Anita Mathias | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

When we Walk in Love, There is Nothing to Make us Stumble

Late last year, I was struggling with hostility, anger, and judgmentalism towards a fellow Christian who was getting on my nerves, and walked at night listening to 1 John and James again and again on my iPod, until my grumpy heart was converted, and I could look at the person who was annoying me, and say, “Oh, please, help me see her as you see her, Jesus.”

This passage particularly spoke to me “Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. ¹¹But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them,” (2 John 10-11).

Living in the darkness, walking around in the darkness, blinded by the darkness…

A charity worker working in the third world visited us last year. He was depressed, and consistently focussed on the dark side of people, nations, and international politics. Everything was stark and negative. His hatred of the US in particular, and of what the rich world was doing to the three-quarters world led him to have darkness within him. And that is truly scary.

Jesus says of stingy, greedy, money-focussed people (the word he uses for unhealthy, poneros, implies stingy) “But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

“Oh Lord, let me focus on you. Let me have light within me,” I found myself praying.

But for those who walk in kindness-there is nothing in them to make them stumble.

A Christian walk without stumbling–the impulsive angry email one later wishes one had worded more kindly; the harsh criticism which stuns everyone, and which is slightly off base; covert relational strife because someone has thwarted your pride, or your ambition!… Oh, wouldn’t want an assured Bolt towards Jesus rather than this stumbling.

When we do not walk in love, we walk in the darkness, groping, stumbling, bumping into things and people, going off course, in tangents, losing our way…

Because when we do not make an effort to see with the eyes of kindness, we cannot see clearly. We cannot see whole. We see the speck of sawdust in our brother’s eye, and how it annoys us. It’s all we can focus on! But that annoying dust mote is not the whole person; it is just an aspect of the person which grates on our sensitive nerves.

And so we speak hastily and act hastily and wound hastily—because we are not walking in the light of kindness with the high beams of love turned on, which help us see the good in people, as well as the darkness. Instead, we are stumble in the darkness, the darkness of our cross feelings. Blinded in the darkness of our lovelessness, our judgements then are not to be trusted. Why should they be? They are small, shrivelled, loveless; we are focusing on the dust in the statue, instead of its entire goldeness. The evil we see is only a partial truth, a disortion.

* * *

What is walking in love, practically?

Perhaps kindness is the better word, more contemporary than agape love.

Trying to see people as God sees them? As children of God, made in his image, sometimes bratty , throwing their toys in a tantrum, but still children of God.

Have you ever been in a situation, perhaps a financial dispute within an extended family situation, or a business situation where you feel you are walking in a fog and darkness. You grope; you know people have a self-seeking agenda, and are lying, but it’s hard to shift truth from lies. Whoa. What stress! I have experienced this in a toxic situation in a previous church, groping in the darkness, not knowing to what extent anyone was telling the truth, knowing we were being lied to, worked and manipulated, but why certain questions were being asked, and what use the information would be put to—all this was fog and thick darkness. Have you ever been on scary situations like that, where you don’t know who you can trust, where everyone is out for themselves and private advantage, where everything you say can be twisted out of context and distorted?

* * *

How can you walk through the darkness without stumbling? Act in kindness and love. Balance the two important imperatives Jesus suggested, “Be wise as a serpent, but innocent as a dove.”

I am using this passage from James as an anchor when my feelings are volatile, and I don’t necessarily trust my own judgement. Am I walking in kindness? Then there is nothing in me to make me stumble.

But if I let hatred, animosity and irritation possess me, I can no longer entirely trust my own judgement in that situation. I cannot trust myself to see my way clearly, because the fog, the darkness of my own loveless heart and emotions is blinding me, and I am groping, stumbling over obstacles I cannot see, unaware of what is making me stumble, in danger of losing my way.

Five years have past! When a retrospective glance consoles

By Anita Mathias

Tintern Abbey

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters!

Wordsworth writes, as he revisits Tintern Abbey, and muses how he has matured over the last five years.

For nature then

To me was all in all.

But now, he sees something else in it. Dare he say it—God?

And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man….

* * *

Five years have passed. Looking back, if we are Christians, should bring comfort. We should have grown, matured and deepened over the last five years of walking with Jesus because of the working of his mercy and grace on our souls.

About 12 years ago, I was telling my mentor, Lolly Dunlap, that I was frustrated about my marriage which was mediocre then, rather than excellent (and oh, how I hate mediocrity!!) and my temper, which I then hadn’t learnt to control. (But now I have, I am glad to report!!) And my mothering was distracted, and my housekeeping haphazard, and as for exercise…

“Think about 5 years ago,” she said. “Have you improved in any way over the last 5 years?”

