Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

The Things Worth Doing Badly

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A tyrannical statement we’ve heard as children, and said as exasperated parents: If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.

Which means we might never learn or do new things, for who has margin for one additional thing?

In fact, the opposite is true…anything worth doing is worth doing badly.

* * *

I discovered this while learning German over the last three years. The pace at the beginning was too fast, so I did not master the absolutely essential foundational grammar, which meant that, for the first two years, I was staggering and stumbling through lessons, which were making me sad. But I prayed about it after each year, and felt clearly, for unclear reasons, that I should continue–and now, in my third year of the six year course, I have a gifted, intelligent teacher who loves language, who speaks slowly, clearly, expressively, and, most importantly, interestingly—and, when I understand her anecdotes, I experience that flash of pure joy as when, after careening and tottering, you are off, skating on ice effortlessly, a joy that would not exist if learning had not been so hard.

When I was an undergraduate at Oxford, I remember the critic Hugh Kenner saying that there was no point in learning foreign languages since we would never learn them well enough to understand the poetry. Well, he’s wrong! It enhances travel to know enough of the language to understand the conversations around you, to communicate in, to be able to read the newspapers, absorbing a different viewpoint, and world-view. There is joy in reading, speaking, and understanding a little German, or Hindi, or French, or English to name some of my languages, or Greek, which I have a reading knowledge of. I listen to an episode of an interesting German podcast every day, Slow German, and, oddly enough, it is among the most enjoyable things in my day.

* * *

In fact, the only way we can begin to shift our lives, and to change the multiple short stories our lives are telling, is to begin doing the good things we want to do…even if badly. “Whatever you want to do or dream you can, begin it,” Goethe. Just five minutes a day of it, if necessary.

I love the Japanese strategy of Kaizen—making major life changes through infinitesimal adjustments. Want to read more. Read a little before you sleep. A little with your morning coffee. A little after dinner. See how long you take to read that book. Set a goal to finish the next book in one day less (which, with the dint of another mini reading or listening session, you can) and so on, until you are reading, say, 52 books a year, which will change your thinking, inner life, and appreciation of life. It’s better to read a little—for the magic carpet ride, interior thinking space, and quiet that it gives you than not to read at all.

* * *

After I had an evil illness, and declined chemotherapy three years ago, I read that walking four miles a day would change one’s life, and perhaps save it. Well, I almost built up to that a couple of times, but not quite. However, a short walk is better than no walk; a few yoga stretches is better than the one hour of yoga I aspire to (but never do, except in a class); lifting a few weights is not as good as the recommended 20 minutes of weights, but better than nothing. “Do not despise the day of small things.” I am not physically strong, sadly, but am committed to becoming stronger and fitter for that greatly increases my enjoyment of life.

Gardening brings me a good deal of joy, aesthetic pleasure, serenity, and thinking time, and also keeps me more flexible and limber. Every year, however, I return from our long summer holiday of two or three weeks, and find that my large garden of an acre and a half is a wilderness, and the pruning and dead-heading and weeding seems so overwhelming that I barely go out again until spring, when nature itself wants to drag you out, and then it’s so much work, and we wonder why we hadn’t put our garden to bed. I’ve decided to do a little and often rather than an hour spring and summer… and then nothing.

* * *

I would love to have a zen interior, a decluttered house, which I am closer to by dint of putting everything I don’t need in the garage, or barn, or detached study, which are now getting cluttered. It feels too soul-killing to take a whole hour to declutter, so I am doing it in tiny increments, 15 minutes a day, which doesn’t seem enough, but a whole lot better than not doing it at all. I’ve read that people hesitate to embark on minimalism because they think they’ll have to shed their most precious thing…which is a poor reason for not shedding your most junky thing.

* * *

The ultimate thing that’s worth doing badly, of course, is being a Christian, and pretty much everyone who’s not Jesus, does it imperfectly (some more imperfectly than others!)

However, it is an honour even to limp in the ways of the brilliant and astonishing Jesus. Because we think we fear doing the hardest thing for us–loving that dark, critical demanding person we find impossible; giving of our time to everyone who demands it of us–does not mean we should not continually travel towards the light, and attempt to conform our lives to Jesus’ teaching in micro-increments.

Following Christ (badly!!) has been the greatest honour and excitement of my life. When I am in a funk, when I feel confused, or angry, or out of sorts, or a teeny bit crazy, I pick up a Gospel, and read it fast, and his counter-intuitive words speak to me. Take up my cross, accept the difficulties of growth, or I am not worthy of him. The democratic life of continual prayer is open to everyone. Trust. “Don’t worry about anything at all.” Jesus’s teachings are like a diamond; there are always new glints.

I am invariably energised again by the call to follow Christ. In tiny steps, for this five minutes, this hour, this day. To think not only of myself, but of the others in my life, and of Him.

