random | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Narendra Modi, Possible Indian Prime Minister? A Disaster for India’s Religious Minorities

Narendra Modi’s supporters, Image: The Guardian.

He wakes at 5 a.m. and does yoga for ninety minutes. He is vegetarian. He lives a simple, almost ascetic life. He has vowed celibacy to concentrate his energies on making India great.

In a country in which corruption is endemic in every area of life, Narendra Modi is “clean,” incorruptible.

He is a technocrat, running a well-organised, disciplined government, getting things done.

He has been Chief Minister of Gujarat for 12 years. Without significant natural resources or population hubs like Mumbai or technology hubs like Bangalore, the state has achieved 10% growth annually, India’s highest. Its citizens have a higher per capita income than other Indians. Ahmedabad, its capital, is a boom town, high-rises everywhere, companies moving in, three million private cars for six million people, efficient public transportation, dedicated bus lanes…

(Outside Ahmedabad, however, is the insalubrious Juhapura ghetto where the city’s garbage is dumped and periodically burnt, and the 400, 000 Muslims who fled there after the 2002 religious massacre live in poverty, in dark, overcrowded surroundings, without sewage or municipal water (for which they are, nevertheless billed).

* * *

A tough, ruthless, feared leader, Modi has the potential to be the strongest leader in the developing world. To make India a superpower to rival and outstrip China. To restore national pride. To develop India’s considerable human resources. Who knows, to woo back educated Indians from the diaspora perhaps.

Modi will, I suspect, be a boon to India’s economy.

Were I living in India, I would find myself hard-pressed not to vote for him.

But I would resist.

I would not vote for him.

I would vote for Rahul Gandhi, son, grandson, and great-grandson of Indian Prime Ministers, patrician, well-educated (Harvard and Cambridge), and, personally “clean” and incorruptible, I believe.

I would vote for Rahul Gandhi and for Congress, though I believe the more experienced Narendra Modi would be better for the economy.

Because as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi stood by and did nothing while 2000 Muslims were massacred under his watch in 2002, riots his henchmen are widely suspected of fomenting.

Because the sense of pride and belonging to appeals to is Hindu pride, and Hindu identity, not Indian pride and Indian identity.

Because he appeals to the worst, militant elements of the ancient, peaceful, gracious religion of Hinduism.

Because of the destruction of property, burnings, beatings, murder, rape of nuns, and atrocities committed against Catholics and Christians by the some of the violent and militant organizations which form part of the Sangh Parivar, to which his party, the BJP, and his original formative home, the RSS, belong.

Because just as Modi, a polarizing, divisive leader for a vast, increasingly powerful, secular democracy like India, wishes his supporters to vote for what would be best for Hindus, I, a Christian, who belongs to a family and town (Mangalore) converted to Catholicism in the mid-sixteenth century would vote for what is best for Indian Christians and Catholics. (So I must confess my motivation is as communal as the motivations Modi appeals to.)

Though forecasts of the winners in India’s elections have a history of being wrong, I fear Modi, the predicted winner, will indeed win.

* * *

And what should Christians do? Watch the signs of the times very carefully and get out as soon as they can, if they can. Jews under Hitler could not believe that Kristallnacht would occur until it did. Could not believe in the horrors of Auschwitz until too late.

Emigration, however, is difficult and costly: financially, emotionally, psychologically, practically. But there is something simple and practical that we can do.

Pray. Pray for protection from Narendra Modi and the violent religious nationalism he appeals to.

Pray for Narendra Modi. Prayer is the strong weapon of the weak.

Like Gandhi, Narendra Modi is from Gujarat. Like Gandhi, he is vegetarian, ascetic, experiments with celibacy.

Unlike Gandhi, he has had limited or contact with true Christians. Unlike Gandhi, he is quite uninfluenced by the ideals of Christ.

Introduce Narenda Modi to Christ, and His ideals and what a leader he might be.

Prayer. A weak hope. Prayer, the strongest hope we have.

Pray for India, with a population four times the size of America’s and twice the size of the E.U.’s. A giant rising from torpor. A nation which will be a world leader in my lifetime, whether we like the direction it’s going to take. Or not.

