random | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

The Cosmic Significance of the Cross of Christ

I can’t precisely date when exactly I realized that God loved me though it is the most life-changing idea I’ve encountered.

Similarly, I can’t quite date when I understood the significance of the death of Jesus. Of the Cross of Jesus. Of the purifying, protecting blood of Jesus.

As I began to understand them, they brought me a sense of protection. I somehow feel safe because I am covered by the blood of Jesus shed for me. I feel safe, because I can hid in Jesus who died for me.

* * *

The birth of Jesus is the central event in the history of the world. It bifurcates history, as recognized in the Gregorian calendar, the only internationally accepted civil calendar.

He died nailed to the beams of a cross. That cross stands out across the world, and its importance steadily deepens as it reverberates through human history, spanning its height and depth, its length and breadth.

In the cross all things hold together.

In the cross of Jesus, Judeo-Christianity makes sense, is a logically satisfying system, the system of sacrifices in atonement for sin ending with one perfect victim.

* * *

We are children of God, made in the image of God. God loves us. All of us.

Jesus explains that if even bad fathers give good gifts to their children, how much more would our heavenly father give us good gifts.

In fact, just as many parents would instinctively give their lives for their children, God allowed part of himself, his heart of hearts, his son, to volunteer to bear the punishment for humanity’s sins, to redeem us by his blood shed in our stead. The Sinless One suffered an unjust punishment to pay for the sins of the world.

The significance of the death of Jesus, the power of the life-blood of God, of the death and resurrection of God is vaster, deeper and higher than we realize.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, John cried. Whose sins did he take away? The world’s.

This is the blood of the new covenant which is shed for the forgiveness of sins. Whose sins? Perhaps anyone who wants his sins to be forgiven. And who does not?

Perhaps the blood of the all-powerful creator God cleanses all who crave for its cleansing, provides a new and living way to God for all who crave God.

Not just Jews, not just Protestants, not just Christians, but all men perhaps, the men of any tribe, and people and language and nation who will praise him they might have never known by the name of Jesus.

* * *

And the Cross changes who I am. There is now a clear pathway between me and God, me and the Spirit.

I am no longer just Anita, shaky little Anita who can be thrown off course by the challenges and demands of success or the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

In Jesus, because of the death of Jesus, I am a different, more steely and formidable creature altogether. I am Anita-in- Jesus; Anita, a branch in the vine, with Jesus’s sweet life flowing through her. Anita, reconciled to Jesus by his death, Anita with the sweet spirit of Jesus enabling her to do the difficult.

* * *

God does not show favouritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. (Acts 10:34). And when men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation worship the lamb, it may well include those who worship him they have sensed and loved, whose glory the heavens proclaim, and whose name, they realize at last, is Jesus.

Does that remove the impetus of missions—the possibility that, as in the vision of Peter, God accepts men from every nation who fear him?

Not really. For Jesus is sweet, and lovely and following him is the best way to live, and so he is a secret we should share–even though he is too good to punish the men and woman of Chad and Niger for my failure to go to them and tell them of Him.

Rich Christians and World Poverty. How much should we give?

By Anita Mathias

god we trust Tithing and the abundant life

So there is unbelievable poverty in the world. But most of us who live in the West have enough to satisfy all our needs and many of our wants.

And, often, the disparity gnaws at us.

How much should we give away?

We feel sad about the suffering of the poor. But we live in the West, we take on the coloration of the West, and our needs become Western, including the need to take a break from the pace of life (our children’s frenetic pace of life, if not ours) and escape distraction by distraction, in Eliot’s phrase. For instance, I don’t particularly covet things any more, but I do enjoy working hard/playing hard, and I love travel and exploration.

* * *

To think what you spend on coffee each could send an African girl to school; your holiday in Europe could support an African family for a year could poison your life with guilt—particularly if you do not in fact give away the money saved (which, I suspect, is often the case!)

But how much should we give away?

