Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Worship

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Worship is one of the best things in life–turning your eyes upon Jesus, looking full in his wonderful face. Seeing the Lord high and lifted up, with the train of his robe filling the temple with glory. Forgetting yourself in focusing on him.

Star-breather. God breathes Stars. Psalm 33:7

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Star breather. God breathes stars.

“By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.” NIV Psalm 33:6.

“The LORD merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed, and all the stars were born.” New Living Translation. Fabulous!

Can people shift on the Extroversion/ Introversion scale

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I wonder if people’s personalities change through the decades.

I was definitely an extrovert when I was younger, but after two decades of marriage to an introvert find I am changing.

Though I enjoy people, getting to know people, talking to people, I also find a lot of energy, and happiness, even bliss from being alone, reading, thinking and writing.

Each time I take the Meyers-Briggs, I find I am further on the introversion scale.
So I guess one strand in a happy life is to keep the right balance between introversion and extroversion for your temperament.

Characterization which somehow gets the essence of a person.

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Look at this passage from A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

 “There was undeniably a feline quality to my mother–never in the sly or stealthy sense of the word, but in the word’s other catlike qualities:a clean, sleek, self-possessed, strokable quality.  In quite a different way from Owen Meany, my mother looked touchable; I was always aware of how much people wanted, or needed, to touch her. I’m not talking only about men, although–even at my age–I was aware of how restlessly men moved their hands in her company.  I mean that everyone liked to touch her–and depending on her attitude toward her toucher, my mother’s responses to being touched were feline, too.  She could be so chillingly indifferent that the touching would instantly stop; she was well-coordinated and surprisingly quick and, like a cat, she could retreat from being touched–she could duck under or dart away from someone’s hand as instinctively as the rest of us can shiver.  And she could respond in that other way that cats can respond, too; she could luxuriate in being touched–she could contort her body quite shamelessly, putting more and more pressure against the toucher’s hand, until (I used to imagine) anyone near enough to her could hear her purr.”

A new favourite form of relaxation

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I am generally someone who finds doing something relaxing, and “relaxing” by doing nothing stressful. However, as the busyness of my life increases in lock-step with my age, I keep discovering new ways to thoroughly relax.
Here’s one: Come in from a busy day, have a nap while thinking myself to sleep, wake up thoroughly refreshed, read papers online, think, blog. I find random desultory thinking, writing and blogging deeply relaxing.

Another thing I find very relaxing is google. I love following stray ideas, and keeping on learning more and more and more about odd and stray things.

My favourite form of relaxation, however, is prayer!

Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now, A.E. Housman

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File:Newark cherry blossoms.jpg

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now,
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands above the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Spiritual lessons from gardening

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Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. NIV

So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. NLT
Galatians 6:9

My garden has sprung to life, weeds and all. Gardening teaches us a lot about the right and proper season. It is virtually impossible to imitate the lushness of spring and summer in the winter, no matter how one tries. One still works in one’s garden, of course, but mainly tending to the health of plants, or starting seeds indoors for the spring.
Then everything comes to life around May.
So while gardens are better for steady work through the year, it is also good to wait for the appointed time of growth and harvest.
So too with our prayers, dreams and desires. Work steadily, sow, sow, and sow, but wait for God’s proper and appointed time to reap your reward.

Spring and the English

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I enjoyed my intensive French course this weekend. We were asked what our favourite season was. Interestingly, all the English people (and I) chose spring.

All the foreigners (from Columbia, Spain, Japan, South Africa) chose summer.
The English grumble as much about summer as about winter. Extremes don’t suit them.

Spring is a very English, very Anglican season if you like, not too hot, not too cold, nothing to grumble about!