Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Thomas More, “A Man for All Seasons” and the Price of Integrity

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A Man for All Seasons

I love A Man for all Seasons, Robert Bolt’s portrayal of the tragic, infuriating Thomas More. We recently saw it acted in The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, in which many of the characters, More, Wolsey and Cranmer had worshipped, and in which Cranmer was sentenced to death.
Thomas More was, by all accounts, a remarkable man.  Erasmus saluted him as one “whose soul was more pure than any snow.” Jonathan Swift said he was “the person of the greatest virtue this kingdom ever produced”. Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper said More was “the first great Englishman whom we feel that we know, the most saintly of humanists, the most human of saints, the universal man of our cool northern renaissance.” 
Robert Whittington in 1520 wrote of More: “More is a man of an angel’s wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons.”
He was imprisoned, and ultimately lost his life for what appeared to his wife and more friends with a better grasp of political expediency as minor matters—refusing to sign the Act of Successionor approve of the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon.
But he was right. Henry was a classic, insecure bully, demanding ever greater total allegiance and proof of it. If More had given in, ever more would have been demanded, until there was a price he could not have paid, and then he would, very likely, have died anyway, but as a bitter, compromised man. That’s what happened to Cromwell, and Wolsey, and then to Cranmer under Mary.
Every man has his price, goes the cynical saying. Well, not everyone, fortunately. There are men of integrity, or stubbornness, who will not compromise their integrity for the whole world. (My own father was often like this, often annoyingly so!) Thomas More, proud of, and defined by, his integrity, was rather lose his wealth, and life than substantially compromise his integrity.
The story of Thomas More who refused to sign and loses his life, is in ironic juxtaposition to Richard Rich, who betrays, and toadies up to the right people and gains great wealth—Leez Priory, and a hundred manors in Essex during the Dissolution, spoils which remained in the family until the nineteenth century. During the final years of the reigns of Henry, Edward, and Mary, he was in favour of whatever religion was in power.
The play is a brilliant illustration of Jesus’s maxim which the playwright, Robert Bolt has More ask Rich, “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?”
Even on a purely temporal basis, it seems to ask if it is worth gaining power and success at the cost of one’s integrity? As we see Thomas More in prison for years, and then beheaded, while Cromwell and Richard Rich flourish, the question is not merely academic.
As for me, I want to choose peace and integrity. To say what I believe, and not to pretend to believe what I do not believe, or be who I am not. And, I am grateful I do not live in the reign of Henry VIII, where it often came to choosing between your integrity and your life.

 

Jonah Surprises

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Image credit

We’ve just finished studying Jonah in the small group I’m co-leading. I really enjoyed its complexity. Some thoughts!
Can you run away from God?
Yes, all the time. We can do precisely the opposite of what we know he wants us to do, in small things, like diet, discipline, or in global matters.

And can we get away with it?
Ummm, yes. Yes, we can go our whole lives doing the precise opposite of what God wants us to do, and may be wealthy, healthy and successful.
There will be consequences, but these may not be apparent. We will however not have the jewels of the spiritual life—peace, joy, shalom, though we many have earthly jewels.
 It was “the severe mercy” of God that provided Jonah a chance to repent!

So Jonah’s in the belly of the whale? What turns things around?
He prays to the Lord with utter faith, and astonishingly, he prays in the future tense, as if what he has prayed for has already happened.
I have been banished from your sight,
Yet I will look again,
Towards your holy temple.
I, with a song of thanksgiving,
Will sacrifice to you.”

 God Offers Second Chances
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, “Go to the great city of Nineveh, and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
Jonah responds this time. He proclaims, “Forty more days, and Nineveh will be destroyed.” Surely the shortest sermon ever preached.
It elicits a disproportionate response.

Repentance Frees us from the Dreary Laws of Cause and Effect, Sowing and Reaping
God is apparently determined to destroy Nineveh because of its “wickedness.”
But the King does everything to try to avert the dark destiny which appears to hang over the city. He orders the people to fast, to pray, and to repent, “to give up their evil ways and their violence. So that God would relent, and with compassion turn from his fierce anger.”
And God does.
When we have sinned and disobeyed God, there is always this way of re-entering the force field of God’s blessing—we fast, we pray, and we repent, and stop those sinful actions.

God is concerned about both people and animals
But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” Jonah 4:10.

