Anita Mathias | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

On How Forgiveness Sets Us as Free as a Falcon

The captive falcon soars, riding the winds, reaching for the clouds, until she reaches the limits of her leash. And then, at the will of the falconer, she is reeled down. Earthbound!

The wild eagle, however, soars high, and higher still, effortlessly, soaring on thermal currents, using even obstruction currents to rise higher.

* * *

What’s the leash which prevents us reaching the spiritual heights? That keeps us earthbound?

It’s often our leaden backpack of grudges, resentments, and injuries. Dislikes born of slights, and slight half-forgotten injuries. An attitude of “just you wait, Henry Higgins.” Stuff we just have to release.

How does one forgive? Let go of anger and deep-rooted injury? Funny, though I have done it again and again, I don’t really know how one lets go of deep-seated anger.

I have images that help me, though. Tearing the check of what people owe me. Tearing up the injury and throwing it away. Cutting the leash that binds me to the person. Switching my focus to the beautiful face of Jesus.

Ultimately, forgiveness is an emotional miracle only accomplished by positioning oneself in the waterfall of God’s love. Letting it course through you, so that it washes away the injury.

Ultimately, I think we cannot forgive on our own. We need God’s help.

We need the power of the Holy Spirit within us.

* * *

Though there are strategies which help.

Thank God for the good in the person you are struggling to forgive.

Ask God to help you see them as he sees them—with his magic eyes, which see people’s weaknesses and failures, and always forgives and never despises.

Ask God first to make you want to forgive.

And then to give you the ability to forgive.

Maybe, if you choose to—ask God to give you a love for the person you are struggling to forgive.

* * *

For in forgiving, you release a captive, and that captive is you yourself. Nelson Mandela famously said that resentment is like drinking poison and then waiting for your enemy to die. And from what we now know of the toxicity of negative emotions, holding on to resentments may literally mean drinking poison.

Matthew 18 21-35 explains it best. In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. The one who will not forgive is thrown into prison and tortured.

True? Oh my goodness, absolutely. Have you had the experience of a beautiful meal out or a lovely hike ruined by an argument over past injuries? Or the bitter memories of past injuries surfaces at a trigger, and you express them, and that forest cat is out of the bag, with its claws, re-injuring you all over again? And the injury is almost as painful at the tenth or twentieth recounting as when it first occurred?

Release the forest cat of other people’s sins against you.

If you seek to forgive, and ask God’s help in forgiving, and forgive again and again as you remember the past injury, eventually you will succeed.

* * *

Grace and Forgiveness, a brief 70 page book by John and Carol Arnott is the best book on forgiveness I have read. The writing is deceptively simple and the content deep and transformative, and so, ironically, it takes 2 or 3 readings for it to traverse “the longest distance in the world,”–the 18 inches from head to heart.

The Arnotts say, “When we choose to stop living in grace, like the unmerciful servant, effectively, we are choosing to step outside of the blessing and protection of God and deliver ourselves to “the torturers.” At all costs, then, we want to continue living in grace.”

They go on in this illuminating passage.

There are many Christians today who wonder, “Why does everything seem to go wrong in my life? Why does there seem to be a curse over my life?” There are trying to work out why there doesn’t seem to be any protection over their life.

Often, this is be because they have made the poor choice in their relationships with others to “bury” the hurt and bitterness of past offenses instead of forgiving and releasing these to God. By their choices they have made themselves vulnerable to attack by Satan.

By withholding mercy from others and exercising unforgiveness, they have stemmed the flow of God’s blessing and protection over their lives, leaving them open to assault from demonic forces. Even if someone does the most terrible thing to you, you must never go back to the justice level. It must be grace, grace, grace. Leave justice with God. Do not allow your heart to become hurt, bitter and unforgiving.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Jesus placed the giving and receiving of forgiveness at the absolute center of the Christian life. We simply cannot take forgiveness for ourselves, but withhold it from others. “

* * *

I found this a switching-on-the-lights question to ask myself.

Is there any area of my life in which I am stuck in prison, turned over to the jailors to be tormented? Weight? Household organization? Writing? Waking early?

Is unforgiveness playing a part? Unforgiveness of those who have caused or contributed to the problem? General unforgiveness?

Releasing and forgiving those who have caused or contributed to the areas in which one is stuck may well get me and you unstuck.

And I am off to do it now!!

* * *

Image Credit

Grace and Forgiveness on Amazon.com

Grace and Forgiveness on Amazon.co.uk

Les Miserables: The Film Akin to a Spiritual Experience

By Anita Mathias

Can watching a film, a mere film, be a spiritual experience?

Well, watching Les Misérables was a spiritual experience for me.

As I watched, I was repenting, recommitting my life to Christ, surrendering to him again, resolving to read the Gospels more, to live by their beautiful way of love and mercy.

* * *

Under the repressive laws of the time, Jean Valjean is sentenced to 19 years rowing in the galleys for stealing bread for his sister’s starving son–5 years for the theft, 14 for escape attempts. Many convicts were essentially worked to death there, but Jean Valjean’s exceptional physical strength enables him to survive.

