Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

The Methodist Covenant Prayer: Beautiful, but Unnecessarily Extreme

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I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
Rank me with whom you will;
Put me to doing, put me to suffering;
Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you,
Exalted for you or brought low for you;
Let me be full, let me be empty,
Let me have all things, let me have nothing;
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
You are mine and I am yours.
So be it.
And the covenant made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
I like this prayer. It’s beautiful. It’s sublime. It’s noble.
It’s not mine!! It’s not something I pray. And nor do I intend to pray it.
                                                      * * *
Put me to what you will. Rank me with whom you will. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you. Exalted for you or brought low for you. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
That’s, of course, understood in my relationship with Jesus. That I will love him, and do my utmost to have my heart filled with joy and praise and happiness and peace if I am put to things I did not choose, ranked lower than I would have wanted, put to suffering or laid aside, emptied and left with nothing.

I am not saying it would be easy, but, as far as I know myself, I think I would love God whatever, follow Christ whatever. What’s the alternative? Lord, to whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life.
                                             * * *
The Methodist Covenant Prayer was written in more fatalistic times, with a high expectation of infant mortality, of men dying young, of poverty descending in old age. It’s a bit too resigned and fatalistic for me.
And, while the Methodist Covenant Prayer is understood, of course, in one’s relationship with God, Jesus  taught us that our blue sky visions are possible because of him.
I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matt 17:20)
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. (John 15:7)
Greater works than these you will do, because I go to My Father.” (John 14:12)
·      * *
So that’s another way of living a Christian life, of striving to live the wild dreams which God has placed in one’s heart, of trying to live in a brilliant, techni-colour world of colour and possibility and adventure and joy and variety (like the wild natural world God designed). Living in an exciting, dreams-coming-true world which an indulgent Papa is delighted to share with you, while accepting, of course, that should all the dire things the Methodist Covenant Prayer envisions happen to, you will still accept them as discipline from your Father’s hand.


“Who Am I?” a poem by Bonhoeffer; Spurgeon on how to lead a Bible Study, and other fascinating links

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1  Who am I ? by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equally, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!

Written March 4th, 1946.


Let us, dear brethren, try to get saturated with the gospel. I always find that I can preach best when I can manage to lie a-soak in my text.
I like to get a text, and find out its meaning and bearings, and so on; and then, after I have bathed in it, I delight to lie down in it, and let it soak into me.
It softens me, or hardens me, or does whatever it ought to do to me, and then I can talk about it.
You need not be very particular about the words and phrases if the spirit of the text has filled you; thoughts will leap out, and find raiment for themselves.
Become saturated with spices, and you will smell of them; a sweet perfume will distill from you, and spread itself in every direction; — we call it unction.
Do you not love to listen to a brother who abides in fellowship with the Lord Jesus? Even a few minutes with such a man is refreshing, for, like his Master, his paths drop fatness. Dwell in the truth, and let the truth dwell in you. Be baptized into its spirit and influence, that you may impart thereof to others.
If you do not believe the gospel, do not preach it, for you lack an essential qualification; but even if you do believe it, do not preach it until you have taken it up into yourself as the wick takes up the oil. So only can you be a burning and a shining light.

3 A Christian Voice for Barack Obama from The Huffington Post.




In which Angels Sing, and Diamonds Materialize: A Report from the Revival Alliance Charismatic Conference in Birmingham

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“Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Alice in Wonderland.

The Revival Alliance Conference I attended had a special “impartation” meeting in Birmingham on Saturday for those aged 15-30 to receive an “impartation” (with laying on of hands) from the world’s leading charismatic leaders.

There was Randy Clark, whose preaching birthed the Toronto Revival.  John Arnott, the pastor who shepherded the Toronto Revival to a movement which has gone on for 18 years, and is still going strong. The amazing Heidi and  Rolland Baker. Bill Johnson, “the thinking man’s charismatic,” as steeped in the Bible, as in a magical, miraculous world much like the Bible’s. Che Ahn. Georgian Bainov.

So both our daughters go to this meeting, and come back bubbling and bouncing with excitement.  Those watching outside caught some of it on TV screens. As Rolland Baker placed his hands in blessings on the young people’s palms, diamonds appeared. The floor was covered with these diamonds, which rained down from heaven. The more aggressive crawled on hands and knees picking them up. My children got 3 between them, while others got several. The Kingdom sometimes goes to the aggressive. In fact, when the adults returned, there were some of these in the loos, and parking lots.

HERE are eye-witness accounts from the Revival Alliance’s Facebook page. (Screen shots, so a little fuzzy)

 

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Our friend, James, an Oxford educated physicist, was particularly fascinated. He picked up two, and compared them with Zoe’s. His had a gold backing!!