I thought. I brightened. I began to tell her how amazing I was in 2001, compared to what I had been in 1996. I was actually showing off about the progress over which I had been so despondent a few minutes earlier.

So if you’ve been a Christian 5 years, think back to what you were and thank God for how far you’ve come under his loving eyes, with the action of his grace in your soul.

I am not what I ought to be.

I am not what I wish to be.

I am not even what I hope to be.

But by the cross of Christ,

I am not what I was.

~John Newton

* * *

So, Christian, compared to April 2008, how is it with your soul today? Does the answer console you?

Blogging and Penfriends

By Anita Mathias

When I was growing up in India, letters with a foreign stamp were exciting, a window into exotic worlds. And every week, a thick envelope from Canada arrived, from my mother’s penfriend, Barbara Redlich, to whom she had written for decades, but never met.

Barbara was Austrian, and in a letter I’ve kept, wrote, randomly, about growing up in Austria after the Second World War. Everything was rationed; everything was scarce, even food. And, oddly, exercise books.

So schoolgirls wrote small on the line in blue ink, then coming to the end of the page, turned the book upside down, and wrote in black ink on what was left of the line.

A random little detail, but how it fascinated us.

* * *

We followed Barbara’s exciting life, week by week. She never married, but lived with another woman. Lesbians, I now surmise, but such a thought would never have crossed my mind then, or my mother’s, though my urbane father would have realised it.

She and her friend/partner travelled the world, sending us photographs of the Victoria Falls in South Africa, and SA’s amazing botanical gardens. Immigration to Canada opened up the world to her.

* * *

I was bored of India. I begged my father to emigrate as so many of our friends and relatives were doing, but he had already emigrated to England, where he lived from 1944 to 1952,

He qualified as a Chartered Accountant, and then worked for Tubbs Clarke and Co., Chartered Accountants.

While he liked his boss who was fair-minded (and hired him after all!) he realized that he would always be held back by the petty racism of the English. When an audit was requested, he heard his boss pre-emptively explain, “One of our accountants is an Indian. Do you mind?” Some did not. Some did. “It’s always best to ask,” his boss said, apologetically.

My father’s epiphany: “Why be a second class citizen in someone else’s country when you can be a first class citizen in your own?” He was now Controller of Accounts of India’s largest company, Tata Steel. We had a luxurious life. No way was he leaving to start again from scratch.

Any emigration to be done had to be done by us. My sister emigrated to the US in her early twenties and stayed there. I came to England, to read English at Oxford, moved to America, stayed there for 17 years, then moved back here 9 years ago, and am now a dual US/UK citizen.

* * *

Why am I telling you this? The same instinct that made Barbara Redlich and my mother write to each other weekly for decades, though they had never met each other. The instinct to record, share and preserve our lives, a human instinct since the cave painters of Lascaux.

Few people today have the time or energy to record their week in long, beautifully written letters which help them see the beautiful, the noteworthy, and the art in their own lives.

But facebooking stems from the same instinct, as does blogging. In post after post, we record our thoughts and lives and read other people’s.

Will you be my penfriend?

Happy Third Birthday, Blog: Reflections on Three Years of Blogging

By Anita Mathias

Capture Today marks 3 years of blogging.

I have enjoyed it, absolutely, and am glad I started.

Benefits?

1 It has taught me to write easily, confidently and rapidly, which will be a blessing as I return to “real” writing. My memoir Up to the Hills, will be published next April by Prodigal Press.

2 It’s enlarged my world. I have met several bloggers and blog readers, some of whom have become good friends. And my cyber-friendships with commentators and blog readers has enriched and broadened my life. Blogging is a tremendous vehicle of growth.

3 Reading other blogs has changed me. I have been stretched by the can-do attitude and practical suggestions of Michael Hyatt.

From Donald Miller, I have learned about inciting incidents, and have created one of my own, an 11 mile a day pilgrimage in Tuscany.

From Jeff Goins, I have learned that writing every day makes it effortless. From Leo Babuata, that the way to major life changes is to make minuscule changes. And from Ann Voskamp that thanking God through the day changes everything. Reading beautifully written blogs, Sarah Bessey’s among them, enriches my life.

4 Blogging has taught me the pleasures of thinking deeply, and thinking things through. I have become braver and more confident about expressing my opinion, even when pushback is certain.

This has helped me grow as a person, and become more reflective. Reflective considered living and blogging has immense psychological benefits.