The Gospels: treasure you pick up when you are lost, a golden compass, guiding you to the right path, and since your trajectory is more important than where you are, it is better to take a few steps towards Christ, to crawl on the journey than never begin it, but drift towards the dark and hopeless regions of the Slough of Despondency, Doubting Castle, and Vanity Fair.

* * *

And HAPPY NEW YEAR, friends,

Love,

Anita

Image Credit: The wonderful Edward Knippers, on wrestling towards the light

A Christmas Reflection, and Letter

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This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

I have meditated on the Christmas and Easter story every Christmas, for—goodness–decades, and every year find new diamond-glints in it.

It’s one of those magical stories which speak to everyone. To the poor and down-and-out, as most of humanity have been for most of time, and to the up-and-out.

Joseph and Mary, forced to migrate at the behest of a colonizing power to Bethlehem, where they were homeless, while she laboured with her illegitimate child, the child of scandal. She places the baby in a manger, a feeding trough for animals.

If Jesus was–as I believe he, of course, was– God himself, he could have chosen a blaze of earthly glory to make his presence felt. He could have chosen a throne. But he chose to come to a colonized and oppressed people, to be born of a woman pregnant before her wedding day; he chose a unhygienic manger for his crib, thereby exalting the simplest and humblest of choices.

But God connected him. He could not be hidden. An angel, no less, announces his birth to shepherds, announces that Jesus is the way to joy, that there is peace to men of good will. Wise men, Magi, saw a new star, heralding the birth of the King of the Jews, and followed it to the child, giving him precious gifts, gold, frankincense, or perfume used in censers in the temple, and myrrh, used in anointing oil for kings and prophets.

Scandal, homelessness, rejection, muck, odours. Angelic voices hailing him; shepherds worshipping him; distant Kings lavishing precious gifts on him.

To a lesser extent, that will be the path of all Christ’s followers… unmerited scandal, rejection, undeserved suffering, perhaps patches of poverty. And also affirmation from those who might see Christ in their lives, and on their faces, and unasked for precious gifts, gold, frankincense, myrrh. The glory and goldenness; the muck and shame. Sweet love and bitter hatred. Christ did not escape them–he held his head high whatever shame was heaped on him—and neither shall we.

Christ’s example compels some to choose the path of voluntary downward mobility… Saint Francis and Mother Teresa, Jackie Pullinger, Heidi Baker, all those who work in inner cities. That is not a call I hear.

A call I do hear is the call to simplicity. Simplicity in clothing, in make-up (or the lack of it!), simplicity in furniture, in choices of food, or holidays. Simplicity whenever possible; find the simplest option, God is more likely to be found there in the time and soul-space it frees up. Simplicity for the sake of our own souls; simplicity because our time on earth is limited and should be well-spent; simplicity because complexity is a waste of self and time and spirit; simplicity because there are poor on this earth; simplicity because of Christ. While voluntary downward mobility is a call to a few Christians, voluntary simplicity, I believe, is a call to all Christians, to all sane people.

But to the manger unasked for came gold, frankincense and myrrh, precious gifts Mary accepted on behalf of her precious son, gifts which sustained them when refugees in Egypt. So if and when through hard work or God’s favour, these colourful gifts appear, accept them with a grateful heart, enjoy the good things of this transient world, never losing sight of the gift of simplicity, or the gift of Jesus, and his counter-intuitive teachings which are the way to the great joy the angel promised.

* **

That is what I am reflecting on this Christmas.

And if you’re interested in a family catch-up. It’s been an important year in the story of our family.

Zoe graduated from Oxford University with a BA in Theology, and is working as a Stepney intern at St. John’s Church, Hoxton, which she loves, getting stuck into preaching, community organising, youth groups, etc. She is continuing to study Theology part-time at St. Mellitus College, London, taking courses in Political Theology. We heard her preach at St. John’s last Sunday, and she was excellent. She is living with other interns in a beautiful spacious Church of England house in central London, almost a mansion!

Zoe with the Bishop of Stepney, far left; her vicar, Graham Hunter, second from left, and the new Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally

Irene matriculates at the University of Oxford.

Irene graduated from Oxford High School, was chosen as “Young Biologist of the Year,” by Science Oxford, and won the school prize for Chemistry. She’s doing Medicine at Christ Church, Oxford University, and was delighted to be chosen as a Christ Church Prize Scholar with a cash prize of £9200 a year (which is good, since Medicine at Oxford is a six year course). She loves the whirlwind of Medicine, and has had courses in biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology, molecular genetics, anatomy and medical sociology!! Irene has a paid job too, blogging about her medical studies for Medic Portal!

And as for me: I am in the middle of my third year of German classes at Oxford University Continuing Education. It was a complete whim; I wanted to do something completely different in 2015, and chose a language I had never seriously considered learning. Learning German was hard at first because I was reluctant to buckle down and memorise the grammar, but I now experience flashes of pure joy when I understand the flow of fast German, when I converse in German, when I read a German poem, and understand it. I am so glad I persisted!

