Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Changing your Life with Small, Leveraged Baby Steps

By

A corner of my study. As you can see, I have too many books!!

Until four years ago, Roy and I were challenged housekeepers–with lots of clutter neither of us wanted to slow down and get rid of.
And when we moved from Williamsburg, Virginia to England, since Roy’s job was paying, I moved ahead to Oxford without doing any decluttering, and paid movers to go in, pack and ship everything to England. Which they did. Old magazines and newspapers, a garage of junk I’d meant to donate, and flip-top trashcans with trash in them. No kidding!!
Four years ago, we decided to get a weekly cleaner, and spend the 4-5 hours that the cleaner was here to put everything back in the right place, sort laundry, deal with paperwork, and declutter. Four years later, I still have about 15 boxes which came from America in 2004, which I haven’t unpacked, and loads of books to sort, organize and donate.
 * * *
Yes, after four years, we are still organizing, finding a place for things, and getting rid of things which are neither beautiful nor useful in William Morris’s phrase. And each week, we get rid of more things, and find a place for more things.  We are getting there—but with our current budget of 4-5 hours a week to tidy and put everything away, do housework, and declutter, it will take us at least another year, unless we put more time in.
And I’ve decided to make peace with that, make peace with steadily failing less each week, make peace with small gains.
           * * *
I am struggling too with getting fit. And here too, I just have to be content with failing less, or succeeding slightly. With stopping gaining weight!! I’ve lost 5 pounds this year. 5 pounds in 4 months is hardly anything—but hey, it’s sure better than gaining 5 pounds! So I will rejoice and be glad in small victories.
                * * *
I read this moving blog post recently in which the author sheds four bags of clothes, scarves, bags, jewellery etc. just from her wardrobe, before working on the rest of her possessions. She has also written about her attempts to lose her excess weight and regain fitness.
I’ve noticed a character syndrome—the same people struggle with all four or several of these weaknesses: They are overweight; they have trouble sleeping early and waking early; their houses are messy and cluttered, and they are frequently in serious debt. I struggle with the first three, and overspending has been a weakness in the past (though not debt).
It’s tragic. It’s a classic vicious circle, in which sleeping in steals your time to exercise and tidy your house, and the vim and spirit to declutter.  The mess depresses you too much to exercise, and leads to comfort eating and spending. Being overweight depresses you so that you sleep more, comfort-spend and comfort-eat. And the debt worries you so that you comfort spend, and comfort eat. (Oh, Lord have mercy, and the good news is he does SO love and have compassion on these harassed and sad people, and I’ve been one, caught in this syndrome, except for debt.)
A mentor said about my overspending (which I have dealt with at least ten years ago) that it was because of emptiness. That if my soul was more full of God, I would need to spend less. And it’s true. As I’ve dived deeper into the holy depths of God, I never look at catalogues, rarely enter stores, except when on holiday, and rarely buy things, except books.
I wonder if over-eating, and over-buying are both attempts to fill an insatiable, hungry emptiness in our souls, a nebulous wound like  Fisher-King’s undiagnosed, and so unhealed wound. And seeking healing and filling from God and his Holy Spirit is the quickest way to heal these syndromes. I do believe it.
    * * *
The other interesting thing I noticed was that people who successfully tackle one aspect of this syndrome—who can lose weight, say, or get out of debt, or get their house orderly again, or wake very early, then have the confidence and drive to tackle other areas of dysfunction.


