Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Finishing Well: Let me get home before dark

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Finishing well. It’s perhaps the last and greatest art.


I love Robertson McQuilkin’s poem, pleading to go gentle in the good night, not raving against the light.

 It’s sundown, Lord.
The shadows of my life stretch back
into the dimness of the years long spent.
I fear not death, for that grim foe betrays himself at last, thrusting me forever into life:
Life with You, unsoiled and free.
But I do fear.
I fear the Dark Spectre may come too soon – or do I mean, too late?
That I should end before I finish
or finish, but not well.
That I should stain Your honor, shame Your name, grieve Your loving heart.
Few, they tell me, finish well . . .
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The darkness of a spirit grown mean and small, fruit shriveled on the vine,
bitter to the taste of my companions,
burden to be borne by those brave few who love me still.
No, Lord. Let the fruit grow lush and sweet, A joy to all who taste;
Spirit-sign of God at work,
stronger, fuller, brighter at the end.
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The darkness of tattered gifts,
rust-locked, half-spent or ill-spent,
A life that once was used of God
now set aside.
Grief for glories gone or
Fretting for a task God never gave.
Mourning in the hollow chambers of memory,
Gazing on the faded banners of victories long gone.
Cannot I run well unto the end?
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The outer me decays –
I do not fret or ask reprieve.
The ebbing strength but weans me from mother earth and grows me up for heaven.
I do not cling to shadows cast by immortality.
I do not patch the scaffold lent to build the real, eternal me.
I do not clutch about me my cocoon,
vainly struggling to hold hostage
a free spirit pressing to be born.
But will I reach the gate
in lingering pain, body distorted, grotesque?
Or will it be a mind
wandering untethered among light
phantasies or grim terrors?
Of Your grace, Father, I humbly ask. . .
Let me get home before dark.
Finishing well can be tricky in the Christian life–particularly, in ministry. Because with early success comes adulation, praise and power, and as Lord Acton said, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

I once found myself deeply upset by a minister I had deeply respected, who seemed to turn aside to empire-building, and court politics, dismissing staff or hounding parishioners who disagreed with him until they too left. But the irony was he and his wife did not go into ministry to hound staff and parishioners who opposed them out of church, and to rejoice when another sheep left the fold.

And the other irony, which makes me shiver is that this man was spiritually outstanding in his youth. I heard a woman tell this story about him. 23 years ago, their child, aged 2, had advanced cancer, and the doctors in Great Ormond Street had given up hope. This individual, a priest, visited them for lunch, and was told about the child. 
“Have you prayed?” he asked. 
“Oh yes!” they said. 
“Can I pray?” he asked.
 And he took the child, and prayed with the simple intensity of one who has pushed through the veil, entered the Most Holy Place and seen God face to face. I have sometimes had that experience myself, and have known in my heart that my request is going to be granted.

And the parents heard the prayer, and knew that things were going to be different. The doctors at Great Ormond Street were reluctant to test the boy again, but did. He is now 25 years old.

The couple, an architect and psychologist, resigned their jobs, went through difficult financial times, but went into ordained ministry and full time prayer ministry respectively. “If prayer has such power, why would I want to be doing anything else?” she said.

Around the same time, this minister prayed for a young man, who was slain in the spirit, and is now among this country’s most gifted preachers and Christian writers.

This minister preached some of the sermons that have moved me the most, that I most remember, and that have shaped my understanding of how the spiritual life works. Even when I was shocked at the stories people were telling me about him and his wife (I am a blogger, you see, and refer to some things obliquely in my blogs, which means I hear more of some stories–and less of some:-) I was reluctant to leave his church because I did like what he said in his sermons, which were, more or less, honest.

So. So… He often spoke of receiving the fountain of living waters when he was baptised in the spirit, a fountain which has never grown dry. He spoke of drinking from it.

And yet, such an individual, who undoubtedly had experienced God, many times, and experienced the love and comfort of the Father could do very mean things out of fear, insecurity and revenge.

I cannot quite get over it.

                                                                                            * * *

It’s the present which counts.

Perhaps once like Paul, we saw Christ, we heard his voice, we received his directions, we experienced his miracles, our prayers moved mountains.

But it is an ongoing relationship.

Are we pushing past the veil into the Most Holy Place today? Are we setting aside time to seek the face of Christ today? Repenting of our sins? And repenting again?


Seeing Jesus today? Allowing the wind and the fire and the water of the Spirit to purify us today?

Yesterday’s manna cannot feed us today, just as it cannot feed people who were once spiritual giants. Anyone can be Saul, slip from the heights, and watch, anguished, as the anointing shifts to another. Let it not be me, I pray, let me dwell in force field of the Spirit today and always. 


Let me see my own blind spots as clearly as I see another’s.


Let me never lose your anointing!

Fresh bread, fresh water, fresh manna, Lord, for today.

