random | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

The Dance of Intimacy and the Dance of Anger

About twenty years ago, when we were newly-weds, Harriet Lerner’s books, The Dance of Intimacy and The Dance of Anger were recommended to us.

Essentially–it’s been a while since I read them–the books view relationships as a dance.

You each have your steps. If you work together in creative, productive ways, the relationship flourishes.

But we also have less creative, stylized, conditioned ways of dancing. You know: boring, predictable. She passive-aggressively pushes his buttons. He explodes. And so on.

And then, a week later, the same, boring, sordid dancing. Getting nowhere. Spinning round and round the dance floor in circles.

The good news is that it takes two to tango. Two to continue in a frustrating, unsatisfying, unproductive dance.

And either one can just change the steps.
* * *

I am slowing down in numerous ways. One way is that I try not to react instinctively. I try to be quiet and think. In fact, if possible, I try not to react at all in heated moments, until I have had time to think and pray, and my emotions settle, and I can act rationally.

Jesus is a great role model for “giving no answer.” Not everything needs to be answered. One can simply be silent.

I am learning—and for a formerly hot-tempered, high-spirited woman like me, this is an amazing realization—that I do not need to answer anger with anger, a harsh word with a harsh word. I can simply be silent. I can change the steps of the dance.

Yes, that is an amazing realization for me–that at any time, even in middle age, we can change what we thought were our personalities or characters. We can give a gentle answer, or no answer. We can learn to be gentle and silent, instead of dancing in the exhausting, consuming dance of anger.

In Christ, we are free—and empowered–at any stage of our lives, to change our habitual actions. And thus to change our characters, for character is the result of habitual actions.

George Herbert. Love

By Anita Mathias

LOVE (III)
by George Herbert

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.

“A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”;
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.

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Prayer is not bound by the laws of space and time. A tale of a hot water bottle in the Congo.

By Anita Mathias

I love “ Is it worth it?” this story about Helen Roseveare. As her name came up in Bible study today, my co-leader, Bridget, whose maiden name was Roseveare, mentioned that Helen was her father’s cousin. England is a relatively small country, and one stumbles on these sort of serendipitous connections all the time.

Bridget told us about this remarkable story, which Helen has recounted in her book, Living Faith. I quote

“One night, in Central Africa, I had worked hard to help a mother in the labor ward; but in spite of all that we could do, she died leaving us with a tiny, premature baby and a crying, two-year-old daughter.
We would have difficulty keeping the baby alive. We had no incubator. We had no electricity to run an incubator, and no special feeding facilities. Although we lived on the equator, nights were often chilly with treacherous drafts.

A student-midwife went for the box we had for such babies and for the cotton wool that the baby would be wrapped in. Another went to stoke up the fire and fill a hot water bottle. She came back shortly, in distress, to tell me that in filling the bottle, it had burst. Rubber perishes easily in tropical climates. “…and it is our last hot water bottle!” she exclaimed.

As in the West, it is no good crying over spilled milk; so, in Central Africa it might be considered no good crying over a burst water bottle. They do not grow on trees, and there are no drugstores down forest pathways. All right,” I said, “Put the baby as near the fire as you safely can; sleep between the baby and the door to keep it free from drafts. Your job is to keep the baby warm.”

The following noon, as I did most days, I went to have prayers with many of the orphanage children who chose to gather with me. I gave the youngsters various suggestions of things to pray about and told them about the tiny baby. I explained our problem about keeping the baby warm enough, mentioning the hot water bottle. The baby could so easily die if it got chilled. I also told them about the two-year-old sister, crying because her mother had died.

During the prayer time, one ten-year-old girl, Ruth, prayed with the usual blunt consciousness of our African children. “Please, God,” she prayed, “send us a water bottle. It’ll be no good tomorrow, God, the baby’ll be dead; so, please send it this afternoon.” While I gasped inwardly at the audacity of the prayer, she added by way of corollary, ” …And while You are about it, would You please send a dolly for the little girl so she’ll know You really love her?”

As often with children’s prayers, I was put on the spot. Could I honestly say, “Amen?” I just did not believe that God could do this. Oh, yes, I know that He can do everything: The Bible says so, but there are limits, aren’t there? The only way God could answer this particular prayer would be by sending a parcel from the homeland. I had been in Africa for almost four years at that time, and I had never, ever received a parcel from home. Anyway, if anyone did send a parcel, who would put in a hot water bottle? I lived on the equator!

