Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

The Pruning of the Fruitful Branch

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John 15 1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunesa]”>[a] so that it will be even more fruitful.”


You know, this always struck me as unfair. Why should the branch which is fruitful already be pruned?

I thought of “pruning” as painful suffering inflicted on those already fruitful.

But really, it is sharpening one’s focus and removing the extraneous for increased fruitfulness.
                                                                        * * *

I have struggled all my life with focusing on just one thing. I suppose I’ve always had a multitude of interests, and wanted to see everything, do everything, experience everything. I knew this would cut back on achieving goals in any one area, but I guess I just wanted to have it all.

Also, I had not fallen totally in love with any one thing, any one area of work, so much so that I was willing to focus on just that to the detriment of other things.
                                                                           * * *

And suddenly, I find I have.

I find myself totally fascinated by writing, and thoroughly enjoying blogging.

And so I am pruning my life. I blogged about giving up learning French with my tutor, handing over my hour of French conversation to Irene.

I belonged to a congenial group called Writers in Oxford for six and half years, well, every since we moved here. We have two social and literary evenings a month. Well, I am finally cancelling my membership. Why? Because, to be honest, I would rather stay home and read and write, though I do enjoy parties thoroughly.

I used to go to cocktail evenings, garden parties, gaudies and dinners at my old College, Somerville, and more and more. I find I couldn’t be bothered.

My daughters are highly disapproving at what they view as excessive focus on blogging and writing to the detriment of what I once enjoyed. But I really am not becoming a recluse. I get together with friends at least twice a week, sometimes three or four times. I just find conversation one on one, or with a couple, or small group so much more rewarding than going to big noisy parties, or alumni gatherings at which one may not see the same people each time.

Besides, blogging brings new friends, some of whom have become good friends. Blogging also deepens relationships with people I previously knew slightly from church or Oxford, who now know me very well because they read my blog. This becomes obvious when we get together–they already know what I’ve been up to,and the emotional, spiritual and creative contours of the previous months!!

And after seven and a half years in Oxford, I have made a number of friends. My emotional tanks are full. Making time to see the friends I have already made and to deepen our relationships is more important to me than going to parties to make many more superficial relationships. And I really don’t have much time for small talk.
                                                                                      * * *

Yes, after years of writing, I find I am captivated by it, and am willing to prune things to have more hours to write. To be even more fruitful.

And I guess blogging has a lot to do with really enjoying writing. I enjoy giving stray thoughts words and form and pressing publish. Other than blogging, there really is no form or venue appropriate for random stray thoughts and experiences, is there?

What are you really enjoying at the moment?


The Paradox Project: Gaining by Losing. #1

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Me and Jake, the Collie, yesterday, in our living room


In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul tells us about a man, who received visions and revelations from the Lord, was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things and surpassingly great revelations. (Erm, hint, it was Paul himself!)

He goes on to write, Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Do you have a weakness, a thorn in your flesh?
I do.
When I was 16, and weighed 116 pounds, I thought it was my weight. Yeah, I thought I was fat at 5′ 2″ and 116 pounds, and so did my parents and classmates.
Then I entered Mother Teresa’s convent wanting to become a nun, where, to prevent illness, and excessive fasting, there were fixed quantities of food one had to eat. 5 chapatis for breakfast (with oil, donated by US Aid) poured on top of them for breakfast, and 5 ladles of rice for lunch and dinner. I left 14 months later weighing 121.
Stayed at home, reading, waiting to go to college. 126.
Went on to college, and graduate school. Got married in 1989 weighing 140.
The pill didn’t work for me. Gained 27 pounds the first year of marriage, partly because I spent it sitting and reading. About 20 for each pregnancy. And then another 20 after resuming a sedentary life of blogging, reading and writing.
And so yesterday, I step on the scales, which I have been avoiding for months, while the tightening of clothes told their own tale. Yikes, we’ll have our 22 wedding anniversary next month, and I have gained 86.5 pounds in the course of our marriage. Yes, it’s true. And here is my wedding picture.

 

wedding photo

And I suppose, if I do nothing, I will steadily go on gaining weight.