When he is released, with papers marking him as an ex-convict, he cannot find work or lodging. When Bishop Myriel offers him a night’s lodging and a meal, he escapes with the Bishop’s silver. He is captured, and was to be returned to the galleys, this time for life.

* * *

Incarnating mercy above the letter of the law—and “sinning”– the Bishop lies. He gave Jean Valjean the stolen silver, he claims, adding, “But you forget the candlesticks, my friend,” handing them over. Jean Valjean is released.

A central theme of the novel: there is no law higher than love, and to this law, all others give way–“the right thing,” “justice,” “what people deserve,” “the good of society.”

In the novel, Hugo’s narrator says of Bishop Myriel “The sadness which reigned everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. Love each other; he desired nothing further, and that was the whole of his doctrine.”

The Bishop then tells Valjean to use the silver to make himself an honest man. “Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man…. Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!”

* * *

Astonishingly, with a hiccup or two, Jean Valjean makes good, becomes the mayor of a small town and an industrialist. Ironically, a good deed—rescuing a man trapped under a cart—brings him to the attention of the Inspector Javert who could recalls only one other man who had such physical strength—the convict Jean Valjean.

Javert, was born in prison to a galley slave and a gypsy fortune-teller, which left him with a “hatred for the race of bohemians whence he was sprung.” He was certain that following and upholding the law was the better path and does so with fanatical devotion.

Javert is convinced that breaking parole is wrong, that people cannot change, that it is best to return Valjean to the galleys, for he was irredeemably wicked, despite the accumulating evidence to the contrary—Valjean’s new, disciplined life; the way he rescues the trapped man; protects Fantine; adopts Cosette; and his kindness to the poor which led to the nickname, “the beggar who gives alms.”

In Javert, we see rigid morality gone bad. Hugo says he represents, “the evil of the good.” He describes the scene in which Javert arrests Valjean:

Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when hideous, remain grand: their majesty, the majesty peculiar to the human conscience, clings to them in the midst of horror; they are virtues which have one vice, – error. The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic in the full flood of his atrocity preserves a certain lugubriously venerable radiance. Without himself suspecting the fact, Javert in his formidable happiness was to be pitied, as is every ignorant man who triumphs. Nothing could be so poignant and so terrible as this face, wherein was displayed all that may be designated as the evil of the good.

* * *

In a novelistic twist, Valjean saves Javert’s life in the Paris Uprising of 1832, knowing that Javert would still hunt him down, because such was his nature.

At the end, Valjean does indeed fall into Javert’s hands, and Javert– to remain true to the rigid moral code by which he has lived his life, and to his respect for the law, and his belief that in respect for the law is salvation from the depravity, dissolution and fecklessness of his parents—must arrest the now aged Valjean who has done only good for years, and, moreover, has saved his, Javert’s, life. Must return him to the galleys for life—that is certain death.

For the first time, he sees that following the law would be immoral. As would, according to his own value system, disobeying it.

The foundations on which he had built his life are crumbling: honouring the law, determination to capture Jean Valjean. Faced with the fact that man whom he pursued for decades as irredeemably evil might be closer to a saint, Javert cannot obey the law. He is too honest to remain a police officer while not doing his duty. Unable to resolve his cognitive dissonance, he leaps into the Seine.

* * *

Jean Valjean is a Christ figure, who reinvents himself by steadfastly doing the right thing, showing mercy as he has received mercy. His life broadens out. He achieves worldly success. He also finds meaning in loving Cosette, and doing good in the world.

The life of Inspector Javert, his antagonist, on the other hand, steadily narrows. His focus on bringing Valjean to justice narrows his life to an essentially ignoble aim.

While Javert represents, in Hugo’s words, the evil in the good, there is another antagonist, the former innkeeper, Thenardier who is entirely self-seeking and evil—greedy, self-seeking, corrupt, and who steadily sinks into a whirlpool of ever greater evil and depravity. He represent what Hannah Arendt at the Eichmann trial calls “the banality of evil.”

* * *

Interestingly, both Jean Valjean and Javert were modelled on Eugène François Vidocq, an ex-convict who became a police official, noted for his ability and photographic memory and, then later, a successful businessman widely noted for his social engagement and philanthropy.

We have them both within us, the white dog and the black dog. Choosing love and mercy gives us a life which broadens and opens out into sunlit paths. Choosing vindictiveness and vengefulness commits us a narrow, narrowing life.

“Choose you this day whom you will serve.” Like Vidocq, we all have some of both Javert and Valjean in us, but I, oh, I want to feed the white dog. I choose mercy.

Les Misérables on Amazon.co.uk

Les Misérables on Amazon.com

When I Forgot About My Buried Treasure

By Anita Mathias

My beloved home

In your distress you called and I rescued you,

“I removed the burden from your shoulders;
your hands were set free from the basket. (Psalm 81: 6-10)

My life has had many zigzags, and almost all the upward spikes happened because of direction received in times of prayer. This verse marks one of the turning points.