Halfway through the afternoon, while I was teaching in the nurses’ training school, a message was sent that there was a car at my front door. By the time that I reached home, the car had gone, but there, on the veranda, was a large twenty-two pound parcel! I felt tears pricking my eyes. I could not open the parcel alone; so, I sent for the orphanage children. Together we pulled off the string, carefully undoing each knot. We folded the paper, taking care not to tear it unduly.

Excitement was mounting. Some thirty or forty pairs of eyes were focused on the large cardboard box. From the top, I lifted out brightly colored, knitted jerseys. Eyes sparkled as I gave them out. Then, there were the knitted bandages for the leprosy patients, and the children began to look a little bored.

Next, came a box of mixed raisins and sultanas – – that would make a nice batch of buns for the weekend. As I put my hand in again, I felt the…could it really be? I grasped it, and pulled it out. Yes, “A brand-new rubber, hot water bottle!” I cried. I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed that He could.

Ruth was in the front row of the children. She rushed forward, crying out, “If God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly, too!” Rummaging down to the bottom of the box, she pulled out the small, beautifully dressed dolly. Her eyes shone: She had never doubted! Looking up at me, she asked, “Can I go over with you, Mummy, and give this dolly to that little girl, so she’ll know that Jesus really loves her?”

That parcel had been on the way for five whole months, packed up by my former Sunday School class, whose leader had heard and obeyed God’s prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator. One of the girls had put in a dolly for an African child — five months earlier in answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year-old to bring it “That afternoon!” “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” Isaiah 65:24 ”

Becoming 25% Happier, and Dabbling with Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project

By Anita Mathias

Research suggests that people who keep gratitude journals are 25% happier? And who wouldn’t want to be 25% happier?

But after decades of journal keeping, I no longer keep one. Between my blog, Facebook and Twitter, I record everything I want to remember, and work out my puzzlements, joys, epiphanies and griefs in public. Even if the triggering event or emotion is a bit submerged and transmuted in my blog’s version of “art!”

So how keep a gratitude journal? I no longer even know where my journal is.

* * *

So I bought Dr. Amen’s Change your Brain, Change your Body Journal,which has spaces to record your 5 reasons for gratitude; your exercise; diet; vitamins, prevailing positivity or negativity, and other brain healthy habits. I have long been told of the benefits of recording what you eat. Perhaps this journal will make it simpler.

Interestingly, just knowing that I am going to record 5 things at night, keeps me alert to recognize them during the day. Cultivates an attitude of gratitude. For instance, I recorded today that glory be!!–both the massive overgrown climbing pink roses and the climbing yellow roses we inherited with the house have burst into luxuriant blossom in our week away–and are almost singing!! That Irene got into the finals of her speech competition. That she has such a good circle of friends. That Roy arrived home safely from a drive to London, when he was exhausted. That I have easily found a good camper van to possibly buy.

I learnt about Dr. Amen, a psychiatrist, from Rick Warren’s Daniel Plan, which Amen co-wrote. I am reading his The Brain Healthy Way to get Thinner, Smarter and Happier, and trying some of his tips.

I am also reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, though, interestingly, I am happy. My happiness varies from day to day, but it surrounds me, like “the happiness fog,” Rubin talks about.

The project I would most like to successfully embark on and complete would be a discipline project, a productivity project, or a weight-loss project. But some of Rubin’s suggestions would work for these too.

Rubin’s book, incidentally, is fascinating. Happiness has been extensively studied for centuries, particularly recently, and, as she says, the laws of happiness are as fixed as the laws of chemistry.

Rubins explains that 50 percent of a person’s happiness is determined by genetics, by their “set-point of happiness.”(Fortunately, I have always had a sanguine, optimistic disposition, and a high happiness set-point.) Life circumstances, such as age, gender ethnicity, marital status, income, health, occupation and religion account for 10-20% of one’s happiness. The remainder is a product of how a person thinks and acts.

Isn’t that amazing? That our life’s circumstances only affect 10-20 % of our happiness, and 30 % depends on our attitude. (And I can tell you, from my own experience of having had a very bad attitude that this is true!!).

* * *

And so Rubin starts her happiness project with the determination to sleep more and to exercise, having discovered that these directly affect happiness. She decides that outer order would bring inner peace, and starts a massive decluttering project.

Her research suggests that getting an extra hour of sleep each night might do more for the average person’s happiness than earning an extra $60,000. I don’t doubt it. What good would $60,000 do you if you were exhausted? How could it make you happier? However, the average adult, she states, is chronically sleep-deprived, which “impairs memory, weakens the immune system, slows metabolism, and might foster weight gain.”

So, her method of sleeping more is the radical one of switching off the light at 9.30 p.m., even if she was wide awake.