Heaven forbid.
Don Miller here writes about losing more than 150 pounds.
He writes, “It’s been an incredible journey.” He tells us of it in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. He was fat, something like 190 pounds overweight–a fact which, in a sense, defined his life. He had tried to lose weight–but lacked the motivation. In a sense, he could not see “a story” in which he was thin.
Then he meets a girl, who gives off no friendly signals. He asks her if she would like to hike the Inca trail to Macchu Piccu (gruelling, 14,000 feet up, then down again, then 12,000 feet up, down again) challenging even for those in peak physical condition–and you need to be in peak physical condition to attempt it.
She agrees. They commit to going with a group. And Donald Miller is like 190 pounds overweight!!
Suddenly, he has a story. And if he doesn’t lose weight and get fit, it ends in tragedy.
So he goes to a gym, gets a sympathetic trainer, and loses over 150 pounds.
* * *
Yesterday, I wrote a list: Why do I want to lose weight?
And you know, I found some reasons, but none were truly compelling. I could sign up for the Milford Trail, the Appalachian Trail (and have walked some of both of these) or the Inca Trail, but, you know, walking for much more than an hour at a stretch bores me. Yeah, sorry, but it’s true.
But without a story, without seeing the beginning, the middle and the end, without a tangible goal, I am unlikely to persist for more than a few weeks.
* * *
About ten years ago, I published an article on prayer in The Christian Century. And then, I was asked to speak at a women’s breakfast, a women’s banquet, to women’s groups. And I spoke on….Prayer.
Prayer is indeed one of the great experiences and adventures of my life.
But, one might ask, and many women will ask, Why can’t she pray her 86.5 pounds off? (Nov 1st, 2015, it’s now 76.2 pounds, progress.)
Why not indeed?
* * *
Perhaps I need what Don Miller calls “an inciting incident.” Perhaps I need a story.
So I guess, I am going to write one. Create one.
Chart–on this blog–my attempts to lose weight with my whole heart, soul, mind and strength. Through prayer, fasting, exercise, and a healthier diet.
I am going to report on my success weekly on Mondays, and occasionally through the week. (Tagged The Paradox Project, if you’d like to steer clear of any such post!:)
I anticipate spiritual growth in the process, as well as physical shrinkage, and will report on both.
Do follow me 🙂 More tomorrow.

Finishing Well: Let me get home before dark

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Finishing well. It’s perhaps the last and greatest art.


I love Robertson McQuilkin’s poem, pleading to go gentle in the good night, not raving against the light.

 It’s sundown, Lord.
The shadows of my life stretch back
into the dimness of the years long spent.
I fear not death, for that grim foe betrays himself at last, thrusting me forever into life:
Life with You, unsoiled and free.
But I do fear.
I fear the Dark Spectre may come too soon – or do I mean, too late?
That I should end before I finish
or finish, but not well.
That I should stain Your honor, shame Your name, grieve Your loving heart.
Few, they tell me, finish well . . .
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The darkness of a spirit grown mean and small, fruit shriveled on the vine,
bitter to the taste of my companions,
burden to be borne by those brave few who love me still.
No, Lord. Let the fruit grow lush and sweet, A joy to all who taste;
Spirit-sign of God at work,
stronger, fuller, brighter at the end.
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The darkness of tattered gifts,
rust-locked, half-spent or ill-spent,
A life that once was used of God
now set aside.
Grief for glories gone or
Fretting for a task God never gave.
Mourning in the hollow chambers of memory,
Gazing on the faded banners of victories long gone.
Cannot I run well unto the end?
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The outer me decays –
I do not fret or ask reprieve.
The ebbing strength but weans me from mother earth and grows me up for heaven.
I do not cling to shadows cast by immortality.
I do not patch the scaffold lent to build the real, eternal me.
I do not clutch about me my cocoon,
vainly struggling to hold hostage
a free spirit pressing to be born.
But will I reach the gate
in lingering pain, body distorted, grotesque?
Or will it be a mind
wandering untethered among light
phantasies or grim terrors?
Of Your grace, Father, I humbly ask. . .
Let me get home before dark.
Finishing well can be tricky in the Christian life–particularly, in ministry. Because with early success comes adulation, praise and power, and as Lord Acton said, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

I once found myself deeply upset by a minister I had deeply respected, who seemed to turn aside to empire-building, and court politics, dismissing staff or hounding parishioners who disagreed with him until they too left. But the irony was he and his wife did not go into ministry to hound staff and parishioners who opposed them out of church, and to rejoice when another sheep left the fold.

And the other irony, which makes me shiver is that this man was spiritually outstanding in his youth. I heard a woman tell this story about him. 23 years ago, their child, aged 2, had advanced cancer, and the doctors in Great Ormond Street had given up hope. This individual, a priest, visited them for lunch, and was told about the child. 
“Have you prayed?” he asked. 
“Oh yes!” they said. 
“Can I pray?” he asked.
 And he took the child, and prayed with the simple intensity of one who has pushed through the veil, entered the Most Holy Place and seen God face to face. I have sometimes had that experience myself, and have known in my heart that my request is going to be granted.