* * *

I had been praying for my dream house when we moved to England from the US in 2004. I had a list of ten eccentric things that I was asking Jesus to give me (because he said: Ask anything in my name) —a pond, stone walls with roses, a detached study to write in, a conservatory, a garden of over an acre, an old rambling house full of character, but in excellent repair, with no work needed… and when I saw “my” house on the internet, I recognised it was the house I had been praying for, and bought it, though we really, really couldn’t afford it, and though I had only viewed one other house.

And then we put a second daughter in private school, and the financial burden was insupportable, and it was clear that I too would need to work—work as in “make money,” not work as in write or keep house.

So I started a business which I always thought would be romantic.

* * *

I love books, as physical objects as well as mind-and-world- expanding things. I had been a haunter of used book stores and library sale tables and charity shops all my life, and though my father always pooh-poohed this notion, actually do have a stubborn ingenious business streak, inherited from my father’s father, Piedade Felician Mathias, Surgeon, Hospital Superintendent, medical school professor, honoured with an OBE—but also a shrewd investor in real estate. (The sale of one of his houses helped with the purchase of my first house, as the sale of my maternal grandfather’s house helped with the purchase of this one.)

* * *

And so I started selling used books on Amazon and Ebay. It was the hardest couple of years of my life.

We have many fun memories of it though, like the time I walked past the junk shop of a house-clearer, closing down, and asked the price of a book. “Ten pounds,” he said, gesturing grandly at the entire room. He had another two rooms. He would be relieved if we’d rid him of them. Immediately. We got three wall to wall rooms of thousands of books, for £40, precious libraries of 20 years of Oxford dons and denizens, have sold hundreds, (but have unfortunately retained hundreds I couldn’t bear to sell!).

* * *

Another time, I asked for bookshelves on Freecycle and the lady asked, “Do you need more books? Godfrey, her husband, a minor poet, left fifty thousand.” Does one need heroin?

What books!! Rare first editions, many signed, furred with dust, in every nook of a four-floored house. “He didn’t know when to stop,” she explains. “When he wanted me to build an arch over our bed for books, it was a health and safety issue. ‘It’s the books or me,’ I said. “I can’t part with my books,” he said.

Three times we load our mini-van with the fruits of his choice, then stop, weariness prevailing where good sense does not.

* * *

But selling them (after I retained hundreds of precious, antique books that I could not bear to sell) was another kettle of fish. I made money, of course I did, real money, equivalent to my husband’s professorial salary, but my hands were giving out with all that typing, and my mind felt as furred as those books.

My dream of writing was receding, receding, but I could not bear to pull the girls from private school, academically, the best girls’ school in Oxford.

* * *

In your distress you called and I rescued you,

“I removed the burden from your shoulders;
your hands were set free from the basket.

I read this Psalm and called for a solution, in distress, in despair and he gave me one,

An idea dropped into my head like a electric pearl, a minor electric shock, and I knew it was real, practical, and from God. It was a simple scalable business plan, with largely passive income, once it was all established, with concrete ideas on how to proceed with each element of it.

It had the immense practicality that is often the hallmark of ideas from God, and it worked–though as our knowledge and experience grew, we have refined it.

That business now solely supports our family.

* * *

But this story is not the point of my post.

It’s this: Last year, everything melted down. Our business was down by a third. My blog was down. I worried–about the business more than the blog. Worried constantly. What if the decline continued, continued, and I had neither a business, nor a blog?

As I was walking down the stairs of our rented seaside villa in Sicily, I realised, like an electric shock, “Silly, you haven’t prayed. You’ve worried, but not prayed. You’ve fretted, but not prayed. You’ve hoped, but not prayed.”

“Silly,” I said to myself, and there were tears in my eyes, for I had indeed been silly.

* * *

For prayer is my thing. My goal is to pray instinctively, as a first resort, as a flower turns its face towards the sun and the butterflies. Why on earth had I endured those months of vague unease without really praying about the dropping stats?

I’d prayed generally “Bless my business. Bless my blog,” which is like a generic “love you,” but wouldn’t we rather be told a specific, “I love you for your grace under pressure, and I love you too when you are a fiery prophet under pressure.”

So I say, shyly, as I walk on the beach, “Lord, do something about our business. Do something about my blog.”

And I sense him smile.

And I knew things will be different.

* * *

And yes, eventually, both turned around. I am writing less than I did before, and perhaps not particularly better, though I have changed a couple of blogging practices, ideas which probably came as a result of the prayer on the stairs.

The business is on the upswing…both because of the sweat and intensity we have poured into it, and because of God’s guidance and good ideas.

God’s intervention is like an invisible catalyst. We might not be able to figure out how exactly things have changed, but change they do.

“And I won’t forget to pray about something important to me again, will I, Jesus; will I?” I ask.

And Jesus smiles, cryptically.

And the smile says, he’ll love me anyway, even if—heaven forbid—I once again resort to worry instead of prayer.