For me, beginning to tackle clutter probably increased my mental drive and confidence to take my small business into profit. And succeeding in business, conversely, increased my confidence in housekeeping and writing!
So Mary Hunt pays off $100,000 of debt, teaches others to do the same through her Cheapskate Gazette, and with her increased gain in self-confidence, loses 100 pounds of weight.
Flylady, Marla Cilley was overweight, depressed, over-spent, and her house was chaos. She tackles the domestic chaos in baby steps, and this gives her the confidence to tackle her weight, and her finances.
Don Miller loses over 150 pounds, which gives him the confidence to write lovely books, and inspire others to change their lives.
* * *
So if you are stuck, and your dreams are not materializing, choose one change (something which takes 5-15 minutes a day) just one, which you will make today, and stick to all month. Stretching, yoga, decluttering, sleeping or waking earlier are all changes with leveraged benefits. Next month, add another small change, which again takes 5-15 minutes. (Flylady is a good site for changing your habits and life in incremental baby steps.)
And where will this 5-15 minutes come from? Many changes are leveraged. They return more than the time spent. Exercise is one (you will feel better and happier, be more energetic, and sleep less). If the main areas in which you live and work are tidy, you will be more productive, and never have to look for things. And well, sleeping early blesses the whole of the next day!!
How to find the time for the new habits? Cut back or eliminate TV if you watch it. Turn off the internet when you write. For starters. Set timers when you are on the web for pleasure.
And what is my new habit going to be? Well, I do all my housework the day the cleaner comes, about 3-5 hours. I think I am going to add in an additional 15 minutes a day of tidying and decluttering, so that I get to my goal of a sparse house in which everything is either beautiful or useful far sooner.

Why I love the Spiritual Passive Voice

By

rodney howard browne
When I was getting my Master’s in Creative Writing, there were some taboos. Adverbs! In fact, all unnecessary words–and the passive voice.  This was how David Citino, my first writing teacher, memorably excoriated it. “The passive voice is an evasion of responsibility. It says the cookies were eaten. Not, I ate the cookies.”
* * *
But spiritually, I love the passive voice. I love the transference of ultimate responsibility.
Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.  Oh that’s too active! It makes me feel tired, inadequate, quite out of joy, worried that I am going to drop the cross, and go off and eat chocolate after a few steps.
And if that was all being a Christian was about—denying yourself, and taking up your cross, I wouldn’t feel capable of being a Christian. I would tell Jesus: “I love you very much. In fact, I adore you. You are the cleverest person I know. The way you suggest living is the very best way to live.”
“But you know that bit about denying myself, and carrying my cross? It’s too daunting. I wouldn’t have the energy to get out of bed. Or down the stairs.”  (“Deny yourself and take up your cross,” translates into no chocolate, and doing laundry, and dishes, and cleaning and tidying the girls’ rooms in my mind.)
And so I just love the spiritual passive voice. Where continuance as a Christian is dependent on God’s goodness, and not on any muscular cross-carrying on my part–for I have no confidence in my stamina, resilience, or ability to persevere in that without crippling depression.
* * *
When the risen Christ appears to the disciples, He breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  And in that there is hope for the weakest of us to follow Jesus. We don’t have to grab the Spirit; we don’t have to earn it. We just have to receive it. And it is promised to us as often as we ask for it. (Luke 11:13.) 
Much of the Christian life is actually in passive voice. Lovely things happen to us. We are chosen. We are adopted. We are redeemed because Jesus died for us. And we do precisely nothing to earn all this. We don’t fill ourselves with the spirit. We are filled with the spirit. We don’t give ourselves the gift of tongues or any spiritual gifts; we are given them. We don’t sanctify ourselves, make ourselves holy. How can we? Christ within us, the Spirit within us, slowly sanctifies us.
I know there is an active element to faith, Paul labouring mightily, but that has too much of a masculine feel for me for my spiritual temperament; it’s too muscular!
* * *
I find hope in the spiritual passive voice. I am now, in a slower time of my life, seeking healing for nebulous wounds I cannot accurately diagnose which have led to my seeking comfort and highs in food and sweets and crisps instead of God.
As I laid the wounds and callouses in my spirit bare in prayer yesterday, I saw two things.
Firstly, that I lacked the diagnostic or therapeutic ability to heal myself of these wounds I do not understand.   Someone else, the Great Physician, has to do it for me. All I can do is bring my wounded spirit to God, and ask him to shine on it, touch it,  lavish on it balm, honey, the word of God,  and heal me.
Secondly, given that Jesus is who he is, nothing can stop him getting his healing hands onto my wounded spirit, working with it, touching it and healing it. And so, because of the goodness of God, I know the process of healing has begun. Because I have asked him to heal me, and because he is good.
If I had to rely on my own faith, my own endeavour, even my own prayer to be healed, and to live as a Christian, rather than on the goodness of God–ah, what chance would I have? 
This is one of my favourite Matt Redman songs. “Who, oh Lord, could heal themselves, their own selves could heal?”