I have started doing this since I started the Daniel Plan–switching off my light at 10.40 p.m., which is an effort for me, since I am more creative at night. And so, I have been using the extra time for prayer, and have been waking significantly earlier.

Rubin’s other happiness projects were using a pedometer to walk 10,000 steps, and working out with weights. Sadly, I have never got to 10,000, and have neglected weights, since I started prayer walking. Must weave this back into my life.

* * *

The last of her happiness resolutions for the first month of her project was decluttering.

Mess has been a bug bear in our lives in the past, and we have set aside a few hours a week to declutter for the last 4 years. But there is still clutter to go, alas—and it is motivational and happy-making to get rid of it. Rubin cites studies which suggest that getting rid of clutter reduces housework time by 40%!! That’s an incentive, isn’t it?

Last month, my leveraged small step to revise my life was decluttering for 15 minutes a day.

Well, on the 15^th of July, Roy’s brother Jeph, his sister-in-law Kaaren, and 4 children, twin girls of Irene’s age, and a younger boy and a preschool girl are visiting. 6 additional people. Cooking meals for ten!!

Well, I can’t get my mind around that yet. But I do know that I will have to declutter a lot to have the house brighter, airy, more hospitable (and child-proofed!!).

So my plan is to gradually increase my decluttering time by 5 minutes a day, until I am doing 90 minutes a day of tossing, giving away or putting away. Until the 15^th of July. By when several rooms should be totally decluttered. And I will then add a new good habit to increase productivity, discipline or good health. And get my life into a continuing virtuous circle.

So help me, God!!

Brief Photo-Blog of Adventures in County Donegal, Ireland

By Anita Mathias

A view of the Blue Stack Mountains in Co. Donegal. Zoe and Irene took an hour to get to the top.

Mountain hikes are the most perfect form of relaxation. The Blue Stack Mountains were unbelievably deserted. Except for my excitable family’s voices, there was natural silence: the murmur of streams, the occasional bleat of sheep, the wind, the chirrup of insects (the species Darwin claimed God loves the best since they vastly outnumber any other life form), and the occasional sound of birds. As you can see, it is a treeless mountain, so the only birds were lapwings, grouse and other ground-dwellers–bird song was infrequent, but high and sweet.

The grass is full of these compressible foot high mounds

There are numerous decrepit stone houses, often with sheep sheltering inside them.

Lovely Lough Eske in the rain from the Blue Stack Mountains.

There is very very little left of Assaroe Abbey, a Cistercian Abbey founded in 1184. It was already in decay in Cromwellian times when its stone was used for building in the area.

Brook that turned the Abbey’s water mill

“Catsby Cave”, also known as “St. Patrick’s Oratory”

The Catsby Cave is unquestionably very ancient. During Penal times, Masses were celebrated here, and consecrated bread and wine were distributed.

Abbey Watermill

The Abbey was most sacred place of interment in the surrounding area, and many dead were brought down the river Shannon and buried on the hill above the Abbey. This ancient cemetery is no longer visible, here are some photos from a more modern extension.

Some modern and very personal graves at the top of the hill. Dates of birth are not generally recorded on the headstones. The Irish memorialize what their dear departed best loved in their graves

(the smudge is a raindrop)

There is a large area reserved for the nearby Sisters of Mercy, Ballyshannon

The individual memorials testify that these nuns all lived very long lives — mostly 60 or 70 years in religious life.

There is whole hillside of more traditional Celtic crosses

It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

A photo-essay blog of our trip to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland

By Anita Mathias

On the road in Ireland

Well, we’re in Ireland for the week, celebrating the end of Zoe’s A-S exams (public exams taken by 17 year olds, for my non-British readers). And we choose Ireland, because it’s slow, magical, green, and fascinating.

We have taken a ferry from Wales to the Republic of Ireland in the past, but this time decided to take a ferry from Stranraer in Scotland to Larne in Northern Ireland, to show the kids a bit of the six counties of Northern Ireland.

A few pictures along the way:

Gorse and hawthorn by the road to the Giant’s Causeway

Scotch-Irish pride

Celebrating the queen

Celebrating the queen in the center of Ballymoney

This “shop window” is actually painted

Another of the many painted windows

The Giant’s Causeway is Northern Ireland’s foremost tourist attraction and it is a natural wonder, with its massive hexagonal columns. I enjoyed the colourful beach with its pinks, owl’s clover and bright yellow gorse.

Some pictures of the basalt columns–not all are hexagons, as you can see.

