Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

The Wisdom of Roy

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Bailey’s Irish Cream Haagen -Dazs Icecream for dessert today.
Irene, “Why don’t we have this more often? Can we not afford it?”
Roy, ” We can afford to buy it. We just can’t afford to eat it.”

Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, or First Things First

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Roy & I talked last night about Jesus’ exciting statement, “Seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all the rest will be added unto you.”

Like the rest of Jesus’ sayings, one can only verify the truth of this by empirical evidence, by trying it.

C.S. Lewis in a more contemporary idiom says, that “When first things are put first, second things don’t diminish, they increase.”

I have found (more by failure than success) alas, that when first things are put first, a kind of peace and order pervades one’s life.


Putting second things first is a recipe for disorder.

Our Family Dinner was Punctuated by These Cries

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Somewhat like their mother, my girls use any new word or scrap of information in their conversation or writing within 24 hours (this is Roy’s observation!).

Dinner yesterday was punctuated by calls, “Mum and Dad, chastise Zoe!”

“Mum and Dad, chastise Irene!” (Zoe adds that they said “chastise” because if they ask Roy to tell their sibling off, he annoyingly says, “OFF!”

She also adds that SHE knew chastised ages ago!

Hiding the Evidence of a Crime!

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 I finally got fed up of waiting for Roy to do it and painted two rooms myself, in an amateurish way, staining my clothes, spilling paint, very uneven! But it was so satisfying.

I was insufferably pleased with myself. Roy said, “Well, if THAT’S painting, why do people charge so much for it?” 

But there’s no one right way to paint–or do anything else!

“It’s as if we’re hiding the evidence of a crime!”– Zoe’s comment as we tidy our house before friends visit!

Jake, my Collie Dog

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Lovely run today with my collie Jake bounding beside me, his tail wagging with joy.

We have much to learn from dogs: joy, love, forgiveness, living in the present, revelling in movement.

I love seeing dogs leap & fly over the fields near our house, just delighted to be alive.

C.S. Lewis amusingly declared that while we may not have dogs in heaven (but we will!, we must!) we will at least have “the essence of dogness.”

I was amused to see statues to Collies in the hill country of New Zealand. Apparently, that part of the country would not have been settled without collie dogs.

Life is short & we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those we love

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“Oh, do not let us wait to be just or pitiful or demonstrative toward those we love until they or we are struck down by illness or threatened with death! Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!” Henri Frédéric Amiel September 27, 1821 – May 11, 1881) Swiss philosopher, poet and critic.

I didn’t marry you for cleverer or stupider.

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I (successfully) tried to get the lean, muscular Roy to go to the gym with me.

Exasperated, he said, “Anita, I married you for better or for worse, richer or poorer. I did not say “for stupider or cleverer.”

Irene listened with furrowed brows, then whispered, “Mummy, what does he mean? Who is getting stupider? Could it be Daddy? It couldn’t be you; or does he mean both of you?”

Well, it’s certainly not little Irene!