And the parents heard the prayer, and knew that things were going to be different. The doctors at Great Ormond Street were reluctant to test the boy again, but did. He is now 25 years old.

The couple, an architect and psychologist, resigned their jobs, went through difficult financial times, but went into ordained ministry and full time prayer ministry respectively. “If prayer has such power, why would I want to be doing anything else?” she said.

Around the same time, this minister prayed for a young man, who was slain in the spirit, and is now among this country’s most gifted preachers and Christian writers.

This minister preached some of the sermons that have moved me the most, that I most remember, and that have shaped my understanding of how the spiritual life works. Even when I was shocked at the stories people were telling me about him and his wife (I am a blogger, you see, and refer to some things obliquely in my blogs, which means I hear more of some stories–and less of some:-) I was reluctant to leave his church because I did like what he said in his sermons, which were, more or less, honest.

So. So… He often spoke of receiving the fountain of living waters when he was baptised in the spirit, a fountain which has never grown dry. He spoke of drinking from it.

And yet, such an individual, who undoubtedly had experienced God, many times, and experienced the love and comfort of the Father could do very mean things out of fear, insecurity and revenge.

I cannot quite get over it.

                                                                                            * * *

It’s the present which counts.

Perhaps once like Paul, we saw Christ, we heard his voice, we received his directions, we experienced his miracles, our prayers moved mountains.

But it is an ongoing relationship.

Are we pushing past the veil into the Most Holy Place today? Are we setting aside time to seek the face of Christ today? Repenting of our sins? And repenting again?


Seeing Jesus today? Allowing the wind and the fire and the water of the Spirit to purify us today?

Yesterday’s manna cannot feed us today, just as it cannot feed people who were once spiritual giants. Anyone can be Saul, slip from the heights, and watch, anguished, as the anointing shifts to another. Let it not be me, I pray, let me dwell in force field of the Spirit today and always. 


Let me see my own blind spots as clearly as I see another’s.


Let me never lose your anointing!

Fresh bread, fresh water, fresh manna, Lord, for today.

Oh to Blog Hearing the Father’s Voice, Not My Own!

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 David Cooke in Cookie’s Days, had this moving post.

It’s time to lay down the blog for a while.  Any blog that quotes Tim Keller as much as I do needs to watch its idolatry-o-meter as it tries to apply a lesson or two from Counterfeit Gods. 

You see, I have to be so careful not to like the sound of my own voice more than I long for the sound of the Father’s. I want to long for the Spirit more than the attention of others and I have noticed the two conflicting with each other slightly too much recently. 

I am going to take some time out to read the book Eugene Peterson says is one of the most important he has ever encountered. It’s called the ‘Descent of the Dove‘ by Charles Williams (one of Lewis’s pals who he supped warm ale with in the Eagle and Child).

 For all my, at times, strong opinions about the church that I love and the gospel I haplessly preach as best I can, I must remind myself anew that it is not about me and that the Holy Spirit is at work whatever I do or write. 

Maybe sometimes not always as I would like in the C of E, but to be honest what I think is of no consequence. What matters is what God thinks. The plan is that we each one of us love Jesus, try to stay humble (always a tricky one as our most humble moments can in fact be pride in disguise) and we need to remember afresh that we don’t have to prove anything. Grace really is sufficient.

I read it, shuddered, and felt convicted. I enjoy blogging. Blog posts compose themselves in my head all the time–most of which don’t get written down.

But it’s scary–I guess I too hear my own voice more than the Father’s, and so I too have to be “careful not to like the sound of my own voice more than I long for the sound of the Father’s.”

I too need to long for the Spirit more than anything.

I want my blog to flow out of my relationship with God, the way that Matt Redman, Michael Card and Rich Mullins’ song-writing organically flows out of their love affair with God, and their spiritual lives.

Besides, if my blog mostly flows out of hearing the Father’s voice and his heart and perspective, it will be far more of a blessing than if my blog merely expressed my own voice and perspective.

Not to say that there is no value in an individual’s voice–of course there is—but that value is overshadowed by the blessing of being able to hear the Father’s voice, and to hear the notes and lyrics of the song that he continually sings over us.

