Anita Mathias | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Jesus of Montreal: Another film for Holy Week

More modern and edgy than the sheerly beautiful and sublime Of Gods and Men, this French language film had me gripped and intrigued.

Daniel Coulombe, an out of work actor is hired to modernize Montreal Cathedral’s dated and floundering passion play.

A dedicated method actor, he immerses himself in the Gospels, and in all the historical and archeological information he can find on the life and times of Jesus.

The movie bears unobtrusive parallels to the Gospels. Daniel chooses a cast of unlikely actors–nude models, porn stars, unwed mothers–people who have known what it is to be humiliated, to fail, to be outsiders, on the edges, derided.

For such the Gospel has extraordinary relevance. The idea that each of them is special to God. That His acceptance is infinite. That for sinners, such as them, Christ came. And so they give emotionally charged, luminous, heart-speaking-to-heart performances in the Passion Play.

Daniel immerses himself in the words of Christ, producing haunting theatrical performances of Jesus mingling with the crowd with his powerful message of God’s love and acceptance, with his encouragment not to worry but to trust, and to feed on his words and message. He makes the words of Jesus contemporary and relevant, as, in fact, they are–though they often cry out for “Fresh Expressions.”

Since, the company uses method acting (immersing yourself in your character), Daniel, in particular, begins to see the world as Jesus would have. When his friend is commanded to strip in a modelling audition, he overturns and destroys the expensive cameras, computers and equipment.

And he berates pompous religious hypocrites in words of Christ from the Gospels–which are a presciently accurate portrayal of religious leaders when power, money, prestige muddy the pristine waters of simple devotion.

His words come too close to the bone. The play is closed down. They perform it one last time in defiance. Security is summoned. In the melee, the cross with Daniel on topples, crushing him.

He is taken to the Jewish General Hospital where a shifty doctor, having established that he has no relatives, declares him brain dead, and takes his heart, eyes, liver, kidney,s etc from his still living body to give new life to those on the waiting list.

And so Daniel Coulombe (dove in French) has a resurrection!!

* * *

What most fascinated me was the extraordinary power and relevance of Jesus’ words to transform mind, heart and character of anyone who meditated on them long enough.

Daniel Coulombe’s performance reminded me of a splendid portrayal of Jesus in the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida. Jesus strolled through the amusement park crowds, just chatting. He crouched down in front of my daughter, Irene, showed her a flower, and told her not to worry, since God would give her beauty as he made the lilies shine.

He scooped up Zoe in his arms, and delivered the Sermon on the Mount, holding her, telling the crowd that they should become like little children.

Zoe was captured on dozens of video cameras, and people recognized her all week as we did the tourist circuit in Orlando–Disneyworld, Epcot Centre and MGM Studios. She was young enough to believe that Jesus carried her, which is what she told all her friends!

Once again the Passion Narratives must I burn through

By Anita Mathias

Once again the fierce dispute,

Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay

Must I burn through; once more humbly assay

The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.

So John Keats writes on sitting down to read Shakespeare’s unbearably painful “King Lear” once again.

I feel like that when it comes to the Passion narratives. I have always found them unbearably painful. I have never been able to watch “The Passion of the Christ.” Just seeing clips in church undoes me.

Jesus is so amazing, so sublime. He has such dignity, and poise even amid the incredible injustice and humiliation of his brutalizing.

It’s all so terribly unfair. I can hardly bear to think of it. I feel like saying, “Oh no, Jesus, don’t do it for me.”

But then, but then….

Would I be willing to be scourged and flayed; to have thorns thrust into my scalp; to be struck and spat on; to carry my cross while dizzy with blood loss; to have nails struck through my hands and feet; to hang asphyxiated on the cross, supported by nails driven through my hands and feet?

When I think that Jesus died to save me from Hell, it’s abstract. I can’t visualize Hell very convincingly, though God knows, Jesus described it vividly.

But when I think that Jesus stepped in to save me from agony from late evening on Thursday till 3 o’clock on Friday, well, then, I feel full of gratitude and love.

Sometimes, we are emotionally struck by what Jesus did for us when we put in in the first person. John Wesley, after his heart was “strangely warmed,” realized that “Jesus Christ died for John Wesley.”

