Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

“I Said to the Man who Stood at the Gate of the Year” (From “The King’s Speech”)

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Image credit
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’
And he replied,
‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’
                                               * * *
King George VI ended his famous 1939 Christmas message with these words. (Listen here.)
The words were written by an unknown poet called Minnie Haskell. She wasn’t credited.  “I read the quotation in a summary of the speech,” she told The Daily Telegraph the following day. “I thought the words sounded familiar and suddenly it dawned on me that they were out of my little book.”
She had published 3 books, none of which were well-known. Sadly, even the rest of this poem was not particularly good.
* * *
A lifetime of writing, and you are remembered for 4 lines.
Success or failure?
Success or failure?
* * *
Well, that is a good deal more than most people are remembered for 137 years after their birth.
But most writers, myself included, might consider that writing life to be a failure.
* * *
But, in fact, writers can’t choose. Writers can control their art and craft. They can network and hustle and get their work out there. But they cannot control whether their work touches people or not. They cannot control whether their work endures.
How much better then to leave such matters, to leave our entire writing lives, in the hands of God?
* * *
A writing life, three books, and all that survives are four lines, which no one knew you wrote:
Success or failure?
Failure, if you are the management, if you own your life.
* * *
But if you do not own your life?
If you have given yourself and your life and your talent into the hands of Christ, for him to shape as it pleases him.
That may sound grand, but, in fact, it is voluntarily acknowledging a fact.
Our lives and our careers and our work are in the hands of Christ, whether we preciously safeguard them, and polish them, and manoeuvre them, or fret about them.
We are in God’s hands, and everything comes from him, all our doing, gifting and having, and everything can be taken away by him. In an instant. In the twinkling of an eye.
* * *
So to come back to the question, if all that endured of a life is four lines, which no one knew you wrote: success or failure?
But that is not the question.
If you belong to Christ–success or failure, fame or obscurity, a million readers or none at all, your name unknown or a household word—that is his business.
You business is to ‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’
Your business is to dance with your Saviour, to do the best you can each day, and then deposit the day into his hands, with its successes and failures, the times you blew it, and the times you didn’t.
The fruitful days, and the wasted days. The fruitful years, and the “wasted” years.
The times you were mindful of Christ and loved and remembered him, and the times you failed to do so.
And then tomorrow is another day, and you will again dance with him, happily, giving thanks in everything.
* * *
So Jesus, I give you my writing, and my writing career, such as it is, or may be. I leave it our hands and I am not going to worry about it any more, but only pray. (Phil 4:6-8)
I put the clay of my talent, such as it is, into your hands, and leave you to shape it as it pleases you.
Lord Jesus,
I give you my life, my plans,
·      my health of body and mind and spirit,
·      my finances,
·      my relationships.
·       I am not going to worry about these things any more, but only pray.

Top Ten Posts in 2011 from Dreaming Beneath the Spires

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1 A couple of movie reviews/reactions

 

1001 Gifts: #6 Living in the Country

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We are in London for the week, exploring museums, and taking a break from books, laptops and the internet (Hmm… in theory) to give everyone a rest before an intense term of school, work and writing, respectively.
We really loved the bird collection in the Natural History Museum today.
But being in London—we’ve rented a house in posh Kensington, walking distance from the V and A—with the hum of traffic persisting now at 23.32 reminded me of how much I love living in the country.
We live in Garsington, on a dirt, access-only road, surrounded by fields, and you can walk for miles on country footpaths, through pretty, even idyllic countryside.
What is so special to me about where I live is the silence. You cannot hear traffic, something which is quite rare in residential England, people tell me. The peacefulness of the location is the first thing visitors remark on when they get to our house—(and the house too is peaceful, much prayed over!)
* * *
When we moved to England from the US we were worried about what housing we could afford. We had a beautiful house in the US, but in 2006 when we were house-hunting, English houseprices  were 4-5 times what American houseprices were. (I don’t know what the recession has done to property values in both countries). I do know that our large, beautiful house in beautiful Kingsmill on the James, a posh, gated community would buy a small, modest house, probably a semi-detached one, in Oxford.
I felt I needed peace, quiet, solitude, space. Time to start praying.
                                                                           * * *
I had a specific prayer list for the house I wanted, and I drew it up in 2004, and consistently prayed for that house from 2004 until we bought it in 2006. I had read a book by Glenn Clarke called I will Lift up my Eyes, which mentions the importance of specific prayer.
So I made a dream big list of ten things I wanted—at least an acre (but more really) to have a huge garden; a separate detached house or apartment or cottage in that acre  in which I could go and write (the kids were both under 10 when I started praying); a pond or ponds; a stone wall with roses growing on it; a stream around the garden.
We looked at one house which met some of those criteria, but it was in one of the worst parts of Oxford. A doctor friend of house told us that all the stuff was stolen from the ambulance while he went in to make a house call. And the way some of the people there looked at us made us scared. So we didn’t look at it again, even though the house we looked at had a “holy” well mentioned in the Domesday Book, how cool is that?
                                                                                 * * *
When I saw a pictures of the second house, I was in love, and knew that this was it. It had an apartment in the grounds in which I write, two ponds, an old orchard, a vegetable garden. And even a stone wall with roses growing up on it. Beautiful, well-maintained. Wow. So exactly what I had been praying for. And an acre and a half of a garden!!
A picture of our house from the back garden

