random | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

My Week in Facebook Status Updates

Irene’s (in red) 12th birthday party in our conservatory

Fab, busy fine-tuned day. Got Zoe off to the Lake District for a week’s post-GCSE holiday–9 teens together in the Lakes, absolutely no adults. Fingers crossed! Transported Irene to a friend’s iceskating party & back, then on to drinks to celebrate the wedding of lovely Lesley Fellows, blogger extraordinaire (revdlesley.net) and Alan Crawley. And then gardening in late June’s golden light!

Summer garden joys–Irene bouncing in the sprinkler, in her swimsuit, listening to her iPod, wrapped in multiple layers of bubble wrap. Will it survive? Let’s see. Realizing how sharp Jake’s olfactory senses are compared to mine. He drops his yellow-green tennis ball amid clumps of plants, and looks at me as if I’m daft when I can’t smell it. Black crumbly compost I’ve made myself. Smells good!

Roy and I working in the garden together come to an epiphany almost simultaneously. “Zoe, you should become a farmer.” Zoe, patiently, wearily, “Yes, mum and dad, I’ll use my state of the art education to become a farmer.” Perhaps it takes middle age to attain wisdom!

We’re going to be beekeepers. Ordered a Queen Carnolian Bee & 5 frames of bees, a hive and accoutrements. Largely to pollinate our orchard, veggie garden & flowers, partly coz local honey is good for hay fever allergies; natural (not sugar fed) honey is good for colds, coughs & the immune system; & coz we like honey. Not because we’re crazy! Roy’s dad and grandmum kept bees, so we’re hoping he’s absorbed some lore!

Okay, today is not only the longest day of the year, but the last day of Zoe’s GCSE exams. National exams taken at 16 for my overseas friends. Mandatory Math, Science and English and 5 options. Zoe took Latin, Ancient Greek, French, History and Drama. They started on May 16th!! Everyone’s weary! Now Zoe gets 2.5 months off before A levels–French, English, Philosophy and Theology.

Quack. Quack! Latest addition to the Mathias symphony/cacophany. Roy and I bought two snowy white laying ducks, one Aylesbury, sweet, fat and contented, and one Indian Runner, gawky with an impossibly long swannish neck. This improbable Laurel and Hardy pair are comical, noisy and adorable. We bought them, on impulse after a lovely visit to National Trust Manors, Snowshill and Chastleton in Gloucestershire.

Ah, have been eating the 1st strawberries from our garden. The sweetness far surpasses store-bought! 1st strawberry success! Went on an interesting escorted tour of Merton and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The head gardener of Corpus deliberately leaves weeds in his wildish garden. Blink!! Oxford’s lovely now. “And that sweet city with her dreaming spires; she needs not June for beauty’s heightening! Matthew Arnold

Thanks God for weekends. Irene’s was fabulous–early lunch here & a second lunch with her friend Phoebe, early dinner at Phoebe’s & second late dinner here. And youth group at church and Sunday school. She has become a church goer again after we changed churches. Yay. And we’ve spent hours taming our garden, neglected for 5 years, while Zoe studied for her last 4 GCSE’s. She’s done this week at last. Good weekend!

Zoe, “I wish it were as easy to buy time to read books as it is to buy books.” Amen!

Top of Form

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067. Or something like that anyway. Irene and her friend, Lisa, who is Chinese are competing to see how fast they can work out the value of Pi mentally. They’ve got to 35 places. Roy says he, and his friend, David Wong-Toi who was Chinese, did the same thing at breaks. What’s up with Indians and Chinese?

Personality Types–The Planter and the Finisher

By Anita Mathias

Imae: Joyce Kimball Smith

Roy and I were chatting with someone who’d worked as a psychologist. After an hour or so together, he guessed that on the Belbin Personality Inventory, I would be a Planter, and Roy would be a Completer/ Finisher.

According to Wikipedia, Planters are “creative, unorthodox, and a generator of ideas. If an innovative solution to a problem is needed, a planter is a good person to ask. A planter will be bright and free-thinking. Planters can tend to ignore incidentals, and refrain from getting bogged down in detail. A planter bears a strong resemblance to the popular caricature of the absent-minded professor.”