The Apostle Peter asked for a concrete figure to appease his conscience.

“How many times should I forgive my brother if he sins against me. Seven times?” he asks magnanimously.

But Jesus does not fall for this. When can I stop forgiving? he hears Peter asking

So he gives a rhetorical, hyperbolic figure, impossible to track. 70 times 7.

Infinitely.

(And I must say that I have probably forgiven Roy and my children that often!)

* * *

Giving away a large percentage of our money, something we have toiled for, worried about, and greatly desire because of the worlds and opportunities it opens to us, is as difficult as forgiveness perhaps.

And so those who lived under law were given a convenient, easily calculated figure–ten percent as a minimum. And then something over that, as their conscience led them, “offerings.”

* * *

For us, under grace, no figure has been given. No easy: “Okay then, ten percent is God’s, and 90 percent all mine.”

But giving ten percent is a useful rule, and will probably unleash much blessing in your life. I have read it in biographies, been told so by friends, and most persuasively, giving 10 percent has always unleashed miracles, windfalls, and unexpected blessing in my life.

* * *

I read in late 2003 in the World Vision magazine, about struggling cherry farmers in Washington State, who wanted to do something about world poverty. They decided to tithe to World Vision, though their business was precarious. And then increased it. Soon, the amount they gave away in tithes each year was the same as their annual salary the year they had started giving. Their income had increased ten-fold, and they were giving away substantial sums! God blessed their business because he trusted them to be a conduit of blessing.

I was so inspired by the fact that ordinary individuals could dent poverty on a small scale, that I decided to increase our base tithe by a percentage point each time we got a financial windfall, a grant, a cash prize, a cash gift. So we were giving 16 percent by the time we left America in 2004. The generosity unleashed blessing.

And then we moved to England, and money was tighter—significantly higher house prices, taxes, and we went private for schooling. Though we had tithed for all our Christian lives, we stopped. We gave, of course, but not ten percent. I led Bible studies as my service to the church.

And we financially struggled for the first two and a half years that I ran my small business–and for the only time in our lives. I wonder now what would have happened if we had tithed!! It wouldn’t surprise me if God would have blessed us with good ideas and good luck, and the tide would have turned sooner.

But there is a toughness and tensile strength of character which is best forged in the school of suffering, and so I do not regret its lessons.

* * *

Though the Old Testament tithe is no longer a requirement to us who are redeemed by the blood of Christ, and live under grace, it is a good starting point. Easy to calculate, and not difficult for almost everyone in the West, and many people in the majority world too. And then, offerings over that, as our heart is moved by specific needs.

I think world poverty would be significantly dented if Christians tithed.

* * *

But we do need to tithe way beyond our little church. The Old Testament tithe supported widows, orphans and aliens in addition to the Levites (Deut 14:28).

If we all gave ten percent of our income to the church we attend, we’ll soon have obscenely overpaid fat-cat pastors in affluent areas, and the money would provide a show on Sunday to rival a concert, and the church could become a club with aerobics classes, weight loss classes, coffee mornings and pamper evenings, being ever more appealing and ever richer, while the poor in the majority world become poorer and poorer. As Larry Burkett points out, tithing in rich, inward-focused, growth-focused churches is essentially tithing to yourself and your church family!!

Not every pitch you hear from the pulpit is motivated by real need. Some are motivated by the pastor’s ambition for glory. Learn to distinguish between what pastors legitimately need to preach the gospel, and which appeals are motivated by ambitious profile-boosting and empire-building. For these sort of appeals will never end.

On the other hand, if we followed the Old Testament model and ensured that 2.5 percent of our income goes to support the local church, and 7.5 goes to support the poor, including “aliens,” our economy will be closer to the one God envisioned, and perhaps there would be few poor among us.