 

And here’s a recent picture, though it’s far bigger now since we’ve built a 30 sq. metre conservatory
Irene’s (in red) 12th birthday party in our conservatory

 

It’s flower-filled here after my birthday party!
Of course, we couldn’t afford it—not at all, and I bravely and foolishly told Roy I could come up with some business ideas to pay the mortgage. (All our disposable income pretty much went on the girls school fees then!)
And, what a journey that was, starting a business with no business background whatsoever—in being thrown out of my depth and so having to learn  to listen to God, in learning to think big, in learning to take risks, in being creative. In learning that nothing is impossible with God.
We’ve often thought we were foolish to blithely buy a house we couldn’t then afford. We bought it through an independent mortgage broker in 2006, who filled up the self-certified mortgage form for us,  while being as wildly optimtistic and imaginative as Perrault or Grimm.
If the business hadn’t taken off, we might well have lost the house (or pulled the girls from school. We’d have done the latter, though some of our friends who had children in the same school, said they’d rather lose their houses). The credit crunch and recession was built on this kind of lending, with the emotions leading, reason following up in the dejected rear-guard.
                                                                               * * *
But for now, we live in the quiet country, perfect for someone like me and Roy who basically want to be contemplatives in the world.
And we live in the dream house, or the house that prayer provided.
And I have paid the price, in four and a half hard, very overwhelming years in which I put my calling to write on the shelf, and published other people’s books, and put my nose to the grindstone to pay for my dream house, and the dream education for the girls.
I’ve learnt learned that
yes, dreams do come true,
and yes, it is God who makes them come true,
and yes, he often makes them come true, as a free gift, because he loves us,
and yes, he sometimes lets them come true though our blood, sweat, toil and tears, because a life too easy makes us flabby, physically, mentally and spiritually!

Working Restfully: Like a Weaned Child on its Mother’s Breast

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Original illustration by Jo Rosenblum



Psalm 131: My heart is not proud, LORD, 
 my eyes are not haughty; 
I do not concern myself with great matters 
or things too wonderful for me. 
2 But I have calmed and quieted myself, 
 I am like a weaned child with its mother; 
 like a weaned child I am content.

Like a weaned child on its mother’s breast, even so is my soul. I guess I am slowly moving towards this existential state, and it’s a wonderful place of rest.

The weaned child on its mother’s breast is parented; it is not alone. It’s not an orphan. It does not have to look out for itself, to hustle or push.

It is not a feral street child!
·      * * *

At this moment in the writing world, the gatekeepers are losing power. Through self-publishing, blogging, Facebook and Twitter, we can acquire an audience who like our stuff, whether the gate-keepers like it or not. Anyone who hustles can gain an audience, it sometimes appears.

And with this American sense of opportunity, of the world belonging to anyone who will work for it, can come a concomitant sense of anxiety and stress. The world can be yours, if you work, strive, push. And there’s a sharpened imperative: work, work, work. Like orphans. As if everything depended on us.
* * *

When George Mueller worked in Bristol, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, he was appalled to find people working 12 hours a day, 70 hours a week, and then working on Sundays too, if they could.

When he suggested they work less, they’d ask, “But how would we feed our families?” And so, he decided to raise money, serious money, to look after the orphans he took in, by prayer alone. Googling it shows he raised 7 million dollars in today’s money. Without asking a soul, or letting them know his needs. Just through prayer. Wow!

Hudson Taylor similarly raised significant money by prayer alone. His motto was To Move Man, Through God, by Prayer Alone. 

And if it worked for them, might it not work for me? If God could give Mueller 7 million dollars, through prayer, can he not also give me readers whom I can be a blessing to, through prayer and trust, without hustling?

The trick will be actually praying, not intending to pray. ( The same deal as with writing or exercise!)

                                                           * * *

Do I have the courage to leave my writing, and its success or failure to God, and to let the Lord be my literary agent?