In which our Sehnsucht, Restless Longings, are Really a Longing for God Himself

By Anita Mathias

Image: My Photograph of St. Paul’s Bay in Malta

So we are looking forward to our half-term holiday—to sleeping in, no stress, family movies…and especially to getting away.

* * *

The funny thing is, we had all that—sleeping in, staying up late, family movies, luscious meals, creaking family dinner tables, and travel– last summer (when we squeezed in an epic drive through Belgium, Germany, Austria and Slovenia in our motorhome) and for 24 days over the Christmas holidays (home, and Florence).

And towards the end of each holiday, I was actually looking forward for school. For a routine. For those rascally girls to get to bed at a half-decent hour, and not sleep in. For predictable silent undisturbed hours to sink into reading and writing.

* * *

After weeks of them being home 24/7, I look forward to school. After weeks of school, I want them home.

You know why? It’s because both are good. It’s all good.

Life is good because it’s a gift from God.

* * *

I am going away later this month, and am really looking forward to sunlight and movement and seeing beautiful things. Sometimes, I have had very exciting, dream holidays, full of doing and seeing and learning—Istanbul, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, and after an intense week or so there, I am surprised by a yearning to be home, to spend a day in my pyjamas, reading or playing around with words.

What? I had so yearned to see these magical places. On my first trip to Paris, I heard an American say on the phone in a rich resonant voice, “I am travel weary. I am homesick.” Travel-weary and homesick in Paris? I thought. Yeah, it’s all too possible.

Life is a gift from God. That’s why at home, we can think of glorious art, architecture, history, gardens, mountains, forests, and the ocean and yearn to be there. And that’s why, in the middle of Rome or Athens or Madrid, I have had a sudden longing to go nowhere, do nothing, just sit with green tea, God, a book, and a laptop.

* * *

“Thou hast made us for thyself, Oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you,” St. Augustine wrote.

This restlessness in our hearts is meant to lead us to the one who stills all restlessness.

German has a word for this restlessness, this indefinable longing: Sehnsucht.

C.S. Lewis describes sehnsucht as the “inconsolable longing” in the human heart for “we know not what.” That unnameable something, desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of The Well at the World’s End, the opening lines of “Kubla Khan“, the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves. (Pilgrim’s Regress, C. S. Lewis).

* * *

The restlessness in your heart is a God-yearning. Don’t confuse it with what you think you desire— finishing and publishing a beautiful book, having a successful blog, travel, stimulating friendships, the holiday cottage by the sea…

“The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them,” C. S. Lewis says in The Weight of Glory. “These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

* * *

So listen to your restlessness. Listen to your longings. You are longing for more than Alaska, or Antarctica or the Amazon (places I would rather like to see before I die). You are longing for more than to write a beautiful book (something else I would like to do before I die).

You are really yearning for the infinite sea of God. For the ocean of God to pour into your spirit, and for your spirit to pour into the ocean of God, now and in eternity.

You are yearning to abide and dwell in Him, and to be filled with his spirit, which Jesus says is possible in this life.

The things of this world for which you think you yearn are just signposts to the things which will truly satisfy your soul.

This world, this life, which lies, “before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new,” is a gift, a love-gift from God.

Its loveliness is designed to delight, but not entirely satisfy our hearts.

Only the Giver can do that.

* * *

The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

Pilgrim’s Regress by C.S. Lewis on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

A Rough Guide to Dealing with Anger

By Anita Mathias

Image Credit

Jamie the Very Worst Missionary writes:

Sometimes we look pretty Godless, El Chupacabra (her husband) and I. And it’s not because we’re some hipster Christians who act that way on purpose to be “relevant” or something. It’s because we’re just not letting God in, to be part of what we’re doing here on His Earth. We don’t always seek Him, or listen to Him, or obey Him – even when we know we should. We look Godless sometimes because… well, we are Godless sometimes. And it’s ugly. And sad.

This life has taken its toll on El Chupacabra and me, and how we’ve run short of Love and Grace and Mercy for one another. Having been married since we were children, we carry with us the tenderness of life long friends, but also the familiarity of inbred cousins. When we argue, which is often, we lose our minds – saying the same things again and again, and ending with a venomous chorus of “Screw you!”, “No, screw YOU!”, “NO, SCREW YOU!!” – until we’re both just too tired to keep shouting about who ought to be screwed.

I read this, smile, and sigh!

I smile: she is being honest and liberating. Because sometimes even committed Christians “lose their minds,” as she says.

And confessing your sins to one another, being honest, even on a blog, is liberating. Both for yourself–how freeing to chuck that mask!!–and for other people who similarly blow it, and secretly wonder if they are damaged goods, and inferior Christians. And who might be tempted to wear a mask and hide the reality. And then begin to suspect everyone else of wearing masks!!

I sigh, because I recognise a Roy and Anita.

I sigh, because that is simply not the way to deal with anger, as of course, Jamie knows.

* * *

I have been married for 26 years. Anger was a volatile issue in our marriage at first. I had to get help to deal with it in a constructive way.