The Completer Finisher on the other hand “is a perfectionist and will often go the extra mile to make sure everything is “just right,” and the things he or she delivers can be trusted to have been double-checked and then checked again. The Completer Finisher has a strong inward sense of the need for accuracy, and sets his or her own high standards rather than working on the encouragement of others. They may frustrate their teammates by worrying excessively about minor details, and by refusing to delegate tasks that they do not trust anyone else to perform.”

Though Roy and I have extremely exasperated each other over the last 21 years–and might continue doing so for the next 21!!–we are, in many ways, a good team, a well-matched mixture of inspiration and perspiration, of ideas and detail-oriented, often boring and sweaty implementation.
* * *

The psychologist was probably right. Whenever Roy and I have taken personality profiles, we turn out as diametrically opposite. On Meyers-Briggs I am ENTP. He was ISFJ, if I remember correctly.

A wonderful pastor of ours, Bob Hopper, who spent time with us when we fairly newly-wed gave us the DISC personality inventory.

I, interestingly, was at the extreme end of the charts for DI traits(dominance/dynamism, influencing). Roy, predictably, was at the extreme end of the charts of SC traits (steadiness, conscientiousness). Both of us were right at the bottom of the charts for the opposing attributes, DI for Roy, SC for me. (Bob pointed out that my psychological profile was the same as his, and typical of pastors!!)

Hey, I could sue the match-maker, were it not I myself!! And, if people who are diametric opposites manage to weather the years in which murder, bloodshed, and front page news are not remote possibilities, they have a good chance of having a balanced, creative and wise partnership.

* * *

I have a first cousin, Chris whose passion is founding businesses. He has founded a large number which he has sold for staggering sums. Bought much an island off Spain, bred polo ponies, and then founded another company, and another and another, selling each as it was established and profitable. He’s now involved in social and philanthropic investment (which is something I would be very interested in, had I the funds).

Funnily enough, I know that impulse. I was consumed by establishing the publishing company which now supports our family. Lived, breathed it. In fact, once when while Roy and I animatedly discussed business at dinner, we saw tears stream down the face of Irene, aged 8. “She’s literally bored to tears,” Roy said, with amazement. She was!!

Now that it is established, I find it less interesting. I have been able to hand it over the daily details of running it to other people, which is fortunate, as I am now able to return to writing.
* * *

But I understand well the impulse that makes the opening stages of a project more compelling than the mid or endgame.

But few of us can spend our lives starting things.

I have started three major enterprises (for me) in the last four years–a publishing company, blogging seriously, and a large garden, which is an experimental permaculture, forest garden, with perennial fruits and veggies. (Will blog later on that). And I am, of course, continuing to write, which is really my life’s deepest passion.

* * *

I love the early stages of a project–the optimism, the hope, the dizzy excitement, the sense of unlimited potential, the thrill of hunches and intuitions working, how compelling it all is.

The later stages, however, offer rewards–more and more rewards for less and less work: the rewards of virtuous circles, of reaping what you have sown. More predictability. In a publishing company, your back list continues fruitful, so there’s less need to publish new titles; in a blog, if it’s compelling, your readers keep increasing so that successive posts find an ever larger audience; in a garden based on perennial fruits and vegetables, you harvest more and more with ever decreasing fresh plantings.

How strange to find the sowing phase more compelling.

* * *

I said to Roy half-facetiously, “Roy, if I get any more ideas, for any more projects, stop me.”

The projects I have on hand are life-time projects–writing books, writing a blog, and gardening–and I honestly hope not to inaugurate any more, but see these to ripeness and fruition.

So help me God!

God praises those who are Christians inwardly, whose hearts are circumcised

By Anita Mathias

Circumcision of the Heart

Image: holyspiritinteractive.net

The Jews and the Law

¹⁷ Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; ¹⁸ if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; ¹⁹ if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, ²⁰ an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— ²¹ you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? ²² You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³ You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? ²⁴ As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

²⁵ Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. ²⁶ So then, if those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? ²⁷ The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.

²⁸ A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. ²⁹ No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.

Paul’s sardonic inquisition of the Jews could also apply to smug and self-righteous Christians.

He mocks the Jews who are proud of their law, who boast of their special relationship to God, who are convinced that they know his will and approve of what is superior, who are convinced that they are guides to the blond, lights for those who are in darkness, teachers of the foolish because they have in the law, in scripture, the embodiment of knowledge and truth. Yet, they secretly do the very things the excoriate others for doing.