Hudson Taylor struggled mightily against his own sins and shortcomings, particularly in the hot, irritable climate of China. The spiritual secret of “resting in Christ” transformed his life.
Hudson Taylor writes to his sister, “ How then to have our faith increased ?  Not a striving to have faith, but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need; a resting in the Loved One entirely.
Not by striving to have faith, but by resting on the Faithful One. Here, I feel, is the secret : not asking how I am to get sap out of the vine into myself, but remembering that Jesus is the Vine-the root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit, all indeed. Aye, and far more too! He is the soil and sunshine, air and rain-more than we can ask, think, or desire.
Let us not then want to get anything out of Him, but rejoice in being ourselves in Him-one with Him, and, consequently, with all His fulness.
The Lord Jesus tells me I am a branch. I am part of Him, and have just to believe it and act upon it. If I go to the bank in Shanghai, having an account, and ask for fifty dollars, the clerk cannot refuse it to my outstretched hand and say that it belongs to Mr. Taylor. What belongs to Mr. Taylor my hand may take. It is a member of my body. And I am a member of Christ, and may take all I need of His fulness. I have seen it long enough in the Bible, but I believe it now as a living reality.”
These are inspiring words for me. Just rest, trust in God’s goodness, trust in God’s healing. Just be a branch in the vine, let his sap flow through you. I find this as energising in my writing, as in out of my depth social encounters, or encounters when I travel.
And this is becoming a way of life for me, relying on God to get through the day. Relying on him for words and wisdom in my interactions with people, at church, in writing, or to speedily tidy the house before guests come, or pack before a flight. Living life depending on his power and goodness to help me. Living life in the passive voice.

When E.M. Bounds Taught Me About Prayer (A Guest Post by Stuart McCormack)

By

Meeting E M Bounds

E. M Bounds

I was twenty years old when I first met Edward McKendree Bounds. It had been a quiet summer in Lerwick, and I often found myself with time to sit by the sea watching the waves crash on the rocks only a few meters from where I sat. I would sit for ages just watching the power of the sea and I guess there came a point when my thoughts came to an end. I began itching to read a good book!
Lerwick’s Christian Bookshop was the opposite of my perch on the rocks. It was quiet but it was crowded. On the shelves there was a host of books written by men and women long dead. Up to this point in my life, I rarely read a Christian book so I didn’t really know where to begin. Being Scottish, it didn’t take me long to find my tongue and ask for help.
The lady who ran the store was about seventy years old and she loved Jesus and she loved books. She was a most helpful, shining soul and began thumbing along the books, highlighting some that had touched her heart: Tozer, Ryle, Finney, Simpson, Bounds.
I was drawn to Bounds because her face lit up when she talked about him. She claimed that Bounds knew more about prayer than any other person living or dead, besides Jesus himself. I left the store with “The Necessity of Prayer” by E M Bounds.
The next day I sat on my shoreline rock, the waves frothing and the sun shining on my back, and I opened the book. Reading that day, I thought I’d slipped from time into eternity: time flew past with the turn of every page, but I did not notice. As I read Bounds’ words I became convinced that he was a man who not only wrote a lot about prayer, but who also was a devoted man of prayer.
Bounds entered ministry when he was in his twenties. He was a lawyer before that and he had a keen mind for information. His passion for truth led him into a deep relationship with the Bible. He was convinced that scripture held all the answers we need, a conviction which shows in his writings about prayer.
Bounds bases his writings upon years of Bible meditation and reflection and prayer. One of the reasons I liked Bounds from the first meeting (reading his book) was that he loved the Bible and wrote about the Bible. Jesus is at the heart of his writings! I learned from Bounds that if I wanted to know Jesus more, I had to come by the path of prayer, and that if I wanted to learn to pray more fruitfully, I needed to be walking closer to Jesus.
There was one point that Bounds made that transformed my own prayer life. Before Bounds I struggled with prayer (actually, I often still do). I came to a chapter called “Prayer and Desire”, and in it he wrote, “If you have no, or little, desire to pray, then pray for the desire to pray.”
I really liked that and I began to do it. I saw my desire for praying grow fast. I previously felt I had to pray, but now I was finding that I WANTED to pray; I WANTED to get to know God in the way that Bounds seemed to know God.
Bounds became a prayer mentor to me at a time when I needed a challenge and encouragement to draw closer to God. This is why I count his writings as some of the best on prayer and the deeper life with God. His writings reflect a man who was consumed in every way with prayer, and with God.
I wish I had met Bounds in person, but he died long before I was born. I only ever met him through his writings, but the imprint he left on my heart burns hotter than the warmest of handshakes. Without Bounds, I would have stayed on the shoreline of shallow prayerlessness, but Bounds taught me not to sit on the shores of God’s grace, but rather to enter into the power of his mighty presence and experience His love, grace and mercy in deeper ways.
I chose not to write about Bound’s life simply because better people than me have already done so. My hope in writing about my experience of Bounds is that one or two people might seek him out for themselves. There is a pretty accurate biography of Bounds on Wikipedia. I would personally recommend “The Necessity of Prayer” and “Power through Prayer”.
*******
Stuart