I find travel refreshing, rejuvenating, horizon-expanding, super-duper educational, and am grateful to have been able to travel a lot this year. Roy and I went to Split in Croatia in April, staying in a Castle featured in the Game of Thrones, in a romantic apartment with a patio jutting out into the Adriatic Sea on which we sat to admire sunsets. Lots of hiking, and sea walks. The entire city of Split was once Diocletian’s Palace, and like Trognir has a foreboding, claustrophobic air; you can imagine mysteries, assassins, cloak and dagger chases…

 

 

Summer holiday with the family… The Bavarian Alps and the Black forest. Totally restful.

We visited Budapest for the first time in October to stay with Peggy Goetz, my American friend, a Calvin College professor, who was teaching there for a semester. A fabulous history-drenched city I will definitely revisit (and a great walking city).

 

Peggy Goetz and me in Budapest

We had a mini-walking holiday in the Brecon Beacons in Wales, and straight after Irene’s term, went to Cyprus for 9 days, a hedonistic visit of beach walks, and ancient ruins!

Roy and I are slowly easing into the rhythm of being empty nesters, are focusing on health and fitness, organisation, and slipping into a rhythm of serious work. Empty nesting? Ssshhh… we like it!

I wish you a Happy New Year, hand in hand with the Great One

I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year,

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied, “Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.”  Minnie Haskell

Love,

Anita

 

 

 

Even Better than the Alps… Thoughts on Returning Home

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At Lake Konigsee, Bavaria (More pictures at the end of this post)

So I’m just back from a thoroughly refreshing summer holiday, hiking in the Bavarian Alps. On the boat trip to Konigsee, a very formal bugler played his horn, and the craggy mountains echoed the tune. It was a magical moment. We hiked all day in unspoilt, psychedelic landscapes, like a movie set, like heaven, I imagine, will be.

I quoted to my family, almost verbatim, a favourite passage from the Victorian preacher, Charles Spurgeon,

“If any of you can save up money to go to Switzerland, you will never regret it, and it need not be expensive to you. I have stood in the midst of those mountains and valleys; time would utterly fail me to speak of all the wonders of God which we saw in nature, and in providence.”

“One more remark, and I have done. If you cannot travel, remember that our Lord Jesus Christ is more glorious than all else you could ever see. Get a view of Christ, and you have seen more than mountains, and cascades, and valleys, and seas can ever show you. Thunders may bring their sublimest uproar, and lightnings their awful glory; earth may give its beauty, and stars their brightness, but all these put together can never rival him.”

I quoted this surrounded by mountains on every side at Konigsee, looking into their rainbowed reflections in a limpid, glacial lake. Spurgeon’s statement seemed academic. The beauty was exciting, exhilarating, emotionally overwhelming…

* * *

We hiked, we hiked for 13 days, Tergensee, Chiemsee, Konigsee, Neuschwantein Castle, the Black Forest…. I was hiking to deep and pleasant tiredness, but not exhaustion, averaging 12, 200 steps a day on my pedometer, several miles. And my heart was full of majestic mountains, of flower-strewn Alpine meadows, crystalline mirroring lakes, and streams, rippling. But then, though we had decided to spend 16 days hiking, I wanted to turn around. I had seen enough beauty for now, I was tired, I was ready to resume my regular life, meditating on the Bible, praying, reading, writing, gardening, running, yoga, family life, life with dogs.

Zoe said, “Spurgeon was right. Perhaps Jesus is better than the Alps.” And he is. Of Him, I never weary. I never weary of seeking his wisdom, of trying to see my life and my world through his eyes, of trying to align my life with the axis of his brilliant quirky vision. I never weary of reading his words, his encounters with people. How startling and unusual he is, how refreshing. How wise. How unique.

People know Jesus in different ways, and with different intensity. When I see someone who really knows Jesus, preserved in the written word, but alive and invisibly stalking the earth today, I realise how comparatively slight and shallow my knowledge of him is. And I resolve to deepen it. For when my life gets aligned with his wisdom, with how he would tell me to live my life were He visibly here, my life feels joyous, exciting, and refreshing, like those mountain streams.

* * *

Anyway, a brief personal catch-up. We are in a liminal and lovely season as a family. Zoe has graduated from Oxford University with a good degree in Theology, and Oxford’s Headley Lucas Prize in Theology, and will be working at St John’s Church, Hoxton, London come September. And Irene has graduated from Oxford High School. She won the “Young Biologist of the Year,” award sponsored by Science Oxford and Nuffield Department of Medicine; her school’s prize for excellence in Chemistry, and awards for achievement in Maths, Biology, and academic excellence. Lots of book tokens!

* * *

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver.

Roy and I will soon be empty nesters, and have just begun to think about how to live this third age/stage of life well. I hope to read deep and write hard; to get physically strong through long hikes and yoga; to garden, to travel, to continue to learn languages (we’ve been learning German for the last two years), and to have friends over to leisurely meals. We’d love to grow spiritually deep, intellectually deep, and to continue loving God, and people. No doubt, we will keep refining our preliminary thoughts.