* * *

We ourselves, of course, may have less money than if we did not give. Though not necessarily. Gretchen Rubin, a secular writer who writes on happiness, cites studies that the more one gives, the more one’s wealth increases—perhaps because of the positive feelings that giving and generosity provide, and other people’s respect for the generous. Roy and I first started tithing in 1990, and were amazed at all the little miracles of financial provision which suddenly followed us, seemingly as a consequence.

And if tithing leaves us with less money than we would have had? So what? Less money=less stuff, less distraction, more simple pleasures, and a quieter life. Money truly does not buy happiness beyond a certain point, and most of us, if we track our times of deepest happiness, may discover that they were times of simple pleasures which did not require very much money at all.

Hamlet in the Bodleian Quad

By Anita Mathias

Image credit

Image credit

Watched an open-air Hamlet at the Bodleian Library yesterday. Magical! The Quad was a suitable stand-in for Elsinore Castle, all very majestic.

Pigeons flew around to roost as darkness fell, and the setting sun bathed the quad in golden light.

And oh, the poetry! Though I have last studied that play in 1986, I was surprised at how much I remembered, at how gorgeous the language was, and at how many phrases have entered the English language.

If I had not formally studied the play, I would not have enjoyed it as much.

Formal study, or self-study, adds so much depth to our appreciation of the arts, whether painting, architecture, poetry or film.

I was grateful to God for a magical evening.

Does worship music provide a short cut into the presence of God?

By Anita Mathias

Are there short cuts into the presence of God? Into the most holy place, between the wings of the cherubim?

Yeah, I think God might provide them, because he is a searching, seeking God, looking for the lost coin, the lost sheep, the lost sinner.

For me, one of the short cuts is worship music.

Not instead of more muscular devotions, like prayer or Bible study. I haven’t yet considered listening to music instead of a set time of prayer, but as an addition to it.

* * *

My time of listening to music is while doing housework. Or brushing my teeth, because I often start my day spiritually cold and emotionless. Or I take a break when I feel disgruntled, or spiritually bored, and distracted; I tidy my room, while listening to music

The music profoundly affects my brain, liberating oxytocin and endorphins (and occasionally, an adrenalin rush), ushering me into the presence of God, changing my emotions, making me feel devotion.

Saint Augustine wrote, “He who sings prays two-fold.”

* * *

Is there any value to emotions initially sluggish, now stirred into devotion by soulful worship music?

As with anything else in the spiritual realm, it depends on the fruit. Mere feelings that bear no fruit in action, or changed thinking or changed emotions are the seed which falls by the wayside. (One could read the Parable of the Sower as saying that the word of God bears no apparent fruit 75% of the times that it falls on our souls!)

However, sometimes, the music, the lyrics convict and soften us. We remember times we have been hard—lacking in mercy, lacking in generosity. We cannot respond fully to “I surrender all,” because we recollect some area in which we have not been surrendered. We surrender it.

As the stream of music, like the spirit of God, flows through our hearts, it might meet obstacles, little pockets of anger, unforgiveness or self-will, and God willing, some of these dissolve.

Yes, music definitely does often melt my heart and usher me more swiftly into the presence of God. The spiritual value of it, of course, depends on what I do with the insights and convictions which spring from my time of listening to the music.

Whom do I like listening to? Michael Card for the lyrics, almost evenly good, and the music. Matt Redman whose lyrics and music are hugely uneven, but who is sublime at his best. Love Rich Mullins, his music, lyrics and heart. Like Stuart Townend. Many of the Vineyard compilations are marvellous.

Since I changed my whole way of praying two years ago, using soaking prayer, I have got interested in a style of music which aims to mimic “the soundscape of heaven,” like Ernesto Rivera, or Misty Edwards, who though uneven, but brilliant at her best.

My favourite classical pieces are the Messiah, and Pachelbel’s Canon. I like Byrd and Tallis too.

I haven’t been keeping up with worship music of late.

Who do you like listening to? Does worship music usher you more swiftly into the presence of God?