 The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zeph 3:17)

1001 Gifts: My New Church

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Ann Voskamp found her life changed by trying to count 1000 things she was grateful for. Well, whose wouldn’t be?
Here’s something I have been very grateful for. The evangelical church I currently attend, St. Andrew’s, Oxford.
About three and a half years ago, I was in a painful, toxic situation in the church I attended. Probably won’t tell that story on this blog, though for me, telling my story is a way to understanding, acceptance and healing. But do I need to tell it on a public blog where it might hurt people? Especially because try as I might to see things whole and accurately, I will not be able to know the secrets of people’s hearts, and why evil happens; some of these things only God knows.
~ ~ ~
In retrospect, I should have fled immediately, but for various reasons, I did not. For one, it was a very large, charismatic church, and I erroneously assumed it was the only act in town. It was the church I used to drop into as an undergraduate at Oxford Uni, wistfully wishing I could just simply believe. How easy life would then be, I’d think.
For another, right until the very end, I experienced the Holy Spirit in the services, even amid the toxicity.
And also…. I believed—and, yes, still believe!!–that one should remain in the place God has called you until you hear him tell you that it is time to move. And preferably, but not necessarily, hear him tell you where to go.
I have, for years, deeply believed in not running away when one has messed up. I read The Imitation of Christ as a teenager, and this statement—among many others–imprinted itself on my heart: Don’t be in a hurry to change your situation when you find it difficult, for wherever you go you will take yourself, and there you will find yourself.
So, I believe, if you find yourself in a painful place, and have contributed to the pain, it’s important to repent and change and learn from your mistakes before running to a new place. For if you run before repentance and healing has taken place, you will not only repeat the sad story of the past in the new place, you will repeat the mistakes of the past.
Stay past the shame, if you have messed up; stay past the pain if you have been unfairly treated; stay till you have learnt the lessons that being in the Wrong place in the Right time can teach you: the pain of gifts not used, the Joseph experience of pits, dungeons and snakes before ladders, the Patmos experience of John, so that in silence you hear the one whose eyes are like a flame of fire, and whose voice is like the sound of many waters.
And then leave with a heart full of love and joy and a desire to bless–healed, having forgiven, and, if possible, having been forgiven. Do your healing in the place of pain, and go and be a blessing in the new place; don’t drag your pain and the sorry story of it like an ancient mariner to the new place.
Where I haven’t told that story of injustice, sadness, and toxicity.
Why? Because I no longer need to. It’s more or less over, done and dusted, and I am so enjoying living in the sunshine of God’s love.
* * *
This spring, it became clear to me (well, and to about 100-150 others who also left, for varying but similar reasons) that it was time to move.
I had been hurt, and had hurt others. I had experienced toxic treatment–and, sadly, not everything I said and did was a blessing to others. And this though to be blessed and to be a blessing to others is one of my great hopes and goals in life.
So, I had been sinned against; I had sinned. Should such as I be blessed? Would I be?
* * *
I tried 1 church and 2 communities in Oxford, all Anglican. I have become rather fond of Anglicanism, one legacy from those 6.5 years in that Anglican charismatic church. One of them, MayBe was lovely, a place of real healing, acceptance and fun. But not right for me.
Then, out of the blue, as I had coffee with a friend, an escapee from my old church, who had been treated cruelly, she mentioned a North Oxford church she had visited. “You would fit right in,” she said. “It’s perfect for you. It’s so you.”
I sighed. Like many people who have moved a lot–I’ve lived for a decade or more in 3 continents, and probably 20 cities. Moves, changes, make me sigh, even when it is clear that it’s time. But she repeated her advice, quite emphatically.
So I checked out the church, and she was right. It was the clearly the right place for us. (And that underscores the importance of friendship. Once we moved, everyone said it was the natural, right choice for us; yet, somehow, it had never made it to my short-list.)
~ ~ ~
How gracious God was to offer a second chance–to not repeat of the mistakes of the past, to start again, sadder and wiser, to quietly bless and be blessed.
One blessing of passivity (of the eagle who waits at the edge of its nest for the winds of the storm to take it in the right direction) is the direction provided by the winds of the Holy Spirit–especially useful when one has no idea what to do.
* * *
So, I asked the person in charge of small groups to find us a small group for both of us, and a women’s group for me.
Both have been great blessings to us. The group we go to is full of wise experienced Christians, large numbers of whom are in ministry. Oddly, we are the youngest couple, something we didn’t really expect in mid-life, and our children are younger than the others’ kids, which means we can learn from their experiences.
And I love my women’s group. A warm accepting kindly group, again many of whom have children who are a little older than mine, a year ahead or at uni. It’s a blessing in practical as well as spiritual ways to hear from those further along the path.
And the group seems normal. And what a blessing normality is! Honest, open about doubts and questions rather than straining to give the right answer. Healthy kindness instead of intensity and politics. Though some in the group have been meeting for years, and others are newer, there does not appear to be any discernible in-group. Wow!
As I get older, that’s the human quality I appreciate most: kindness.
And I am grateful to find a church I feel happy and accepted in. We’ve only worshipped there since Easter, so for sure we are in our honeymoon period.
* * *
Hegel postulates that our relationships with people, institutions, ideas, jobs, goes through three phases, the famous Hegelian dialectic. Thesis: It’s wonderful. Antithesis: It’s horrid. Synthesis: It’s flawed, like everything under the sun. It’s got some wonderful things, some horrid things. It’s flawed, but it’s okay!
In the case of the church I finally left, I reached synthesis, three and a half years after anti-thesis, and decided to leave.
But I am rooted in Oxford, which I have loved since I was an undergraduate here, and there are a limited number of churches which are a theological fit for me. I am an evangelical, I love and respect scripture, and I am mildly charismatic, ever since I was baptised in the Holy Spirit in my teens, over three decades ago now, and received the gift of tongues, and the gift of prophecy, both of which have lingered from my teens to my forties.
If and when the Hegelian dialectic shifts to antithesis in my new church, I shall show grace, be a blessing (and NOT blog). As I shall continue to do when the Hegelian dialectic settles down to a steady synthesis, as it has in my marriage, and in my writing life.
Amen. May it be so!
href=”http://www.aholyexperience.com” target=”_blank”>