Stuart McCormack lives in North Yorkshire with his wife and three kids. He worked for the Church for 12 years and now spends his time mentoring troubled teens and thinking about how the world could be a better place. Stuart is passionate about mission, Discipleship, positive life choices and good curry.  Check out his blog Missionalrev, or follow him on Twitter @missionalrev.

Beauty and God

By

My opinionated daughters engaged me in a heated theological debate on beauty this week.
Irene saunters into my bedroom. Her beloved black and gold Tinker Bell pyjama top has a tear down the seam.
“Irene, throw it away,” I say.
She scrunches up her face, “NO,” she says appalled.
I hand her a needle and thread.
“Then, mend it,” I say.
“No,” she says. “It’s a pyjama top.”
I, “You are a daughter of a King. There is no need for you to wear torn clothes.”
She, appalled again, “He couldn’t care what I look like. He didn’t care what he looked like.”
Me, a bit uncertain, “You don’t think God cares what you look like?”
She, “No! He’d just look at my face.”
Me, “Oh”
* * *
Zoe, 16, agrees with her sister. She wore contact lenses for 2 days, then declared that they were too much hassle. “But, but, but…” I stammer.
My very appearance-conscious father used to joke, “Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses” and got both his daughters contacts in our teens, my sister’s when she was ten!!
I can hardly say that to Zoe. I am, roughly speaking, a feminist, and have tried to raise them to be independent and self-confident.
Zoe, seeing me falter, adds, for good measure. “And I have decided not to ever use make up either.” I gave her a lovely triple layer make-up kit for her 16th birthday, full of the most gorgeous gold, and bronze and silver and purples, which I would have had fun using as a teenager. “What?” I say. “Make up is fun; it’s like art; it’s like painting.” The fact that I rarely remember to use it probably undermines my words.
* * *
I thought of an argument I had with a close American friend of ours, who was a mentor to us when we lived in America around the time Irene was born. I had gained a lot of weight during that pregnancy and he—we had regular bi-weekly spiritual direction sessions over a period of 5 years– was urging me to diet and exercise.
Me, “I don’t think God cares what I look like.”
He, “Anita, when you write how you put it is as important as what you say. Your appearance is part of who you are.”
I somewhat bought his argument—though I have gained another 18 pounds since Irene was born in May 1999. Sigh!
Yes, God loves beauty, and so perhaps we should try to look as attractive as we can, given our starting point?
                                                       * * *
So how should a daughter of the King look? A story I heard the father of the friend I’ve just mentioned tell has influenced my thinking on the subject.
Jack Miller and his wife Rosemary who had founded World Harvest Mission were visiting Uganda. They come late to a meeting, and every seat was taken except the ones right in front, next to the President, Idi Amin. Rosemary nervously tells Jack, “I’ll sit on the grass.” “Jack says, “Rosemary, no! You are wearing a lovely dress. You are a daughter of the King. Be brave. We will sit in front.” And they go and sit next to Idi Amin, who is gracious to them.
This is a useful principle for me when I declutter. If something is too old, faded, stained, worn—whether an item of clothing, or furniture or household item, carpets, towels etc.—to be in the house of a daughter of the King, out it goes.
                                                            * * * 
I don’t agree with Irene. I think God cares for his “original design” in us and wants us to fit and strong, and attractive in accordance with his original design for us. As is fitting for daughters of the King.
* * *
I noticed over the 17 years I lived in America that every female Christian leader and teacher was also slim and gorgeous. She would not have had much appeal to other Christian women if she had not been so. And so would not have been able to exercise her ministry as effectively
*  * *
I have have theoretically acquiesced that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and it is important to keep it fit. However, my resolutions falter on a weekly basis faced with chocolate, let’s say, or how much more magnetic my laptop is than weight-lifting. I guess the girls have picked up what I do rather than what I say.
* * *
I have two friends with the degenerative neurological disease, MND or Lou Gehrigh’s disease. They have speech and physical therapy. Their body will degenerate anyway—but fighting against it will so something to ameliorate the degeneration.
And so, if, despite trying, in fits and starts, to exercise and eat more healthily, I still gain a few pounds over a course of the year, I am trying not to be discouraged, but remember that if I did not, I could easily gain a few pounds in the course of a month—or week.
                                                               * * *
So what do you think? Does God care about what we look like? Would he like us to continue trying to look reasonably attractive—or is he mainly concerned with the beauty of our spirits?