God gives us many chances, but perhaps not infinite chances. The story moves on.
If we reject God’s invitations too often, his loving story goes on, but with us outside it.
God again confronts Jonah, asking him the same question twice, “Have you any right to be angry.”
Jonah has had enough. His answer to the second question is, “I do. I am angry enough to die.”
God justifies his actions, but as far as we know, Jonah does not repent.
His gift was to be a prophet, one who heard God’s voice. His former prophecies, about the restoration of Israel’s former borders, 2 Kings 14:25, had been fulfilled. But we never hear about Jonah again. He is furious with God, with God’s ways, with God’s mercy, and if the word of the Lord ever comes to him again, we never hear of it.
It reminds me of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, who has finally had enough, as he tells us. God asks him the same question twice, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” and when he receives the same answer—after the display of God’s power: the wind, the earthquake, the fire, the whisper, which suggests that Elijah was not really listening or receptive to God’s voice, or “getting it” as prophets must—God moves on, he commissions Elisha. God’s story continues, but Elijah’s role in it is over.

God is incorrigibly merciful and often shows mercy to the undeserving. Sulking leaves us out of his continuing story of mercy and love.
Jonah amusingly tells God off for his mercy. “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.
Sulking that God is slow to anger, not executing judgement on those we think he should,  cuts us off from the flow of God’s love, mercy and compassion, and we are the losers.
The elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son refuses to enter the house of dancing, music and the fatted calf. Similarly, Jonah cannot accept God’s goodness, and reproaches God. While the younger son and the people of Nineveh rejoice, the good son, and the prophet of God are outside in the fields, outside the happy city, sulking at God’s mercy to the undeserving.
We need to continue forgiving to be in God’s story of goodness and answered prayer (Mk 11:25) and to accept that is a God of mercy and compassion to us, just as much as to those we think are less deserving.

My Sunday walk around my garden and the Oxford countryside

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The field next to our garden has two new foals.  Though still suckling, they have halters.

Clematis on our garden wall.  The flowers change from fuschia to bluish-purple to light mauve as they mature.

A birch in Marston, Oxford, where I was at a tea party today at Paul’s house.
Wisteria covering a house in Northmoor Road, Oxford, reminds us of the wonderful wisteria under which we had tea yesterday at the Watts house.
A view in Marston, showing blue, two shades of green, pink, yellow, and white.
This field adjoins our orchard

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When He Breathes the Spirit on me

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And he breathed on them, and said, Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22)
I’ve said too much.
I spoke too freely.
And I fear
I have betrayed a confidence
And, oh, of people I care about!
And I feel
Small.
The weight of failure
Shame
Regret
Presses on me.
         * * *
And then I feel you
Breathe.
Breathe on me.
Receive the Holy Spirit, you say.
And I too breathe it in,
I let it fill me.
Pulsing waves of mercy,
Waves of love,
Waves of the mystery
That you love me.
            
 You know, I’ve realised this so recently,
And it overwhelms me.
Where should I stray from that love?
Never let me dream of it.
Let me live in it
Right in its waterfall.
             * * *
You breathe on me
Until I am full of your love,
And I smile.

The Panic of Other People’s Success

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I wrote this as a guest post for Rev Angie Mabry-Nauta, and I am taking the liberty of reposting it here, because, well, its author lives here!!