Wishing you a happy summer, dear readers. Enjoy this beautiful season of your one wild and precious life.

 

 

 

 

 

We visited my cousin Margaret and her husband Dirk in Munich

A bugler awakens the mountains which echo his horn’s music

Peaceful at Pentecost

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The Thames near Sandford-on-Thames, Oxford

Pentecost–the coming of the Spirit to a frightened and fearful huddle. It is one of my favourite Christian feasts, so hopeful… The Spirit comes not because we are worthy, often not even because we have asked him to, but because he is good, and kind, and desires to bless. He comes in his own way, on demand, to the humble repentant heart, Jesus says, and in the way He chooses, like water which softens hearts, like wind which cleanses them, like a dove which warms them, like fire which sets them ablaze.

I am in an in-between season. Zoe my eldest is wrapping up her Oxford University degree in theology (prayers welcomed for her Final exams); she then has a church internship at St. James Church, Hoxton, London, part of the Stepney internship scheme. Irene is taking her last school exams ever, and, contingent on results, hopes to enter a six year course in Medicine at Christ Church College, Oxford.

I am working on a long book, the idea of which came to me decades ago!! I cannot say God told me to write it, but I can say that God called me to write, and this is the book which I feel led or impelled to write, for reasons God alone knows, and which I am slowly understanding. I am working steadily, revising 3000 words a day, while knowing that many may not make it into the final draft.

I am taking an eight week Mindfulness course at Oxford University. I am half-way through it, but the shift has been seismic, in my mental state, in my serenity, in my sleep, in my productivity. As I guess a sculptor would feel foolish or superstitious about describing his sculpture midway, so I will not quantify or describe it just yet, but whoa, am I glad I am taking it!

It’s a beautiful spring, warm golden weather, and once or twice a week, I go on a long walk, increasing my mileage by 10% a week, as the gurus recommend. (Don’t be too impressed; I’m at 13 miles a week, in my 5th week of increases.) Chris McDougall who wrote the great running book Born to Run (and has converted me, amid much ouchiness to forefoot running) says something like, “If you have a problem that a four hour run can’t solve, then you ain’t going to solve it.”

Four hour runs I doubt I will ever do; I am a great believer in the minimum effective dose, just enough for health, but I have swapped out listening to audiobooks on my walks for prayer and problem-solving. That’s something else I’ve learned from my mindfulness course, listening to the wisdom of the body, and what its tense places are telling me; quietening down with deep, slow breathing, until the wisdom of the spirit emerges, the wisdom of the Spirit within me, the spirit who is breath, ruach, who Jesus transmitted to the disciples when he breathed on them.

Failing Better: A New Year’s Resolution, of sorts

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Christ Church, Oxford University

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.   Samuel Beckett

So it’s a New Year…2017. I love this hopeful period of looking back on the past year, and considering how to revise my life in the new year. I love its promise, a sheet of new fallen snow.

New Year’s Resolutions… Like most people, I have barely kept any perfectly, though over the years, I do eat less chocolate (to which I was once addicted), and far less sugar, cookies, and sweet treats (though still more than I should). I drink less coffee. I avoid red meat. I exercise more. I use the internet and social media less. I am tidier and more organized. Change happens.

Some people Jesus healed just like that, instantly. Some people he healed gradually, like the blind man whom Jesus choose to heal not with his mighty word which flung the heavens into existence, but though the messy, rather humiliating expedient of spitting on his eyes. At this, the man saw “men, like trees, walking.” Jesus tried again, placed his hands on the man’s eyes, and his sight was then restored.

Sometimes, we see “men, like trees, walking,” before we are healed. And of some things, sadly, we will never be healed. ALL of us on the day of our death will still be sinners; all of us will have little bad habits we still struggle with. We will sin less and less, but not be sinless. On the last New Year’s Day of our lives, we will probably be recording variants of “I will exercise more; I will eat healthily,” just as the most organised of us will probably die with things on their To Do lists. Jesus said that he who does not voluntarily heft his own cross was not worthy of following him. We do not do Jesus a favour by trying to follow him. We prove ourselves worthy of following Christ, the greatest enterprise of our lives, by voluntarily accepting suffering and self-denial. And for some of us, our cross is our own weakness, the resolutions we make and break, make and break.

My daughter Irene has just been accepted into the six year Medicine course at Christ Church, Oxford University. But until today, I’d say: Irene’s been offered a President’s Scholarship to Imperial College, London, given to the top 1% of the entering class–being cagey about her other application, because…. what if?

I feel like that when it comes to recording my New Year’s resolutions here. What if the spirit is willing and flesh is weak?

What if I fail?

If I fail, “what matters it?” as my toddler Zoe used to say. One of my mantras is “fail better.” I may not lose every excess pound, but, God willing, I will certainly lose some. I may not read as much as I want to, but God willing, I will read more than I did in 2016. I may not have a perfect diet, but, God willing, I will bless my body with nutritious food and exhilarating movement more than I did in 2016. I may not write as much as I want to, but God willing, I will write more than I did last year.