Let us pray that the direction it takes would be one that would make Mahatma Gandhi smile. And even more, make my personal hero, Jesus Christ, smile.

In which Christ can heal the fierce memories of the past

By Anita Mathias

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun.

Keats, sitting down to read King Lear again, feels torn between anticipation and the dread of immersing himself again in this scabrous tragedy.

Once again the fierce dispute,

Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay

Must I burn through; once more humbly assay

The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit, he writes.

* * *

I feel like that when I work in memoir. Amid the richness of my childhood, amid its intensity, its chockfulness, memories of pain periodically surface, accompanied by pain and anger.

I have a file called “The Dark Side of the Moon,” for the major characters in my story, stuff that will not directly make it into my memoir. Because the golden rule and all that….

I read this file and feel the intense emotion that surfaces as one strips a scab from a wound. Anger, rage, fury, and discomfort bubble up. And sometimes I shake my head and smile. And in those cases, the hard work of forgiveness and understanding–hey, everyone in my story is as human and flawed and limited as I am–has been done. I remember as if it were a chapter in Jane Eyre–that I have read and read many times, and so no longer cry over. Once the stories have been processed and healed they no longer feel like my story.

* * *

Once, when I was 11, I woke, and “saw’ a silent figure cloaked in light stand at the foot of my bed. I decided it was my grandfather, who had recently died. I closed my eyes tightly, and he was gone.

Silly me, what if it were Jesus? Why didn’t I grab him and not let him go, as I do now when I “see” Jesus in my room (with the eyes of faith?

For, of course, Jesus was right there, standing there, through everything. The silent compassionate witness who stood there through all the pain and fury and despair, letting it happen, (but surely preventing worse). He knew that one day, he would take the clay of rage and grief and injustice into his own hands, shaping, shaping, shaping a redemptive jar from what seemed wasted mud.

Providing for those who grieve—
a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
(Isaiah 61:3)

I type out this passage from Isaiah, and I ask myself, severely, “Hey, do you really believe this, Anita? Or are you being poetic?”

And I answer, “Both. For I am healed, aren’t I? I am, indeed, in the process of being healed.”

* * *

God is good. All the time. This I believe. I know it partly from experience. And partly by faith.

And I believe the past is not really past. It is still alive, in memory, in the scars on our brains and spirit. And so, it can still be redeemed; diamonds can appear amidst the mire of the past, as diamonds are continually formed from the muck deep within the earth.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. All our lives are a continuum in his sight.

And he can today, turn with a smile to the mid-life woman who remembers events from her teens with rage and fury, and pour, pour, pour. Pour healing, pour forgiveness, poor restoration, so that I am entirely a new creation.

Come, Lord Jesus, journey with me into the past, the story of my Indian Catholic childhood which I feel compelled to tell. And as we go through it, pour healing, pour joy.

And when the past stretches out its long fingers, clutching me, preventing me from being who you want me to be, release me, re-shape me.

Healer of my soul, as you will one day make all things new, continue making me new.

“Prosperity Theology” as a Hook for the Gospel: Hanging out with Christians in Cambodia

By Anita Mathias

Rick Warren, of the wildly successful Saddleback Church, was influenced by Donald McGavran, maverick church planter, who suggested church planters use the kind of music people already listened to. The familiar music provides a hook for the Gospel.

Some of the fastest-growing churches today use music as a hook; I think of the music coming out of Jesus Culture (Bethel Church, Redding, California) or Hillsong. Hillsong’s Ocean, Where Feet May Fail, cracked the top 100 songs. And what about the sublime Revelation Song? Oh How he loves me, sounds like a pop song: So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss/ And my heart turns violently inside of my chest.

Jesus’s metaphor for evangelism was fishing. You catch a fish with a worm, because that’s what it likes. Can’t bait your hook with roses. Won’t work.

You bait your hook with worms “short, fat juicy ones,” but the point is not the worms. The point is the fisherman the worm draws you to. And He is worth it.

* * *

I kept coming across what sounded to me like Prosperity Theology in Cambodia. Ke Pich, the assistant pastor, said he became a Christian after listening to Joyce Meyers on TV for 2-3 months. Another pastor, with the only concrete house in his village of palm leaves and bamboo huts (a bit like the cottage Yeats dreamed of “of clay and wattle” made in the Lake Isle of Innisfree) told a story of a woman who had no money, and gave money to the church and then her micro-business began to make a bit of money, and then the church gave her a job and now she has enough money.