Columns with barnacles

These columns are on the back of the columns in the previous pictures

Zoe on top of Finn Maccool’s Shoe

Zoe and Irene posing

Zoe, Irene and I

The Northern Irish are far blunter than the English. We took a National Trust bus out, and Diane, the cheery guide tells the passengers, “Now I know most of you won’t speak English, but hopefully, you’ll understand a little.” In England, they’d pretend that, of course, everyone understood English.

I love the Irish accent. “It’s like leprechauns,” Irene says, though how she knows what leprechauns sound like, beats me.

* * *

Lakes, for me, are sheer magic, second only to the ocean. So we spent a day on Lough Erne in County Fermanagh. Rented a Canadian canoe, and rowed out among the baby ducklings, the mallards, the coots, and magical swans. Perfect relaxation!! (The photos don’t capture it.)

A rather eccentric boat.

A disused concrete pier

A boat hosue

Crossing from Great Britain to the Republic of Ireland is the most unspectacular border crossing ever. You are driving down a modest, narrow road, and suddenly read, “Welcome to Donegal,” and the signs are in Irish, and you say, “Kids, we are in a foreign country,” and that’s it!!

We are in a camper van, and camped by the most magical lake, surrounded by pink rhododendron bushes which were reflected in the lake on our first night in Ireland.

Photo of the lake taken at 10:30 pm

In the morning, the rhododendrons are much clearer

Close up of a horsetail

Then walked on a beach, quite far out. The tide obviously came in behind us; Irene, who had decided to sit on the sea wall and read, suddenly hollered, “the tide’s rushing in,” and we looked around. And so it had. We landed up wading back through hip-deep freezing Atlantic waters. Third time in my life that I’ve been caught out—once in Virginia and once in Oregon. Must get the hang of tides!!

These plants would soon be submerged

* * *

Camped (well, in the motor home) wild out by Lough Eske last night. Today’s adventures: I want to visit the ruined Abbey Assaroe, founded by the Cistercians in 1184, to soak in the remnants of peace and holiness that still cleave to these holy places. Want to drive into and hike on the Blue Stack mountains, and walk on the sea cliffs at Slieve League.

And deeply breathe in the peace and serenity of County Donegal!!

Mind, Body, Soul, Spirit

By Anita Mathias

Mind, Body, Soul, Spirit

Prayer ministry training at St. Aldate’s, Oxford, used this vivid illustration. Four people stood in a circle up front, arms around each other’s waists. If you tugged at one, all four came along. They had an unbreakable connection. They represented, of course, the body, mind, spirit and soul or emotions.

The skit was meant to illustrate the complexity of human beings. The presenting symptom in prayer ministry is rarely the root cause of the problem. Persistent physical symptoms, like stomach aches, headaches, colds and coughs, can be the result of job or relational stress. Similarly, physical ill health can cause job or relational stress.

Intellectual malaise—not using your mind, especially for the intellectually gifted, can cause depression, and its attendant problems. Extreme loneliness, relational stress or depression can affect one’s health, the vibrancy of one’s spiritual life, and even one’s ability to think clearly. And when the spiritual life, the motor of one’s life, is out of kilter or non-existent, one’s social life, physical life and friendships are below par.

In prayer ministry, I myself am less interested in praying for the presenting symptom—“I am not productive;” “I need to lose weight;” “I am lonely/angry”—and more interested in praying over and into the underlying root cause. Our symptoms—a weight problem, writers’ blocks, depression, and chronic fatigue are often the presenting “fruit” or flower. The problem lies in the roots, and that’s where healing begins.

* * *

And so, when one prays for oneself or one’s family, it’s important to pray for vision to see the roots, as well the presenting problem, the fruit, and pray for healing of both.

The Catholic monastics evolved a schedule which gave proper weight to each of these dimensions of personality. A contemporary Benedictine schedule calls for 3.15 minutes of manual work, 3 hours of reading and study, including Scripture study, and 4.5 hours of prayer and religious activity (including the Divine Office, Eucharist and Choir Practice). The schedule included 3 meals in community and half an hour of community recreation, which I guess played a part in meeting social and emotional needs.

Excellence, in any one area, which involves concentration and focus on it—intellectually for a scholar or a blogger, spiritually for a mystic or spiritual writer, physically for an athlete, may involve some short-changing of other dimensions.

However, to neglect any of the four elements of our make up as human beings which Scripture recognizes in its statement—love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength– leaves us, to some extent, stunted, and walking with a limp.

I emphasize my spiritual life, and, to a lesser extent, my intellectual life. Socially, we have dinner together as a family almost every day, and Roy and I have a quick lunch together on weekdays. I also make sure I pencil in two coffees or lunches with friends each week. I have neglected physical fitness for years, and am in a slow recovery of strength and fitness project.

