank for hosting such a relaxed, lovely lunch. Jules Middleton, I loved meeting you at last:)
Surprise gift of an evening! Was about to go out to a friend’s house at 7.45 p.m. when I was overtaken by a paroxysm of coughing. Stayed home. Surprise free evening. Yummy. Odd how happy you are when even things you had looked forward to going to get cancelled. I am so enjoying blogging these days:-)
Overheard in our home, “Mum, you need to have an extremely interesting life to be on Twitter.” !!
22nd Wedding Anniversary. Roy gives me a gift engraved with, “When I count my blessings, I count you twice.” “Aww,” I say, and he adds, “I won’t say how often I count you when I count my worries and my problems.” 22 years, and we’re still untrained!! My daughter, Irene, 12. “God should have put evolution in the Bible. If that’s not in there, it makes you wonder what else is not in there!” A Scriptural mandate to rest!A whole day to rest! Oh how I love Sundays!! (Middle-aged moment!) Roy has been working from home since June 2010. He’s become super-organised, and usually has something in the oven for when the girls come home. Lancashire hot-pot today. Beef stew, lamb roast, and roast duck are some of his other specialties. His latest saying, “Men should run houses; we do SO much better!”
3 OctoberAh, Roy’s latest culinary achievement–pretty darn good homemade, whole wheat bread. And it wasn’t too hard either. Thanks,Klaudia for giving us the idea. I think he is going to go on experimenting until he’s got it perfected!
12 October Looking forward to a quiet family weekend of movies and maybe board games. Thanks to Ruth and Matthew for introducing us to new ones in my first board games evening in years. I also enjoyed having Lesley Crawley, Alan Crawley, Erika Baker and Klaudia Schwenk here for lunch. They motivated me to get my house all picked up and tidy:)
L14 OctoberCold snap setting in. Grr. And we have booked a beach cabin belonging to Lee Abbey in Exmoor, Devon next week. We are looking forward to a week of some worship and quiet time at the Abbey, along with long walks on the beaches and moors. He leads me by still waters; he restores my soul. In moors of green, he makes me rest, by the quiet ocean.
Like · · 16 OctoberWomen perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property!
Enjoying Roy Godwin’s “The Grace Outpouring” about the Ffald-y-Brenin retreat centre in Pembrokeshire. Going there in Dec. Has anyone been? Irene, 12 who reads and listens to books on tape constantly speaks and writes like a book. She wrote a brilliant essay, & her teacher accused her of copying it from the internet. She didn’t. It’s just how she speaks and writes. She protested & the teacher said, “Of course, dear. Class, I would rather you expressed things badly than copied off the internet. I too, twice, when younger, was accused of plagiarism because my work was too good. Grrr. The family’s bathroom is full of a dazzling array of haircare and beauty products–NONE of which I have bought or use! Sigh! #motherofIrene! Enjoyed my Zumba class : high energy mixture of salsa, Latin and African inspired dance. Felt high as a cloud doing it. Now, happy but SORE! Well-deserved Booker win for Julian Barnes. Still can’t believe his lovely “Flaubert’s Parrot,” lost to Anita Brookner all those years ago! J B Phillips: “translating the Bible was like rewiring a house with the electricity plugged in.” So too is studying it! Must carve out time! You know your daughter is doing A level philosophy when you say, “I can’t make myself pack till the last moment” & Zoe says, “Nonsense. That’s a fatalistic approach. Jean-Paul Sarte would be shocked!” Zoe effortlessly did something on my new MacBook which floored me and Roy. Zoe, I said, amazed, we’re floored. No, you are not flawed, mum and dad, she said in all seriousness. You’re just old.” Irene stands in front on the mirror, with a beanie hat on, trying to sneer . “Don’t I look really dodgy?” Zoe, “Nonsense. You can’t look dodgy with a dimple.” We try to hike the Valley of Rocks in Exmoor. I tell Irene, “The First Rule of Mountains: Things change. Be prepared.” I stride off. She joins me 20 minutes later. It is a bright, sunny day, but she has brought 1) an umbrella 2) a coat 3) hat, gloves, muffler, 4) A bag of snacks 5 A book in case she gets bored 6) A torch. Roy and Zoe get stuck into sorting out our bookshelves, and I fear they will not eat till they are done. Roy was to fix lunch. “We have human bodies,”I remind him. “And human bodies need food.” “You have a human body, but the face of an angel,” he tells me. I wander off, digesting this happily, forgetting lunch.