“A New Name,” Emma Scrivener on finding healing from an eating disorder

By Anita Mathias

Emma Scrivener was born in Belfast, but now lives with her husband in the south east of England. She suffered from life-threatening anorexia as a child and as an adult. She now speaks and writes about her experiences at www.emmascrivener.net. Her book, ‘A New Name’ is published by IVP (ISBN: 9781844745869, 176 pages, £7.99), and can be ordered at the Emma’s website, Amazon.co.ukand Amazon.com.

If you’d met me seven years ago, here’s what you’d have seen: a ‘successful’ Christian, newly married to a vicar in training. Leader of a thriving children’s ministry. A talented student with a bright future ahead. Someone who seemed to have it all together.

But there’s one part you might have missed: a young woman gripped by an eating disorder that would nearly take her life.

For a long time I hid my obsession. I threw myself into church activities, missions and teaching. On the outside I looked pretty good – a dynamo, burning out ‘for the Lord’. I even believed it myself. But at the heart of my ‘ministry’ beat a commitment to proving – and saving – myself.

So how did I get there – and what has helped to bring me out?

It started when I turned 13. Up until then I’d had an idyllic childhood: I knew who I was and I knew where I belonged. But almost overnight, that started to change. My grandfather died. I moved schools. My body felt out of control: like a tanker, spilling flesh and hormones. In search of answers, I even started going to church.

The God I heard about was real and personal, and I resolved to follow Him. But in retrospect, we were never properly introduced. You see, my brand of Christianity had space for ‘God’, but not for Jesus. It talked about sin and rules – but less about grace. It paid lip service to his work on my behalf. But, in practice, it was up to me to prove my own worth.

So that’s what I did. I worked hard and won prizes. I resolved to be smart and pretty and most of all, ‘good’. But nothing – whether clothes or friends or money, was ever enough. Instead of finding satisfaction, I was filled with hungers. I didn’t know what they were called or where to put them. What I did know was this: they were too much.

I was too much – too needy, too intense, too messy, too fat.

So I made a decision. Instead of my desires killing me, I would kill them. I would squash my hungers and I would fix myself. I would be thin.

Instead of a problem, anorexia appeared to be a solution. A way of negotiating the world and making it ‘safe’. In reality, it almost killed me – not just once, but twice.

The first time, I was a teenager and professionals forced me to eat. I put on weight – but though I looked better on the outside, on the inside I felt the same. Ten years later, my old habits returned. My husband and I were finishing Bible college and I was overwhelmed by the prospect of a new parish and my role as a vicar’s wife. Unable to cope, I stopped eating. By the end I could barely walk: but this time, I was an adult – it seemed that nothing and no-one could help.

Then came the phone-call. My beloved grandmother had died – but I was too weak to travel to her funeral. That night, faced with the reality of my choices, something in me finally broke. In desperation, I cried out to the God I’d tried to flee:

‘I’ve exhausted my own resources’ I said. ‘But if you want me, you can have what’s left’.

I had always pictured God as a scary headmaster – slightly disapproving and far away. Someone with rights over my soul – but not my body. Someone who wanted me to perform and keep His rules. This God would surely strike me down or turn me away. But there was no blinding flash of light. No smoke or lightning. Instead, I discovered something far more exciting. As I opened my Bible, I found Jesus.

Instead of the God I thought I knew; in Jesus I met the one who knew me. This Jesus confronted me, notas a tyrant or heavenly taskmaster, but as a gift. He came offering himself. On the cross my badness and my goodness were taken away: rendered irrelevant by his sacrifice. Jesus didn’t want apologies, resolutions or assurances that I would do better. He wanted me. Instead of making me perform, he lifted me clean out of the arena. In return, he asked only one question: Would I receive him?

I was the girl who always said ‘No’.

‘No’ to people

‘No’ to relationships

‘No’ to marriage and health and family and food

‘No’ to risk and desire and vulnerability and need

But as I looked at Him – the Saviour who knew me and yet loved me – I said ‘Yes.’