To spend minimal time on promotion—I lack the faith to spend no time at all–but instead pray for blessing on my writing? Will it work? I will have to try and see.  

I know when I attempt to be my own literary agent, I make a fool of myselfJ! Get pushy, over-energetic, over-aggressive, over-promote. There is after all a reason for literary agents: when you are great with book, or blog post, and it appears, you are in no fit state to decide if it’s beautiful or ugly, personified, genius or trash. Mums are no fit judges of their babies. Most mums declare their babies are beautiful, even those babies who look wizened, red and wrinkled to an independent jury.

Like a weaned child on its mother’s breast, even so is my soul. And that is my desire: To work restfully and prayerfully.  Brother Lawrence, the kitchen monk describes this,

That’s how I would like to work: with the same peace and tranquillity. And “gaming” the results through prayer, with as little self-promotion as possible.

Anita’s 2011 Christmas Letter: Merry Christmas, dear readers!

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Happy Christmas, blog readers, followers and commentators,
Thanks so much for reading my blog, and for your comments and encouragement.
I have written a personal blog, so some of this may be old news, but anyway, here’s our year.
WORK—The biggest positive change in our lives occurred the month I began blogging, April 2010. Roy decided to resign his Professorship of mathematics, and expand the little publishing company I founded (I found the running of it overwhelming as all I wanted to do was read and write) Roy also runs our house, children and lives. A tall order!!
Well, we’ve got 12 clever people on payroll—mainly part-time, though a couple of full-timers. These range from a friend from Somerville College. Oxford, nearly three decades ago, to friends from St. Aldate’s, and friends from the blogosphere, and the clever underemployed people always floating around Oxford. We’ve had 5 new people join us this year.
Roy has used his Maths Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins) and three post-doctoral years in computer science (Cornell, Stanford, and U of Minnesota) to automate every aspect of our business as far as possible, which means we are making more money with less work. Utopia!
BLOGGING remains the most interesting thing I have ever done. I enjoy cajoling evanescent wisps of thought onto the page everyday. My challenge is to keep my blogging (including writing and responding to comments and leaving them on other blogs) to 75 to 90 minutes.
My other challenge is to maintain a balance between blogging and writing books. The former can crowd out the latter.
I am enjoying Twitter. It’s a great way to introduce yourself to new people. But what do you do when your twitter stream gets too crowded? I am slowly figuring twitter out, but think I’m going to abandon Facebook for twitter.
READING—The book which has influenced me the most this year has been A Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.
She decided to see her life as a gift, and to be grateful for everything. “In everything, give thanks.” (I Thess 5:14). This unleashes seismic changes in her attitude, spirits, happiness and mental health.
CHURCH—We finally came to the reluctant conclusion that our old church, St. Aldate’s, was obviously not the right place for our family.
Friends recommended St. Andrew’s in North Oxford, assuring us we’d fit right in, and, reader, we did! I love my women’s group, and the couple’s group we both attend. We left in peace, and with blessing on both sides, which made the transition easier.
IRENE, 12, who took it upon herself to flatly refuse to attend church or youth group at St. Aldate’s now attends both at St. Andrew’s. Phew, well, that’s a step in the right direction.
She loved summer camp at Lymington Rushmore, and our retreat at Ffald-y-Brenin, and says she is a Christian, which is also a step in the right direction. Not pushing baptism or confirmation until she brings it up.
Irene had played chess competitively and intensely since she was 6 now insisted on giving it up. She has over 50 trophies, and was ranked 2ndnationally among girls of her age group. Grrr. But to be honest, our family has enough intensity, and we didn’t fight her decision too bitterly.
She is flinging herself into academics, with stellar results. She is equally good at languages, humanities and the sciences, though she wants to be a writer.
Zoe, 17 was pleased with her GCSE’s, all A’s and A stars. She dropped all her GCSE electives—Greek, Latin, Drama and History, and is taking Religion, Philosophy, French and English Literature for A levels. She went on a Scripture Union camp this summer, and is enjoying church youth groups, drama etc. etc. She’s a very strong Christian.
New Directions
Gardening—We took it up this March, and love it. We are now growing most of our veggies, and even have a winter vegetable garden.
Running—Roy and I have been running for a couple of months, 3 days a week. I really love it.
Animals—We have two new ducks, an Aylesbury and an Indian Runner, who lay lovely eggs. And a whole hive of bees!!
Travel
Granada last December. Loved the Alhambra.
Rome in February. What a treasure trove of museums, churches, great art, classical history, la dolce vita! Love it.
Ravenna and Bologna in April. Ravenna with its 3rdand 4th century mosaics was absolutely mind-bogglingly beautiful. Bologna is a great walking city, full of eye-candy.
Strasbourg in July. Another great walking city,  canals, cathedrals, the middle ages washed up in the 20th century. Loved it, and Colmar.
Sweden in August. Stockholm, another enchanted city I’d like to visit again, Uppsala, Gothenburg, Lake Vannern, Lake Vattern. Loved the natural beauty, and the Scandinavian architecture and history. Will visit again, particularly Stockholm.
Saddest event of the year. The camper van we were renting in Sweden got broken into and we lost two expensive laptops (used for work), my new iPad, Irene’s iPod, my wallet etc. etc. And were only gone for an hour. And, on a technicality, no visible sign of break-in, our insurance claim was denied. Whoah!
So we didn’t go to Malta in October and Seville in December as planned. Instead, relaxed in a cottage in Lee Abbey in October, and had a powerful, spirit-filled retreat at Ffald-y-Brenin , Wales in December. So, poorer because of the break-in, but spiritually stronger because of the two retreat holidays. God willing, we will explore Europe again next year. We are taking the girls to do London museums next week.
ROY—Loves being at home, and finally having time to do all the things he wanted to do—garden, read, pray, exercise, have a super-orderly house, cook, declutter. I am gratefully leaving all the tasks of housekeeping to him. And we are both smiley. Yay for Proverbs 31 men.
Failure—I haven’t lost significant weight, though I am fitter, given that I am running, lifting weights, and doing yoga. Will have to seek God for what to do about fitness.
New Project for the New Year—Again, I am waiting to hear what God is saying quite clearly, but I am considering starting up a Koine Greek reading group early next year. I have a seminary professor willing to teach us. Contact me, if you’re interested.
Spiritually—We went to Greenbelt in August, though it was a bit too cool for us! We also visited a cool Fresh Expression New Monastic Community, Maybe for several months, though ultimately settled in an evangelical church.
Spiritually, I am enjoying just soaking in the Father’s love, just hanging out and listening to what He says, and, falteringly, trying to do it!
Thank you for having been part of my life this year, and be blessed in 2012
Anita