Circumcision does not make a Jew. Ticking the right belief boxes does not make one a Christian. True Jews have their hearts cleansed and purified by the Spirit. True Christians have their hearts cleansed and purified by the spirit

These true believers may or may not be praised by other people, but God praises them.

God praises those who are Christians inwardly, whose hearts are circumcised

By Anita Mathias

Circumcision of the Heart

Image: holyspiritinteractive.net

The Jews and the Law

Paul’s sardonic inquisition of the Jews could also apply to smug and self-righteous Christians.

These true believers may or may not be praised by other people, but God praises them.

Hospitality–Max Lucado, Thought for the Day

By Anita Mathias

“IF WE WAIT until everything is perfect, we’ll never issue an invitation. Remember this: what is common to you is a banquet to someone else. You think your house is small, but to the lonely heart, it is a castle. You think your living room is a mess, but to the person whose life is a mess, your house is a sanctuary. You think the meal is simple, but to those who eat alone every night, pork and beans on paper plates tastes like filet mignon. What is small to you is huge to them.”

– Max Lucado, Outlive your Life

Share on site of your choice … Wikio

Exploring Norway

By Anita Mathias

Exploring Norway

Guest Post by Roy Mathias.
Exploring Norway we saw many of the sights Norway is famous for; A farmer’s cottage with turf on the roof, for insulation, and a goat grazing happily

Sheer sided fjords (This is Geirangerfjord, from above)

and a view from the cruise ship

Breiddalsvatnet lake, high in the mountains, where we camped

Tarns, streams, lichen, 4 inch high blueberry bushes with full size berries, all shrouded on mist in the Hardangervidda plateau

After seeing

we were on the alert for trolls, but all we saw was a field of fluffy black and white llamas

Or were they Alpacas?
Differences between Llamas and Alpacas
Alpacas and llamas are both South American camelids, and are frequently confused by the uninitiated, like us. So some quick internet research. Both llamas and alpacas have been domesticated for an estimated five thousand years, and can be crossed, to produce fertile offspring. But there the similarity ends. Llamas were bred as pack animals, and for meat. They have a coarse outer layer of wool, with a fine under layer, and grow to about five or six feet in height. Aplacas, on the other hand, are about half the height. Their wool is incredibly soft and warm, as they were bred exclusively for their wool which was to worn only by royalty. (Commoners used coarser llama wool.) None of this helped us decide. The final difference was that alpacas have “straight” ears

while llamas have “curved” ears, often called “banana shaped.”

Ours were alpacas.

Clearly Alpacas thrive in the Andes and Norway. What about Oxfordshire? As it happens, there is a least one Alpaca farm in Oxfordshire – Great House Alpacas, run by Phillipa Wills. She not only gets to keep the cuddly creatures, but she looks after them on her Honda ATV (quadbike). Here’s a video of her with the alpacas.

Paul’s Sublime Statement on the Justice of God

By Anita Mathias

^{Blog Through the Bible Project}

^{Romans 2:5} But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. ⁶ God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” ⁷ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. ⁸But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. ⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; ¹⁰ but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹¹ For God does not show favoritism.

¹² All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. ¹³ For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. ¹⁴ (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. ¹⁵ They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) ¹⁶ This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

I have known smug Christians who are convinced that they are going to heaven because they have their theological boxes ticked, because they believe the right things about Christ, whereas those who far excel them in mercy, justice and kindness are going to hell, because they do not believe in Christ.

What kind of justice is that? Not God’s.

Here Paul has a statement which is at odds with smug parochialism.

I cannot do better than quote it.

⁶ God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”

⁷ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.

⁸But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger

⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile;

¹⁰ but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile

¹¹ For God does not show favoritism.

¹² All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.

¹³ For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

¹⁴ (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law

. ¹⁵ They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)

¹⁶ This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

God looks at people’s hearts and lives, not just their creeds.

Those whose profession of faith is letter-perfect, but whose heart and life belies their faith may have a few surprises coming.

Similarly, those who have what Tertullian called an anima naturaliter Christiana, a “naturally Christian soul,” who have been kind, generous, merciful, compassionate, unselfish, sacrificial, have behaved like men fashioned in the image of God, might have a few pleasant surprises in store.

And for Mr and Mrs Average–not too bad, not too good? I believe mercy will rule.
* * *

My thinking is not clear on this issue.