Apparently, according to Bill Johnson, this not a rare manifestion. Gold-dust, diamonds, a glory cloud and angelic feathers appear all the time in his church, Bethel in California, and even in houses, restaurants and airplanes where those like Bill who particularly experience “the presence” travel.

Irene, my 13 year old says, “Wow, Mum if Rolland can make diamonds appear, maybe it’s all true.” Oh, I am so old.  My reaction. “Cool.” Did I believe it? Yeah, sure. Why not?

I have heard Heidi Baker tell this story of miraculous multiplication in person, which she also shared with the CBN’s 700 Club.

“It was a 110-degree Christmas Day. There were hundreds of children that were awaiting a Christmas party at their center. These children included girls who had sold their bodies, bandits, rascals, and children from the village. All had all been invited. The challenge was that there were so many children, but only a limited amount of toy bags available. So, Heidi began to give the presents out first to those children who had never received a present before. Finally, it came down to the older girls, but all that was left were bags with stuffed animals in them.

Heidi asked the girls, “What would you like, sweetheart?”

And the girl replied, “Beads.” 

Heidi’s friend and co-worker, a psychiatrist, said “There is nothing in the bags but old stuffed dogs.”

Heidi asked her friend to check the bags again. When the lady reached her hand into the bag of stuffed animals she started screaming, “Beads! There are beads in the bag!”

All of the girls got beautiful, bright beads for Christmas.

“God really is God, and He is much better than Santa Claus,” says Heidi.

In the same interview, she tells this story, “After the government evicted the Bakers from the orphanage, “a friend from the American Embassy came with chili and rice for the Bakers and their 2 children. They prayed over the pots of food and told the 80+ children to sit down.  Everyone ate and was full!”

Do I believe these stories? Do I believe that Jesus changed water into wine, and fed 5000 from 5 loaves? Do I believe that He said that those who believe in him will do greater things than these? Yes, yes, and yes!

* * *

In the evening, there was an impartation for everyone, and as Arnott etc went around and laid their hands on people and prayed, most of the thousands in Bingley Hall fell backwards instantly, “slain in the Spirit.”  Amazingly, my husband buckled as he was prayed for, as did Zoe and Irene. Moi—no! Too self-conscious, too scared of falling backwards, too scared of losing control, too analytical, too much of a blogger observing the proceedings. And perhaps that was what God intended. When I blog, I feel his pleasure.

It was a rather fascinating sight though, to see Arnott and Rolland Baker and Bill Johnson go through the rows, say a brief pray for people, who then fell backwards as if poleaxed.

And there was the sweetest, most angelic singing rising.

I heard it myself, high sweet singing, though the worship band said there were no instruments, and no one was singing.

Here are some accounts from the Revival Alliance 2012 Facebook:

Revival Alliance 2012
Martin Smith leading all the saints joining in one song! Who else heard #angels singing during worship at venue 1??? #revival2012
Photo: Martin Smith leading all the saints joining in one song! Who else heard #angels singing during worship at venue 1??? #revival2012
12538Like ·  · Share

Thomas Kinkade, A Beauty which Never Was on Land or Sea

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 The hilarious, ironic, and spot-on website Stuff White People Like mentions a sure way to convince your white friends that you are totally unsophisticated
“If you wish to ensure that white people will never speak to you about art again, there is an easy escape. Simply mention your favorite artist is Thomas Kinkade and that you are in negotiations to purchase an original from the store in the mall. This will effectively end any friendship you have with a white person.”I realized that when I bought not one, but two Thomas Kinkade repros from a mall, and showed them, happily to a white Christian artist friend. Who was horrified.

You know I really, really do have good taste in art. Promise. And loathe kitsch.

But Thomas Kinkade appeals to something in me. I love his paradisial landscapes. I love the way the seasons are all jumbled together. How trees and flowers from every continent appear. That’s what heaven will be like, I think.

There is this sense of the jumbling of the “natural order,” deranging of nature in Scripture, when it talks of God’s blessing. Aaron’s staff, a sign of God’s power, had buds, blossoms and fruit all together. It’s been a symbol of me of the possibility of the sudden flowering of creativity, a sudden burst of inspiration.

In another of my favourite passages, Ezekiel 47, we are told that the trees on the banks of the river which flows from the sanctuary bear fruit every month because the water from the sanctuary flows to them.

That’s what’s Kinkade’s landscapes remind me off, the beauty of all the seasons together; spring, summer, autumn, winter; and trees and flowers from every continent, blooming in an immense and joyful profusion–together.

Sometimes God is most merciful when we are least deserving!!