Similarly, Jesus Christ volunteered to bear the punishment Anita Mathias deserved for a lifetime of transgressions, so Anita Mathias could now live in the love and grace of God, enjoying the presence and fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Thank you, Jesus!

“Of Gods and Men” Des Hommes et Des Dieux: A Sublime and Beautiful Film

By Anita Mathias

I watched this film by Xavier Beauvois last night. It is one of the most beautiful, even sublime, films I’ve seen in a long time.

It’s the true story of 9 Trappist monks in the Tibhirine Monastery in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria. They live a beautiful life of prayer, Gregorian chant, and work: medical work among the poor for Brother Luc; study of the Koran for the scholarly abbot Christian; and making honey, growing vegetables, and tending sheep for the others. They are self-sufficient, and advise, succour and provide free medical care for the local villagers, who love them.

Algeria was torn by a civil war between a corrupt government and the mujahadeen. The latter are barbarous–they murder girls without the hijab; teachers who speak of “love marriages;” harmless Croatian highway workers.

They pay the monks an armed visit. Both army and police warn the monks that it is a just a matter of time before they too are murdered. And offer armed protection.

The Abbot, Christian de Cherge refuses. He cannot have the soldiers of a corrupt government in the monastery.
* * *

Of Gods and Men. The Monks Vote to Stay

The crux of the drama is the decision: Should they stay, or return to France?

The mujahadeen are illiterate and murderous. Sooner or later, they will be murdered, they all realize.

The villagers plead with them to stay. They feel safe as long as the monks stay.

And they do, madly sacrificing their one and precious life (in a decision, I feel was a mistake).

Why? Because they believed they had already died when they decided to follow Christ as a monk. That being a martyr was no less foolish than being a monk. That they had chosen to incarnate with the villagers, in their poverty and powerlessness, and to flee would not be right. That the Good Shepherd would not do that. That they should stay in the place they had committed to stay (and trust the results of that choice to God).

It is perhaps relevant that Trappists take the fourth vow of stability. They promise to stay rooted in the monastery they enter. And so these monks do.

They are taken hostage. Murdered. As they more or less foreknew.

* * *

Mad men, or saints?

Sometimes, the prudent choice would be such a denial of everything you lived for to date. Of everything you value. Of everything you hope to live for.

To betray your ideals and everything you have lived for to save your own life is just another form of death.

So fleeing would negate their commitment to love, powerlessness, trust, incarnation, service, the village of Tibhirine, Algeria, and their fourth monastic vow of stability, commitment to a place.

What then would they live for in the future if they had allowed fear to negate everything they had lived for so far–and hoped to live for?

This is the reasoning which leads men and women to die rather than deny Christ.
* * *

The Abbot Christian de Cherge belonged to a distinguished French military family and fought in the French army during the brutal Algerian war of independence. A Muslim friend, Mohammed, faced down local rebels who wanted to shoot Christian when they were taking their customary walk, and discussing their faith. The next day, the rebels shot Mohammed.

The real life Christian left a beautiful testament, in which he addresses his “friend of the last minute, who will not have known what you are doing. May we meet again, as happy thieves in Paradise.”
* * *

In the contemporary classic, Desiring God, John Piper ridicules the idea that there is an inherent beauty in the monastic life of prayer, quietness and worship.

This film shows the beauty of that life. You can almost taste the silence. The peace. The grace. The balm of the Psalms. Oh to be a contemplative! A contemplative in the world, since my life choices have closed the other path to me.

* * *

And here is the Testament left by the real-life the abbot, Dom Christian de Chergé

Facing a GOODBYE …

If it should happen one day — and it could be today — that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to engulf all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church and my family to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country.

I ask them to accept the fact that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure.

I ask them to associate this death with so many other equally violent ones which are forgotten through indifference or anonymity.

My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value. In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood.

I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil which seems to prevail so terribly in the world, even in the evil which might blindly strike me down.

I should like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down.

I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this.

I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder.

It would be too high a price to pay for what will perhaps be called, the “grace of martyrdom” to owe it to an Algerian, whoever he might be, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam.

I am aware of the scorn which can be heaped on the Algerians indiscriminately.

I am also aware of the caricatures of Islam which a certain Islamism fosters.

It is too easy to soothe one’s conscience by identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideology of its extremists.