And that was when my life and recovery began.

Thin Places: Where the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is almost transparent

By Anita Mathias

The High Cross at Fflad-y-Brenin

sunset_calf_sound_7 Celtic Christians prized “thin places,” where the boundaries between the spiritual and physical world are almost transparent. Where we can sense shimmering in the physical world the just-as-real, invisible, supernatural world, charged with the glory of God, with hills ringed with angels in chariots of fire.

Could God really be more present in one place than in another? I wondered until I slowed down, calmed down, and began to experience thin places.

* * *

Thin places—near mountains, rivers, streams, meadows, the sea—are, in fact, often places where people have worshipped and sought God for centuries. Benedictines and Trappists often built their monasteries in such places.

Is it fanciful to suppose that places in which thousands have prayed would attract the spirit of God—and angelic presences?

Perhaps what happens in a pilgrimage spot is not that God descends to earth in a shower of radiance and the earth ever after exudes his fragrance. Perhaps it is we who sanctify spots of earth when we bring our weary spirits, our thwarted hopes, the whole human freight of grief, and pray—our eyes grown wide and trusting; our being, a concentrated yearning. Perhaps that yearning, that glimpse of better things, attracts the spirit of God, and traces of that encounter linger in the earth and air and water so that future pilgrims say, “God is here.”

* * *

I felt that when we visited Ffald-y-Brenin. There was a peace and holiness in the air. I could sense the presence of God in the stillness and especially around the high cross, placed on the highest hill of the retreat centre towering over the countryside.

I gave up analysing it after a while. I surrendered to the peace. As Eliot says in “Little Gidding,”

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid.

That peace, a sudden clarity of thinking and creativity? I guess I could call it the spirit of God.

Healing hung in the air. Looking back at my post written there, I see I was praying for healing from self-induced adrenal fatigue. Well, seven months later, it was completely gone, and I was gulping down books again, and writing a lot.

***

Just being by the ocean, watching it, listening to the roar of the waves quietens me, reminds me of immensity, of God’s infinite power, and opens me up to his spirit. I suddenly find myself praying in tongues. I pick up God’s guidance and directives most clearly on beach walks.

And, as all cultures at all times have noticed, mountains are specially charged with the presence of God. They are places for peace, serenity, and elevated thoughts. In the mountains, my thoughts instinctively gravitate to God.

* * *

And, of course, in our own homes and lives, places become thin because we often pray there.

I pray face down in my bedroom, soaking prayer, and the accustomed place and posture probably more quickly tunes my spirit to peace.

I also enjoy walking and praying in the fields around my house for I live in the country. Again the accustomed routine of walking and praying makes me feel happy and exhilarated and, within a short time, I find myself praying in tongues.

Thomas Merton writes about cultivating routines of prayer at the same place, and at about the same time, “My chief joy is to escape to the attic of the garden house and the little broken window that looks out over the valley. There in the silence, I love the green grass. The tortured gestures of the apple trees have become part of my prayer…. So much do I love this solitude that when I walk out along the road to the old barns that stand alone, delight begins to overpower me from head to foot, and peace smiles even in the marrow of my bones.”

* * *

Just we can feel stressed and uneasy by subliminal triggering memories of past trauma in certain places, or in the presence of certain people, our spirits can also swiftly be tuned to peace in places in which we have often experienced God’s spirit, on a particular seat in church, or on a particular country walk.

Working in my own garden is a thin place for me. Sooner or later, joy returns. Sooner or later, I find myself praying, often in tongues.

Another thin place for me is tidying up. I restore my soul as I restore my house. My body works, and feels happy working, but my mind is fallow. Clarity comes as I work, ideas. Peace returns, and I find myself praying…

* * *

How about you? What are the thin places in which you most powerfully experience God’s spirit?