Crass? Well, it’s not just a “majority world” story. Post-modern emergent (and best-selling) writer Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz talks about making $1000 a month, and his bank balance hovering around 0, and not tithing a red cent, and then he began to tithe, and magazine assignments and speaking gigs came, in, and he could save an additional 10%, and he never again lacked for money.

* * *

This is Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs. When we lack food, shelter, and safety, it is hard to think of anything metaphysical.

So you see the appeal of prosperity theology. And it works, it really works, all its promise of answered prayer, of giving and receiving, taken straight from the words of Jesus. And it leads us to Someone grander than money.

* * *

Celestial economies figured large in my family’s history. My grandfather, Piedade Felician Mathias, a Catholic surgeon who won an O.B.E., worked God, and God, with mercy and amusement, allowed Himself to be worked. When his private practice dropped, he’d say to my grandmother, aggrieved, accusatory, “Josephine are you giving? Give. You are not giving; that is why I am not getting.” She did; people got sick; he bought land, houses…

As a widow, on the first Monday of the month, Granny had her chair carried out to her palm grove, where a line of poor people waited for her. She gave each a five rupee note,

My Uncle Morris Mathias, head of United Breweries International and unofficial adviser and emissary of Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, indulgently sent her, each month, a few hundred rupees—solely to give away. “Give, Ma, give,” he laughed, remembering his father’s powerful, paradoxical economy. “The more you give, the more we get.”

* * *

And I can attest that “Give and you shall receive,” is a true narrative, because when we began to tithe months into our marriage, financial windfalls happened and happened, and we’ve never lacked money while we tithed. Our only financially tight period was the first 2.5 years of starting a business, when—suddenly cold-footed—alas, we did not tithe.

* * *

There is nothing wrong with desiring a comfortable home, or a beautiful garden, or a good education for the kids. In fact, as C. S. Lewis writes in “The Weight of Glory, ” “If we consider the unblushing promises of reward … promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

* * *

A predominant desire I noticed in the several villages I had the privilege of visiting was blessing. “Pray for me, that God will bless me,” I was asked more than once. And people would lavishly offer me blessing!

And what’s wrong with that? Being blessed by God should be our predominant desire. What could be lovelier?

Sampat took my hand, held it, stroked my arm, and asked me to bless her house. I have never blessed a house before!! but moved, did so, and blessed her chickens and eggs for good measure.

Why shouldn’t prosperity appeal to people who live in a one room house, on bamboo stilts, with palm-leaved walls?

Prosperity theology as a hook for the gospel! They hear Joyce Meyers (whom I have never read, or listened to, so am not endorsing—or not) say that faith and giving and prayer will lead to an improved financial situation. Well, under normal circumstances, it will.

Wherever true Christianity spreads, it must cause diligence and frugality, which, in the natural course of things, must beget riches!, John Wesley, Dublin, 1789

Faith brings hope. Faith helps you realize you can pursue a purpose and let your eyes grow bright with it.

* * *

I have inherited my grandparent’s reflex of giving away what I feel the lack of. Money when I need money. Time and energy in volunteering (leading Bible studies was my main form of volunteerism) when I lacked both. Happiness when I am sad. “Let my depression bloom,” is my little private saying. (When I feel depressed, I go through my personal email and reply to all the messages from friends and family which I have lacked energy to reply to.)

To sneer at all prosperity theology in our sophistication is to sneer at Jesus who says, “Give and you shall receive, full measure, pressed down, flowing over. For the measure you give is the measure you receive. ”

What one should be rightly suspicious of, and run when you hear it, is the perversions of prosperity theology.

“Give to my TV ministry, my radio ministry, my speaking ministry, my healing ministry and God will bless you.”

If you hear that, run–resisting the relentless push to donate money to greedy ministries and ministers who want your money for their own career ambitions (unless of course, you have benefitted from their ministries, in which case, perhaps you should give some).

(Will God bless those who contribute to the ministries of careerists who may, or may not, be charlatans? Yeah, he probably will, because he commands “Give,” and did not specify to whom. It’s our heart and our generosity he is concerned with, for all money is his.)