I hear him say, “They say, ‘Flattery won’t get you anywhere. It’s not true!” 29 October Zoe’s seventeenth birthday party–75 Indian nibbles, trays of pullao rice and naan bread, 5 curries–balti, pasanda, korma, madras, and tikka masala, kulfi and cake. Think we’re set! To be honest, Roy’s cooking one tray, and we are resorting to take-out for the rest–which should be just as or more delicious than our endeavours, hopefully!!
Trying to eat significantly less. Amazing how clear-headed this helps one feel and how well one can concentrate:)
Grieving for the hour of daylight so soon to be stolen from me. Celebrating it with a bonfire for Zoe’s 17th birthday 🙂 #Hatewintertime. A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song. – Maya Angelou Roy’s just returned from our brilliant small group, which, sadly, I decided not to go to today. A member of the group who spends the meeting sleeping explained why. He’s an early riser. “Christians who want to go to heaven should be asleep by 11.” Lol! Never heard that one. Which gives me 48 minutes to be asleep. Good night, world!
Don’t we all need a reference letter from the poor when we meet Christ?
Ann Voskamp Confused. I wrote and spelled Indian English, then British English, until I moved to America in my twenties, and then wrote and spelled American English for 17 years. When I returned to England in 2004, I used American English, though have slowly begun shifting back to UK English. Thank goodness for spell-checkers, since I have honestly forgotten a lot of British spellings. Realised, not realized. Goodness!
13 November Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. It doesn’t mean you have to have lunch with that person. Anne Lamott.
 For domestic goddesses: “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” William Morris
Okay, we attend a beautiful baptism and confirmation service yesterday. And you know what Roy whispers to me as we exchange the peace? “It’s like Halloween. The inflatable swimming pool for baptisms. The vicar in fishing waders. The bishop in golden vestments. His dishy chaplain in red vestments, carrying an outsize crozier.” Nope, not Halloween. Just a bit Anglo-Catholic! Like · · Share · 14 NovemberLesley Crawley, Alan Crawley, thank for hosting such a relaxed, lovely lunch. Jules Middleton, I loved meeting you at last:)
Surprise gift of an evening! Was about to go out to a friend’s house at 7.45 p.m. when I was overtaken by a paroxysm of coughing. Stayed home. Surprise free evening. Yummy. Odd how happy you are when even things you had looked forward to going to get cancelled. I am so enjoying blogging these days:-)
16 NovemberOverheard in our home, “Mum, you need to have an extremely interesting life to be on Twitter.” !!
22nd Wedding Anniversary. Roy gives me a gift engraved with, “When I count my blessings, I count you twice.” “Aww,” I say, and he adds, “I won’t say how often I count you when I count my worries and my problems.” 22 years, and we’re still untrained!! My daughter, Irene, 12. “God should have put evolution in the Bible. If that’s not in there, it makes you wonder what else is not in there!” A Scriptural mandate to rest!A whole day to rest! Oh how I love Sundays!! (Middle-aged moment!) |
Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’
Abraham Kuyper
He looks at me.
At my body, which tells of comfort sought
and briefly found in chocolate
and the richest of foods
and says, “Actually,
MINE.”
* * *
And he reads my blog,
which has brought me more pleasure
and blessing than any work I have ever done
and he smiles,
and asks,
MINE?
And I say, “Oh yes, of course; it’s yours. Would I embark on something so time-intensive, so out of my control, with so large a possibility of failure without you? Would I feel happy or confident if it were not yours?