How to Deal with the Panic and Futility of Literary Comparisons
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
How The Desiderata speaks to writers!
Many writers—late developers precisely because of their vastness of their ambition, and the uniqueness of their gift—compare themselves with others and panic. Here’s the blogger Rachel Held Evans anguishing about Anne Jackson’s effortless success.
Here’s Milton, aged 23:
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom showeth.
And how does he deal with the sad, uneasy knowledge that others are writing more, achieving more, becoming more famous?
He refers it to God:
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even 
To that same lot, however mean, or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heav’n;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great taskmaster’s eye.
How much I write, and if and when fame comes, I’ll leave in God’s hands, he decides. All I need to write, I have—if God gives me grace to use it. All I need is grace.
* * *
And then, by 46, he is blind–and has still not written the one immortal work he longed to, “something which the world will not willingly let die.”
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, he mourns.
Perhaps what God wants from us is our surrender, Milton muses. Perhaps he wants to place ourselves, and our talents in his hands, like clay in a potter’s hands. And then he can use us!
“God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.
They also serve who only stand and wait,” he concludes
And when he is fifty, his long labour and his long patience pay off. Paradise Lost almost writes itself; he said it was as if an angel dictated it to him each night. In the morning, the blind poet sat, dressed tidily, waiting to be “milked” by his daughters to whom he dictated it.
* * *
Gerard Manley Hopkins, another strikingly original poet, struggles when he sees the less gifted flourish, while he, the poet devoted to God and poetry, flounders
Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause.
But, like Milton, he realizes that there is no nourishment in this railing, and he turns back to God for inspiration and nutrition.
 Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain, he prays.
  * * *
And when we compare our ambition, our training, our gifts to our own output? Or compare ourselves to the more successful—but perhaps less gifted. And the comparison makes us sad!! What should we do?
We turn to God, who gives literary gifts. Who said to Moses, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute?  Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”  (Ex 4 11-12).  And we rely on his enabling!
* * *
How can Christian writers increase the odds that our words bless our generation, and, with luck, generations after us?
We cleave to Jesus in faith, for he promised, Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him,” (John 7:38). And as we drink, these streams of living water will inevitably flow through our work!
We seek an “anointing” from the Holy Spirit, the life-giving river flowing from God. Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” (Ezekiel 47: 12).
From our immersion in Jesus, our play in the fields of the Lord, our soaking in the spirit, will flow writing like fruit trees which will not wither. Which will bear fruit every month for food and healing.  
      * * *
There is a way of stress and hustling open to writers, worrying about readers, rankings, and sales.  And there is a way of peace: hearing God’s voice, drinking in his spirit, letting his words and thoughts flow through you. Making peace with being a stream-of-spirit blogger rather than a ninja blogger.
Success is not guaranteed, either way. The race is not to the swiftest, not favour indeed to the wise. Not every writer gets published; not every published writer is widely read; not all today’s writers will be read in twenty years. And not every writer who overhears and records God’s whispers will be celebrated in her hometown, or elsewhere (Mark 12 2-5).
But if you have tried the way of hard work and networking, and are exhausted, discouraged and broken, letting the Lord be your literary agentand muse is infinitely better!!
* * *
Our life and our literary biography is a story, co-written by God and us. He gives us some plot elements: intelligence, education, literary flair, and the time to develop it. We burnish these through study and practice. We can mess up our part of our story. Waste time in depression, anger, disorganization, and frivolity.
But he is the master artist who loves the theme of redemption and specializes in happy endings. And his master plot for creation is a comedy.  It ends with a marriage feast, eating, drinking and merry-making, according to Revelation.
And so we can safely entrust our story and our literary ambitions to him. Between us, we’ll write a beautiful happy ending!

Anita Mathias has written Wandering Between Two Worlds, and blogs at Dreaming Beneath the Spires. Her writing has been recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts award; she lives in Oxford, England with her husband and daughters.

Blogging: The Greatest Democratisation of Writing the World Has Seen.

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Stoke Poges Churchyard, Buckinghamshire


Thomas Gray who wrote “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” was an extremely self-critical poet, paralyzed by the fear of failure. Though he had devoted his life to a self-imposed programme of literary study, and was known as one of the most learned men of his generation, he published a mere 13 poems in his lifetime, 1000 lines, which might be mistaken for “the collected works of a flea,” he said sadly.

In the graveyard of Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, he ponders the graves of those whose lives were not blighted by ambition–or thwarted ambition.  

But were they any less gifted then the household names of their generation? Statistically, the inhabitants of Stoke Poges should have had the same probability of producing a genius like Milton, a leader like Cromwell as any other town. They did not. Why? Gray muses

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;
Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.

Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation’s eyes,
Their lot forbad: 

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;
Along the cool sequester’d vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

He mourns these “mute inglorious Miltons,” “born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air.” 

                                              * * *

However, with the explosion of blogging, the gatekeepers are losing their power, and anyone with a winsome voice who speaks to people can eventually find her audience, though she might live far from urban literary hubs. Miltons, particularly female ones, are no longer mute or inglorious!

In fact, “Miltons”, who live far from the madding crowd, find a voice–and an audience. The farmer’s wife Ann Voskamp in rural Canada, mother of six children who finds the sacred in the everyday. Or the nomadic Jessica Bowman, to mention at random, two blogs I enjoyed this week. Sweetness is no longer wasted on the desert air, in Gray’s phrase. It can be shared. And that is good, for sweetness should be shared. 