If, however, you are asked to give to the poor (as I am cajoling you to give to Tearfund at the base of this post) please consider it, because the poor are heavy on God’s heart, as our youngest, weakest, most unhappy child is heavy on ours.

We might give to receive, and God sometimes plays our game, and smiles, and shrugs, and says, “Anything to increase their faith,” as we do anything, comics, animated computer games, handheld video games, to get our little children to read.

The point of being a Christian is not prosperity. What faith in Jesus has to offer the people of Cambodia and me is greater than prosperity—it is peace, shalom, well-being, trust in the Father, joy, love for others, Jesus himself. All this is prosperity in the global sense.

* * *

People’s natural hunger to improve their circumstances can serve as a hook for the Gospel. Tearfund is encouraging people to pool resources, to reframe, to look at what they have, not what they do not have, and to learn new skills of animal husbandry and planting.

Tearfund worker Kagne, and Sampath are having a little confab about growing rice & raising chickens

Sambath grows watermelons and rice on a neighbour’s unused land which she rents. She has a veritable bevy of adorable chickens. The lovely Tearfund worker, Kagne, printed out a guide from the interent on how to keep chickens and she used it, and now look!!

Please could you help Tearfund help people help themselves by giving them a hand up?

* * *

I have just written my first book of fiction, Francesco—Artist of Florence: The Man who Gave Too Much. It is a children’s story, a lavishly illustrated tale of a Florentine Renaissance artist. Here are some comments from friends who read it,

Simon Cutmore— it is a gem of a book and a beautiful parable and I think could be read by you and old alike.

Jules Middleton— I love the story! I wanted to read more! I love the history of Art connections.

Joanna Mitchell— I thought it was lovely – sweet and true and good — – and a bit like one of Francesco’s jewels.

I would like to email it to you as a gift if you give £3 to Tearfund here by direct debit.

Alternatively, text HOPE TODAY to 70444 to give £3 a month to See For Yourself, Tearfund. It will be added to your mobile phone bill. Tearfund receives 100% of the money. This subscription service will cost £3.00 per month until you send STOP to 70080.

Just leave me a comment saying you have done so, and send me your email address at anitaATanitamathias.com and I will email you an e-copy of my newest baby 🙂

How Forgiveness Unlocks the Goodness of Life: A Guest Post by Carmel Thomason

By Anita Mathias

Against the Odds

As a journalist I meet all kinds of people. I usually want to make people look their best. Sometimes it’s harder, because some people don’t help themselves. They’ve already decided all journalists are sour people who want to focus on the worst aspects of life. There are people who make it clear that they don’t want to talk to me in case I write about them, and then take umbrage when I do what they want and ignore them. Usually these are people who have nothing interesting to say anyway.

And then there are people who have such an amazing story to tell that meeting them has changed my view of the world.

Ray Rossiter is one of those people. I first met Ray when I called him about an exhibition that the Imperial War Museum North was hosting about the experiences of prisoners of the Japanese during World War II. Lots of men were interviewed for that exhibition. They all had fascinating tales to tell, but there was something about Ray that stuck with me. It was in the small things. For example, some men understandably said that they could never eat rice again after their experience. Ray said: “I love rice, it kept me alive.”

When I spoke to Ray he asked if I was going to visit him. Given the time constraints of my news desk I couldn’t. Then he told me that his wife had dementia and he was the sole carer. I realised that he probably wasn’t getting out of the house much at all, so I said that while I couldn’t visit him in work time, I would go to see him. I suppose I went to his house the first time because I felt sorry for him and his situation, but as time went on Ray was to touch my heart in a way that I could never have expected.

As a journalist I was used to people calling me to ask me to fight their corner, seek justice for a wrong done to them, even if it was simply to expose it. I’d hear people describe anything from a cross word between friends to the most heinous of crimes as unforgiveable. Yet, here was a man who had suffered unimaginable wrongs and he carried no bitterness. As Christians we talk about forgiveness all the time, but it can feel quite abstract. When we actually witness it lived out, as Ray is doing, it is life-changing.