For me, Algeria and Islam are something different: it is a body and a soul.

I have proclaimed this often enough, I think, in the light of what I have received from it.

I so often find there that true strand of the Gospel which I learned at my mother’s knee, my very first Church, precisely in Algeria, and already inspired with respect for Muslim believers.

Obviously, my death will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naive or idealistic:
“Let him tell us now what he thinks of his ideals!”

But these persons should know that finally my most avid curiosity will be set free.

This is what I shall be able to do, God willing: immerse my gaze in that of the Father to contemplate with him His children of Islam just as He sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, the fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and restore the likeness, playing with the differences.

For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God, who seems to have willed it entirely for the sake of that JOY in everything and in spite of everything.

In this THANK YOU, which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you, my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families — you are the hundredfold granted as was promised!

And also you, my last-minute friend, who will not have known what you were doing:

Yes, I want this THANK YOU and this GOODBYE to be a “GOD BLESS” for you, too, because in God’s face I see yours.

May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both.

AMEN! INCHALLAH!

(Archive post)

In Praise of Naps (1001 Gifts: #7)

By Anita Mathias

In Praise of Naps

I remember reading this cool story about Edison. He didn’t have a firm separation between day and night and kept a bed in his office. When he was tired, in the middle of the day, he had a 15 or 20 minute nap, and then woke up, full of bounce. If he was wide awake in the night, he worked. As a result, he was usually fresh, and alert.

I am a great believer in that—and find it hard to believe that anything is worth running ragged and tired.

And so, I am also a great believer in—and practitioner of!!—naps. Generally one a day, for 13-20 minutes, but on a tired day, I might have 2 or 3 short 15-20 minute naps, just to regain bounce and read or write or think or live at full speed.

My favourite description of a nap is from Iris Murdoch’s “The Good Apprentice”—“two days for the price of one.” That’s what a long nap, 30-60 minutes gives me. The morning’s turmoils, tensions, happenings and work now seem far away; it’s like starting a new day afresh!!

It’s exactly what I feel on resuming my day after an hour of prayer. Yesterday’s hurly-burly, this morning’s frustrations now seem far-away, past history. He has made all things new!

* * *

Napping may seem slothful to the Western mind but in the East, it’s been part of the way of life for millennia, probably. The sun streams in at 5 o’clock; the noise of life begins. And then, not surprisingly, by mid-afternoon, sleepiness overwhelms you, and a nap restores you for the rest of your day.

My father, a Chartered Accountant, was the Controller of Accounts at Tata Steel, and walked home every day for lunch, and laid down, flat on his back, his hankerchief over his eyes, and slept soundly for about half an hour. At two, he walked back for his second shift. He and my mother quite unnecessarily woke at 5 a.m. to read their newspapers, with bowls of mangoes beside them, so I guess they adapted to this biphasic sleep.

* * *

Many contemporary solutions to modern life are counter-intuitive. For instance, people often recommend that you go out for a run or garden when you are depressed. And when I do do that, I feel immeasurably better. However, the trick is getting myself to do it.

I am afraid what I do when I feel depressed is have a nap (with a timer) resting with God, telling him the Go has leaked out of me, but I do want to do this and this and that and please would He restore me. It is a quiet rest with God—I guess it’s prayer, because I certainly feel God’s closeness and enveloping—and I am restored after it, and feel happier and motivated again. Though to call it prayer feels a bit of a con. I lie down guiltily– knowing I am doing the very thing one is not supposed to when depressed or out of motivation: take to bed. And I guess it’s God’s mercy that I regain my bounce and motivation.

I am afraid I no longer resonate with the things I read about waking early, Bruce Wilkinson saying that you will stagnate and not reach spiritual heights unless you wake at 5 (in The Secret of the Vine) or Jeff Goins’ advocacy of early rising to write.

These are the verse which speak to me on the subject, from Psalm 127

Unless the Lord builds the house,

In vain do the builders labour

In vain is your earlier rising,

Your going later to bed

For he gives to his beloved sleep.

* * *

Only a fraction of writers who write are widely read by their generation. And only a fraction of those writers will be read by successive generations.

And yet we have a mandate: To bear fruit which will last.

And how are we to do that?

It’s counter-intuitive and paradoxical. By hanging out with Jesus, resting in Jesus, remaining in Jesus, learning from Jesus, talking to Jesus, listening to Jesus, being one with him. Abiding, dwelling in him.

