random | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Jesus of Montreal–Age Cannot Wither Him, nor Custom Stale his Infinite Variety

More modern and edgy than the sheerly beautiful and sublime Of Gods and Men, this French language film had me gripped and intrigued.

Daniel Coulombe, an out of work actor is hired to modernize Montreal Cathedral’s dated and floundering passion play.

A dedicated method actor, he immerses himself in the Gospels, and in all the historical and archeological information he can find on the life and times of Jesus.

The movie bears unobtrusive parallels to the Gospels. Daniel chooses a cast of unlikely actors–nude models, porn stars, unwed mothers–people who have known what it is to be humiliated, to fail, to be outsiders, on the edges, derided.

For such the Gospel has extraordinary relevance. The idea that each of them is special to God. That His acceptance is infinite. That for sinners, such as them, Christ came. And so they give emotionally charged, luminous, heart-speaking-to-heart performances in the Passion Play.

Daniel immerses himself in the words of Christ, producing haunting theatrical performances of Jesus mingling with the crowd with his powerful message of God’s love and acceptance, with his encouragment not to worry but to trust, and to feed on his words and message. He makes the words of Jesus contemporary and relevant, as, in fact, they are–though they often cry out for “Fresh Expressions.”

Since, the company uses method acting (immersing yourself in your character), Daniel, in particular, begins to see the world as Jesus would have. When his friend is commanded to strip in a modelling audition, he overturns and destroys the expensive cameras, computers and equipment.

And he berates pompous religious hypocrites in words of Christ from the Gospels–which are a presciently accurate portrayal of religious leaders when power, money, prestige muddy the pristine waters of simple devotion.

His words come too close to the bone. The play is closed down. They perform it one last time in defiance. Security is summoned. In the melee, the cross with Daniel on topples, crushing him.

He is taken to the Jewish General Hospital where a shifty doctor, having established that he has no relatives, declares him brain dead, and takes his heart, eyes, liver, kidney,s etc from his still living body to give new life to those on the waiting list.

And so Daniel Coulombe (dove in French) has a resurrection!!

* * *

What most fascinated me was the extraordinary power and relevance of Jesus’ words to transform mind, heart and character of anyone who meditated on them long enough.

Daniel Coulombe’s performance reminded me of a splendid portrayal of Jesus in the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, Florida. Jesus strolled through the amusement park crowds, just chatting. He crouched down in front of my daughter, Irene, showed her a flower, and told her not to worry, since God would give her beauty as he made the lilies shine.

He scooped up Zoe in his arms, and delivered the Sermon on the Mount, holding her, telling the crowd that they should become like little children.

Zoe was captured on dozens of video cameras, and people recognized her all week as we did the tourist circuit in Orlando–Disneyworld, Epcot Centre and MGM Studios. She was young enough to believe that Jesus carried her, which is what she told all her friends!

“Of Gods and Men” A Sublime and Beautiful Film

By Anita Mathias

I watched this film by Xavier Beauvois last night. It is one of the most beautiful, even sublime, films I’ve seen in a long time.

It’s the true story of 9 Trappist monks in the Tibhirine Monastery in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria. They live a beautiful life of prayer, Gregorian chant, and work: medical work among the poor for Brother Luc; study of the Koran for the scholarly abbot Christian; and making honey, growing vegetables, and tending sheep for the others. They are self-sufficient, and advise, succour and provide free medical care for the local villagers, who love them.

Algeria was torn by a civil war between a corrupt government and the mujahadeen. The latter are barbarous–they murder girls without the hijab; teachers who speak of “love marriages;” harmless Croatian highway workers.

They pay the monks an armed visit. Both army and police warn the monks that it is a just a matter of time before they too are murdered. And offer armed protection.

The Abbot, Christian de Cherge refuses. He cannot have the soldiers of a corrupt government in the monastery.
* * *

Of Gods and Men. The Monks Vote to Stay

The crux of the drama is the decision: Should they stay, or return to France?

The mujahadeen are illiterate and murderous. Sooner or later, they will be murdered, they all realize.

The villagers plead with them to stay. They feel safe as long as the monks stay.

And they do, madly sacrificing their one and precious life (in a decision, I feel was a mistake).

Why? Because they believed they had already died when they decided to follow Christ as a monk. That being a martyr was no less foolish than being a monk. That they had chosen to incarnate with the villagers, in their poverty and powerlessness, and to flee would not be right. That the Good Shepherd would not do that. That they should stay in the place they had committed to stay (and trust the results of that choice to God).

