Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Through Corridors of Light Where the Hours are Suns, Endless and Singing

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Shafts of light
Image Credit
Lord, you look at me with utter seriousness.
Your eyes are sober and direct.
They pierce to the depths of my soul.
You search me, and you know me.
What are you saying, Jesus?
* * *
The one thing I do know
 is that there is no bullshitting you.
And as you look at me, I see
Some of what you see.
And I will rectify this…
But help.
For I cannot save myself.
I need your hyssop, your precious blood
To wash me white as snow.
Oh, the paradox!
* * *
Your eyes are serious and calm
Because you see the end from the beginning.
When my faith was a slow germinating seed
When the seedling of my faith was tossed by winds,
Almost blighted by drought,
Trampled by a dog,
Watered with salty tears,
Fertilized with blood and sweat,
Over-fertilized in fits of enthusiasm,
Blighted by big freezes and the great sadness,
When it looked as if it wouldn’t make it,
You saw the tree I would become
And so you were not perturbed.
You looked at me and smiled
Because you beheld the end from the beginning
And you looked at me from eternity
“through corridors of light
where the hours are suns, endless and singing.”
You saw the end from the beginning
and so you say with utter certainty,
all shall be well, all shall be well
all manner of things shall be well.

Make it New: By being Rigorously Honest in our Writing, we Find Originality.

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 Sometimes, when I am tired and grumpy and find myself scanning my Twitter feed or the blogs I follow, I find myself saying, “Platitude, platitude, platitude. YES!” Yes, I say, when someone expresses an old truth in a fresh way, so that it strikes me afresh. Or shares a new insight on an old truth.What are platitudes? At best, using someone else’s words and language to describe your own experience. At worst, using someone else’s words to describe experiences, which you have not yet experienced.

* * *

 Matt Redman says, “Every authentic response in worship comes from revelation. When you become a Christian, you commit your life to God. And then from that moment on, everything you see of God, everything that is revealed to you, everything you find in His Word, everything you realize when you gather with the believers, every time you take a walk under a night sky and gaze up at the stars above is revelation. It’s like fuel for the fire of worship.”  

In this amazing diverse world, no two zebras have the same stripes, no two roses, or snowflakes, or fingerprints, or the iris of eyes have the same pattern.  Each African penguin has a unique spot pattern on its chest, which zoo-keepers—and other penguins—soon get to recognise.

So too, God shares different revelations, different aspects of his personality, to each of his beloved. God is always speaking, A. W. Tozer says. His voice rises above the din and clatter of the world around us. 

Just as we instinctively adjust our description of an idea or experience to our audience, the Spirit who created vast diversity  reminds us of ancient truths in unique words and images, differing in emphasis, colour and music, geared towards each of our Myers-Briggs personality, IQ, culture and life-experience, our spiritual age, if you like, and our capacity to be changed by our insights.

And the fresh insights the Spirit gives us, the new wine he pours, needs new words, a fresh expression. New wineskins for New Wine.

* * *

Make it New was Ezra Pound’s slogan, adopted by the Modernist movement.

To write in the fewest possible words, as clearly as possible, exactly what one meant—that was his only lesson in the art of writing, Virginia Woolf wrote of her father, brilliant literary scholar Lesley Stephen, who home-educated her.

We do not need to strain after newness. By being brave and honest and telling the truth the way we see it, we will be fresh. And by trying to say as clearly as possible, exactly what we mean, in our own words, not anyone else’s, we will be unique.

And so no two Christian writers or bloggers writing about prayer, or hearing God’s voice, or loving one another should say the same thing in the same way, because, you see, our experience will be slightly different. No two people will have an identical spiritual experience; different things will strike each of us with gale force.

 Last season’s fruit is eaten

 And the fulfilled beast shall kick the empty pail. 

  For last year’s words belong to last year’s language

   And next year’s words await another voice

 To purify the dialect of the tribe (T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding)

* * *

 When I expressed my dream of a Blog through the Bible project last year, my daughter Zoe said dubiously, “Do you know Mike Pilavachi is doing that too? Nicky Gumbel is doing that too?”

At first you feel “Why bother”? Nicky Gumbel is cleverer, theologically trained, experienced. Why read me if you can read him?

But God gives each of us unique circles of influence, unique tribes. And our life-experience, personalities, and ways of expressing ourselves speak to our own tribe, in a way someone else’s might not.

And so we continue “writing down the revelation and make it plain that he may run who reads it,” (Hab 2:20), continue recording what we hear the Spirit say, even while John, Mark, Luke Matthew, James, Peter, Paul, Nicky and Mike are doing it too, and doing it better.

* * *

Fortunately, the eight authors of the New Testament were not deterred by the fact that Paul and Luke were clearly better educated and more intelligent and better writers than Peter or Matthew or James or Mark, because all eight of them contribute richly to our New Testament, and we each have a favourite book, and those who have no time for Paul have a lot of time for John or Luke.  And vice-versa.

 

Take a handful. Yes, really! (Guest Post by Jo Royal)

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Image Credit
She offered the tin of Celebrations to my son.  Chocolates!  He shuffled to the edge of his seat, and peered into the open tin.  His eyes widened as he examined the full tin of brightly coloured favourites.  