Jesus tells us that unless we turn and become like little children, we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And I think he has the same tenderness towards us as we havde towards our children when they were toddlers. We took Zoe to Florence when she was three; seeing ceilings painted blue, and sprinkled with gold stars, she wanted to paint her ceiling. I said, “Yes, when you are as good as Michelangelo.” And so she asked each day, “Mummy, am I as good as Michelangelo now?” “Almost,” I’d say. I think God views our grand plans with the same indulgence (though that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make them).

Be as tender with yourself as you’d be with a toddler… and be of good cheer, God feels the same tenderness towards you.

* * *

And so to record the ways I hope to revise my life in this New Year. I have taken up two active hobbies in 2016… yoga in the gym, and running, and I love both, but, in both, am hindered by my extra weight. So I am planning to severely eliminate sugar and chocolate from my diet. I used to use dark chocolate as a mood boost through the day, using a bar or two a week. Instead of that, I will pause, interrogate why I need comfort and seek the comfort of the Holy Spirit. When I fail in this, I will get back on the wagon, failing better than I did in the past.

I want to read more. For years, I have used the year as a unit, recording the books I’ve read, aiming to read one additional book during the next year. But I am going to take the month as a unit, and read or listen to one additional book a month next year. That would mean reading 5 extra pages a day each month, and listening to 5 extra pages on my walks, or as I do household chores. I can do that. I need to read a lot since I am in the revision phases of my book, and the more I read, the more easily language pours out of my fingertips, and revisions become quicker, more intuitive, and more fun.

I want to build up the steps I take each day to definitely 10,000, and perhaps 16,000, a level at which one can maintain a healthy weight without dieting, according to studies of the Amish. That would be nice. What’s helping? A Fitbit HR, which beeps every hour during which I have not done at least 250 steps, and then I get up and either tidy up for 5 minutes, or just jog in place, or on my rebounder.

And I want to finish my book, and, luckily, I am gaining momentum, each chapter taking less time than the previous one… Fortunately, I am enjoying it.

We learn through our successes. We learn through our failures. And even if it all goes wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah!

How about you? What are your New Year’s resolutions?

 

 

Burn-Out Vanishes When We Rediscover Purpose

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ravenna-s-apollnare-nuovo-the-three-wise-men-1When I blogged regularly, which I did for six years, I felt more alive, more alert, more attentive to my life, and what God was doing in it. In Frederick Buechner’s phrase, I listened to my life.

 

I have taken a six month blogging break, and the peril of blogging breaks (or writing breaks: ask Harper Lee or Margaret Mitchell!) is that you feel you have to write something substantial, beautiful, and meaty when you return to blogging …which seems daunting, and so you put off writing—and returning.

 

The cardinal rule for avoiding writers’ and bloggers’ block—and indeed for any endeavour—is to begin where you are, with something little and slight if need be.

 

So perhaps I should catch you up with a snippet from my life, and an insight stemming from it.

* * *

The country lane on the outskirts of Oxford, England which we live, unbelievably quiet and beautiful when we moved in over ten years ago, has changed its character as more people have moved in—“Traveller” families, as it happens. It has become noisier, less idyllic and scenic. The whole village was up in arms against “Travellers” moving in; there were public meetings and hearings; I was particularly troubled because they were moving onto a field adjacent to my large garden. But in prayer, I “heard” clearly that we were not to oppose them, so we did not; we ceased attending public meetings or lodging planning protests against them, much to our other neighbours’ mystification.

 

In early June, because of many and noisy neighbours in what had been a quiet and deserted lane, I realized that the time had come to move–from the countryside on the edge of Oxford, where I have happily lived for the last 11 years to the city, to North Oxford in particular. And we even had an offer to buy our house, phew!!

 

Why North Oxford? When I applied to study in Oxford as a student in the eighties, I felt a call, a leading to Oxford, and I have never felt a call to any other city. North Oxford is walking distance from my church, St. Andrew’s; from Oxford University where I am now on my second year of the German classes I am taking for fun; from the Ashmolean Museum; the superb Oxford Playhouse, friends, parks, the river, a good gym, yoga classes. I would be able to walk most everywhere.

 

North Oxford is, however, substantially more expensive than my country village on the outskirts of the city. It’s the most expensive area of the UK, outside of London!!

So…

* * *

Deciding to move has galvanized us. “God meant it for good.” We have owned a small business for almost ten years now, and we have started diligently and creatively expanding it to finance our move. So that’s a definite blessing that’s come from this decision.

 

Many, many, years ago, I felt a longing, to write a memoir. A call? A desire, a longing, a call–they are all intertwined. God reveals his call on our lives through the desires, gifts and experiences he has given us. But the book turned out to a bigger, longer project than I had visualized, and early rejections of the proposal at a hassled, overwhelmed time of my life broke me. Temporarily.