It is perhaps relevant that Trappists take the fourth vow of stability. They promise to stay rooted in the monastery they enter. And so these monks do.

They are taken hostage. Murdered. As they more or less foreknew.

* * *

Mad men, or saints?

Sometimes, the prudent choice would be such a denial of everything you lived for to date. Of everything you value. Of everything you hope to live for.

To betray your ideals and everything you have lived for to save your own life is just another form of death.

So fleeing would negate their commitment to love, powerlessness, trust, incarnation, service, the village of Tibhirine, Algeria, and their fourth monastic vow of stability, commitment to a place.

What then would they live for in the future if they had allowed fear to negate everything they had lived for so far–and hoped to live for?

This is the reasoning which leads men and women to die rather than deny Christ.
* * *

The Abbot Christian de Cherge belonged to a distinguished French military family and fought in the French army during the brutal Algerian war of independence. A Muslim friend, Mohammed, faced down local rebels who wanted to shoot Christian when they were taking their customary walk, and discussing their faith. The next day, the rebels shot Mohammed.

The real life Christian left a beautiful testament, in which he addresses his “friend of the last minute, who will not have known what you are doing. May we meet again, as happy thieves in Paradise.”
* * *

In the contemporary classic, Desiring God, John Piper ridicules the idea that there is an inherent beauty in the monastic life of prayer, quietness and worship.

This film shows the beauty of that life. You can almost taste the silence. The peace. The grace. The balm of the Psalms. Oh to be a contemplative! A contemplative in the world, since my life choices have closed the other path to me.

* * *

And here is the Testament left by the real-life the abbot, Dom Christian de Chergé

Facing a GOODBYE …

If it should happen one day — and it could be today — that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to engulf all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church and my family to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country.

I ask them to accept the fact that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure.

I ask them to associate this death with so many other equally violent ones which are forgotten through indifference or anonymity.

My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value. In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood.

I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil which seems to prevail so terribly in the world, even in the evil which might blindly strike me down.

I should like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down.

I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this.

I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder.

It would be too high a price to pay for what will perhaps be called, the “grace of martyrdom” to owe it to an Algerian, whoever he might be, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam.

I am aware of the scorn which can be heaped on the Algerians indiscriminately.

I am also aware of the caricatures of Islam which a certain Islamism fosters.

It is too easy to soothe one’s conscience by identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideology of its extremists.

For me, Algeria and Islam are something different: it is a body and a soul.

I have proclaimed this often enough, I think, in the light of what I have received from it.

I so often find there that true strand of the Gospel which I learned at my mother’s knee, my very first Church, precisely in Algeria, and already inspired with respect for Muslim believers.

Obviously, my death will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naive or idealistic:
“Let him tell us now what he thinks of his ideals!”

But these persons should know that finally my most avid curiosity will be set free.

This is what I shall be able to do, God willing: immerse my gaze in that of the Father to contemplate with him His children of Islam just as He sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, the fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and restore the likeness, playing with the differences.

For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God, who seems to have willed it entirely for the sake of that JOY in everything and in spite of everything.

In this THANK YOU, which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you, my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families — you are the hundredfold granted as was promised!

And also you, my last-minute friend, who will not have known what you were doing:

Yes, I want this THANK YOU and this GOODBYE to be a “GOD BLESS” for you, too, because in God’s face I see yours.

May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both.

AMEN! INCHALLAH!

The Parable of the Talents: A Parable for Business and Life

By Anita Mathias

The Parable of the Talents

This parable is probably the one which has intrigued me more than any other.

Those given the talent of ability to begin with are entrusted with more.

No directions are given. The wealth (in this parable) is given to them in trust.

And they are now to get on with their lives.

It is a test.

Those who have made the most of what they have been given are given increased responsibility–and happiness.

Those who have not lose what they have been given–and it is given to those who already have a lot.

This parable, among all Jesus’s parables is the most true to life as I have observed and experienced it.

One starting point is random: different people are given different “talents”–intelligence, wealth, beauty, family connections, health….

To those who are diligent about using what they have is more given. And even more.

Those who are not diligent lose the little they have.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

At a certain period in my life, I was the wicked and lazy servant–not making use of my education and writing gifts, not making the most of my financial resources. I experienced a bit of what Jesus talks about, seeing people who perhaps had less writing ability and training do far better than I because of diligence. And financially, I found myself with less disposable income than people who are more careful with their money.