How about you? Which dimensions of human personality have you most developed? And which ones are you working on developing?

The Things which Make me Happiest

By Anita Mathias

My daughter Irene, and I. Note one source of I’s happiness in her paw

I am flicking through Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project, her quest for happiness through a life makeover with many small changes like going to sleep earlier, and diminishing clutter.

I used to regard things like Oxford’s Happiness research with some scepticism, perhaps dogmatically believing that happiness has spiritual roots, comes from harmony with God.

But that’s too dogmatic. Small steps like diminishing clutter, improving organization, avoiding negative thinking and exercising—open to both Christian and non-Christian—definitely do improve one’s happiness. Getting an extra hour of sleep it is claimed makes you 25% happier!!

So, flicking through Gretchen’s book got me wondering. What makes me happiest?

* * *

I was rattled yesterday and busy, packing for our holiday, and so just had a brief 20 minute quiet time after going to small group. Just lay, face down, in soaking prayer, which helps me enter the presence of God most rapidly. And soon felt happier and calmer.

I don’t want to sound goody-goody, but that is what restores my happiness most rapidly: Prayer. Sometimes I might feel snubbed, or treated unfairly or rudely. When I am wise, I let the fountain of God’s love wash away the hurt before it festers and turns cancerous. Sometimes, I am angry. Again, when I am wise, I seek, in prayer, to let the waterfall of God’s love pour onto the anger before it turns malignant.

Prayer, positioning myself in the force field, in the waterfall of God’s love, helps worries, fear, and insecurity dissolve. I feel a bit unanchored and directionless until I have prayed, and then a whole lot happier after I have prayed.

Reading Scripture for me is another source of wisdom, sanity, and happiness—besides being a stabilizer!

* * *

My second greatest source of joy is my garden. I love being alone in it, working, while the sun shines and birds sing. It’s the most sublime relaxation.

I love museums and art galleries, losing myself in paintings. I have taught myself quite a lot about art over the last quarter century or so, but am self-taught, and almost wonder if a naïve appreciation heightens my pleasure. Perhaps not. However, if I overhear the experts talk about my favourite paintings in museums I often wander away—I prefer letting paintings speak to me in their own language, rather than analysing them in a left-brain way.

I love movies, and enjoy them thoroughly while I watch them. Movies, though, hold you enthralled, and you can’t really analyse them in medias res as you can’t gauge the plot twists. If they are disappointing, I am left with a de-energized, dissatisfied emptiness, a sense I have wasted time. But Roy loves movies, and so many are magical, so yes, they are on my happy list.

* * *

Somehow, over two decades of being married to a man who does not love reading, and amid the hurly-burly of parenting, running a business, and blogging, I suddenly found that reading, one of the greatest sources of happiness from my single days is slowly slipping off my radar.

I have instead got into the habit of tearing the heart out of books—skim reading. I am, however, slowly recovering the habit, through a reading project in which I read a book in 30 days in January, 29 days in Feb., and so on. By the end of next year, I will be back to reading a book a week. I used to read more than that as a single woman, but just returning there will make me happy— besides, of course, the pleasure of the good books.

Travel! I love it. A great source of pleasure, joy and happiness for me. It’s partly the perfect moments—sitting out in a garden in Europe, sipping tea, looking at the layered Romanesque and Gothic architecture around you, while the birds sing, and you are perfectly at peace. Sitting out on a beach, watching herons, cormorants, and the blood-red sun sink.

I love the change, the relaxation, the narrow winding cobbled streets in Europe, the past so present, the unforced living history, the experience of new foods, new shops, new customs. And the sheer beauty of nature, as in Ireland or New Zealand.

* * *

When my kids were young, say under 5, watching them, watching their joy was perfect happiness. Teenagers are, well, teenagerish, but the sudden moments of perfect harmony in family life are happiness. As is perfect rapport with a friend. Conversations which stretch your horizons, and make you feel as if sparklers are exploding in your brain. Books, lectures or sermons which do the same.

I am, sadly, not particularly physically fit, but sometimes when I walk, it’s as if my whole body comes to life and pulses with vibrancy and energy. And then I am so happy to be alive, to feel the joy of movement, to be high on endorphins, to feel the sun, soak in the green fields, and hear the birds.

And one of the things which makes me the happiest of all is writing. I love the first draft, and I love editing—though the multiple edits necessary for a polished piece of work can bore me!!

Writing out what makes me happy makes me happy to realize how simple and inexpensive and available most of them are.

How about you? What makes you happy?

anita.mathias