Blogging is the greatest democratization of writing the world has seen–and probably its greatest explosion of shared knowledge and experience. That’s not to say an audience comes immediately—it still takes time, and application. However, one can gain one’s audience unmediated, based on whether your writing speaks to head, spirit and heart, without needing to convince a gatekeeper.


And that is one of the many reasons I love blogging.

The Faith of Children: Adventures in Bringing up Christian Children

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Irene at 4 in Switzerland, thanking God for the waterfall and Zoe behind her.

Once, when we were travelling in Switzerland with Irene aged 4, she needed the loo in a mall. The lady who left the loo held the door open for her, and she entered, omitting the 25 centime coin you pay to open the door.

Well, outwitted by the Swiss! If you enter a loo without the coin, the door won’t open when you want to leave. I was frantic. Somehow found the receptionist, after some delay, who came and opened the door.
Oh, Irene–she had been alone for a while, locked in a loo.
And when the door was opened, we saw a curly headed cherub, sitting on the toilet seat, smiling. 
“Aww,” said the dour Swiss lady, in spite of herself.
“Irene,” I asked, “Weren’t you scared?”
“Well, yes, at first,” she said. “Then, I prayed, and I wasn’t scared.”
The faith of children!
All that holiday, she spontaneously joined her hands and prayed thanking God for the bears she saw in the pit in Berne (which means Bear), the bears in Berne Cathedral, and for her own stuffed bear she called, “Bearly.” Thanked God for the waterfalls, and the flowers and the Alps and the snow and the high passes. It was as spiritual a holiday as my own, and I couldn’t have been prouder of her.
                                             * * * 
  I often tell the girls that prayer immensely improves one’s IQ, and one’s thinking. Now the answers one gets when one prays are not necessarily logical, may seem crazy or quixotic, but hey, they work. And as one obeys directives received in prayer, you trust the internal voice of God more, and your family trusts you more when you say you have received inner guidance as to a business or family decision.
When Irene played chess, she would frequently bury her face in her hands and pray when she either didn’t know what the best move was, or when she hoped her opponent wouldn’t see what the obvious best move was. (She was very good, ranked among the top two female players in her age group, but she has very sadly given it up.) And often, the inner voice would suggest moves, and she would startle us, by winning against far older players with far higher rankings.
                                     * * * 
Irene at 13 has developed into a serious minded young lady, who takes her studies very seriously, loves them, and excels at them. Her Mother’s Day card was in three languages–Chinese, which she is learning at School, French and English. (Zoe’s was in Latin, Greek, French and English. Their school, Oxford High School, is linguistically strong.)
And so, she often wants to skip church to do beautiful homework.
And I don’t let her skip church. She is fit and strong, friendly, and clever. But, if she does not develop the fourth dimension of her personality, her spirituality, she might well “limp” in life. And, so we insist in active involvement in church, and youth group—and once she gets there, she enjoys it.
I remember the excruciating boredom of church. I went to a Catholic boarding school and had to go to Mass 5 days a week until I was 16; to 2 choir practices a week; a hour of Benediction every Sunday, an additional hour of contemplative prayer, “Adoration” every first Sunday; Blue Army in Middle School, Catechism 5 days a week…Oh, I am sure there was more.
Like Irene, I have a freak verbal memory. Both of us can memorize poetry or well-written prose very easily, almost without realizing that we are doing so. So I emerged from all that forced religion knowing the Gospels almost by heart. (This helps in learning other languages; when I read them in French or the original Koine Greek, it’s easier, because I pretty much know them by heart in English.) I know the Psalms almost by heart, and Proverbs because I heard them read out every day in my childhood, and of course, have read them, and listened to them on tape often as an adult. 
In times of stress, and crisis, and emotional need, comfort came to me in the words of hymns I learned as a child; psalms I had unconsciously memorized as a child; or the words and actions of Jesus when I knew so well. Wisdom, guidance, comfort, peace.
And so, I believe there is some value in requiring children to go to church, because of the repository of wisdom they absorb!
                                     * * * 
Irene, however, does know her Gospels very well. We play them in the car on family trip in a variety of translations, and frequently read a chapter after dinner.
When the girls were younger, we attempted some of the family devotions suggested by Dick Woodward the pastor emeritus of the church we attended, Williamsburg Community Chapel. He suggested family prayer and Bible reading.
Well, Irene was 2 and Zoe 6. Irene completely confused God and her parents, which was rather flattering. She bowed her curly head, joined her hands, and asked, “Please may I have some mukie (milk)?” “No, no, Irene, don’t pray for milk,” we said
.
She frowned, closed her eyes, bowed her head, joined her hands and tried again,
 “Then, please may I have some joocy (juice).” 
Irene’s next prayer attempts were, “God please hep Zo-Zo no poosh me, no peench me, no puuul my hair!”
Zoe prayed earnestly when it was her turn. Dick Woodward however suggested an hour for family devotions, which was an awfully long time. Finally, Zoe burst out exasperated, “I wish God had never invented those Woodworks!!”
                                         * * * 
So, will my kids grow up to be Christians? You know, I believe they will. When all my attempts fail, I oddly relax, and try what I call the nuclear option, soaking the situation in prayer.
 I told Irene, “If you show no interest in anything spiritual, I am going to start praying that God will grab you, and he may need to do something dramatic to get your attention, and you may not like that.”