And seeing that, this parable became tatooed on my mind and skin. I now am really nervous about not making the most of what I have been given–both material resources, and talents and abilities.

ATTITUDE

The former two servants go the extra mile. Is it fondness for their employer, or is it a finely developed sense of responsibility?

They prove worthy of the trust, they turn over all their proceeds to their employer. They are rewarded with increased responsibility–and happiness.

The third servant has a stingy attitude–he does not want the master to harvest where he has not sown.

He does not want to do anything more than the minimum, and has no interest in being a blessing to his master. No interest in the extra mile.

Because of his stinginess, he loses what he has, whereas the generous, helpful servant is rewarded.

That too is true: that a generous, helpful attitude, being willing to go the extra mile is richly rewarded in business, in life–whereas–for reasons that are not entirely obvious–never being willing to do more than the minimum, leads to failure and a general crimping of life.

FAITHFULNESS

Being faithful in small things is a sure way to expanded responsibility and recognition.

What has God entrusted you with today? Being faithful with it will lead to you having an enlarged territory, as Jabez expresses in his prayer.

A personal commission

Do the best you can with what God has given you. However, God does not judge people comparatively, but in accordance with the gifts he has given them to begin with.

How we handle spiritual truth

The parable, as Jesus says elsewhere, is to do with what one does with the spiritual truth one hears and understands.

Those who are faithful with obeying it, and living it out will be given even more spiritual insight and wisdom.

On the other hand, those who hear with no interest in obeying, and living out their spiritual insights will find themselves forgetting them, or retaining their once glowing spiritual insights as dull, tarnished, unappealing things.

Jesus concludes this parable in other synoptics by saying, “Let him who has ears to hear, hear.”

Personal Business Application

What is a good rate of return on an investment of money or effort?

The parable suggests 100% at least. Invest a £100, make £200, let’s say.

Is this possible? Yes. Not always at first, for business, like most things is an art which has to be learned.

The thing to focus on is leveraging one’s time, energy, talents, investments, raw materials, so as to obtain at least double of what you invested. I learned a lot about this principle of leveraging from a book I picked up second-hand, “The Lazy Man’s Guide to Riches.”

Here is Steve Pavlina’s take on the application of the parable of talents to business.

Excerpts:

What’s the ultimate reward for the faithful servants? Although Jesus doesn’t explicitly say it, it seems obvious they don’t get to keep the money. The two successful servants aren’t even working for their own increase. It’s not their money. They’re working for the increase of their master, and they share in the increase to his estate. Their true reward is to share in their master’s happiness. So happiness is the reward, and happiness comes from serving others.

I know from experience that if I undertake some action to create increase only for myself, there’s very little energy to it, and it doesn’t usually increase my happiness. But if I focus on creating increase for others (such as by helping people grow), then I feel great joy in doing that, and it ultimately creates increase for me too.

As Jesus implies in The Parable of the Talents, creating abundance requires you to move beyond fear. If you’re too fearful or suspicious or distrustful, you’re going to bury your talents. And this leads to “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” i.e. sorrow and depression.

You might think that fear and suspicion will keep you out of trouble, but really they’ll just cause you suffering and pain. You don’t need fear to avoid being a gullible idiot; for that you just need common sense. To live a life of abundance, you must ultimately move beyond fear and work to create abundance for others. Otherwise you’ll ultimately be cast out as worthless. Jesus doesn’t pull any punches here, youse bums.

Serve to create increase for others, and happiness is your reward. Bury your talents, and you get “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The choice is yours.

Readiness: Wise and Foolish Virgins, Blog Through the Bible Project

Wilhelm Von Schadow, Wise and Foolish Virgins.

The Parable of the Ten Virgins

¹ “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. ² Five of them were foolish and five were wise. ³ The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. ⁴ The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. ⁵ The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
⁶ “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

⁷ “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. ⁸ The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

⁹ “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

¹⁰ “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

¹¹ “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

¹² “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

¹³ “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

Just one life. Just one. And at the end, we will meet Christ, the bridegroom.

Are we living in readiness for him? Or are we totally unprepared?

Christ says, “Be ready, because you don’t know the day or the hour. And when he returns, no one can help us out. We have to take personal responsibility for our readiness.