And my time of this rest and unity, beyond words, is often when I am dozing off on a brief 15 minute nap I’m taking because I am too groggy, too mentally tired, or simply too sad and limp and listless to do anything else.

And in the still waters of the nap, he makes me down to rest. He restores my soul. Again.

I love Him!

The Redemptive Value of Work in Downton Abbey and Life!

By Anita Mathias

Our family has never yet got the hang of watching TV—the few times we’ve paid for cable or a licence, we never remember to watch it and cancel it within the month. So, we’ve made peace with watching documentaries etc. on DVD, gulping down several episodes at a time, long after everyone else has discussed it to death.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve watched Series One and Series Two of Downton Abbey—4 hours of it yesterday—and have thoroughly enjoyed it.

What stood out to me was the redemptive value of work, how the characters become sweetened, matured and fully rounded once they find useful work.

Lady Edith, the bitter, jealous, carping sister becomes sweet once she is useful—as a tractor driver, as a nurse. Lady Sybil finds such meaning in nursing the badly shell-shocked, maimed, gassed and burnt soldiers, that she finds herself unable to retreat to the world of parties, dresses, hunting and idleness.

Even Cora, Lady Grantham, the American heiress, finds herself energized and finds purpose in life once she was has a job: running Downton as a convalescent home.

* * *

Matthew, the upper-middle solicitor, who finds himself the heir of Downton wants to dismiss his Downton valet. He scathingly suggests that Moseley finds a grown-up occupation instead of dressing an adult as if he were a child. (And, in fact, having several servants is infantilizing—though, as infants would tell us if they could speak, much bliss there is in toddlerhood.)

Matthew changes his tune once Lord Grantham points out that his own mother found meaning, purpose and usefulness in running the hospital. Would he deny Moseley a job—and worse, the sense of being useful in it? He does not, and Moseley is instantly happier. Once his employers leave, he mopes around again, until the soup kitchen project keeps him busy.

* * *

The happiest characters in Downton are those who do a good job, and who are valued for it, Carson, Mrs Hughes, Mr. Bates, Anna. The least happy are those not absorbed in their work, or those who seek to shirk it, like Thomas, the evil footman, and bitter O’Brien.

* * *

Is Julian Fellowe’s sentimentalizing the value of work? He himself is a relentless worker, and quotes his father. “If you have the misfortune to be born into a generation which must earn its living, you might as well do something amusing.”

Fellowes breakthrough work appeared when he was 52. According to The New York Times, “The decades before that were often fraught with anxiety, even despair. He toiled as a midlevel character actor for 30 years with 12 rejected screenplays to his name until, incredibly, at age 52, he won an Academy Award for his first produced screenplay, Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park,” in 2002. But Fellowes, now 62, is the rare sort who, having won a life lottery, did not kick up his heels and make a fool of himself. He has worked like the proverbial dog — or American — for his continued success, and if that means he is more to the manner bought than born, that is fine with him.”

* * *

Work which helps others or which is valued by others provides us the validation, significance and respect we appear to need as a species.

However, work one loves doing is God’s gift to man, and I guess we should keep seeking until we find it.

The work we love doing may not necessarily be our paid work. For instance, no work I have ever done has been as satisfying or pleasurable as writing this blog. Yet, the income from it is negligible, and that’s okay, since I am not doing it for the money, at least not at present.

I suppose an ideal would be to make one’s living from work one loves. As Robert Frost’s tramp says,

My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.

In reality, there is a long period for many of us before the work we love supports us—and for that period, the joy in doing work we love must be our ethereal consolation.

* * *

And running a house, as Carson and Mrs Hughes could tell us– is among the most useful work: a mental, physical, psychological and spiritual blessing to those who live in it.

It is work I have no talent for, or interest in—though I thoroughly appreciate and enjoy the efficiency, neatness and cleverness of a well-run house.

Two years ago, my husband, Roy, changed his work, from being a professor of mathematics, to running a largely automated micro-publishing business which supports our family, and running our home smoothly.

All the years, when I was ostensibly a housewife, but in fact, read and wrote and dreamed a lot, I used to constantly wonder aloud to Roy what full-time homemakers did.