There is huge energy and power in anger. It’s a red light that tells you something is wrong. Perhaps in you, or in the relationship, in the life you’re living, in the way you are being treated, in your idols, in your goals and priorities, in your attitude.

Anger is a scream of protest and a cry for change—either internal, within you, or external, in family or relationship dynamics. It must be heeded.

Slowing down and processing your anger with Jesus, and, if necessary with a trusted friend, or a good professional counsellor, is vital. It is a volcano within you. You can’t tell it sit down and be nice. If not processed, it will explode in inappropriate, uncontrollable ways, or simmer within as lava, scaring others off, ruining your life, your productivity, your sleep, and, probably, your health.

Listen to your anger, question it, talk to it, talk about it with trusted others, make the necessary changes in your life, or attitude. Don’t ignore it, because this intruder will take over more and more of your thought-life, and heart. Make anger your ally to bring about constructive change.

* * *

So when our deep anger with each other began impacting our work, our sleep, our health, our parenting, I got help. So did Roy, separately.

Remember this about anger: You are responsible for your reactions. You are responsible for your behaviour. While it’s best if you change in tandem, as we now do, you can also change alone.

An older friend who was also training as a Christian therapist worked with me on anger. And I met weekly with a wonderful mentor.

She quoted her friends, missionaries to Africa: anger is akin to demonic possession. People controlled by anger, letting rip in a tantrum behave and sound much as the demon-possessed do. They even look similar! It’s no accident that in American conversation, the word “mad” is commonly used for angry. “It makes me so mad.”

That made me more determined to get my anger under control.

* * *

How? The most useful tip I’ve found is talking to Jesus. Telling him honestly how I feel. Just go on telling him. Write it all down, which is cathartic.

And then, shut up and listen to what Jesus says.

I find thanking and praising God for all the good things in the person I am angry with also helps.

I really enjoy using reason, rather than emotion. What am I angry about? Can this situation be resolved? How would I like to see it resolved? Can I discuss and analyse it the person involved, so that it doesn’t recur.

And what if it’s a really annoying person you have to work with at church, say, and its not really appropriate to process your complicated emotions with them, face to face? You might need to make changes within yourself then—meditate on their good points, ask God to give you love for them, or just shrug your shoulders and smile at their annoyingness.

* * *

But the absolute truth is: I did not really get control of my anger. Someone got control of me. I just cannot rise to the same heights of anger as I did. The sort of thing which would have infuriated me, I can now dispassionately consider, and decide on the best course of action. I guess my favourite Lion has changed my heart.

I think it’s God’s spirit in my heart, warning me, tempering my reactions, restraining me. I very soon get tired of the shouting, and retreat to the cave of Christ to let the lion lick my wounds, tell him my sob story, receive his balm for my spirit, and chat with him as to how best to proceed. Or not. Sometimes other people’s outbursts can be ignored. Not every “screw you” needs to be one-upped!

In Which I Tell You about a Weighty Battle

By Anita Mathias

Obesity Influences

Have you had “one step forward, one and half step backward” struggles, otherwise known as the dread vicious circle?

I am delighted to say that, at the moment, I do not have any vicious circles in my life—those nightmare phases of life where everything you do has unintended negative consequences.

You know: You rush, and so you create a mess, and the mess stresses you, and so you eat some chocolate, overlooking the fact that chocolate will not tidy your house for you, and you cannot find things, so you own 6 pairs of scissors, and tweezers and combs and nail-clippers, more clutter, and you realise you are wasting money, and you feel bad about that and the stress of the mess and chocolate-weight makes you sleep a little bit extra, so you are late to things, and feel worse about yourself, and you pick up another chocolate bar and crisps as you rush, and now you are heavier, and feel even worse about yourself, and fall out with your spouse, and feel even worse, and need comfort and order a pizza, which has every one of the 1800 calories you were meant to consume all day. And then you don’t have the energy to tidy, or wake early or exercise, and so–guess what? Tomorrow you will need comfort again. Hello chocolate, my old friend.

Well, I have been in vicious circles like that—and that best way out of them is take one habit, just one, and stick at it, and slowly build self-confidence and energy and gumption. Flylady, overweight, depressed, in deep mess and debt, started an upward spiral by shining her sink daily–just that–which meant washing the dishes in it, and then she swiped the counters around it, and so on, and now has a house which can be made guest-ready in 15 minutes. Swoon.

Consistency and persistence will overcome any vicious circle or bad habit.

* * *

At the moment, however, I am tacking four areas of falling-short-of-the-glory-of-God, not generally advised, but on the other hand, I am enjoying the process of change and am energized by it.

I am waking at 6.35 a.m., but slowly pushing the alarm back. My Holy Grail goal is 5 a.m. Will I reach it? I believe so. This time round, waking early is easy, because I set an alarm at 9.35 p.m. to simmer down (yoga, tidy bedroom, read) for a whole hour before the second alarm goes at 10.35 p.m. for lights out. For the whole family, teenagers included.