What it means to keep one’s lamp filled with oil varies according to our calling. For me, it would mean learning to keep my eyes on Jesus through the day. Being faithful to my calling as a writer, be it “less or more, or soon or slow, mean or high” as Milton writes about his calling in Sonnet 23.

It means being kind to my husband. Investing in my kids.

This is a quiet patch in my life; I am not as involved in church stuff as I normally have been, which means a kind of simplifying when it comes to the question of what God’s will for me is, what keeping my lamp full of oil means.

To keep my eyes on Jesus. To write. To love my husband. To try to mother my kids well.

Share on site of your choice … Wikio

Heresy, History and Politics in Ravenna’s mosaiced churches

By Anita Mathias

The Arian Baptistery

Arian Baptistry from the outside

The Arian heresy, quite intuitively and reasonably I think, saw the Son as just that, a son, subordinate to the Father, in submission to him, not quite as omnipotent or omniscient as him.

Theodoric, an early ruler of Ravenna, and the Germans and Goths were Arians. The native Italians, and the Emperor in Constantiople adhered more or less to present day Christian orthodoxy.

The political power struggle between the two culminated in the Council of Chalcedon. The Arians lost and were persecuted.

Were the Goths, Ostrogoths and Germans stronger, Christian theology today might have looked different.

I took a two term course in the History of Christianity at Oxford University last year. Theology and dogma, I learnt was always formulated in the interplay of power politics, national politics, money, influence, and who detested, or was envious of whom.

No theological system, it’s likely, is right on every point–even, perhaps, whichever one we ourselves adhere to!!

Saint Apollinaire Nuovo on a sunny spring day.

Charming magi in the church

Female Martyrs in the Church

Neonian Baptistry, Ravenna, an orthodox baptistry

10 sided Mausoleum of Theodoric, Ravenna

Ravenna Mosaics, Apollinaire at Classe

By Anita Mathias

Sant Apollinare in Classe, outskirts of Ravenna.
6th-7th century AD.
Very peaceful. Like stepping into another world.

The mosaic in the apse, shown before is an allegorical representation of the Transfiguration. It is hypnotic.

Right in the centre of the cross is an image of Christ, see detail above.

Funny, how the Christian imagination has almost always represented Christ in the same way–long, lean bearded face, piercing eyes.

Robert Powell in Franco Zefferelli’s Jesus of Nazareth

See also Byzantine Mosaics the Mausoleum of Galla Placida
http://dreamingbeneaththespires.blogspot.com/2011/04/byzantine-art-of-mosaics-and-mausoleum.html

Paul on homosexuality. Romans 1. Blog Through the Bible Project

By Anita Mathias

God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights

Romans 1: 21-27
²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

²⁶ Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. ²⁷ In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Okay, let’s read through this. Because men neither glorified God, nor thanked him, their thinking tended to futility (uselessness), their hearts were darkened, and they became fools.

Their trajectory is set away from God–and so God allows them to continue on the trajectory they have chosen.

He surrenders them to their own lust. And to be surrendered to one’s own lust, without restraint or governance from God, is a very scary thing indeed.

And some men and women experienced lust for one another. “And received in themselves the penalty for their error.” What is this referring to? A prophetic reference to AIDS–a common interpretation? Or to the health risks of gay sex?

Evangelical and Liberal Christians do not agree on their intepretation of homosexuality–is it, or is not, sinful?–and since it is not a sin, or otherwise, which I am/have been particularly tempted by–and I have plenty of my own temptations–I am not going to blog further about it.

Of course this is Paul’s letter to the Romans, not mine. He is a first century Jew; he may or may not be homophobic; and the words he uses to describe homosexuality, not surprisingly for his era are “unnatural,” and verse 27, “shameful,” which is either a reference to homosexuality, or to particular homosexual practices.

What do you think? How do you read this passage?

Share on site of your choice … Wikio

God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts

By Anita Mathias

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights

Okay, let’s read through this. Because men neither glorified God, nor thanked him, their thinking tended to futility (uselessness), their hearts were darkened, and they became fools.

Their trajectory is set away from God–and so God allows them to continue on the trajectory they have chosen.

He surrenders them to their own lust. And to be surrendered to one’s own lust, without restraint or governance from God, is a very scary thing indeed.

Homosexuality is a controversial topic in liberal Christian circles–is it, or is not, sinful– and since it is not a sin, or otherwise, which I am/have been particularly tempted by–and I have plenty of my own temptations–I am not going to blog further about it.

