Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

My “wun”

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Jake, beloved collie, goes crazy, once procrastinating me starts saying, “I really must walk.”

So, grandiloquently & euphemistically, I now call it a run (hey, I struggle to jog!). He’s learnt “run.” So Roy patronizingly calls it my “wun.”

My “wun” today was through the meadows round our home, covered with buttercups with happy cows.

Irish butter & cheese, they say, owes its distinctive flavour to buttercups & clover.

Is Time More Valuable Than Money?

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It’s really one of the biggies, isn’t it, and a choice which determines our days, and how they are spent.

For instance, Roy’s car needed fixing last week. He wanted me to follow him to the garage in my car, and then drive him back. I hate driving, especially down Cowley Road.

I thought about it, and then decided that the time I spent on that pointless round trip would never come again, but I could earn the money for his taxi fare quite easily, doing stuff which is somewhat interesting. “Take a taxi back,” I said.

However, the lives of those whose time is worth far more than their money, are ironically over-crowded and stressed-out. I don’t want to be them. Among the saddest thing in the world is to be time-poor. Those who have more time than money are ironically freer to enjoy life.

There is a great psychological and therapeutic value to fixing your own stuff, to working with your hands. When you have more time than money, you can enjoy this, rather than gritting your teeth and outsourcing all work to people you know are over-charging.

The best way to deal with a cold

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I stayed up working too late in our conservatory last night–until 1.30 (crazy!!, writing, blogging, thinking, reading French).

It was 32 during the day, then precipitiously dropped. I got a terrible cold sitting in the suddenly chilly room working, and went to bed in a cloud and flurry of sneezes.

Took Night Nurse and sudafed. Slept soundly and woke up well.

Colds, I have convinced, have an emotional as well as an immunological element, and the sooner one can zap them, the better. I am a great believer in Sudafed which masks symptoms and so makes you feel a whole lot better–and this helps your immune system fight back!

In which God loves parties

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We are having a big children’s party next Saturday, and a family garden party on the 19th June.

I always have a moment of panic before a party. What if….everyone forgets; no one comes; our cooking fails, there’s not enough food. What if it’s a garden party and it rains?

But our parties generally work. Somehow or the other. If it’s a children’s party, it’s not unusual for the children to spontaneously say that it was the best party they have been to. They talk about it for months afterwards. Not bad for haphazard arrangements. Though confession–I have given well over 30-40 children’s parties (we do the occasional Christmas, dead of winter, spring, summer, just because party in addition to birthday parties) and in the early years, I used to check out a stack of children’s party book and research ideas on the internet. Now, I just go with the tried and tested, and relax.

So I went through my moment of panic, and then, as usual, I prayed. And felt all would be well. Then, I wondered if I was being presumptuous. Why should God always ensure that my parties will work, and that I and everyone else would have a good time?

He will, in his mercy, ensure it because God loves parties. Jesus’ first miracle was at a wedding, when the planning was faulty and they ran out of wine!! He was accused of loving parties too much, of being a drunkard and glutton.

And heaven, he says, will be a great banquet, to which everyone is invited. Some will be too busy, too greedy, too ambitious to take the time to attend. But the waifs and strays of the world will go, and will have the most splendid time ever.

Amen and amen! Be invisibly present at our parties now, oh Lord, and never let us be too busy to banquet with you.

John Gardner in” The Art of Fiction” on one’s innate ability to solve technical problems

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Life by the inch is a cinch.  Life by the yard is hard.
John Gardner says, in The Art of Fiction that almost anyone, even a novice writer, can solve a small literary problem, for instance in presenting a character or scene. It’s the entire novel which can daunt. So he advises novices to write their stories inch by inch, scene by scene.
Good advice too for how to live one’s life.

Radiating Christ by Cardinal Newman

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Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go. 
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life. 
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly 
that all my life may only be a radiance of Yours. 
Shine through me and be so in me 
that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul. 
Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus! 
Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine, 
so to shine as to be a light to others; 
the light, O Jesus, will be all from You; 
none of it will be mine: 
it will be You shining on others through me. 
Let me thus praise You in the way You love best: 
by shining on those around me. 
Let me preach You without preaching, not by words, but by my example, 
by the catching force, 
the sympathetic influence of what I do, 
the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You. 


Isn't this a wonderful prayer? It was one of Mother Teresa's favourites.


In which public policy can teach people to recycle


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I have long been a fan of Flylady, who recommends one does not get caught up in the guilt of recycling until one has one’s act together, i.e. is flying.


Well, the South Oxfordshire County Council was having none of this and limited us to one wheelie bin of trash every TWO weeks. So the non-recycling Mathiases had to become recyclers.


It was not easy in the beginning. Our black bags were constantly protruding well over the limits of the wheelie bin, being shredded by magpie, and mice, as were the black bags around the wheelie bin, which the good-natured Council workers finally stopped clearing.


So  we took a trip to the tip to get us caught up. And now, every week, we become more focused recyclers. Have a special trash can for recycling upstairs and downstairs. Recycle more and more. The green wheelie bin is now full with several boxes beside it to be cleared (they will pick up infinite recycling, but not infinite trash). And our trash, most fortnights, fits in our black bin.


Yay!!


How Prayer and the Holy Spirit can Recreate us


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Amazing! I was getting rather tired & losing focus & running on empty by the last week of May. 


We attended a wonderful retreat lead by John Arnott of the Toronto Airport Fellowship for a whole week, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. 


The meditation, prayer, and receiving prayer, esp. for the Holy Spirit, has left me so mentally and spiritually refreshed, full of energy and enthusiasm, re-focused, and feeling new-created. Thank you!!