5 I definitely feel more alive and happy when I am blogging. When we take the kids to a cathedral, museum, botanical garden or a mountain hike, we suggest that they take cameras. Photographing beauty slows them down and they see it better.

For me, writing about my travels, my life, my ideas, my spiritual journey has the same function.

Blogging has slowed me down in good ways, and made me more reflective. The spiritual life begins when we slow down.

I am calmer, and have a more settled faith having worked out questions, querulousness, anger, and disagreements with my faith community on my blog over the last few years. I am far less likely now to write controversial posts!

6 A spiritual blog flows out of a spiritual life. When I am dry and have nothing much to write about I know it is time to repent and return.

7 If you blog with an open mind, reading other faith bloggers, and considering what they write, you will become more liberal. Without thinking too much about it, I assumed homosexuality was a sin around the time I started blogging in 2010. I have evolved. I have moved from a rather loosely held belief in inerrancy to a belief in the divine inspiration of scripture (though it is deeply precious to me, either way). Interrogating my faith, ironically, has led to it becoming deeper and more joy-giving

8 Self-confidence and stability—Blogging every day for three years has had a stabilizing influence on my life. Persisting in blogging every day has brought about confidence in my ability to write quickly (and, sometimes well). The confidence and discipline has spilled over into other areas. My house is tidier; I wake earlier; I have adopted a daily exercise habit of a 4-5 mile walk, and am losing weight—11 pounds since November!

9 Blogging frees me from the fear of criticism and the desire for approval. Some posts you know will evoke pushback or hostility and it’s freeing to write them anyway, and blow off the criticism. My own rule of thumb is I blow off all ad hominem comments, and delete them. Disagreement with ideas is fine, but when I realize both my views and my interlocuter’s are entrenched, I agree to disagree and “fade” –stop engaging.

10 Gratitude—Every year of blogging is better than the year before. You have more readers so what you write gets leveraged. Blog friendships increase in number and depth. As thinking “blogly” becomes a habit, you see blog ideas everywhere.

My blog has more than doubled since last year, largely due to being more active on Twitter.

I am grateful for my archive. I often return to it, and rethink, refine and reshare a post.

New Directions

1) I needed a metric to gauge whether my blog is healthy and growing. I had used page views, on the philosophy that whatever is alive grows.

However, this intriguing article in the New York Times suggests that when we are helping other people, we are far more motivated to work, and work hard.

So I may try summarizing particularly helpful books, articles and blogs on my blog, and choose topics to explore depending on how useful they might be to my readers.

2 I read blogs widely, mainly on my facebook or my iPhone, but rarely comment (laziness and rushing and because I read blogs when I am procrastinating writing). I am trying to comment more.

3 I have got into the habit of thinking in 800-1000 words. I would LOVE to get into the habit of thinking in 400-500 words to conserve time and energy.

4 I would love to do more Scripture blogging—and in fact, my Scripture posts land up being evergreen posts, thanks to Google.

5 Other evergreen posts are those I post on my travels. I am growing increasingly interested in doing more travel writing on my blog.

6 I tend to write about subjects I know (or think I know). I would like to use my blog to explore things I do not know, ask questions, think through new subjects, and use my blog as a vehicle of growth.

7 “Love is little. Love is low. Love will make my spirit grow,” goes the Shaker spiritual.

When stuck, I would like to blog “little” and “low.” Be real, not even think about “killer” posts (in any sense of the word), but just blog about the new things I’ve learned, the little thoughts, the little insights, the little experiences of my life. “If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I don’t feel my blog has fully grown up, fully decided what it’s going to be and do once it’s all grown up, but it is enjoying growing up, and I am enjoying growing with it!

And thank you for reading and commenting!

And here are my most read posts of all time:

1 When Christian leaders stumble, the proper response is mourning.

2 The Parable of the Bridge, or when to say no to insistent people.

3 On Vaughan Roberts’ interview, and the case for gay Christian marriage.

4 In which angels sing and diamonds materialize: The Revival Alliance in Birmingham

5 Simon Ponsonby’s Butcher Sermon

6 Christians, quit being so oppositional

7 Why I am no longer a Catholic

8 When your theology makes you cry, your theology is too small

9 Why God is Profoundly Egalitarian and Why we Need More Female Clergy

10 So, is God to be found at the bottom of a laundry basket?

11 In which I trace my evolving views on gay Christians

12 Blogocracy—100 Influential Christian bloggers, as measured by Facebook followers

Do you blog? What do you love/hate about it? If you don’t, would you like to start?