What do you think? How do you read this passage?

One Year of Blogging: Taking Stock. 10 Reflections and Resolutions

By Anita Mathias

Happy First Birthday to Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

And time for taking stock.

1) Am I glad I started blogging? Is it worth it?

I think so. I have never before had my writing read on a daily basis by so many people, between 200-300 most days.

2) What do I like about best about blogging?

The Writing

Wrestling down stray thoughts into shapely posts.

Writing every day.

Beginning to write more easily and fluently than I ever have

The People.

I have met a whole lot of interesting fellow-bloggers over coffee and lunches over the last few months–Lesley Fellows, Simon Cozens, Michael Wenham, Alan Crawley, Louise Lister.

And have had lunches and coffees with blog readers, whom I would not otherwise have met.

And have got to know several other blogger through mutual reading and commenting on their blogs-Ray in Aylesbury, Red, Jen in Oregon, Penny in Georgia, Emma in Eastbourne, Lucy Mills, among other.

Blogging enlarges one’s world. No question about that.

2B Other benefits?

Psychological. I process things through words and images. Processing things on a blog, for public consumption, rather than a journal, does mean that I will follow my thoughts through a lot further than if it were in my journal.

(Risks) Constructing a psychological profile of yourself on the world-wide web is not without risks, and I am not blind to the risks. However, I am trusting my blog and blogging to God, and rightly or wrongly believe that I am under his protection.

Spiritual–Ditto. I tend to follow thoughts through in my blog to a greater extent than in my journal.

3 The Vocation of Blogging

To some extent, I see my blog as a vocation.

In Frederick Buechner’s words, “The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep hunger.”

I would like my blog to be a bit of a ministry–a place where my deep gladness in writing might–by the God’s grace and mercy– feed some of the world’s deep hunger.

I would like my blog to be an offering of love to my readers.

I have written about this at length, here

4) What do I like least?

Easy. Its impermanence. People read the most recent few posts at best. They only read the archive through google searches or Link Within.

The number of people who read a post partly depends on how strategic you are in the time/day on which you post it. I have just realized this.

When I was aiming at a post a day, I published them, even though the thinking could have been more rigorous and the writing more concise.

It takes more time to do a short disciplined logical post, than a longer, stream of consciousness one.

And when I was writing late at night with a post to complete before I sleep I was guilty of baggy, sloppy posts.

4B) So, what am I going to do about that?

i) For past posts, go through my archive. My readership naturally has increased several times over in the course of a year. I am going to go through my archive posts, expand, edit or contract and post the best of them again.

ii) Try for the best writing I can in as many posts as I can, which I can later include in a book of short pieces.

5) Is blogging compatible with the writing of books?

It hasn’t been so far, but I will have to make sure it is.

I see my calling and the “life work” I would like to do with the rest of my life as writing “little books” “What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects – with their Christianity latent.” C. S.Lewis

6) So what am I going to do differently?

Set a timer for 45-60 minutes

I wanted to blog thorugh the Bible in a year, then found there was no way I could comment intelligently on several chapters a day that I would need to do to blog though the Bible in a year. Or two.

So I now muse on as much as I can in an hour, post one passage, and save the rest for a day on which blogging is not possible.

I will have to limit my posts on Dreaming Beneath the Spires to 45-60 minutes a day. That does not feel excessive. What if I want to do a long post and it takes more than an hour to get a finished polished post? Well, then, do what I can in the hour, and finish and post it the next day. The world has survived for 4.5 billion years without my blog, and can survive another day more.

No more posting last thing at night because I had committed to do a post a day. Better no post than an incoherent last thing at night post.

If one day I can do 2 or 3 short posts in an hour, I will save up the posts for another day. Writing is always better for being revised

7 Yeah? What difference will limiting blogging to an hour a day make to my blog?

It will be better. A sin against “the Spirit of Writing” to write when you don’t have something to say. It’s better to have no post than to have people waste their time reading a fluffy post posted for the sake of posting something.

Samuel Johnson enigmatically said that the good thing about knowing that you will be executed the next morning is that it wonderfully concentrates the mind. It’s the same with knowing you have just one hour to blog. You get a whole lot more written, and better. It becomes more important to try to get it right the first time.

I will try to write more posts to publishable standard for a possible short book of the best of the posts .