Prayer Walking and Worshipping God in Nature

By


I started prayer walking most days last month, and this has brought an unexpected dimension of joy, happiness, ecstasy and shalom to my spiritual life.
And being an inveterate reader, I have begun to research other people’s experience of God in nature.
Here’s a summary of the Worshipping God in Nature chapter of Gary Thomas’s book,Sacred Pathways.
We can choose to worship God “in the cathedral he himself has built: the outdoors.”
Any place that has some trees, and a stream, or at a minimum open skies can be God’s cathedral. Getting outside can literally flood parched hearts and soften the hardest soul.
The full force of Biblical imagery—phrases like “the river of life” or “green pastures” strikes us out of doors.
Most of the Old Testament theophanies, or appearances of God happened in a wilderness. God met Hagar in the desert, Abraham on a mountain, Jacob at a river crossing, and Moses at a burning bush.
Jesus himself was walking by the Sea of Galilee when he called his disciples to follow him. He taught in the countryside, and used its images—the birds flying overhead, the lilies.
However, worship has moved from Mount Sinai to the dark indoors. But when God created a paradise for the first men and women it was a garden with trees, and a river!!
Bernard of Clairvaux—“Woods and stones can teach you what you can never hear from any master.”
The famous ascetic, Anthony the Great, the first monk, born in AD 251, was asked, “How dost thou content thyself, Father, who art denied the comfort of books?
He replies, “My book is nature, and as often as I have a mind to read the words of God, it is at my hand.”
Nature, the school which never closes, is open when sermons and spiritual books have grown stagnant for us.
* * *
Space flight is an effective evangelist. John Glenn, “To look out at this kind of creation and not to believe in God is, to me, impossible.”
Article 2 of the Belgic Confession says, God is made known to us by “the creation, preservation and governance of the universe, which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters, leading us to see clearly the invisible things of God.”
Spurgeon writes, “Oh, but surely, everything that comes from the hand of such a Master-artist as God has something in it of himself. There are lovely spots on this this fair globe which ought to make even a blasphemer devout. I have said, among the mountains, “He who sees no God here is mad.” 
And creation in its floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis also reminds us of God’s power and judgement.
Nature brings us rest
We don‘t always need a change; sometimes, we just need a rest, and being out in nature provides it.
Susan Power Bratton writes, “Experiencing the beauty and peace of God in nature is not a substitute for direct interaction with the regenerative powers of the Creator, but the mending and binding so necessary to heal our stress-filled lives may flow through creation. For the spiritually oppressed, or the socially injured, a pleasing or quiet natural environment can help provide spiritual release. Resting by a clear river, or sitting on a sunny slope can bring peace and joy into clouded souls.”
‎“Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush is afire with God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around it and pick blackberries” Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“Now if I believe in God’s son and bear in mind that he became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before. Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, pears, as I reflect that he is Lord over and the centre of all things.” Martin Luther
Luther said it is only with the eye of faith that we see miracles all through nature, miracles that he believed were even greater than the miracles of the sacraments. If we truly understood the growth of a grain of wheat, he says, w e would die of wonder.”
Saint Bonaventure, a Franciscan Friar suggests a grid though which we may school ourselves to seek God outdoors. Look at the greatness of creation, sky, mountains, the multitude of creation, for instance, in a forest, and the beauty of creation.
Gary Thomas, “Walks that are truly helpful are those in which I lay down my own agenda at the first sign of grass, and let God lead my mind wherever he choses.” (And that the way that I have begun having my prayer walks too!)