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“Thin places,” where the boundaries between the spiritual and physical world are almost transparent. From @anitamathias1

There’s Nought so Queer as Christians

By Anita Mathias

Saint Frideswide's escape - wpe13219.gif (68961 bytes)

Saint Frideswide, Oxford’s First Saint. Burne-Jones window, Christ Church Cathedral

There’s Nought so Queer as Christians

Old Northern English saying. Well, actually, “There’s nowt so queer as folks.”

I am taking a week-long course on the Christian history of Oxford. We learnt of Oxford’s strong religious underpinnings, and the contributions of the Dominicans, Franciscans, Cistercians, Benedictines, Carmelites and Augustinians to this beautiful city I love, and feel a strong inexplicable connection to.

Interestingly, only about a handful of people taking it were from Oxford or the UK. Most were from across the pond. It’s interesting why people who don’t live here would want to spend a week learning about Oxford’s Christian history. But I guess, “there’s nowt so queer as folk”.

* * *

We were divided into small groups for one session. There are as many species of Christians as there are mammals, 4360, or perhaps insects, 900,000!!

And in Christian conferences without a strong focus (evangelical, charismatic, arts) you’ll meet many of them.

* * *

When I first lived in America—late eighties and nineties, Wall Street traders were known as the Masters of the Universe. Well, moth, rush and exogenous events have dented their self-confidence and arrogance, if not their wealth. Are the Masters of the Universe in America currently doctors?

The two most arrogant, full-of-themselves people I’ve met in the last month have both been American Christian doctors. I guess their wealth is immune to economic downturns—if anything might increase if more people get sick from stress and false economies—and then, their intellectual pride makes them sure they have God in their pocket as well as wealth, and the life or death of their patients. I sat next to one at dinner last month, and was appalled by his full-of himself arrogance.

Well, today’s guy–a dermatologist from Houston, who boasts he can diagnose in two seconds– starts, “I am successful,” he says, (I kid you not!!). “I have two houses, and a boat and a stock portfolio. And now I wonder how I can follow Christ. He told his disciples to take nothing for their journeys. He told the rich man to give up everything to follow him. So that’s my first question.”

But this guy from Houston had a problem.

“My second question is,” he continues, “Why am I going to heaven when all the Hindus and Muslims and Jews I am working with are not, when they are better Christians than I am?”

(Now, I am, well, reasonably well-brought-up, so did not say, “Don’t be too sure on either count.” I just thought it. Well, wrote it!)

* * *

Next, we get to Dallas. An impeccably turned out matron, who looks like, and is possibly wearing jewels worth, a million dollars, tells us of her life—comfortable, right schools, right universities, social success and prominence (Americans, stop one-upping each other, I think) going to a rich church for 49.5 years before she began to ask questions. Now her husband is terminally ill, and she delicately wipes a tear, and I suddenly feel sorry for her,

“I can’t pray for him to live for myself,” she says. “That would be selfish. But I pray he may live for the sake of the community, for the larger good he may do.”

“Excuse me?” I said. Had I understood?

“I can’t pray for him to live for just my sake,” she said. “How can I? But I pray he may live for our community, for everyone, for everyone’s good.”

That’s too much for me.

“Why should it be selfish to pray for yourself alone? You too are a child of God,” I say. “He loves you too.”

“Well, thank you!” she says, as if I am being nice, rather than truthful.” She cannot believe God loves her, I realise.

“God says nothing is too small to pray about. He cares about sparrows and our falling hair. He taught us to pray for our daily bread and trust our clothing dilemmas to him.” I say passionately, if didactically.

Upon which the doctor from Houston again has a problem.

“That’s an empty prayer,” he says, contemptuously. “Praying for bread and clothing!!”

I was too disgusted to speak.

Fortunately, a Swiss pastor explained, “Well, if you’ve always had enough, perhaps it’s an empty prayer. But Jesus did teach us to pray for our daily bread. And if you don’t have bread, then it’s a real prayer.”

* * *

How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver! Proverbs 16:6.