Why not be totally changed into fire?

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Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said:
Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts; now what more should I do?
The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. 
He said: Why not be totally changed into fire?
                                                               * * *
So what is preventing you from being totally changed into fire? 
One of my own impediments would, in fact, be a joy to cast aside. And casting it aside will be casting fear aside, and gaining time.
Lord, be with us and strengthen us as we seek to be totally changed into fire.

Whiskey Priests, Todd Bentley, the Lakeland Revival and Why “the Wicked” Prosper

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The Whiskey Priest is the hero of Graham Greene’s powerful novel, “The Power and the Glory.” The Mexican government in the state of Tabasco outlaws Catholicism. But as this weak, sick, despairing, alcoholic priest with an illegitimate daughter, goes from village to village at the risk of his life, taking communion to those who believe it is indeed the body and blood of Jesus and yearn for it, something happens.   The power and the glory of God insistently breaks out, and the desperate villagers see it.
We saw a modern Whiskey Priest recently in Todd Bentley who worked creative miracles at his crusades attended by several thousands.
The vicars in the church I was then attending, St. Aldate’s, Oxford, Charlie Cleverly, Simon Ponsonby and Gordon Hickson flew to Florida to listen and learn.
They came back all excited. Monkey see, monkey do. The leaders lined up on either side of the aisle, and the congregation ran through it, and each of them blessed and prayed for us. It’s called “a fire tunnel,” and the procedure is called prophetic impartation, or activation.
Well, I went through it too, and it was a powerful experience, as if electricity coursed through me. I was shaking. Was it mere psychosomatic excitation on my part? At the time, I thought not. I have a writer’s temperament, and part of me stands apart and wryly observes things, even in times of great stress, sorrow, anger, or joy. So I noticed, amused and a bit annoyed, that all the wannebe leaders, and ecclesiastical  social climbers joined the leaders to bless, rather than be blessed. Keenly observing, with some amusement and scepticism, the drama and histrionics in progress, I went through the tunnels. Not the right frame of mine for psychosomatic excitation, huh?
Anyway, there was no enduring change in myself as a result of that fire tunnel, which so reminded me of a child’s party game. (And if there was any positive change in the church, it was invisible to the naked eye J.) If however, we had been sincerely blessed and prayed for by several dozen people, we would have been blessed. Perhaps all the drama of the fire tunnels, and its histrionic thaumaturgic potential interfered with simple prayer. (Shut up, Anita; stop being cynical!)
* * *
And meanwhile in Florida (the perfect locale for a revival: the beaches, the sunsets, the Mouse; I remember youngsters going to Pensacola from my church in Williamsburg for the Pensacola Revival, and coming back, short-term on fire, long-term, unchanged), meanwhile in Florida, the Lakeland revival continued.
I heard John Mumford (father of Marcus Mumford and Sons!) say at a St. Aldate’s retreat that a friend of his in New York was healed just watching it on GodTV!
And the young Todd Bentley gradually became wilder, weirder and wackier. He said he saw (or indeed saw?) an angel called Emma who scattered showers of gold dust.  
He brought in so much money that the church who hosted him had him work 7 days a week. At the start of the revival, he sensibly spent his mornings in prayer and Bible study. Later on, he went drinking with the interns, drunk too much, had an affair with his nanny, eventually divorced his wife, married the nanny.
But all through this, through all this, the miracles continued.
                                     * * *
Why should God work like that through a whiskey priest like Todd Bentley?
Well, why shouldn’t he?
What unlocks the power of God in our lives? Firstly, his sovereign decision: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,Romans 9:15. And secondly, our humility and faith.