I want a clutter-free house, and spend a couple of hours a week decluttering and tidying while the cleaner is here, doing the 365 less things project (getting rid of one thing a day) which has been paradigm-shifting. Asking: do I REALLY need this, rather than where should I stash it away?

Writing…. I am thinking of doing Jeff Goins 500 words project in February. I am sad to confess I did not write anything NEAR 500 words a day on my memoir this month, though I blogged. A lot. Yes, I did!

Weight. Ah, weight!! I have lost 15 pounds since I resolved to eat more healthily in November 2012, but that was 15 months ago. Very slow, very steady!

* * *

Ah weight! I left boarding school weighing 116 pounds, at 5’ 2” –considering myself overweight, since so many girls weighed 100, though looking at photographs, I see I wasn’t overweight, or particularly plumper than anyone else.

But I had a negative body-image—that I was fat–reinforced by nagging parents, so I sort of gave up, and steadily gained about 3 pounds a year since leaving school.

I broke that cycle in November 2012, and since then have lost a pound a month, 22 in all.

It’s not easy, but I plan to stay in the battle, aiming at losing half a pound a week, 26 in a year, and am meeting with a dietician to that end.

Being overweight is a mixture of dozens of bad food habits–what you eat, how much, when, why, where–and exercise habits. (See the Obesity Influences Map at the head of this post). It’s a difficult dragon to slay—because you must put dozens of good habits in place, but it’s a worthwhile dragon to slay.

Health risks increase with each additional pound. Overweight people are negatively perceived, which can drag you down.

And most significantly, just as the self-confidence from achieving one goal enables us to achieve others, discouragement about being unable to lose weight can affect our confidence when it comes to achieving other goals. And spiritually, the Enemy of our Soul will use this to drag us down.

* * *

Dr. Samuel Johnson, was a Christian, and great 18^th century writer, lexicography and polymath–though he is oddly best-known for being the hero of Boswell’s Life of Johnson, a sycophantic recounting of every bon mot which crossed the great man’s lips and there were several:

Boswell: I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

Well, Johnson produced a fraction of what he was capable of, much of his brilliance flowing into said bon mots in pubs and coffee-houses.

But as a Christian, and an ambitious one, he wanted to wake early, at 6 a.m. and write. This was difficult because he returned home in the early hours of the morning, and lay abed till 2 p.m.!!

But he never stopped trying.

Jack Miller in his Sonship course, which I went through, one-on-one with Jack’s son Paul Miller, describes Johnson’s efforts.

1738: “Oh Lord, enable me to redeem the time which I have spent in sloth.”

1757: (19 years later) “Oh mighty God, enable me to shake off sloth and redeem the time misspent in idleness and sin by diligent application of the days yet remaining.”

1759: “Enable me to shake off idleness and sloth.”

1761: “I have resolved until I have resolved that I am afraid to resolve again.”

1764: “My indolence since my last reception of the sacrament has sunk into grossest sluggishness. My purpose is from this time to avoid idleness and to rise early.”

1764: (5 months later) He resolves to rise early, “not later than 6 if I can.”

1765: “I purpose to rise at 8 because, though, I shall not rise early it will be much earlier than I now rise for I often lie until 2.”

1769: “I am not yet in a state to form any resolutions. I purpose and hope to rise early in the morning, by 8, and by degrees, at 6.”

1775: “When I look back upon resolution of improvement and amendments which have, year after year, been made and broken, why do I yet try to resolve again? I try because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal.” He resolves again to rise at 8.

1781: (3 years before his death) “I will not despair, help me, help me, oh my God.” He resolves to rise at 8 or sooner to avoid idleness.

* * *

Jack Miller put Dr. Johnson’s failure down to the fact that he had never learnt to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit.

* * *

Ouch. Touche.

My life blossomed in my forties when circumstances forced me to rely on God. I founded a business which I found exhausting, and was so outside my experience and knowledge and interests that I was forced to pray constantly.

And then I began to blog—I who had written careful, much-revised pieces.

My goal for my blog was steady month-on-month growth. And for that, I needed to rely on God. For blog growth depends on rapid writing and good posts, but far more, on people reading your posts, and sharing your posts, and you can do nothing to induce them to do either, but trust, and lean deeper into God from whom all good blogs flow.

* * *

And losing weight and getting physically healthy, an issue which has bugged me since my teens (unnecessarily so, at first)–How come I tried to do it by will-power?

Will power is over-rated. I am done with will power.

I am still in the battle to lose weight, because as Charles Duhigg says in his brilliant book “The Power of Habit,” each change you make makes a whole lot of other, unrelated changes possible. In study after study, people who’ve done one of these—lost weight, started budgeting, woken early, got organised—have found the strength, almost unconsciously, to progress in all the other areas. And that has been my experience.

I am hoping to lose weight as a branch in the vine, relying on God’s power, asking him for it, trusting that he will give it to me.

“Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit,” says the Lord (Zech 4:6).