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The Pure, Unmerited Goodness and Mercy of God. Isn’t He? by John Wimber




Here’s a wonderful story from Carol Wimber’s book, The Way it Was.

“Right away the Jesus Songs started coming, like a stream of sweet water. I call them airport songs because God gave them to John on his way to or from the airport. “Isn’t He?” (which keeps food on my table from the royalties) was another song written on the way to the airport on a scrap of paper.

It came the same way, all at once, words and music, but it came in a flood of gratitude for the goodness and mercy of Jesus.

John was on his way to pick up an uninvited visitor who had called the house and informed our son, Tim, that he was waiting for John to pick him up. Well, poor Tim! John was a “kill the messenger” guy. He jumped all over Tim. “Why didn’t you tell him I didn’t know he was coming?” “Because I didn’t know that, Dad,” answered a bewildered Tim. “But I’m tired, and I just got home, and it’s raining. I don’t want to go out again, Tim. Why didn’t you explain it to him?” “Dad, I just answered the phone, and said Hello. The man said you were supposed to be there to pick him up, and I said, “Oh,” and the man asked me to tell you when you came home. I said I would.”

John left for the hour and a half drive to the airport, and he felt miserable. Not about having to go out when he was tired, but because of the way he had treated Tim. He wept over it, and told Jesus how wrong, and how sorry he was, and was just planning how he would apologize to Tim, when the car was flooded with the love of God. Overwhelmed with God’s mercy, his head and heart filled with the words and music:

Isn’t he beautiful? Beautiful, isn’t he?
Prince of Peace, Son of God, isn’t he?
Isn’t he wonderful? Wonderful, isn’t he?
Counselor, Almighty God, isn’t he? Isn’t he? Isn’t he?
He taught us that sweet Jesus song the next Sunday. It is amazing how fast the Holy Spirit-given songs go around the world. They fly on the wings of the wind.”

I love this story. I love the way God sometimes responds to me with poetry and insight and blogposts when I have blown it, am feeling crushed and overwhelmed with shame. That’s when he reveals himself and his love most clearly, and blesses me with new insight.
Gerard Manley Hopkins describes this
“Father and Fondler of heart thou hast wrung,
Hast thy dark descending, and most art merciful then.”
Or as Francis Thompson puts it,
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry–and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Genesareth, but Thames!

In which I am surprised by Christopher Columbus

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“Christopher Columbus,” Jo March of Little Women cried whenever she was astonished.
Well, he’s surprised me.
                                             * * *
I first pondered Columbus in 1992, five hundred years after he sailed the ocean blue. Visited a few quincentennial exhibitions, especially one in Minneapolis, which was chiefly focused on the noxious effects of the Columbian Exchange particularly on native peoples.
More recently, in reading Mark Batterson’s Wild Goose Chase, I learned that Columbus was a man of faith.
Most experts believed that finding a westward route to the Indies was impossible. But Columbus challenged the assumption.
He later said that it wasn’t intelligence, mathematics or maps that made his voyage a success. He credited the Holy Spirit with the idea.
Columbus wrote, “It was the Lord who put it in my mind, (I could feel his hand upon me) the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvellous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures.” (Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory).
And Columbus sailed with a crew not one of whom had ever been more than three hundred miles offshore.
* * * 
Columbus was honoured by King Ferdinand which aroused some jealousy. His rivals murmured that anyone could have sailed there, and discovered a New World.
Columbus called for some hard-boiled eggs. “Can you make them stand up on end?” he asked his critics at court.
“Of course,” they said, but failed.
He slammed an egg down on the table, and it stood up on its flat, broken end.
“We could do that,” the nobles muttered.
“But you didn’t think of it,” said Columbus. You could have taken my route—but you didn’t think of it. I “thought” of it first.”
* * * 
When I wander around modern art galleries, I frequently hear one matron say to another, “My child could have done that.”
Ah, but did they think of it?
Genius thinks of what no one else has before, and makes it appear simple.
And the Holy Spirit gives us ideas no one has had before, and makes them appear elegant and natural.