Well, Irene has great faith in my prayer, since we’ve seen so much change and changed around once we started praying seriously. Her little face grew troubled, and earnest and dark. 
“If you think God might let sad things happen to get my attention and convert me, why should you pray that I would become a Christian?” she asked.
Why indeed? Because life truly does not make sense without God. Life without God is like a very long, complex equation, the sort of thing Roy would work out, covering half a page, which never ever finds a solution, a logical, satisfying answer.  

Some links to blogs you might enjoy

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22 Words: The little dog smiles to himself at his friend’s troubles.
1 Ann Voskamp—The Happy Mom Manifesto
The only thing that has to be written in stone is when to pray.
If one’s not praying regularly, it’s only because something else is regularly loved more than God.
 5. Why be afraid of anything —  when our God is using everything?
7. This is always a choice: You can erupt — or pluck.  You can be an Erupter — or a Plucker. You can choose.
(Pluck a feather from your mother duck breast to warm your nest & nestlings)
10. Happiness isn’t when the house is perfect. Happiness is when His Word and your walk are in harmony.
I, (Anita) often pray, “Don’t let my blog grow faster than I grow spiritually. Don’t let the growth of my blog outstrip my spiritual growth.” It was lovely to see that one of the world’s most successful Christian bloggers prays this too!
 I (Anita) have been unsubscribing from people who cause me to sin (because I find them irritating or unrelentingly show-offy) but am now doing it with more rigour!! Also unsubscribing from school, college or old church friends whom I barely remember. And so my Facebook is far more interesting!!
(An old one I’d bookmarked)
“Our greatest need–my greatest need–is the daily presence of the Holy Spirit.”
These topics, the interior spiritual life are less popular than writing from the Church or other Christians, but so much better for our soul.

“There are so many layers to the healing of the soul. One practice that has brought incredible healing is the taking of a Sabbath. Now when we read the word Sabbath, most of us think that the real issue behind the Sabbath isn’t which day of the week it is but how we live all the time.
I decided to start taking one day a week to cease from work. And what I discovered is that I couldn’t even do it at first.
I would go into depression.
By the afternoon I would be so . . . low.
I realized that my life was all about keeping the adrenaline buzz going and that I was only really happy when I was going all the time. When I stopped to spend a day to remember that I am loved just because I exist, I found out how much of my efforts were about earning something I already have.
Sabbath is taking a day a week to remind myself that I did not make the world and that it will continue to exist without my efforts.
Sabbath is a day when my work is done, even if it isn’t.
Sabbath is a day when my job is to enjoy. Period.
Sabbath is a day when I am fully available to myself and those I love most.
Sabbath is a day when I remember that when God made the world, he saw that it was good.
Sabbath is a day when I produce nothing.
Sabbath is a day when I remind myself that I am not a machine.
Sabbath is a day when at the end I say, “I didn’t do anything today,” and I don’t add, “And I feel so guilty.”
Sabbath is a day when my phone is turned off, I don’t check my email, and you can’t get a hold of me.
Jesus wants to heal our souls, wants to give us the shalom of God. And so we have to stop. We have to slow down. We have to sit still and stare out the window and let the engine come to an idle. We have to listen to what our inner voice is saying.”