When to Fail Quickly and Quit

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  I read this illuminating post in the Lifehacker blog.“There’s bound to be something going on in your life right now that’s worth quitting, and the commonly recited maxim that “quitters never win and winners never quit” notwithstanding, sometimes quitting really is the best option.

In fact, if you find you have a tough time quitting, you may be falling victim to the sunk-cost fallacy: A “sunk cost” is just what it sounds like: time or money you’ve already spent. The sunk-cost fallacy is when you tell yourself that you can’t quit because of all that time or money you spent. We shouldn’t fall for this fallacy, but we do it all the time.

 “Another piece of wisdom that serial quitters get better about than those of us who are bad at quitting: Just fail quickly. Freakonomics co-author Steve Levitt explains: If I were to say one of the single most important explanations for how I managed to succeed against all odds in the field of economics, it was by being a quitter. That ever since the beginning, my mantra has been “fail quickly.” If I started with a hundred ideas, I’m lucky if two or three of those ideas will ever turn into academic papers. One of my great skills as an economist has been to recognize the need to fail quickly and the willingness to jettison a project as soon as I realize it’s likely to fail.”

“Lastly, knowing when to quit can have big physiological and psychological benefits, as psychology professor Carsten Wrosch notes: People who are better able to let go when they experience unattainable goals, also experience less depressive symptoms, less negative affect over time. They also have lower Cortisol levels, and they have lower levels of systemic inflammation which is a marker of immune functioning. And they develop fewer physical health problems over time.”

 

This was a revelatory article to me. Something I am not good at is quitting. I hate to quit a book I have started reading, and have ploughed my way through many relatively uninteresting memoirs or novels, because I decided, as a teenager at school, that I would finish books I started.

Especially, as a novice writer, I could spend months over a piece of writing that was going nowhere instead of quitting and reducing it to a few paragraphs.

Peter Kramer in his book Listening to Prozac writes of an experiment tracking what depressed people did in their lunch breaks. The more depressed they were, the more likely they were to spend the whole lunch hour in the queue in the post office or bank rather than cut their losses, and return later.

When to persist, and when to quit. I guess we need the wisdom of God for this, don’t we? Is this in your plan for me, or have I persisted long enough to learn what I needed to learn?

 

And of course, there is gold in one’s weaknesses, and weakness in one’s strengths. I am sure I learned things through sticking out projects that seemed likely to fail (and did!).

 

But for now, I am deliberately deciding to jettison and fail in some projects, like developing fluency in French, to focus on one big one: my writing!

 

Order from Chaos: The Process of Writing

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I love the process of writing. Everything seems chaos. There are too many ideas, and they are unruly. And as you try to sort them out, even more new ideas appear.

Then gradually, the flood of new ideas slows to a trickle. You have what you have, and slowly impose a rough shape on it.
And then, when the shape has emerged, comes the honing, the shining, the polishing.
I am writing an essay, which I have been returning to for over a month. The first few pages have gradually emerging form, but for the rest, “chaos lies over the surface of the deep.”
It’s frustrating when time to work on an emerging piece is limited, but having got there in the past gives you the assurance that you will get there this time too!