Irene’s 13th Birthday

By

 Irene aged 13, did not trust her parents or her sister (aged 17) to make a cake for her birthday, so she planned, shopped for, and made her cake all by herself. Here is the result:

Cake topped with frosting, grated chocolate, blackberries,  raspberries, and a strawberry

 and filled with

blackberries,  raspberries, and, in the middle, sliced strawberries.  Here she is with her creation

and a top view with no flash

She had just brought home a clay pot she’d made at school in the shape of our dog’s head

and here’s the dog, with his ears up

A Contemplative in the World

By

Angelus, Millet


 One of my personal spiritual ambitions is to live as “a Contemplative in the World.”
I want to live quietly and peacefully. Rooted in Christ. Immersed in Scripture. And right in the force field of the vibrant radiation of the Spirit.
I want to pray through my day. To seek God’s wisdom on my thinking and actions. Both the little and trivial, and the large. And not to have thoughts in my mind which are not in God’s.
I want to lead a quiet life. To do some work with my hands in my garden as the monks of old did.
I want the words and ideas of Scripture to run through my mind through the day, like a quiet underground musical stream.
                                    * * *  
Some contemplatives, for instance, the Trappists, take an additional vow of stability. Stability of place. They commit themselves to live in a particular monastery until they die.
This monastic ideal is very appealing to me. I’ve moved around so much–I have lived in 13 towns in 3 countries–India, England, and America–which is less than some people, but more than most. And for me, it feels like too much.
I have a longing now for rootedness. To stay in a place for a long time. To know its seasons. Its plants and trees and flowers and  wildlife. Its history. To know, love and invest in the same people over a period of years. To settle down.
When Thoreau was asked if he had travelled much, he answered in the affirmative. “I have travelled a great deal in Concord,” he said. I want to travel a great deal in Oxford, especially in my garden, an acre and a half in Garsington. To really know it. 
                                        * * * 
Most monastic life is based on the Rule of St. Benedict. A day held sleep, prayer and study, and manual labour in roughly equal balance.
Their waking hours held a balance of prayer, study and manual labour. It’s amazing that Benedict stumbled upon this perfect balance of mind, spirit and body. 
The one weakness of monastic life is relationships–it does not allow for marital relationships, parent-child relationships or one on one friendships. I would be lonely and bereft without these–which is why I would like to be ” a contemplative in the world.”
However the monks and nuns did live together in community, which is a stabilizing influence, and a safeguard against nuttiness, extreme selfishness or against undisciplined excesses in food, sleep, prayer or study. The anonymity of the monastic life also provided a safeguard against the treadmill and drudgery of ambition. 
                                            * * *
I find I need the manual labour, which was part of monasticism, for mental, psychological, spiritual health besides, of course, physical health and strength. It rounds out and completes my cerebral, incredibly intense, wired, and often highly-strung personality.
I do my best thinking and praying while working in the garden, or pottering about the house, (though I do have a cleaner and get a gardener occasionally, since I don’t potter regularly enough).
                                           * * * 

I committed my life to the lovely Jesus when I was 17, and then and now being ardent, asked, “What should I do?” So momentous a decision had to express itself in action I felt.