Two Difficult Things by December

By Anita Mathias

power_of_change_cropped

Alice laughed. “One can’t believe impossible things.

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.“

Luckily, I have only two difficult things to do before January, but they are going to take all my focus for the rest of the year.

One is a pilgrimage in Tuscany in September, walking 8-14 miles a day. Since I am currently walking 4.5 miles most days, it will be a challenge! But not an impossible one! My reading (yeah, my first step to doing anything: buy a book!) suggests that one can, relatively easily, increase one’s total weekly mileage by 10 % each week, (and, with steady training, it is possible to go from couch to running a half marathon in six months) so I am optimistic that I will get there. Walking hills easily—um… um..

I think the only way I will be able to easily walk 8-14 miles a day in the hills of Tuscany in September (given my current fitness) is to take up running. Fortunately, I love running far more than walking. (I can’t run fast yet, alas, but running unleashes endorphins and endocannabinoids so that I return euphoric, happy, mentally clear, thinking positively, feeling optimistic and loving, with “calm of mind, all passion spent,” in Milton’s phrase.

In such a state of mind, one feels less need to manipulate one’s brain chemistry to find a high through the highly addictive salt, sugar, fat, or chocolate which has been the bane of my life for so many years.

I am reading a fascinating book called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg which talks about keystone habits. Implementing these unleashes a cascade of positive changes in people’s lives.

One of these keystone habits, unsurprisingly, is exercise. You end up eating better partly because you need to for your run, and partly because the endorphins your run generates means you need less “comfort food,” and also because it’s hard to undo the effects of a run with a heavy, unhealthy meal. You think better, work better, and sleep better. The confidence generated by taking up challenging exercise spills over into work, relationships, adopting new challenges, etc.

* * *

The other difficult thing I plan to do by December is to complete my memoir of an Indian Catholic childhood, on which I have worked off and on for 15 years, though I more or less shelved it in 2006. But I feel uneasy and discontent until it is wrapped up, and now the time has come to do so.

I have signed with Darrell Vesterfelt of Prodigal Press, and my book will be published in April 2014. Which means I have to finish it by December. Which means serious hours of work.

I feel God has been beautifully stitching my life together. The running will help me be mentally fresh and physically capable of the hours at my desk that it’s going to take to finish this book by December.

I have a first draft of the book, but need the structure (turning in weekly chapters) and encouragement, editing and coaching that Darrell and Prodigal Press will provide to have it done by December.

* * *

I am meditating through the Gospel of Matthew at moment.

Repent for the Kingdom of God is near, (Matt 3:2). So the adult Jesus is introduced in the Gospel of John. Repent, a 180 degree turn from doing your own thing to living in the Kingdom, in the force field of God’s presence and power, doing things as God enables you.

I have had a very pleasant, though hedonistic holiday in Corfu, but now that I am home, discipline feels sweet to my soul.

Repenting, turning, returning. Back to a more disciplined way of eating, turning away from the pleasures of souvlaki, gyros, spanakopita, moussaka, baklava, and halwa to things which unequivocally bless my body, a plethora of fruits and veggies and beans and sprouts. (Roy is becoming a gourmet veggie cook, so don’t feel too sad for me).

No more staying up late, and sleeping in, but returning to a disciplined sleep/wake schedule. Early to bed!!

And lazy beach walks and desultory hikes will be replaced by determined 7-8 km run/walks. Am doing a 7 km race walk in Hyde Park on April 14^th. Join me?

Ah, back to discipline. Reading, writing for long hours, with Pomodoro breaks every 25 minutes to tidy up, and the internet switched off with Antisocial and Stayfocusd, wonderful apps.

Discipline, anchored in the vine! If I try to be disciplined on my own strength, energy and enthusiasm, well, they soon peter out, but anchored in Jesus, with his sweet life flowing through me, ah, in that there is hope!!

What are your challenges for the rest of the year? Tell me!

Spring Wild Flowers in Corfu (Guest post by Roy Mathias)

By Anita Mathias

At Easter time wild flowers are everywhere on Corfu — road sides, walls, abandoned lots … The first half are from slopes of Mt. Pandokrater, in the North East of Corfu. Many of the spring bulbs we know and love originated in the rocky hills of Greece and Turkey, and it is exciting to see them in the wild. To see a larger version of the image right click and choose the appropriate option.

Wild Muscari, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.

close up of wild Muscari, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.

Wild Iris are plentiful on Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.

A delicate white wild flower, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.

close up

The olive grove we walked through was very fragrant, and we recognised a few familiar herbs, mint sage, and thyme. There were probably a lot of others known to the locals.