His hand hovered over the chocolates.  He paused, looked up, wordlessly asking, ‘How many am I allowed to take?’  With astute perception, she answered ‘Take a handful.’  And that is what he did!  A rather huge handful!  

When my embarrassment subsided, I considered my son’s literal interpretation of ‘take a handful‘.  To him this provided an opportunity to scoop up as many chocolates into his hand as he could physically manage.  Why wouldn’t he?  He loves chocolate!  It makes sense.  

Would we have done the same?  I am not so sure.  To most adults (myself included) the same phrase usually triggers a different response.  ‘Take a handful‘ – becomes interpreted as ‘take a few because you don’t want to look greedy.’  The consequence of this interpretation results in the adult taking their hands out of the offered tin with only one or two chocolates.  How polite!

So, whilst children get to enjoy their acquired feast, adults are left with a tantalising taste of chocolate in their mouth.  Politeness aside – why do we do this?  If we are offered a handful of chocolates, why do we not take it literally and grab as many as we like?  After all, the offer is there and we love chocolate!

* * *

As I reflected on this response, it dawned on me that the inclination to settle for less does not stop with chocolates.  It may have an impact on an untold number of experiences in our lives.  Take a handful, go for it, follow your dreams …


But we don’t.

We tell ourselves that we are not good enough.

We believe that we do not deserve it.

We assume that the offer is not really meant for us.

Nonsense!  Why do we think this way?

These incorrect understandings are often deeply embedded in our lives, resulting in mediocrity being accepted as norm.  Our ability to learn, to enjoy life, to love and be loved, is hindered as the ‘take only a few’ reaction kicks in.  We stifle our experiences and our ability to fully participate in life, and say that this is ok.

However, Jesus came to give us ‘life to the full’ (John 10:10).  Not a life living in the shadows or accepting second best.

This fullness of life includes being offered total forgiveness of sins, unconditional love and full acceptance into God’s family.  And yet, our immediate response can result in us being unable to fully accept this.   

Let’s find out and understand what God is offering, and reach in and grab all we can.  Jesus died in order to make this possible for us.  God will not be offended or think we are greedy if we ‘take a handful‘ – because when he offers it to us he really means it.  He loves us and wants us to experience all he has for us – so we can live our life to the full with him. 

Ready to grab a handful? 🙂

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Jo Royal is the Assistant Pastor at Wessex Christian Fellowship in Basingstoke, Hampshire. She blogs at All in Day.
Thanks, Jo:-)

15 Minutes of Infamy, Public Golgothas, and Blessed is He who does not sit among the mockers

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The Cross: it’s like a tardis, with a vast number of rooms and corridors. The more you contemplate it, the bigger it becomes.I was brought up Catholic, and was trained to meditate by putting myself in the picture, a staple of Ignatian meditation. So I read Eph. 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ and visualized Calvary.

 

I hoped I would have been one of those who pushed through to wipe the face of Jesus, who dipped a sponge in wine vinegar. That surely I would not have been among the mocking crowd.

 

But would I? Very few stood by Jesus: the Marys and John. Peter and the disciples had fled. The crowds who acclaimed him as he entered Jerusalem—vanished. They were now a mocking mob chanting, “He trusted in God, let God deliver him. Let him deliver if he delight in him.”

* * *

Where would I stand, with the mocking, mobbing horde, or with the quiet succourers?

You see, Jesus had been disgraced. He was subject to a myriad false accusations. He had been brutalized, savaged, and humiliated. Ridiculed and made into a laughing stock. Everyone said he was wrong, ridiculous and dangerous—telling them to destroy the temple, and not to pay taxes to Caesar.

He was mobbed. Only a very few had the courage not to join the mockers.

* * *

Blessed is he who does not sit in the company of mockers, Psalm 1 declares. I want to be blessed. And so I want to avoid the ugliness of mockery, which diminishes the mocker more certainly than it diminishes the object of mockery.

Sadly, both because of my cast of mind, and the company I’ve kept, irony, sarcasm, and mild mockery come naturally to me, so I guess I need some retraining of the mind.

* * *

Here’s a possible way of guessing at what kind of men and women we might have been at Calvary:  Standing with the mockers, or the compassionate.

In my 34 months in the Christian blogosphere, I’ve noticed that pretty much every month, a follower of Christ makes himself, or is made, into an object of international public derision.

Mark Driscoll who baptized 1392 people in 2011 alone declares that the UK church are “a bunch of cowards,” “guys in dresses, preaching to grandmas.”

He is mocked and condemned on most blogs, though he qualifies his statement.

Mark Driscoll also said…Well, let me not go there. I am not a fan, of course; I just don’t want to take my seat among the mockers.

    * * *

John Piper dismisses a young, wildly popular preacher with a three word tweet, Farewell, Rob Bell. The blogosphere explodes in mockery and condemnation of Piper who has written one of the best Christian books of the last twentieth century, Desiring God.