When Ray talks about the war he says: ‘I felt that God was there all the time, his love shining through the actions of men, one for another. He was there in every kindness, every act of compassion – it is how we survived. It was often said: “It’s every man for himself in here,” but in reality nothing was further from the truth. We depended so much on one another for encouragement, morale-boosting and in numerous instances for our very survival.’

The friendships Ray forged in those adverse times were ones which were to last a lifetime. The men he knew then, men who could be cheerful under the most appalling circumstances, were not men who could let bitterness eat into their souls and he didn’t like to see hatred consuming them in this way. It was a big ask, Ray more than anyone knew that, but he wanted to encourage them, for their own sake, to forgive.

‘Even years later it was a taboo subject among our fellows and it wasn’t an easy thing to get across because it’s hard to comprehend just how much there was to forgive,’ he says. ‘We came out of captivity breathing fire and vengeance against the whole Japanese race – all of us believed at that time that it would be impossible ever to forgive them. Yet while every instinct may be screaming at us to hate them for what they did, we have to stifle this natural impulse. We can’t go on hating forever. The happiest people are those who can find it in their hearts to forgive.

“Peace within a person is where it all starts, because the actions of nations are merely the actions of men writ large.”

We can speculate forever about why things happen or why some people do terrible things, but we rarely find the answers we seek. Jesus showed us another way and people like Ray are showing it is possible.

* * *

Thankfully, he’s not alone. Since meeting Ray I’ve met many people who have made forgiveness in a reality in their life. All of them share a desire to make the world a better place, one in which these huge wrongs might never happen in the first place.

It’s a vision that is shared by the Restorative Justice Council, which give victims the chance to tell offenders the real impact of their crime, and holds offenders to account for what they have done, enabling everyone affected by a particular incident to play a part in repairing the harm and finding a positive way forward.

It was through the Restorative Justice Process that Joanne Nodding was able to meet and forgive the man who raped her. She says: ‘Did I hate him? For a while afterwards you could probably say that I did, but you can’t go on living with hate in your heart forever. Well, I can’t anyway. I’m not a person who feels hatred. That feeling isn’t me, or it’s not the me I recognise, and it’s not the me I want to be. Besides, hating him is not going to change what happened.

‘I could sit here, thinking, “God, why has this person done this to me?” Or I could say, “God help me to forgive and help him to have a better life”. Everyone can change and everyone deserves a chance to change. As I see it, I could either hate him for the rest of my life or I could forgive him’.

I can’t begin to understand what Ray and Joanne went through, but the goodness they reflect through their capacity for forgiveness makes me want to live a better life. They’ve made me think about how many opportunities I have each day to either forgive or not, to let go of pain or to let it weigh heavy in my heart.

Do I need to focus on a throwaway remark from a stranger so that it spoils the rest of my day? Can I be more loving, grateful and less critical? Can I focus on the good in people? What I’ve learned is that life can be messy, but we are all given choices every day. In choosing to forgive we are choosing a life of love and gratitude.

Against the Odds: True Stories of Healing and Forgiveness by Carmel Thomason is published by the Bible Reading Fellowship.

Carmel Thomason

Carmel Thomason is a Manchester based writer. She has written Every Moment Counts: A Life of Mary Butterwick (DLT); collaborated with the Archbishop of York, writing the stories for John Sentamu’s Faith Stories; and has contributed to The Way, The Truth and The Life series published by the Teacher’s Enterprise in Education.

A Rough Guide to Dealing with Anger

By Anita Mathias

Image Credit

Jamie the Very Worst Missionary writes:

Sometimes we look pretty Godless, El Chupacabra (her husband) and I. And it’s not because we’re some hipster Christians who act that way on purpose to be “relevant” or something. It’s because we’re just not letting God in, to be part of what we’re doing here on His Earth. We don’t always seek Him, or listen to Him, or obey Him – even when we know we should. We look Godless sometimes because… well, we are Godless sometimes. And it’s ugly. And sad.

This life has taken its toll on El Chupacabra and me, and how we’ve run short of Love and Grace and Mercy for one another. Having been married since we were children, we carry with us the tenderness of life long friends, but also the familiarity of inbred cousins. When we argue, which is often, we lose our minds – saying the same things again and again, and ending with a venomous chorus of “Screw you!”, “No, screw YOU!”, “NO, SCREW YOU!!” – until we’re both just too tired to keep shouting about who ought to be screwed.