To tell, the truth—I have never relied on God’s power, asking him for it, trusting that he will give it to me in the area of weight loss, though I do it when I write, for instance, or when I struggle to keep my temper, or to forgive.

So losing weight by surrendering the struggle to God, relying on his power, and trusting him to give me strength will be entirely new territory for me. For instance, I have been shutting my laptop and praying, just enjoying God, whenever I get tired or bored and I crave chocolate.

I will be blogging on this battle. And prayer for strength or victory will be appreciated.

My Experience of The Baptism in the Holy Spirit and of Speaking in Tongues

By Anita Mathias

So here I am, stressed and anxious. Or happy, at peace and joyful.

And almost without realizing it, I find myself praying. In tongues.

* * *

How do I find myself in Oxford, England, in the 21^st century, praying in tongues, this ancient First Century gift vividly described in The Acts of the Apostles?

Well, 30ish years ago, when I was 17, I was visiting my grandmother in Mangalore, a pretty Catholic seacoast town on the west coast of India, where my family was “from.”

And there was a visiting Spanish priest called Marcellino Iragui who was running a Charismatic retreat.

It was a little like the Alpha course. We went through forgiveness, repentance, renouncing occult involvement, and on the last evening, the priest prayed for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Well, I gulped it all up; I drank it all in. Not so my father, who was amused, sceptical, bored—he was 63 and there was no way he was going to take up any new enthusiasms. He flatly refused to take me to the Charismatic Crusade for another day.

* * *

And so I asked a friend who knew the priest to introduce me, and asked him for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit there and then.

(I have an instinctive distaste for rules–Anita Antinomian, my friend Paul called me–and it amuses me that even in this most holy encounter, I sought to jump the queue, and do it my way.)

“Is she hungry?” he asked my friend, Joyce Fernandes, who later became a nun at Mother Teresa’s convent. “ Oh yes!” she assured him, having no idea at all. (Indian women can be very nice!)

And so we went through the theory: forgiveness, gifts of the spirit, fruits of the spirit, and then he laid his hands on me, and prayed for the Baptism of the Spirit, having me repeat the prayers after them after him. He asked for all sorts of wonderful gifts—prophecy, healing, miracles, wisdom, knowledge. All this I was game for.

When he came to, “And Lord, please give me the gift of tongues,” I interrupted him.

“I don’t want that,” I said. “It would be too embarrassing. My family would tease me.”

“You can’t pick and choose among the gifts of God,” he said sternly.

And so we prayed. I felt nothing. I was both disappointed– a bit “Oh well, it would have been exciting had it worked,”–and relieved.

I re-joined my father. “So are you now a Charismatic?” he said, amused by the whole business. “Have you the gift of tongues?”

“No,” I said.

We returned to my grandmother’s. “Do you have the gift of tongues?” everyone asked.

“No,” I said, with complete truthfulness.

* * *

Well, I spoke too soon. I woke that night with rushing, gushing joy, a river that felt like it would burst my heart. It was overwhelming: joy so ecstatic, so seismic, it was akin to pain.

I knelt by the side of my bed, and prayed, praising God for the beauty of the world, for Himself, for his goodness–strange, barbarous-sounding unintelligible language bursting out of me. I was praying in tongues

I prayed in tongues, and I prayed with my mind, in rapture, with emotions new to me, prayed in English and in my new spirit-language, thanking God for his incomprehensible loveliness, which I suddenly perceived. For himself

“Oh, Lord, I just praise you, I praise you, I praise you.”

* * *

And well, that language never left me. A month later, I was in Mother Teresa’s convent, as an aspirant, training to be a nun.

I asked her in a personal meeting, “Mother, what do you think about speaking in tongues?”

“One tongue is enough for a woman,” she said brusquely.

And that was that!

* * *

Well, but I still prayed in tongues; I couldn’t help it—remember that Anita Antinomian bit?–and have done so for the last 30 years.

Tense: I find myself praying in tongues. Anxious: Are we going to catch that plane?–I find myself praying in tongues.

And when my spirit soars, swells, and for no good reason I am unreasonably happy, I find myself again praying in tongues.

When I am joyful and exhilarated in my garden, or by the seashore, or on a mountain, I find myself praying in ecstatic tongues. And, more restrained but slowly coursing into peace, I pray in tongues when I am miserable

It is the greatest mood-changer, and wisdom-infuser I know. The greatest shortcut to joy.

* * *

And sadly, my spirit-tongue hasn’t changed, and, sadly, it sounds rather ugly to my years, barbaric even. It’s not Greek, or Latin, or French, languages I love. I heard a Vicar in Oxford sing in tongues once, and it sounded like Persian, something vaguely Byzantine, definitely sophisticated.

Mine, it’s a cave man tongue, heavy glottals.

And that’s just as well, for if I spoke Old French or Medieval Latin, I would have been tempted to show off about my lovely spirit language. Instead, I have kept quiet about it, and prayed quietly as God meant, no doubt, for the last thirty years.