As it does, when John Piper declares he knows why a tornado hit Minneapolis on the day the Lutherans were debating homosexuality. The message of the tornado, he says was, Turn from the approval of sin. 

* * *

  Pat Robertson says the earthquake and the string of disasters which have cursed Haiti was a result of their ancient national pact with the devil. That there is a connection between terrorist attacks on America, Hurricane Katrina and American sin. He is widely mocked and scorned because, well, we are in the 21st century, without anyone considering that the Old Testament continually talks about curses on nations, peoples, and families, though well, all that seems Old to us. But Jesus warned of such things too.

And we all mock the self-professed Christ-followers on the fringes of faith—poor deluded Harold Camping, or beyond the pale, Burn a Koran Terry Jones, or Westboro Baptist Church. Or anyone really, who gets too politically incorrect, as the younger Graham does, all the time, in calling Islam wicked and evil. (Though as I wrote in a very early blog post I can see why he thinks so.)

* * *

Andy Warhol famously said, “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” Well, the flip side of that could be that everyone who is in any way a public figure, might make themselves the object of public opprobrium for least 15 minutes, whether on a public or private stage.

Even our Christian brothers and sisters. And the issue is: are we going to join the mobs baying for their blood? This lowers us far more than it lowers them. They have already been publicly diminished. We diminish ourselves by our eagerness to kick and stone the man or woman who is already down.

So, will we join the mocking hordes at their Golgothas, or be the discreet and kind who quietly pray, knowing: There, but for the grace of God, go I?

Will we be the One who is blessed, who does not sit in the company of mockers? (Psalm 1).

I want to be blessed, and I do not want to mock, and Lord, please lead me not into temptation.

Thorns, Flesh and Unanswered Prayers

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 In a poignant  and fascinating chapter, Paul, somewhat coyly, talks about a man (himself) who received  visions and revelations, was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things. 
But alongside these “surpassingly great revelations” he had “a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12)
·      * *
Paul has a weakness (commentators suggest a psychological struggle, an emotional struggle, a physical malady, or demonic assault) and begs Christ to free him from this weakness which causes intense, continuous pain and harassment, this thorn in the flesh.
And Christ answers. “No. You are over-gifted. You can too easily grow conceited. You need a ever-present weakness to teach you that you need me. To prevent you from looking down on the 99% of Christians who are less gifted, less intense, less spiritual, less committed.
I will give you a weakness so that you will need to lean on me daily.  And I will give you grace sufficient to overcome it—but only enough for the day.
I will not remove the thorn. Tomorrow, the pain will be as sharp, as excruciating, and again, you will need to turn to me, and again I will give you grace sufficient to overcome.
And again, the next day. Temptation, wrestling, deliverance.
You will need to rely on me every day.
And my power will be demonstrated perfectly in your daily weakness, your SOS’s for my strength, in my grace which will come perfectly in your heart of need.
Yes, perfectly, more perfectly than in the letters you wrote, the visions you saw, your intuitive understanding of me, the grasp of theology I gave you, the literary flair I gave you, the intensity and forceful personality I give you which you will so stamp on Christianity, that your name will be only second in influence to mine.
And Paul says, “Is that indeed true? Do I need to know weakness to be truly strong? Do I need to know powerlessness to know your power?
Then, I will no longer wrestle.  I will accept my weaknesses.”
* * *
Many, many years ago, when I was 16, a beloved nun at school, Sister Josephine, took me aside, read this passage to me, and explained it. Water off a duck’s back.
Even today, to be honest, I understand it intellectually, but not experientially.
* * *
But I have a thorn in the flesh, I have not been able to pray off. And, the thorn in my flesh is my flesh.  See above–too much of me!! Too many years of medicating sadness with chocolate, not scripture. Of seeking to feel hyper with crisps (potato chips for you, Americans) and chocolate biscuits (cookies for Americans). Of bonding over gargantuan meals. Of eating because I enjoyed the taste, quite apart from hunger or satiety.
Eating for comfort, for pleasure. Choosing immediate comfort, rather than the more esoteric and slower comforts of immersing myself in God.
Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. James says (5:13). Well, I have done so. Also.
But, but, but….though Scripture is like honey, like the choicest of foods, it takes longer for its joy to enter your bloodstream, and is slower to act than chocolate. I can get totally hyper over the things of God—however, chocolate gets me there sooner.
Some of it is not being able to tolerate sadness or low spirits. Not aligning myself with the Most High God until I see things with his heavenly eyes, until I am full of faith again, and full of joy.
Of instead choosing something with short-term relief and long-term misery.
·      * * *
I cannot just accept my weight and eating habits, partly because unless I do something, I will continue to gain weight. (:
And I can see that putting it on a prayer list, even three times, is not going to do the trick.
It is going to be a matter of WORKING OUT my salvation, trusting God day after day in the moments of temptation, relying continually on his grace.
·      * *
Lord, I would so much rather receive visions and revelations from you, be caught up to paradise and hear inexpressible things. 
But one way for me to experience your perfect power, and your strength in my weakness will be to lean and depend on you through daily battles with the thorn and weakness in my flesh.
So be with me, Emmanuel!