I read this, smile, and sigh!

I smile: she is being honest and liberating. Because sometimes even committed Christians “lose their minds,” as she says.

And confessing your sins to one another, being honest, even on a blog, is liberating. Both for yourself–how freeing to chuck that mask!!–and for other people who similarly blow it, and secretly wonder if they are damaged goods, and inferior Christians. And who might be tempted to wear a mask and hide the reality. And then begin to suspect everyone else of wearing masks!!

I sigh, because I recognise a Roy and Anita.

I sigh, because that is simply not the way to deal with anger, as of course, Jamie knows.

* * *

I have been married for 26 years. Anger was a volatile issue in our marriage at first. I had to get help to deal with it in a constructive way.

There is huge energy and power in anger. It’s a red light that tells you something is wrong. Perhaps in you, or in the relationship, in the life you’re living, in the way you are being treated, in your idols, in your goals and priorities, in your attitude.

Anger is a scream of protest and a cry for change—either internal, within you, or external, in family or relationship dynamics. It must be heeded.

Slowing down and processing your anger with Jesus, and, if necessary with a trusted friend, or a good professional counsellor, is vital. It is a volcano within you. You can’t tell it sit down and be nice. If not processed, it will explode in inappropriate, uncontrollable ways, or simmer within as lava, scaring others off, ruining your life, your productivity, your sleep, and, probably, your health.

Listen to your anger, question it, talk to it, talk about it with trusted others, make the necessary changes in your life, or attitude. Don’t ignore it, because this intruder will take over more and more of your thought-life, and heart. Make anger your ally to bring about constructive change.

* * *

So when our deep anger with each other began impacting our work, our sleep, our health, our parenting, I got help. So did Roy, separately.

Remember this about anger: You are responsible for your reactions. You are responsible for your behaviour. While it’s best if you change in tandem, as we now do, you can also change alone.

An older friend who was also training as a Christian therapist worked with me on anger. And I met weekly with a wonderful mentor.

She quoted her friends, missionaries to Africa: anger is akin to demonic possession. People controlled by anger, letting rip in a tantrum behave and sound much as the demon-possessed do. They even look similar! It’s no accident that in American conversation, the word “mad” is commonly used for angry. “It makes me so mad.”

That made me more determined to get my anger under control.

* * *

How? The most useful tip I’ve found is talking to Jesus. Telling him honestly how I feel. Just go on telling him. Write it all down, which is cathartic.

And then, shut up and listen to what Jesus says.

I find thanking and praising God for all the good things in the person I am angry with also helps.

I really enjoy using reason, rather than emotion. What am I angry about? Can this situation be resolved? How would I like to see it resolved? Can I discuss and analyse it the person involved, so that it doesn’t recur.

And what if it’s a really annoying person you have to work with at church, say, and its not really appropriate to process your complicated emotions with them, face to face? You might need to make changes within yourself then—meditate on their good points, ask God to give you love for them, or just shrug your shoulders and smile at their annoyingness.

* * *

But the absolute truth is: I did not really get control of my anger. Someone got control of me. I just cannot rise to the same heights of anger as I did. The sort of thing which would have infuriated me, I can now dispassionately consider, and decide on the best course of action. I guess my favourite Lion has changed my heart.

I think it’s God’s spirit in my heart, warning me, tempering my reactions, restraining me. I very soon get tired of the shouting, and retreat to the cave of Christ to let the lion lick my wounds, tell him my sob story, receive his balm for my spirit, and chat with him as to how best to proceed. Or not. Sometimes other people’s outbursts can be ignored. Not every “screw you” needs to be one-upped!

The Last Human Freedom: To Choose One’s Own Attitude in Any Circumstances (From Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning)

By Anita Mathias

Victor Frankl (credit)

I just stumbled upon a Facebook photograph of an older person I know, in her seventies. Her face was sad, so sad. It was chilling.

Viktor Frankl, the psychologist who was in a Nazi concentration camp, believed that our last human freedom is that we get to choose the attitude we will adopt in any circumstances. It is our most inalienable human right.