A very fragrant wild mint, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.

A star of Bethlehem (?). for some reason they seem to grow in the middle of a dirt road, between the tire ruts.

A single Star of Bethlehem (?). about 5mm across. For some reason they seem to grow in the middle of a dirt road, between the tire ruts.

A close up of very plentiful red flower

European wild ginger (?), Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.

The characteristic leaves of cyclamen, which would have already have flowered.

A yellow wildflower, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.

A thistle type plant, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.

The flowers pictured above are all from a wonderful olive grove. on the seaward side of Mt. Pandkrater.

Gnarled olive tree, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.

Here are some flowers from the rest of Corfu.

A road side display of wild flowers.

Daisies growing in a wall.

Succulents (?) on the monastery roof, about to flower.

Wild ginger (?) on Paleokastristra’s Theotokos monastery roof, about to flower.

Severely pruned grapes with buttercups and other wild flowers.

The thickest buttercups I’ve ever seen.

Judas tree in flower.

Lovely purple flowers on a Judas tree by the road.

Yellow flowers by the road.

Sea daffodil growing on the thin strip of land between Halikouna Beach and the Korission Lagoon. It is plentiful here, but endangered world wide.

Sea daffodil (not yet in flower) growing on the thin strip of land between Halikouna Beach and the Korission Lagoon. It is plentiful here, but endangered world wide.

Unidentified blue flowers by the road.

With Corfu’s mild climate, gardens are full of fruit trees.

Peach/nectarine (?) blossoms just outside our apartment

A lemon tree just outside our apartment.

A roadside orange tree.

code: E8PCC7EPSZVE

A Hike up Corfu’s Mount Pandokrater; an abundance of wild spring flowers

By Anita Mathias

View from an olive grove on Mt. Pandokrater towards Albania and the mainland of Greece.

We hiked up Corfu’s tallest mountain, Mount Pandokrater today—not to the summit, sadly, but still an enchanted hike.

I was astonished to see so many of the bulbs which I’ve bought for my gardens just growing wild—stands of beautiful wild isis, muscari and chionodoxia.

Muscari growing wild in the rocks on Mt. Pandokrater.

Wild iris, Mt. Pandokrater.

Lots of sage and thyme a wonderfully fragrant wild mint.

A bank of wild sage with white flowers, Mt. Pandokrater.

Wild Mint, Mt. Pandokrater

What an amazing micro-ecosystem! Massive cactus growing side by side with olive trees, a smorgasbord of wild flowers, and delicate spring bulbs.

Cactus, probably not native, on Mt Pandokrater.

A delicate white wild flower.

A close up of very plentiful red flower

Star of Bethlehem (?). There were several–all in the centre, between the two tire ruts.

I had read how criminals visit the Great Smokies National Park, and leave with trucks of rare wild orchids which they sell on for $20-40 each. Well, there were thousands of pounds of bulbs growing wild here—nature’s beneficence!

I read yesterday how a family survived at the edge of the taiga in Siberia for decades off berries and bark, unaware that World War II had happened. Even there in that frozen climate nature apparently offered them enough to just about survive. The world is charged with the goodness of God!

Flowers grew out of rocks, abundance and goodness even in the most unpromising times and environments.

Daisies find a foothold in the rocks.

A healthy theology methinks is best worked out in the sun, and fresh air, in God’s creation, your muscles sweaty from hard work, or hard walking. Ora et labora. Prayer needs some work, or some walking to ground it. Saint Benedict got it right again.

Images from April Rambles in Corfu (A guest post by Roy Mathias)

By Anita Mathias

Mirtiotissa Beach at high tide

Mirtiotissa beach, described by Lawerence Durrell as the most beautiful in the world, is certainly one of the most inaccessible on Corfu. Until recently, it was accessible only by a footpath. The modern road is reasonably wide but impossibly steep. Like many of Corfu’s West coast beaches, it is a small expanse of sand beneath steep cliffs, and according to the locals it gets smaller every year. (It’s also a nudist beach, but we reckoned (correctly) that is was too chilly to be nude.)

The Philoxenia Hotel, Ermones.

Neighbouring Ermones beach is fascinating.

Ermones Beach is a mixture of sand a tiny black pieces of seaweed.

The beach is a mixture of sand and small pieces of black seaweed; pleasantly bouncy under foot when dry, but a treacherous quagmire when wet. 04-DSCN6734

The sea is dark blue, light blue, black (from the sea weed) and white. It was a very stormy day (earlier we had lost our power because of a fallen tree) and the surf was wild.