 

But writing this book was a mysterious call, all right, something that perched on my shoulder, and I didn’t feel free to move on to anything else until I had completed it. So I did not…move on to something else… nor complete it.

 

The tale has tragic overtones now, but God who loves good stories can make dark plot twists like Joseph-in-the-well-and-dungeon and Good Friday spiral upwards and morph into gold, into Easter Sunday

 

Anyway, when I decided to move because of my new and noisy neighbours, I swiftly realised that moving was out of the question until I had finished this book. Moving can be stressful, especially in middle age… People can lose their health, their peace and their papers…

 

So I decided to finish my book before I moved. Realising that living next door to my noisy neighbours was unsustainable in the long run galvanized me to do what I had always wanted to do for years, get some momentum on the book–which has been a great joy. How relieved, how delighted I will be when the book finally gets finished.

* * *

So here I am, writing slowly but steadily.

 

Funny thing… In June 2016, I was convinced that I was burnt-out. Our daughter Irene, our last nestling, didn’t want to go on holiday over the February or the June half-term breaks because of her mocks and A-S exams, and all I could think of was how tired and burnt out I was, and how I needed a long, active holiday, and to walk many miles a day to exorcise a cobwebby from my mind, and flood it again with oxygen and ideas.

 

But then an offer came to buy my house, and I decided to sell the house, and move, and to finish my book before I even contemplate moving. With that fresh hearing of the ancient call came a new momentum, and energy descended from the heavens.

 

I came across this quote recently, “Burnout is more often caused by purpose deficiency than vitamin deficiency.”

 

My burnout lifted, just like that.

 

I do not make bucket lists…I see God as full of kindness towards me, with open hands towards me, full of gifts, and am okay with accepting the gifts he pours out. But if I were to make a bucket list… well, finishing and publishing this book would be one of the few things in that bucket. And circumstances have now given me a sort of deadline.

* * *

Years ago, my mentor suggested that I have a writing goal. But incredibly, I didn’t then know how to set goals. You know I would hope to write two chapters, but instead wrote a teeny bit of one… and then what?

 

So this time, I started really, really ridiculously small, since I was adding a new thing–finishing a book–to a life already full with blogging, parenting, exercising, German classes, gardening, house-running, church, small group, writers’ group, etc. etc. I set the timer for 5 minutes, and decided to write 20 words minimum. The next day, I went for 40, then 60, and now I am at 2300 words a day, new or revised. I keep track of the words I’ve missed on busy days, and try to make up on the days when writing feels like flying (which are not that frequent, sadly).

 

So this is the second/third draft of the book, revising is not the most scintillating thing, but getting the book finished will be scintillating, so I try to sit down, revise 2300 words, do some make-up words, and then I’m all done for the day.

* * *

A couple of things that are helping me. I start my writing with reading, to take the revision process more joyous. (Currently reading One Man’s Meat, E. B. White’s memoir of country life which I have just decided is not for me, and Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves’ horrifying memoir of his service in the first World War).

 

I am using the Pomodoro technique, work for 25 minutes, and then take a 5 minute break to tidy and declutter, or bounce on my trampoline for 1000 steps, and then back to work. 25 minutes is a maddeningly short work session, but according to Britain’s NHS, one should take an active break from sitting every 30 minutes: “excessive sitting slows the metabolism – which affects our ability to regulate blood sugar and blood pressure, and metabolise fat – and may cause weaker muscles and bones. Essentially, the body is ‘shutting down’ while sitting and there is little muscle activity.”  

 

I am using “Freedom,” software which blocks the entire internet for the short time I am reading and writing. Divided attention destroys productivity.

 

I have discovered that a three mile walk through a park or by a river resets my tired mind and floods it with oxygen again; I don’t necessarily need a week or a weekend away, though they are wonderful.

 

I have been influenced by a book I am reading by Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey, called “Spark: How Exercise will Improve the Performance of Your Brain,” about how running, lifting weights, yoga, dance and sport can spark a measurable improvement in cognitive ability… help you think more clearly, read faster and concentrate longer… essentially make you smarter. I have certainly found it to be true. I am taking yoga classes, and lifting weights, which helps me concentrate for longer, feel more alive and happier, and sleep better.

* * *

Take away? If you are listless, bored, burnt-out and aren’t getting anything much done, re-align yourself with God. Seek his marching orders for the hour in front of you, the day in front of you, the year. Each of us has been created for a purpose, and is intended to be a bright spot in the jigsaw, the mosaic that God is working on. Ask him to reveal the purpose he has for you in the coming year, or years, and then beaver away at it. Having a purpose and focussing on it has cured cancer patients, as we’ve all anecdotally heard; given the dying a new lease of life; lifted depression; helped people achieve more than they ever imagined possible.

 

What is the next purpose God has in mind for your one and precious life? Aligning yourself with the Father and working on it will fill your life with excitement and energy again.

 

Love, Anita, tortoising, and sometimes haring, away on the book she has always wanted to write.