And he smiles and says, “Don’t forget it.”
* * *
And he looks at my dream of finishing the big, big book on which I worked, off and on, for 15 years before I dropped it
And he says,
MINE.
And I say,
“Yes, of course. But will you let me finish it?”
And he replies,
MINE.
And I say, “Okay, Lord,
We’ll wait and see.
MINE, you say?
Well, then, it’s safe.”
* * *
And he looks at my children, and sees,
My love, dreams, fear, and vicarious ambition all mixed up,
And he says,
MINE.
And I sigh with relief,
“Okay, then, you’ll manage them better than I can.
Okay then, have them, but look after them well.”
And he replies,
MINE.
* * *
And he looks at my marriage,
and says,
MINE.
And I say,
“Well, of course. How else could I do it?”
And he looks a little deeper,
Getting a bit more intimate,
and says, MINE.
And I say, “That’s a bit personal, you know.
But, okay.”
* * *
And so he goes, through my life,
Friendships.
MINE.
“Of course, Lord, would I want to have a friendship you hadn’t given me?
I would not.”
* * *
Travel.
MINE.
I sigh. I love travel.
Yes, I say, “Yours.”
* * *
Money.
MINE.
“What, Lord, all of it?
MINE.
“What? No scope for frivolity? For self-indulgence?
MINE.
“That’s going to be a hard one, Lord, but we’ll begin to work it out.”
* * *
And he looks at my day:
How time slips away in trivial
browsing of blogs,
newspapers, facebook, twitter
and the sadness I feel as it does.
And he says,
“Your time, Anita;
Actually, it’s MINE.”
“Of course, have my time,” I say. “Please. I don’t manage my time that well anyway. Please manage it.”
* * *
And he looks at my garden,
my acre and a half with which I was so thrilled
and now find so hard to maintain
and he says,
“MINE.”
And I say,
“Yours? Okay,”
and sigh with relief
because I want so much to get it perfect
and fail so miserably, but if it’s His,
he’ll help me.
And he looks at my house and says,
MINE.
And again, I relax.
Oh, that bugbear of mine,
Yes, Lord, you manage it.
* * *
And business done, he looks at me again,
Smiles and says,
“MINE.”
And I sigh with pleasure, relief and happiness,
And say, “Yes, Lord,
I’m YOURS.”
In an extraordinary passage in Exodus, after the Israelites have fashioned a golden calf, God tells Moses, (Ex. 33:1) “Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ 2 I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites. 3 Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”
So they were promised their hearts’ desire, but not God’s presence or protection
But Moses says: “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.
Which pleases God who answers, 14 “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
(Upon which, Moses, seizing the moment, cheekily increases his ask, “Now show me your glory.”)
* * *
I first lingered on this passage about ten years ago during a Beth Moore Bible study. I came late, and stood at the back of the room, as Beth, on the DVD, was reading out this passage.
My Promised Land then would have been literary success with the book I was then trying to write–with much difficulty as the girls were 6 and 2.
Did I want to enter my Promised Land even if God was not with me?
I had not thought about it before. I said, bravely, “Lord, I do not want to enter my Promised Land, if you do not go with me.”
And got tearful, because I was not sure if I meant it. I wanted my promised land so badly you see. Just the thought of never entering it made me tearful.
* * *
Fast forward eleven years. My promised land, I am afraid, still involves writing. It is the great love and interest of my life.
But do I want to enter any writing-related promised land without God? Absolutely not. Couldn’t contemplate it. I wouldn’t survive the work, the stress, the demands.
I would lack wisdom and direction. I might make up my own directions, and then second-guess them. How much better to get them from God!
I would miss having little rest breaks, and checking in with God. I would miss the flashes of intuition, wisdom, inspiration, guidance that come from prayer.
* * *
Ten years ago when I said, “Lord, I do not want to enter the Promised Land without you,” I felt so noble. But I wasn’t kidding God. He knew that my heart’s desire was really the Promised Land of literary success.