Limiting the time I spend on blogging will also ensure that I only write on subjects of genuine interest to me, and not write on what is of current interest–and will be of no interest to anyone in a month.

I either read blogs and comment on them too much– or not at all. I am now going to increase/limit it to 15-20 minutes a day. Keep a balance between blogs I know, and blogs I don’t know, between blogs from the United Kingdom where I now live, and the United States, where I lived for 17 years, and of which I happen to be a citizen!

8 Mr. Holland’s Opus

Do you know Mr. Holland’s Opus? To me, it’s a deeply sad film, though it’s meant to be inspiring. Mr. Holland’s dream is to write the great American symphony. He teaches high school music for 31 years, all the while trying to write his symphony in the ever-dwindling, exhaustion-challenged nibbets of free time.

But he invests in this students, he passes on his love for music. They love him.

When the school cuts the music budget, and he retires, his past and present students play “Mr. Holland’s Opus.”

His opus, he realizes, his life’s work, is the lives he touched and inspired, not the piece of great music he hoped to write.

Many bloggers, I suspect, would like to produce a beautiful, long-lasting piece of work over and above their blogs.

Some do not succeed in this. Blogging is time-consuming and addictive, and their blog becomes their opus.

I have struggled with this for several months now. Do I want to only blog? To let my blog be my opus? All the writing I do?

A blog, perhaps, is read by more people on a daily basis than a book is.

It is easier to achieve “success” and recognition as a blogger than as a writer. For instance, this blog has been among the top 25 religious blogs in the UK and Ireland and in the top 150 religious blogs in the world (technorati rankings) a few times. But that does not parallel the sales rank of my books on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.

I came to the conclusion that the longing of my heart is really to write more books, not to have a successful blog. And so I will pursue that goal.

And if my blog becomes my opus?

So be it.

9) Monetization?

Hmmm. Jury’s out on that one. There is a corner of my soul that’s four years old (I suspect several people have such a corner), and that part likes to check my google adsense every day and see how much money I’ve made!!

The amount isn’t keeping me afloat by any means; on the other hand, doing totally unremunerated, unremunerative work goes against the grain with me.

10) Rankings.

Wikio started ranking Christian blogs in November. My blog has fluctuated between 25-34 in the UK and Ireland.

A successful blog gains an audience for one’s other writing. However, given my low energy levels if I put the energy into driving my blog up in the rankings, I won’t do other writing.

Thoreau talks about a man who went to India to make a fortune so that he could be a full time writer later. He comments, “Better he went up attic at once.”

So rather than focus on backlinks and stuff to increase the rankings of my blog, and earn an audience for books to come, I am just going to focus on writing more books.

And trust God for their audience.

* * *

So I have decided not to worry about blog rankings.

Being concerned about blog rankings subtly changes a blog.

And not necessarily for the better.

An obvious temptation is to blog about what everyone else is blogging about, which will increase your odds of getting linked to.

However, if you are not really interested in the subject, and don’t have passionate feelings about it, writing about it is a waste of time, whether you get linked to or not. Bloggers who often get linked to soon develop an intuitive sense of what will get them backlinks. However, these topics may not be those which are the closest to their hearts. Which are most uniquely them. Their unique contribution to the symphony of the blogosphere. So the short-term success can be at the cost of making their blogs truly unique and interesting (though perhaps to a smaller audience).

“Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their lives.

They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint. They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to write somebody else’s poems or possess somebody else’s spirituality.

There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular–and too lazy to think of anything better.

Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success and they are in such haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves.”

Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation.

Anyway, I changed my template on March 7th, after which backlinks appear not to have been credited to me.

So I am thinking of changing my URL, which of course would wipe out a year’s stats–and would remove the tempation to pay attention to rankings, rather than the writing. Will update you guys if I do so.

* * *

I have a competitive streak, and it is not easy for me to do something without at least trying to be one of the best in my field.

But for blogging, I have decided NOT to try to scale up the blog rankings, because it will prove to be too addictive and time-consuming–and will devour time which could have been spent in reading and writing.

I will spend 45-60 minutes a day on blogging, write the best post I can in that time, and leave my position in the rankings to God.

Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot however mean or high,
Toward which time leads me and the will of heaven.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great taskmaster’s eye.

John Milton, Sonnet VII

10 B) Stats.

And here are some stats, if they are of any interest to man or beast.

Last 30 days, Google Analytics