Well, now that Roy is doing it, I no longer wonder. Keeping food in the pantry and refrigerator, cooking it, getting it on the table, clearing up, keeping up with the dishwasher, and laundry, and clothes, and tidiness, maintenance, replacements and paperwork (even with outsourcing the cleaning, and quite a lot of housework and odd jobs): wow, all this involves a lot of keeping one’s head on one’s shoulders and organization.

No wonder our stress level has been reduced dramatically, almost eliminated, now that someone is doing it full time. And its no wonder that I have been the most creative that I’ve ever been.

I viewed homemaking as drudgery and boring. Now that I am benefitting from someone else’s homemaking I see that is a sublime act of service, and a blessing to the inhabitants of a household (though that doesn’t necessarily negate that former two adjectives!)

I myself would never make a good homemaker, I think. God knows, I’ve tried for the first 21 years of our marriage until Roy took over. Just the very thought of dishes, and laundry, and cooking and cleaning made me too depressed to function. Oh Carson, oh Mrs Hughes, oh Anna, why is your breed extinct?

“If God doesn’t tell you to do anything, then why are you doing things? Why not just sit at his feet?” (Roy Godwin “Grace Outpouring”)

By Anita Mathias

Fflad-y-Brenin, the splendid retreat centre founded by Roy Godwin

“The key is searching for God, learning to listen for his voice, burrowing into his heart, listening to what he says, and then doing it, however simple or complex it might be.

If He says it, do it. If He doesn’t tell you to do anything, then why are you doing things? Why not just sit at his feet?”

“He is the potter, we are only clay. He initiates, we obey. We are very reluctant to initiate projects or ministries, because we vastly prefer his ministry to our own.

“When we look at the call of the disciples, we find Jesus calling them to be with him. If everything in our life flows out from his presence, then we will see the words, works and wonders come from the overflow of his life in us. Instead of seeking to make things happen, we won’t be able to stop them when we speak truth about Jesus.”

So often we’ve said, “Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord Almighty, and then exerted all our might, power and manipulative methods to make something happen.

It is time for God to be God.”

Thoughts from Roy Godwin’s “Grace Outpouring”

Do not Grieve for All that’s Broken

By Anita Mathias

Bread must be broken to be eaten.

The grain of wheat split to live

The chrysalis crumble for the butterfly,

The egg splinter for the chicken

The snake moult to grow.

And sheets of coloured glass

Must be shattered

To be refashioned

Into stained glass

Through which–

In shafts of radiance

Like the love of God–

Rainbowed light

Can shine,

* * *

And I consider.

Did growth spring green

From my own brokenness?

Yes, it always does.

My rejected manuscript

Got me to hone my craft,

Again, more diligently.

Praise the Lord for Fleas and Lice

By Anita Mathias

Here is Corrie Ten Boom’s famous flea story from The Hiding Place.

We lay back, struggling against the nausea that swept over us from the reeking straw.

..Suddenly I sat up, striking my head on the cross-slats above. Something had pinched my leg.

“‘Fleas!’ I cried. ‘Betsie, the place is swarming with them!’

“‘Here! And here another one!’ I wailed. ‘Betsie, how can we live in such a place!’

“‘Show us. Show us how.’ It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.

“‘Corrie!’ she said excitedly. ‘He’s given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!’

“I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. ‘It was in First Thessalonians,’ I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen.

“In the feeble light I turned the pages. ‘Here it is: “Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all…'” It seemed written expressly to Ravensbruck.

“‘Go on,’ said Betsie. ‘That wasn’t all.’

“‘Oh yes:’…”Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.'”

“‘That’s it, Corrie! That’s His answer. “Give thanks in all circumstances!” That’s what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!’ I stared at her; then around me at the dark, foul-aired room.

“‘Such as?’ I said.

“‘Such as being assigned here together.’

“I bit my lip. ‘Oh yes, Lord Jesus!’

“‘Such as what you’re holding in your hands.’ I looked down at the Bible.

“‘Yes! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all these women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages.’

“‘Yes,’ said Betsie, ‘Thank You for the very crowding here. Since we’re packed so close, that many more will hear!’

She looked at me expectantly. ‘Corrie!’ she prodded.

“‘Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed suffocating crowds.’