I have been teaching the Bible in small groups for over ten years now. When I first started, in Williamsburg, Virginia, I was startled by the number of people, church-goers, who had got the worldly stuff sorted—the trophy husband with the trophy income, the massive house, the swimming pool, the vacation home, the status symbol car and body—but said they were not happy.

And were confused about basic things. I would be asked, “Anita, do you really have peace?” Answer, “Yes, I do. Mostly.” “Anita, are you really happy.” Answer, “Yes, I am. Mostly.” And they’d sigh and say, “I wish I were happy.”

God–even for church-goers, who hadn’t seriously sought him– was a source of more questions than answers, a confusing dark terra incognita.

But it shouldn’t be so.

We really do need to seek God with the same passion with which we seek success or worldly wealth or whatever our idol is, so that we do not arrive at mid-life empty, unhappy, dissatisfied, with more questions than answers.

We seriously need to prioritise the spiritual above anything else. “Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life,” John 6:27.

And, we need to fill ourselves with this food, with these living waters so that they flow effortlessly out of us to those with more questions than answers, with more sadness than happiness.

* * *

Happiness ultimately flows from our spiritual lives. And so—to be happy– we must put them at the centre of our lives, and find durable answers to the big questions.

1 What is a good life? 2 How can I be happy 3 What is the meaning of life? 4 Is there life beyond death 5 Is there a God and does he care about me 6) Will he guide me minutely in my day to day decisions. Can I hear his voice 7) How do I find peace and joy?

And these questions are more important than how to be successful, or how to manage time, or how to lose weight, or how to save, or how to get organized, or how to make friends—but how often we forget this!!

Over to you? Do you think happiness ultimately flows from our spiritual lives? What would you add to my list of Life’s Big Questions?

A Spider or a Bee, which Species of Blogger are you?

By Anita Mathias

Jonathan Swift in his The Battle of the Books describes two kinds of writers–the spider and the bee. The bee sips from myriad flowers, and makes honey. The spider weaves webs out of his own entrails.

Well, there are spider bloggers, and bee bloggers. A spider blogger largely writes about herself, her family and her life. It’s an online journal. And if one writes winsomely, and photographs well, a spider blogger can develop quite an audience, for readers hunger for truth, to know how it really is with people they are interested in.

However, without the refreshment and learning of prayer and scripture study and especially reading, Christian blogging (or teaching, preaching or writing) can become spiderish, producing cobwebs, not honey. You say the same things but with decreasing passion. And without passion, conviction can begin to fade.

* * *

Writing about myself and my life is not my predominant interest in blogging, though I do some of those posts when I am exploring or understanding something. I am more interested in writing about ideas and spiritual exploration.

It’s now my third year of blogging, and I have discovered that if I do not read, I can repeat myself, though perhaps with less passion than when the idea first struck

Reading, on the other hand, stretches me. When I encounter new ideas, or a fresh take on old ideas, my thinking changes and enlarges to accommodate them. It’s as if the DNA of my mind has stretched; its double helixes are broader—and in the process I too have changed.

I have noticed that some of the bloggers I most enjoy are continually reading, and so their blogs keep fresh as they interact with, react to, challenge or are challenged by new ideas. As they ingest fresh riches, they have fresh riches to offer their readers.

· * *

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality,” T.S. Eliot said. Similarly, we can only grasp an infinitesimal fraction of the riches of God, just as one who as ascended Everest from southeast ridge from Nepal will not have a different experience and perceptions than one who has ascended from the north ridge in Tibet or any of the 15 other routes. Though it’s the same mountain. And if we read their accounts, we are better prepared for the staggering beauty and the dangers: hypoxia, altitude sickness or blizzards.

So, too our conceptions of God, of Jesus, of the spiritual life, of happiness and the good life—our very thinking—will be considerably stretched and enlarged by reading. And this richness will be reflected in our blogs.

anita.mathias