 And perhaps, in the sight of God, the open sin of Todd Bentley was no worse that the secret sin of other people. We rank sin. Sexual sin is the worst, followed by drugs, and alcohol. Evangelists love catches with glamorous testimonies—drugs, drinking, promiscuity, overdoses, suicide attempts. I once was wild, but now am tame; was cool, but now I’m not. 
But, for all we know, it’s the dreadful churchly sins–the subtle judging and exclusion; the ranking of people by wealth or social status or church status; the gossip, the looking through, the mean little judgements—that makes God cringe more than the golden glories of a passion-driven tumble beneath the sheets, or glorious wine. (Perhaps. David, the repentant adulterer, was known as a man after God’s own heart. Haven’t read many of the Chief Priests and Pharisees Psalms recently.)
And so perhaps a whiskey priest is no worse than the ambitious clergyman who gauges his congregation for what they can do for him, in terms of money or willing labour, or adding lustre to his reputation, and looks through those who have nothing he can use, as through the invisible.
And perhaps the visible sin in Lakeland, Florida, was less displeasing to God than secret, vicious and hypocritical sin in wannabe Lakeland churches. And that’s why God chose to show up in Lakeland.
* * *
Yes, I am convinced that this is why “the wicked” prosper: Because in the eyes of God, they are no more or less wicked, than those who wring their hands at their wickedness. 

In the eyes of God, it’s the heart matters, whether we lust in our heart or limbs, whether we murder with words or weapons (Matthew 5:28-29).
The sin of the wicked is obvious. And obvious sin is more acceptable to God than the petty hidden little sin and hypocrisies of the chosen frozen, the merciless, pitiless, judgemental little “men and women of God.”
Who went home justified before God? Not the pompous small group leader, who fasts and prays and tithes, but the sinner who knew he was a sinner, and beat his breast and prayed, “Lord be merciful to me a sinner.”
And so perhaps Christ, who stands watching in the aisles of the temple, ensures he prospers. We are dealing with God, you know, and he has the most annoyingly egalitarian habits. He makes the sun shine and the rain fall on the good and evil alike, and is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
* * *
Bill Johnson and John Arnott became part of a committee of restoration for Todd Bentley. Bentley apparently had faith, he took God at his word, he worked miracles. He sinned like David did. Why shouldn’t be restored as David was?
Is blowing it the worst thing for a Christian? Nope, not at all.
In fact, it may be just the opposite.
Publicly blowing it will slow down and impede your public ministry, but then you are forced to go underground, to be silent and still with God. And even while all excoriate you for how you blew it, you get strong, and you burrow into the secret places of God, and grow in grace and strength and wisdom. And God may choose to, again, show you visible, undisputable favour. What you touch may turn to gold—whether business ventures, or creative ventures, or ministry. Your prayers might be answered by miracles. The peace and joy which glimmers around you like gold dust may become evident.
We haven’t heard the last of Todd Bentley, I suspect. Stay tuned.

It’s pure logic. It’s inevitable. Love has to become an action. There must be an incarnation. Bono

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Giorgione

It dawned on me for the first time, really. It had dawned on me before, but it really sank in: the Christmas story.
The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough.
That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child in straw poverty …a child … I just thought: “Wow!” Just the poetry …
Unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable. There it was. I was sitting there, and it’s not that it hadn’t struck me before, but tears came down my face, and I saw the genius of this, utter genius of picking a particular point in time, and deciding to turn on this …

It’s actually logical. It’s pure logic. Essence has to manifest itself. It’s inevitable.

Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have had to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh.
Bono