 

Brexit and Deep Peace in Turbulent Times

By

BN-MR809_BREXIT_12S_20160219172453So I supported the Remain campaign. I love Europe, and I truly believe that our world needs a United States of Europe to provide a counterbalance to the emerging ruthless power of China, as well as the power of the United States. I love borderless travel in Europe, and as a British citizen, I appreciated the fact that UK’s membership of the EU contributed to this little island’s becoming the second largest economy in the EU (and, well, contributed trickle-down prosperity to its residents).

I went to sleep certain that good sense would prevail and slept in. On waking, I reached, groggily for my phone, and read The Guardian headlines in shock. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said this was “a sad day for Europe.” What? The Prime Minister David Cameron had resigned. Brexit, incredibly, had won 52 to 48.

Stocks plunged. Brexit wiped 2 trillion dollars off the global stock market. The pound plummeted against the dollar to a 31 year low, losing almost 10% of its value. Britain is on the verge of a recession.

More disturbing was J. K. Rowling’s statement that “racists and bigots are flocking to the ‘Leave’ cause, and, in some instances, directing it.” She goes on to say that it would be dishonourable and shameful to assume that everyone who voted to leave was a bigot and racist, and, for my own peace, equanimity and happiness, I am not going to assume that.

When Irene walked into my room saying “This is so sad; have you seen it Mum?” I was embarrassed about the tears streaming down my face. I was numb with a leaden sadness. I have always felt a great affection for England, to which my father had immigrated for eight colourful, exciting years, stories of which I had grown up on. England was the background of the books I read as a child; the novels and poetry I read as a teenager; the literature I studied deeply as an undergraduate as Oxford. If this was a racist vote, then I guess I felt the pangs of unrequited love!!

* * *

One of my guiding principles, or defining decisions, however, is “I will choose to be happy.” I will not be unhappy in this beautiful world, whose skies are a ever-changing panoply of dramatic colour, whose trees showily change each season, whose beauty is never spent, and which has a dearest freshness deep down things, for God puts it there.

I have no reason to be unhappy, when I walk hand in hand with my Father on one side, and my friend Jesus on the other. When at any time, on request, the Spirit can pour, pour, pour his wine, his champagne into me.

I have no reason to be unhappy when this is my Father’s world, and he can turn anything to good.

I will have peace, because I am rather good friends with the God of the deep peace of the running wave, the still waters, and the everlasting hills, the peace he pours into my heart.

I will praise God even for this, for God can turn everything to good.

I believe that nothing in this world is so dark that God cannot vein it with silver and gold. Precious stones, after all, are made from compressed mud and muck and the bones of dead creatures.

* * *

So what are the silver linings, in this doom and gloom? I asked my husband. He laughed. He had been looking at our accounts. After twenty years in academia, we decided to become entrepreneurs, and have owned a small company for the last nine years, exporting our products, mainly to the United States and Europe. As he quickly wired over money, we realised that, just like that, the weak pound meant that our monthly income had increased by 10%. There are many entrepreneurs and exporters in the UK.

 House prices have begun to fall, which is, oddly, good news, for we are hoping to move from our beloved ancient house in the country, with a beautiful 1.5 acre garden, ponds, a detached writing cottage, a large sunny conservatory, an orchard, a vegetable garden, and old stone walls with roses tumbling over them to more expensive North Oxford, closer to our church, friends, the university, art galleries, museums, the theatre, yoga classes and the historic walks and college gardens. Lower house prices are always a boon to half the population, the half that buys houses!

And though, no doubt, my retirement portfolio, like everyone else’s, is down by thousands and thousands, you know what? I am not going to look. I don’t plan to retire in this decade, or in the next, and the one sure thing I know about money is that it comes, and it goes. Stocks rise and stocks fall and they rise again. Riches can take wing and fly away like an eagle if the Lord chooses, and when the Lord wills it, they can fly to you in exactly the same way!!

I thought of that beautiful poem of Teresa of Avila’s that I found when I was 18, and often say to myself,

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee
All things are passing;
God never changeth;

And I thought too of the words of Jesus which, again, I often say to myself, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid.”

 So, so, so, perhaps an unscrupulous, opportunistic politician who stabbed his friends in the back, and engineered this horror with wilful lies to gain fame and power will get to be Prime Minister (may it never be so, Lord!!). Perhaps there will be economic loss, recession, and varied horribleness—yet will I trust in the Lord. I remembered again that our family business really took off in 2008 and 2009 during the Great Recession when, having lower overheads, we could price our products competitively. God’s twisty-bendy goodness will never fail to astonish!!

* * *

Though I am sad about Brexit, perhaps it is not an unmitigated disaster. The Hobbits of this Shire have their distinctive culture; their national character is different from the Elves, Men, and Dwarves, the Eagles, Wizards, Bears, Goblins, and Wild Wolves of the Continent. I realise this afresh each time I fly from England to Europe. Perhaps it was just a matter of time before Brexit happened. And perhaps Brexit might even have some benefits. Racially homogenous societies are more peaceful and orderly, I see when I travelled in Scandinavia, or Switzerland or the Greek islands—(though they lack the creativity in the arts, sciences, scholarship and cookery that characterises wonderful melting pot cultures).