And so, being a novice Christian, and not realizing the importance of the seeking the whole counsel of God, I picked up a bit of the jigsaw.

Jesus said, “Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do to me.” And so I decided to serve the least of these.  I lived near Calcutta, and so at 17 and a half, went off to become a nun and work with Mother Teresa.

It was a temperamental mismatch. I had spent my childhood in an exclusive dreamy boarding school in the Himalayas, run by Irish, English and German IBMV nuns, and where I read, and read, and read. I was reading Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Galsworthy, Shaw, James Joyce, Joyce Cary…

Suddenly, I joined a community where many people were just learning English, literacy was basic, there was no reading except spiritual reading. I had been so used to living in my mind, in books, in language, and I felt bereft of that.  I took an old Bible which had both Latin and English and patiently taught myself some Latin by matching the words!

The hardest part was living in community. This was community in extreme–25 women sharing a single room, which with a constant moving of furniture became a dormitory, refectory, class-room, living room. No privacy, except at times of prayer and meditation–and then, it was your mind and thoughts which were at rest, your body was with 400 others.

Phew. I loved God, loved thinking of Him, talking to Him, learning about Him. Still do. Loved Scripture. Still do. But I just needed a lot more solitude and quiet than I could get in a service-oriented community.

After 14 months there, I realized it was not for me. Mother Teresa had another order, called Sisters of the Word, devoted to a contemplative life. They spent their mornings in prayer and reading Scripture, and their afternoons in proclaiming the Word to the poor, the” spiritually poor,” on the streets, wherever. I fancied it would be just the thing for me.

Mother Teresa had her doors open all day. I asked her if I could either leave and go home or if  I could transfer to her contemplative branch from her active branch. She thought I was too young–at 18–for a contemplative life which is generally considered psychologically, spiritually and emotionally more difficult than an active religious life, and asked me to apply to that order when I was 21.

When I was 21, of course, English in Oxford absorbed all my thoughts. My faith was virtually non-existent. And that was that!!

                                                             * * * 
But now, in a quiet season of my life, I am living a fairly contemplative life—while writing a rapidly growing blog, and living in a family with two teenage girls. So I guess I am “a contemplative in the world,” a category unknown to Benedict.

Andromeda and Me

By

 

A friend’s husband is the chair of a important UK government agency. He has a position of power and prestige at Oxford University. His books are well-received, and he appears on television regularly. You get the picture…
His youngest daughter was unhappy at University, and despite all his national and university politics and his own books and media work, he was extremely worried about her. And took time off on the weekend to drive down with my friend to see their daughter.
He was simultaneously concerned with politics, with his books, his academic work, his university admin, with keeping all those glittering balls in the air, and with the happiness of his youngest daughter. All those thoughts in his head, and one thought, an unhappy girl, superseded them!!
* * *
Beautiful Andromeda is home to several galaxies. God named each of the stars in each of these galaxies, long before astronomers dreamed of their existence. “He calls each of the starry host by name,” Isaiah writes (Is. 40.26).
God is the ultimate multi-tasker. He controls the storehouses of the snow and the storehouses of the hail, Job 38:22.  He tips over the water jars of the heavens  when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together. Job 38:38. The fall of evil regimes at the prayers of God’s people is inevitable. He is in the coincidences of our lives.
And he who created Andromeda tells us that nothing is too small for us to request him for it, Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. John 14:13,14.
He holds so many thoughts in his head, simultaneously. He is a force in world politics when people pray; he loves Andromeda, and knows its billion stars by name, and he loves me, and answers my silly little prayers, and even asksme to ask, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” Psalm 2:8.
Wow!