Some people say that one’s spirit language develops as we mature. Well, I have matured spiritually (ask Roy what an angel I can be when he is impossible. Well, sometimes!), but my language has basically stayed static.

And isn’t it strange that the one gift I specifically said I didn’t want was the one gift I got? (Though, about 20 years ago, the gift of prophetic knowledge and insight began to manifest itself in me, and be recognised by others, and is now my most treasured spiritual gift.)

* * *

Rejoice always, pray constantly, in everything give thanks. How on earth is that possible?

Well, praying in tongues is one way. I pray when I go on a long walk, and flag. Or do manual work. Or in the winter when the night finds me too tired to read or write, too tired to pray coherently, but not tired enough to fall asleep.

And then the Spirit, left within my spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing my inheritance, prays in rough-hewn sounds without any words I understand, and God hears His intercession, and so I know that all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well.

Image Credit

Who can Stand Before Jealousy?

By Anita Mathias

Who can Stand Before Jealousy? (Prov. 27:4).

If Joseph, whose story in Genesis I am re-reading, realised the dangers of provoking jealousy, he could have avoided 20 hard years.

Joseph, his father’s favourite, given an glorious robe…. His brothers, of course, “hated him, and could not speak a kind word to him.”

Joseph, whose dreams are prescient. He is gifted prophetically–but not yet gifted in wisdom or prudence or sensitivity or insight into human nature.

These he will develop in the school of experience.

* * *

My sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.

Was this a dream to share with jealous brothers?

“And they hated him all the more because of his dream.” (Gen 37:8). Of course, they did,

His next naïve revelation, “the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me,” dooms him.

“Here comes that dreamer. Let’s kill him,” his brothers say.

There is a reason God speaks to us in dreams, when the world is still and quiet, and there are no witnesses.

Dreams are meant to be kept secret. There is power in secrecy; power in containment.

* * *

I sympathise with Joseph. All my life, I have been a Joseph-Tigger-Kanga who bounds up to share good news—a prize, a publication, a financial windfall, career breakthrough… I often still do, instinctively.

It’s an extrovert’s reflex—joy seems more real when shared.

But is it safe? Not really. I have had things blocked by jealous people by sharing them before everything was signed and sealed. Sometimes, I can see a frenemy’s irritation rise as I share a success—pursed lips, a put down, the topic abruptly changed, a quick trip to the loo.

I understand Joseph’s impulse, but I do not want to land up in a well.

So the Tigger-impulse must be tempered by other principles.

1) The Golden Rule. Love Does not Boast (1 Cor. 13:4)

How do I feel about other’s success? If it’s a friend whom I, or my children, don’t feel competitive with–happy.

However, when old writing friends do far better than I—as many have done!!–I am happy if they are better writers, and disgruntled, if they are worse. I do confess it!

When old friends become famous, as some have done, I wish them well, but sometimes find it hard to continue the friendship as it was. Their success exacerbates my own guilt about my disorganisation, wasted time, time lost to turbulent emotions which I should have sorted out through scripture, prayer and surrender.

My joy at a friend’s success is not unmixed with sadness at my own relative failure. So why should I expect greater nobility out of everyone else?

2) Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips. (Prov. 27:2)

This is something I often say to myself, both when tempted to show off, even obliquely, and when I hear someone praise themselves on social media.

Russell Baker in his memoir Growing Up, reported his mother’s aphorism, “If you don’t blow your trumpet who’ll blow it for you?”

Yes, what if another man’s lips don’t praise you?

So be it. So be it. Obscurity develops character just as much as celebrity, no doubt, does. “Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights” Thoreau wrote. Or, to quote Proverbs, “Humility comes before honour.” The way of humility has mysterious power, as the way of forgiveness does.

3) Boasting Cheats You of the Chance to Learn

Christian Twitter comedian Sammy Rhodes satirizes circuitous showing off: “This rain is really coming down. Speaking of rain, did I ever tell you about that time Rainn Wilson defended me on Twitter?”

It is a better use of time to turn the conversation around to the unique individual I am talking to and learn everything interesting about them, since I already know everything interesting about myself (well–until I go to therapy!)

As Estelle in Great Expectations was raised to break men’s hearts, I was raised to achieve, to be Amazing Me.

Ah, the freedom of leaving that behind me, and instead being who I am: the Beloved. To have relationships based on who I am, not what I’ve done.

4) Jesus

Jesus, ah Jesus, our role-model! How modest and discreet he was, secretive even. How he adjured people not to tell others about his miraculous deeds. How he was scolded by his disciples for acting in secret. How he left the region when people came hunting for him, seeking miracles, seeking to make him king.

I often think of what my friend Paul who discipled me said, “90% of wisdom is keeping your mouth shut.”

The sun, moon and eleven stars would have bowed to Joseph, anyway, for that was his destiny. He was gifted; he had impressive administrative gifts, integrity and, eventually, people skills too.

Joseph learned wisdom and prudence through twenty years of suffering.

But his story is recorded so we may learn without pits, wells and dungeons.