1001 Gifts: My New Church

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Ann Voskamp found her life changed by trying to count 1000 things she was grateful for. Well, whose wouldn’t be?
Here’s something I have been very grateful for. The evangelical church I currently attend, St. Andrew’s, Oxford.
About three and a half years ago, I was in a painful, toxic situation in the church I attended. Probably won’t tell that story on this blog, though for me, telling my story is a way to understanding, acceptance and healing. But do I need to tell it on a public blog where it might hurt people? Especially because try as I might to see things whole and accurately, I will not be able to know the secrets of people’s hearts, and why evil happens; some of these things only God knows.
~ ~ ~
In retrospect, I should have fled immediately, but for various reasons, I did not. For one, it was a very large, charismatic church, and I erroneously assumed it was the only act in town. It was the church I used to drop into as an undergraduate at Oxford Uni, wistfully wishing I could just simply believe. How easy life would then be, I’d think.
For another, right until the very end, I experienced the Holy Spirit in the services, even amid the toxicity.
And also…. I believed—and, yes, still believe!!–that one should remain in the place God has called you until you hear him tell you that it is time to move. And preferably, but not necessarily, hear him tell you where to go.
I have, for years, deeply believed in not running away when one has messed up. I read The Imitation of Christ as a teenager, and this statement—among many others–imprinted itself on my heart: Don’t be in a hurry to change your situation when you find it difficult, for wherever you go you will take yourself, and there you will find yourself.
So, I believe, if you find yourself in a painful place, and have contributed to the pain, it’s important to repent and change and learn from your mistakes before running to a new place. For if you run before repentance and healing has taken place, you will not only repeat the sad story of the past in the new place, you will repeat the mistakes of the past.
Stay past the shame, if you have messed up; stay past the pain if you have been unfairly treated; stay till you have learnt the lessons that being in the Wrong place in the Right time can teach you: the pain of gifts not used, the Joseph experience of pits, dungeons and snakes before ladders, the Patmos experience of John, so that in silence you hear the one whose eyes are like a flame of fire, and whose voice is like the sound of many waters.
And then leave with a heart full of love and joy and a desire to bless–healed, having forgiven, and, if possible, having been forgiven. Do your healing in the place of pain, and go and be a blessing in the new place; don’t drag your pain and the sorry story of it like an ancient mariner to the new place.
Where I haven’t told that story of injustice, sadness, and toxicity.
Why? Because I no longer need to. It’s more or less over, done and dusted, and I am so enjoying living in the sunshine of God’s love.
* * *
This spring, it became clear to me (well, and to about 100-150 others who also left, for varying but similar reasons) that it was time to move.
I had been hurt, and had hurt others. I had experienced toxic treatment–and, sadly, not everything I said and did was a blessing to others. And this though to be blessed and to be a blessing to others is one of my great hopes and goals in life.
So, I had been sinned against; I had sinned. Should such as I be blessed? Would I be?
* * *
I tried 1 church and 2 communities in Oxford, all Anglican. I have become rather fond of Anglicanism, one legacy from those 6.5 years in that Anglican charismatic church. One of them, MayBe was lovely, a place of real healing, acceptance and fun. But not right for me.
Then, out of the blue, as I had coffee with a friend, an escapee from my old church, who had been treated cruelly, she mentioned a North Oxford church she had visited. “You would fit right in,” she said. “It’s perfect for you. It’s so you.”
I sighed. Like many people who have moved a lot–I’ve lived for a decade or more in 3 continents, and probably 20 cities. Moves, changes, make me sigh, even when it is clear that it’s time. But she repeated her advice, quite emphatically.
So I checked out the church, and she was right. It was the clearly the right place for us. (And that underscores the importance of friendship. Once we moved, everyone said it was the natural, right choice for us; yet, somehow, it had never made it to my short-list.)
~ ~ ~
How gracious God was to offer a second chance–to not repeat of the mistakes of the past, to start again, sadder and wiser, to quietly bless and be blessed.
One blessing of passivity (of the eagle who waits at the edge of its nest for the winds of the storm to take it in the right direction) is the direction provided by the winds of the Holy Spirit–especially useful when one has no idea what to do.
* * *
So, I asked the person in charge of small groups to find us a small group for both of us, and a women’s group for me.
Both have been great blessings to us. The group we go to is full of wise experienced Christians, large numbers of whom are in ministry. Oddly, we are the youngest couple, something we didn’t really expect in mid-life, and our children are younger than the others’ kids, which means we can learn from their experiences.
And I love my women’s group. A warm accepting kindly group, again many of whom have children who are a little older than mine, a year ahead or at uni. It’s a blessing in practical as well as spiritual ways to hear from those further along the path.
And the group seems normal. And what a blessing normality is! Honest, open about doubts and questions rather than straining to give the right answer. Healthy kindness instead of intensity and politics. Though some in the group have been meeting for years, and others are newer, there does not appear to be any discernible in-group. Wow!
As I get older, that’s the human quality I appreciate most: kindness.
And I am grateful to find a church I feel happy and accepted in. We’ve only worshipped there since Easter, so for sure we are in our honeymoon period.
* * *
Hegel postulates that our relationships with people, institutions, ideas, jobs, goes through three phases, the famous Hegelian dialectic. Thesis: It’s wonderful. Antithesis: It’s horrid. Synthesis: It’s flawed, like everything under the sun. It’s got some wonderful things, some horrid things. It’s flawed, but it’s okay!
In the case of the church I finally left, I reached synthesis, three and a half years after anti-thesis, and decided to leave.
But I am rooted in Oxford, which I have loved since I was an undergraduate here, and there are a limited number of churches which are a theological fit for me. I am an evangelical, I love and respect scripture, and I am mildly charismatic, ever since I was baptised in the Holy Spirit in my teens, over three decades ago now, and received the gift of tongues, and the gift of prophecy, both of which have lingered from my teens to my forties.
If and when the Hegelian dialectic shifts to antithesis in my new church, I shall show grace, be a blessing (and NOT blog). As I shall continue to do when the Hegelian dialectic settles down to a steady synthesis, as it has in my marriage, and in my writing life.
Amen. May it be so!
href=”http://www.aholyexperience.com” target=”_blank”>