In Which I am a Single Issue Voter

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I was brought up Catholic, but made a real commitment to Christ when I was 17. Since then, as a Christian woman, I have been a citizen of three countries—of India, of the US (a citizenship I retain) and of the United Kingdom—we were sworn in last month, and are now dual citizens of the US and the UK. That’s appropriate—my thinking is mid-Atlantic; the English I write is mid-Atlantic; and the English I speak, oops, is a melange of words, usages, expressions and pronunciations I’ve picked up from both nations I retain citizenship of.
This is pathetically simplistic perhaps, but I have always supported political parties on one basis—and that is not gay rights or abortion rights.
The question I ask is: Whose policies will be best for the poor? The poor of their own nation, and the global poor, for as Christians, we do have to realize that we are on this earth for a few decades more at best, and then will, we hope, gain citizenship in heaven with those of every race, and tongue and people and language, and so must begin acting as citizens of that everlasting kingdom.
How have we treated the least of these?: That is the great question we will be asked on the last day (Matt 25:31-46).
And that should surely be a major issue as we gather to bestow earthly political power.
Politics, like sex or money, is, of course, an intensely personal matter. In England, in particular, it is impolite to mention them socially, leave alone in a blog!!
But, how about you? Are you a single-issue voter? Does your faith affect your voting practices? Should it?If so, what do you look for in a politician or political party?

 

“The Anointing,” Imitation and The Ridiculous

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I am really enjoying reading R. T. Kendall’s brilliant book, The Anointing.
He points out that Christian preachers attempt to imitate famous ones. But, he says, “when I try to imitate someone else, I never capture their real genius, but their eccentricity. It is a fact that what is most easily copied in any man or woman is their odd manner, even their weakness.”
He mentions the Professor of Preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Forth Worth, Texas, who had an eccentric habit of cupping his left hand over his ear when he began to soar in his preaching. Young ministers all over Texas and Oklahoma cupped their ear with their left hand when they thought they were soaring on the wings of eloquence. They thought they had the anointing. One could always tell his students, Kendall says.
R.T. Kendall later asks one of the preacher’s colleagues why he did that. “Because he was slightly deaf. He did it to hear his own voice better.”
                                                          § § §
Kendall goes on to write, “When anybody begins to imitate another who happens to have a great anointing, the person will end up aping his eccentricity. Martyn Lloyd-Jones told me of a man in Wales who had the habit of shaking his head back to keep hair from falling over his eyes. Sure enough, there were young men all over Wales who would shake their heads as they preached! One was even bald-headed.”
                                                        § § §
I saw this recently. Heidi Baker has a highly original preaching style, original to the point of extreme eccentricity (see here). She bends sideways as she preaches, as if pushed, says things like Shika Baba or Shazaam. Apparently, she is being overwhelmed by the power of the Spirit (and the words are glossolalia or an African dialect).
Well, I would never second-guess the wonderful Heidi who I have deep respect and affection for. But at this Revival Alliance conference I went to last week at which famous charismatic leaders spoke (John Arnott, Bill Johnson, Randy Clark, Che Ahn etc.) I saw two women imitate that mannerism—the swaying sideways as if pushed by the spirit, the breaking into prayer and praise in the midst of preaching.
Most annoyingly, the adult child of one of the speakers did it during announcements. “Whoa,” she said, and bent sideways, as if overwhelmed by the Spirit, while making quite pedestrian announcements. Would the Spirit really manifest in the same way to all these women? Who knows?
                                                      * * *
I taught my children to pray at a time when my own life was very difficult. My husband was consumed by his mathematical research; we had babies; things were volatile. So, when I came to pray, I first sighed deeply, exhaling the sadness, the stress, the tiredness, and the helplessness.
And then when it was the turn of little Zoe and Irene to pray—they couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4—they would first sigh, deeply and exaggeratedly, and then pray.
They obviously thought that that was how one prayed—you sighed deeply, you exhaled!! You said, “Oh Lord,” in an exhalation of exhaustion!!
Well, perhaps we were being theologically correct. Romans 8: 26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs and groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit.
                                                      § § §
 I see that in the blogosphere. Ann Voskamp has a highly original style, with much contortion of grammar. Since she is an original, a stylist, an accomplished writer with the ear of a poet, her stylistic contortions are not jarring.
What is irritating is when bloggers who lack her stylistic flair imitate her ungrammatical contortions and her style. Since it doesn’t fit into the texture of their pieces, it merely seems odd.
There are lots of original bloggers—Sarah Bessey, let’s say or Rachel Held Evans. But sometimes, when I read through the blogs of those I follow on Facebook, I am amazed by how many are similar in style, subject matter and preoccupations.
Imitation brings quicker success because we are working in a popular vein. It however militates against long-term success because we never discover our unique voice, style and preoccupations.
                                                      § § §
I love this passage from Thomas Merton:
Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives.

They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint.  

 They wear out their bodies and minds in a hopeless endeavour to have somebody else’s experiences, or write somebody else’s poems, or possess somebody else’s spirituality. 
There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else.  People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular—and too lazy to think of anything better.
Hurry ruins saints as well as artists.  They want quick success and they are in such haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves.
                         ( Thomas Merton, Integrity, New Seeds of Contemplation).