Nothing is all dark; pretty much everything has a silver lining. Everything can be shaped for good in this world that God made, and God loves, and in which God’s busy hands work, moulding, shaping things for good, though we muck them up, muck them up, muck them. This world always sprawls before us like a field of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new,

Because the Holy Spirit over this bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

 

Image Credit

On Prayer-Walking, Seeking the Kingdom and Getting it All Thrown in

By

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Lake Bled, Slovenia where we were last summer

A friend describes her passion as: exercising and travel and exercising when she travels. The last phrase made me feel wistful because I never used to exercise when I travel. I found spending all day on my feet challenge enough. But then, on my return, it took me several weeks, a couple of months, to recover the distances and speed I had achieved before I went travelling–those personal bests.

On our last trip however, I exercised–ran for half an hour one day, walked a mile as fast as I could on the next, and, oddly, had plenty of energy for everything else.

I thought of what Annie Dillard says of writing, “One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful: it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

What’s true of writing and blogging is true too of hoarding strength, as I did on holiday (or of hoarding money!). “You open your safe and find ashes.”

* * *

My own favourite thing is not so much exercising when I travel, though, as praying when I walk, and walking when I pray. I came back today from doing a German presentation at the class I am taking “for fun,” (which is proving far more challenging than I expected). And I walked and walked, all the cobwebs and adrenaline leaching from my mind, my spirit quietening down, turning naturally to prayer.

Worries surfaced and I took them to Father, for had not Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and neither let them be afraid,” and I prayed for his eyes to see. My lane has changed its character in the ten years I’ve lived here; five new people–four of them Traveller families–have moved in on what was undeveloped green belt land; my peaceful rural retreat has suddenly become noisy.

I had counted myself blessed to be able to buy a one and a half acre garden in Oxford. I love my garden, but I cannot maintain it in the eight hours a week I have budgeted to work in my garden. Perhaps—heresy—I would be happier with a smaller garden, .50 acre;  .75 acre?

I am always driving across town to North Oxford, to church, to small group, to visit friends, to the German class at Oxford University, to Writers in Oxford meetings, to walk in the University Parks, or by the river. The centre of my life in Oxford is there. The thought of moving there and walking everywhere is powerfully attractive.

I remembered a pastor saying that God guides us through a kick from behind, and a pull from the front. Is this it? Is it time for a move? Yes, I think so. If God is in an idea, it clarifies and strengthens through time. I think this is from him…

* * *

I brought my tired mind to God, and asked him to place his giant hand on it, and heal it. I brought my spirit to him, and asked him to breathe, breathe, breathe on it. For is this not the greatest inheritance we have, that Jesus promises us his Holy Spirit, that Jesus breathes on us, as he breathed on the disciples? I placed my worries in God’s hand, and let the Father sing over me, and quiet me with his love.

When I looked at the time on my Runkeeper app, I had got my fastest times for a mile. Three years ago, I so despaired of my fitness that I (don’t laugh) got a walking coach to teach me to walk fast. Joanna said that I would not improve fitness, unless I pushed myself to walk as fast as I can. And I do push myself a bit every day, a fast mile on one day, and a half hour run on the next. However, since I got a Fitbit in January, I have faithfully walked 10,000 to 11,500 steps every day. And now with the increased endurance, I get personal bests without the bursting lungs, straining heart, aching muscles and sweat-drenching that it took before.

The sweetest things in life come while we are focused on other and usually better things. He was seeks to save his life will lose it, and he who seeks Jesus first will also get the things the rest of the world restlessly seeks for. (Matt 6:33).

* * *

In my first decade or two as a married woman, I was dismayed by the weight of domesticity (especially with a rather messy and absent-minded husband). All that shopping and cleaning and cooking and laundry and child-amusing; how on earth would I ever get any writing done, writing which I felt was my one call from God? So I grabbed and fought for and stole writing time, ignoring the mundane tasks of domesticity (though I loved the reading to children part), but I did not complete the big project of my heart. Perhaps God did not let me complete it then, for I had not yet learnt the lessons he needed to teach me.

More recently, I have revised my sense of calling. I am called to be a writer, yes, but that is not my only calling. I am also called to live in relationship with my family, to run a house and keep a garden pretty, and to be a friend of Jesus and to my real-life friends. The intensity about writing has vanished. Writing is part of my worship of Jesus, as is running a house and garden, and being a friend to my family and friends, and loving Jesus through prayer and studying his beautiful Words.

And as the intensity about writing leached away what I had wanted, time to write, is being given to me without angst and conflict. The pages are piling up on the big project of my heart.

Seek to save your life and you lose it. Seek first the Kingdom and all the things the Pagans run after will be added to you.

C. S. Lewis writes, “The principle runs through all life from top to bottom: Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it.   Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” 

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Slovenia