We are practising. Always practising. The attitude we choose now, the “face” we choose now, will be our attitude and face in our seventies, and eighties and nineties.

Okay, then, Anita, I say to myself, where’s that smile?

* * *

Excerpt from Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

“What about human liberty? Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behaviour and reaction to any given surroundings?

Most importantly, do prisoners’ reactions to the singular world of the concentration camp prove that man cannot escape the influences of his surroundings? Does man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances?

The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become moulded into the form of the typical inmate.

Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.

Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.”

Giving: A Counter-Intuitive Secret to “Getting Ahead”

By Anita Mathias

Adam Grant

I often think of a fascinating New York Times Magazine article “Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead,” I read a few months ago.

“Giving as the Secret to Getting Ahead,” profiles Adam Grant, 31, the youngest tenured professor at Wharton Business School, and author of “Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success,” who studies and practices generosity as a way of life and work. (This eccentric post is a sort of précis of the brilliant article, chock-full of direct quotes. Back to regular programming soon)

“For Adam Grant, helping is not the enemy of productivity, a time-sapping diversion from the actual work at hand; it is the mother lode, the motivator that spurs increased productivity and creativity.

“The greatest untapped source of motivation, he argues, is a sense of service to others; focusing on the contribution of our work to other people’s lives has the potential to make us more productive than thinking about helping ourselves.”

“Grant sees an in-box filled with requests not a task to be dispensed with perfunctorily (or worse, avoided); it’s an opportunity to help people, and therefore it’s an opportunity to feel good about yourself and your work.”

“The message sounds terrific: Feel good about your work, and get more of it done, and bask in the appreciation of all the people you help along the way. Nice guys can finish first! ’’ [Read more…]

In Which I Invest in Mental Wealth

By Anita Mathias

So we had guests for lunch. It normally takes me just a few minutes to get myself presentable, but I was slowed down by my bedroom which was unusually messy: unmade bed, clothes books, manuscripts and make up strewn around. Looking at it made me stressed, and I realised that, when I entered it after lunch, to read in bed or nap, I’d immediately get stressed.

So though I hadn’t yet been down, having left the cleaning, cooking and tidying to Roy and girls, I decided to take ten minutes to tidy my room and invest in “mental wealth”. And that was all it took to get it tidy. A ten minute bridge between stress and peace.

John Bailey, in his biography of Iris Murdoch, says that that Iris picked up a book and started reading that moment she entered the house. That is one of the benefits of a decluttered house and life. Your mind is clear. You enter a room and begin reading.

* * *

Achieving or increasing monetary wealth does not particularly excite me. I am far more interested in mental wealth. Shalom, peace.

And so I am working on a massive decluttering project, trying to get rid of everything neither beautiful nor useful, so that each room exudes blessedness and peace ( just as my sleeping collie Jake does) rather than chatter and nag me, like a living To-Do list. For that’s what visual clutter does!

* * *

My other mental wealth practices: Gardening, which I enjoy, and which induces a euphoric change of state in me. It’s mainly a time for praise or prayer (interspersed sometimes with nagging Roy about undone tasks). I have let my garden (one and a half acre) go, so getting it pretty again is a challenge, but one I enjoy!

* * *

I never thought I would be typing this, but long walks (3-4 miles) also induce a euphoric “change of state.” I pulse with endorphins, I think clearly, I feel great. When I return to my laptop, I can write fast and for long hours, and happily. It’s a manifestation of the goodness of God isn’t it, that something so simple should bring so much joy?

* * *

Brene Brown in Daring Greatly says that our numbing activities (over-eating, over-work, screens, shopping) stem from our craving connection with our family and friends, an ache we misdiagnose. So when I feel restless, I spend more time with my family, or arrange to meet-up with a friend, and, yeah, that certainly builds up mental wealth.

* * *

Richard Foster suggests discovering prayer as a recreational activity. And perhaps it is the finest.

Prayer as relaxation. Just letting your thoughts unscroll as they will, and bringing them to God one by one. Presenting your random dreams, hopes and wishes to God, and chatting to him about them.

Or doing nothing at all, just waiting, and seeing what He might say. At times, I get restless and bored. At other times, I think it is the most interesting thing there is! Playing in the fields of the Lord!

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