“‘Thank You,’ Betsie went on serenely, ‘for the fleas and for–‘

“The fleas! This was too much. ‘Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.’

“‘Give thanks in all circumstances,’ she quoted. It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.

“And so we stood between tiers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.”

“Back at the barracks we formed yet another line–would there never be an end to columns and waits?–to receive our ladle of turnip soup in the center room. Then, as quickly as we could for the press of people, Betsie and I made our way to the rear of the dormitory room where we held our worship “service.” Around our own platform area there was not enough light to read the Bible, but back here a small light bulb cast a wan yellow circle on the wall, and here an ever larger group of women gathered.
“They were services like no others, these times in Barracks 28.

“At first Betsie and I called these meetings with great timidity. But as night after night went by and no guard ever came near us, we grew bolder. So many now wanted to join us that we held a second service after evening roll call.

There on the Lagerstrasse we were under rigid surveillance, guards in their warm wool capes marching constantly up and down. It was the same in the center room of the barracks: half a dozen guards or camp police always present. Yet in the large dormitory room there was almost no supervision at all. We did not understand it.

“One evening I got back to the barracks late from a wood-gathering foray outside the walls. A light snow lay on the ground and it was hard to find the sticks and twigs with which a small stove was kept going in each room. Betsie was waiting for me, as always, so that we could wait through the food line together. Her eyes were twinkling.

“‘You’re looking extraordinarily pleased with yourself,’ I told her.

“‘You know, we’ve never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room,’ she said. ‘Well–I’ve found out.’

“That afternoon, she said, there’d been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they’d asked the supervisor to come and settle it.

“But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?”

“Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: ‘Because of the fleas! That’s what she said, “That place is crawling with fleas!'”

“My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie’s bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.”

* * *

More and more, I have been struck by how the very worst thing that happens in people’s lives sort of morphs into the very best thing. Yes, it makes sense to live in gratitude, praising the Lord anyway.

We don’t have a flea story, but we do have a lice story. When one of my daughters got into a selective private school in Oxford when she was 5. She was a chess and math prodigy, with a whole lot of chess prizes, so was selected by a very ambitious mother as a suitable friend for her hot-housed only child I’ll call Amelie.

Now Amelie had long blonde hair (and this mother would stand the two girls together, back to back, and then tell my girl, “Well, your hair’s long, but not as long as Amelie’s.”) Amelie’s hair was also crawling with lice, and in the break, she’d chase the others tossing her long hair, saying, “Lice, lice.” (A story I never shared with her mother, who’d never have believed it.)

So “lice letters” went home regularly, and every time, this other mother, an ambitious South African who came here, married her professor, breaking up his marriage, phoned or emailed me, telling me of the 45 minute trauma she went through delousing Amelie, and insisting I did the same.

The two girls were best friends, and genuinely fond of each other, but Amelie, who was a little politician was always grieving my daughter. “No, you sat with me last time, it’s X’s turn. I’ve invited X for a play date. Invited Y for a sleepover. No, you are now not my best friend.” My daughter is the faithful sort who has just a few deep friends, and this was throwing her into turmoil.

Finally, I had enough of the lice emails, since I was pretty sure that my daughter was getting them from Amelie, and told the other mother that if Amelie dealt with her lice, the problem would be solved. She was furious, told the teachers that Amelie wasn’t to sit near my daughter, and retaliated by having a party, and inviting the whole class except my daughter (Amelie’s supposed “best friend.”). Yeah, that’s what we are coming too–grownups behaving like children. I have no idea if this is a recent development or was always the case!

Well, much heartbreak. But that definitively ended the very competitive and fraught “best friendship” which had caused so much heartbreak, grief and volatility for 3 years.

My daughter formed other friends. She is a straight arrow with a warm, loving loyal heart. She’s had the same group of friends for the last 4 years, who are devoted to her and vice-versa, and is now very happy. She loves school, loves her friends, and is excelling academically and is very happy socially. She’s also very popular in her gang of seven girls, in which she a leader.

And what’s more, as I suspected, once the mother broke off her friendship with the other girl, she’s never had lice again. We had struggled with it for 3 years, and now, she’s foot-lose, lice-free and happy.

It took those pesky little creatures to break off a frenemy relationship which would have marred her school-life.

Yeah, praise the Lord even for fleas and lice!!

anita.mathias