In fact, I didn’t even kid myself. Tears rolled down my cheeks, as I stood at the back of the room saying, “Lord, I do not want to enter the Promised Land without you,” because the thought of not entering my promised land, with or without God, was too sad to contemplate.
I clearly need more time in the desert to learn to put God first.
Now I, of course , do care more for God than for my promised land, because I know that I would not be able to do the promised land without him. The milk would curdle, the honey cloy.
But, luckily, he says to those who want his presence more than the Promised Land, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
* * *
And are these the greatest Christians now alive?
The most famous Christians are not necessarily the greatest Christians, and the quest for fame is intrinsically at odds with the spiritual life.
When Edith Shaeffer was asked who the greatest living Christian woman in the world was, she replied memorably, ‘We don’t know her name. She is dying of cancer somewhere in a hospital in India.’
Who is the greatest? The disciples were vexed by this question, and Jesus tried to solve it more than once. The one who believes like a child. The one who can serve others.
* * *
The blogosphere can be a noisy place. A clamour of opinion, attack, self-promotion and the trivial, though shot through with gems of insight, wisdom, humour and beauty. And sometimes, even with the divine.
Sometimes, the difference between the echo chamber of anger, finger pointing and “outing” in the Christian blogosphere, and the gentle whisper in which God ultimately speaks to Elijah can be striking.
And just when you despair, you hear gentle voices which are close to God’s heartbeat, Ann Voskamp, definitely, and often, the more polemic John Piper, and you feel better. You realize that even the snakes and ladders world of fame, celebrity, attention, followers, is, of course, under the sovereignty of God. That God is sovereign over the literary world, and sovereign over the blogosphere. That God has an interest in promoting mystics like Ann Voskamp whose heart beats like his.
* * *
We write to be read. When I first began blogging, I worried, because it seemed that controversy, attack and tearing down definitely got more traction, readers, attention and links, than things which might be a blessing, be soul-nourishing and soul-fattening.
But there are spiritual dangers in tearing down other Christians, or other Christian bloggers. It’s the work of “the accuser of the brethren who accuses them night and day before the throne.” Though sometimes, if the views of an influential Christian are harmful, something might need to be said. Or done.
* * *
But there are spiritual dangers too in writing about the spiritual life. The wonderful Norwegian writer, O. Hallesby, said that one’s secret life with Christ in the secret places of prayer is like a cosy, warm Norwegian cottage in a blustery winter. If you talk about your prayer life, you open the door, and cold wintry blasts enter.
The only justification for doing so is that that’s the song I have to sing. One of my deepest interests. I read Christian memoirs and autobiographies as travel dispatches from people who have ventured deeper into the holy wilds of God than I have, and I want to hear the news, the travel conditions, their blog, Facebook, and twitter reports of their travels, so to say. Similarly, by honestly describing my spiritual adventuring, I might be able construct a travel map, a topographical map for those who might be called to follow similar routes.
But we need grace, for writing about the spiritual life has all sorts of dangers—pride, self-promotion, exaggeration, and the dangers of “garden writing:” that one might spend more time describing the fruits and flowers in the garden of your soul than tending them. That one can continue with spiritual “garden writing,” even while the real garden grows weedy, unwatered and unkempt. This happens to many Christian preachers, speakers, celebrities and writers. But may it not be true of me, Lord.
* * *
My hope, my goal in my blog posts is that I hear or overhear what God is saying, and saying to me, and express it. I want to see the world and see reality as he does.
We write to be read. Amid the clamour of many voices and the self-promotion of commercial Christianity, will gentle whispers ever be heard?
Yes. Because if one has sat at Christ’s feet long enough to hear his voice and feel his heartbeat, then he is as interested in having your voice heard as you are yourself.
So, relax, oh Christian blogger. If you do indeed have something to say which might bless the world, you have a friend in high places, a powerful connection, who also wants your voice to be heard, your words to be read, and know the best way to bring about this happy eventuality.
Do you want a simple guide to freshen and declutter your house?
Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!
Rainer Maria Rilke