I do believe in standard reformed theology–that I am grafted into Christ, that when God sees me he sees Christ, that he accepts me because Christ paid the punishment for my sins on the cross.

However, I also believe that all the gentle kind Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims and Jews who believe what they have been taught will also find mercy because of the content of their lives and characters.

C.S. Lewis has a scene in The Last Battle in which though who were taught to worship Tash, but whose life had a nobility and purity that resembled the followers of Aslan in fact enter with Aslan to Aslan’s Own Country.

I believe that too.

Emeth the Calormene, the Tash-worshipper went through the stable door and was accepted by Aslan. Aslan explains that he the vile god Tash have nothing in common. “We are opposites.” Yet Aslan accepted Emeth “no service which is vile can be done to me and none which is not vile can be done to him.”

Emeth continues,

“Then he breathed upon me and took away the trembling from my limbs and caused me to stand upon my feet. And after that, he said not much, but that we should meet again, and I must go further up and further in. Then he turned him about in a storm and flurry of gold and was gone suddenly.

“And since then, O Kings and Ladies, I have been wandering to find him and my happiness is so great it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me Beloved, me who am but a dog – ” (p.155)

The Multiple Ironies of the Gay Girl in Damascus Hoax

By Anita Mathias

Tom MacMaster, the real gay girl

Jelena Lecic ... the Croat living in London says the Gay Girl in Damascus blog has been carrying a picture of her.

This stolen FB image was passed off as Amina Arraf,,the gay girl in Damascus

One of this week’s captivating stories was that of The Gay Girl in Damascus. She was a middle-aged married male American, Tom MacMaster. In the unravelling of the hoax, it transpired that another prominent lesbian blogger, Paula Brooks, was in fact a 57 year old straight American male construction worker from Ohio!!

So the moral—blogs and tweets and blog comments from people you haven’t met, who are anonymous, whose authenticity, veracity and very existence you cannot check out are best taken with a grain of salt. At first, Facebook was supposed to keep you honest because there were so many people from your real life or lives on your facebook page. Now however, I have had friend requests from avatars of bloggers, who use a cartoon as their profile picture. So apparently, one can have a large number of “friends” and followers while being “unreal.”

So never entirely trust an anonymous blog. It may well be duplicitious; authenticity online can be easily faked. Let the reader beware!!

* * *

Tom MacMaster, according to various accounts, had unsuccessfully tried his hand at a literary career. When he failed, as many do, he created a full-bodied resonant creation, Amina Arraf, with a backstory which closely matched MacMaster’s own. And pretty much everyone believed in her.

As the Washington Post pointed out, “the irony of “A Gay Girl in Damascus” is that it was really a lovely blog.

If he had not been so emotionally resonant, so detailed, so seemingly “real,” nobody would have cared so much when Amina disappeared, and nobody would have worked so hard to figure out what might have happened to her, and nobody would have learned that she was a pale man from Georgia.

And how poignant that a member of one of the most privileged classes in the world felt that the only way he could have a voice was to pretend to be a member of a class that has been disenfranchised in every possible way.”

* * *

I took a class in Faulkner in graduate school, and remember the professor saying that the winners get the spoils, the losers get the stories.

In other words, the meek inherit the earth. They get the best stories.

My daughters hate reading anything sad. But without sadness, there is no story. Without conflict and heartbreak and disappointment, there is no story.

Not even a fairy tale.

* * *

This story abounds in ironies. For Macmaster’s life was not lacking in interest. He had led a colourful life as an activist in America. His American childhood on the banks of the Shenandoah, observing the Mennonites–a backstory he gave Amina–sounds charming. He was married to an atypical American woman, and lived in Edinburgh.

Would his own life, closely observed, have lacked all interest? Surely not.

Amina, he says, took him over. He saw the news, restaurant menus, his own life, through her eyes. “Would she have liked it?,” he’d wonder. She became real to him. Flaubert knew something of this process when he said, “Madame Bovary, c’est moi.”

What a compelling novel MacMaster could have written about Amina! But would a novel by a middle-aged guy from Georgia about a gay girl from Damascus be published? Enter the blog.

Now, of course, Tom MacMaster is meeting with literary agents. How much time and heartbreak could have been saved if they had done so in the first place.

The Jews and the Law

The Jews and the Law

anita.mathias