Order from Chaos: The Process of Writing

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I love the process of writing. Everything seems chaos. There are too many ideas, and they are unruly. And as you try to sort them out, even more new ideas appear.

Then gradually, the flood of new ideas slows to a trickle. You have what you have, and slowly impose a rough shape on it.
And then, when the shape has emerged, comes the honing, the shining, the polishing.
I am writing an essay, which I have been returning to for over a month. The first few pages have gradually emerging form, but for the rest, “chaos lies over the surface of the deep.”
It’s frustrating when time to work on an emerging piece is limited, but having got there in the past gives you the assurance that you will get there this time too!

Work: Career vs. Calling

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The difference between career and calling is revolutionary.


A career is relentless: there is always more you can do, always people who are doing more, doing it better, there are random variables; it’s always more, more, more to ascend the greasy pole of fame and fortune and success.

Working at the very same thing because it is your calling or vocation sets you free to work in peace, to do what you can do and leave the rest in God’s hands.

“For me it all comes down to this: Did God give me this desire? If so, my success is not dependent on me, or how my call stacks up against another’s. My success is totally dependent on my obedience to the call.”

Karen Arneson, Secrets of Success

(Archive post from May, 2010)

The Treacle Bible, The Vinegar Bible and The Murderers Bible

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illuminated-bible
There are old Bibles that are famous for their misprints. When Bibles were expensive, only one printing of the Bible was widespread at any given time, and its mistakes became celebrated.
In 1823 when the Old Testament appeared with the verse “And Rebekah arose with her camels” instead of damsels with was known as the Camel’s Bible.
In 1804, the Lions Bible had sons coming forth from lions instead of loins.
In the Standing Fishes Bible, the fisherman must have looked on in such surprise when “the fish stood on the shore all the way from Engedi to Eneglaim.”
There are dozens of these: the Treacle Bible, the Bear Bible, the Bug Bible. In the Sin-On Bible, John 5:14 exhorted the believers not to “sin no more,” but to “sin on more.”
(Barbara Kingsolver: The Poisonwood Bible)
The Vinegar Bible 1717
The parable of the vinegar (instead of vineyard) in the headline about Luke 20
The Printers Bible 1702
Printers (instead of Princes) have persecuted me.
Psalm 119.161
The Place-Makers Bible 1562
Blessed are the place-makers (instead of the peace-makers). Matthew 5.9
The Bug Bible 1551
Thou shalt not be afraid for the bugges (bogies) by night (instead of terror). Psalm 91.5
The Treacle Bible 1568
Is there no treacle (instead of balm) in Gilead? Jeremiah 7.22
The Unrighteous Bible
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit (instead of not inherit) the kingdom or God. 1 Corinthians 6.9
The Wicked Bible 1631
Do commit adultery (instead of do not). Exodus 20.14. The printer was fined £300 for omitting the word not. All copies were ordered to be destroyed by Charles 1.
The Murderers Bible 1801
There are murderers (instead of murmerers). Jude 16
Let the children first be killed (instead of filled).
(I am indebted to Richard Littledale for the second list)

What are men better than sheep or goats…?

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My father, who loved poetry, recited this passage of the Morte D’Arthur to me a few

times and I have loved it ever since.

And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils Himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

but thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

For what are men better than sheep or goats that nourish a blind life within the brain, if, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, both for themselves and those who call them friend?

There is so much truth in it, isn’t there? What are men or women without a vertical dimension to their lives, without the underground river of prayer running through their lives and sweetening it? What are men or women without an interior life to retreat to, their own interior castle?

And Tennyson knew, as all praying people know, that it is an absolute fact that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.

What would you like to see wrought in your life, in someone else’s life, or in the world through your prayer?