Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires
Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art
As the family’s resident expert baker, Irene insisted on making her own cake
Four layered strawberry filled cake with candles.
It tastes even better than it looks–the butter cream and the juice from the sliced strawberries soak into the cake to produce a luscious result.
with the first slice removed
She gives detailed instructions of how she did it on her blog. To celebrate we also found 14 pictures from her younger years.
Irene, as you can see, has always loved cake
14 years ago, I was furious with my husband Roy for some just-discovered crime or misdemeanour, and since he was teaching at the moment (in those pre-mobile phone days), and I couldn’t call him, I called our pastor. (No, I am not joking!)
Had Roy been at the end of a phone, it would have gone somewhat like this: I would have yelled, explaining all the things he had done wrong, exaggerating his wrong-doing, my very words making me angrier. He would have answered in kind, raking up my past wrong-doing, an eye for an eye, his very words making him angrier.
If the row had had shades of Armageddonish, the nearest object might have become a projectile missile—and occasionally did!
* * *
So, I tell the pastor all about that now-forgotten, but I am sure absolutely heinous offence—his messiness; something he’d said he’d do but did not; lack of adequate and suitable domestic help probably. I express my rage.
And he says, “Okay, you’ve told me. No need to tell him too.”
I, “But I am still so angry. What can I do if I don’t express my rage to him?”
He, “Don’t tell him. Tell Jesus.”
* * *
Cheesy, huh? Except this particular man was a cool Midwesterner, and the opposite of cheesy.
And over the years, I realized that that is, probably, the best way to deal with anger.
Tell Jesus.
* * *
Biochemically, anger is a build up of adrenalin. The fight-or-flight response says “Fight.” We have to do something about this build-up of adrenalin. Somehow discharge it. Many women clean when angry, apparently. (Effective or not, you, at least, get a clean house!)
When I am sensible, I walk when angry, getting times among my personal best. I mentally compose withering, scathing emails on my walk and when I come back, I am so calm, I’m like: “Now what was that I wanted to say?” My fury has dissipated.
* * *
But having a walk-and-talk with Jesus is the best. Express your anger. Don’t minimize it. Anger is like a red light on your car: “You’re out of gas,” it says. “Stop. Refuel. Change the oil, perhaps.” It can be the impetus to overdue changes in our lives and relationships. We ignore this powerful emotion at our peril. Ignore it, push it underground, and it surfaces as depression, or as the sudden fit of rage and irrational actions which trip us up (Prov. 4:19).
Having expressed it your rage to Jesus: Go to his healing fountains. Let them flush out and cleanse your soul.
Call out as desperately as the man who wakes his friend in the middle of the night, “Jesus, you see my soul. You see how angry it is. Send your Holy Spirit to soak, drench and saturate it. Maranatha.”
And if you can get calm enough to pray about the sources of your rage, sometimes words are given you to resolve the problem without all the shouting, all the sin. When you speak the words given to you by Him who is the Word, they achieve more than hours of fighting which, in general, achieves precisely nothing (positive).
* * *
Sometimes, we need scripture to flush out the darkness of our soul. Once, in a dark November, when a fellow Christian was annoying me, I put on I John and James on repeat on my ipod, and listened to it, again and again, grace rushing through my soul, calming it, sweetening it.
* * *
Sometimes, we just need a little bit of sanctified intelligence or Jesusy thinking to deal with our anger.
On my travels, I sometimes encounter rudeness, or snootiness, or dishonesty or attempted or successful scams.
And I am cross. And for years, I have been telling myself the same thing, “Why should I let their bad behaviour, their sinfulness, rob me of my peace?”
I tell myself that often. “Why should I let X’s sinfulness deprive me of my peace? Use your brains, Anita. You are not without sin. Why should you expect other people to be blameless? Anita, just release the rascal into the waterfall of God. Step into God’s waterfall of grace yourself.”
* * *
Yes, sanctified intelligence and faith help us deal with our anger.
Think of the greatest injustice you personally have experienced. Which made you the angriest?
God know that was going to happen, from the beginning of time. That event, that injustice is just seed, neutral raw material in his hands, from which he can, at any time, bring something beautiful.
* * *
I have another solution to anger. Remember God.
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? (Gen 4:6)
Have you been cheated, defrauded?
Who creates wealth? Creates the world and everything in it. Bestows wealth on whom he pleases. Cannot God give you at the snap of his fingers far more than you’ve been cheated of? Forgive.
Have you been betrayed, slandered, lied about, back-stabbed? Tell God. If God is for you, who can be against you? (Romans 8:31). No one can block a career or a vocation which God ordains.
Have people wasted your time, used your energy, used you to further their own agenda?
Goodness, girl. Who created time? Who can stretch it, infuse eternity into it, so that you are astounded at how much you got done in an hour, a day? Who can ensure that the work of minutes is read for centuries, like Pascal’s Memorial is?
God can give our work wings.
* * *
Hey, whatever is annoying you, the sheer annoyingness of the person, the situation, the injustice, it’s all in God’s hands.
He may have deliberately put that person into your life for you to learn the one thing which all the law, and the prophets and the teachings of Jesus come down to: Loving kindness.
* * *
Much anger is selfishness, stemming from blocked self-centred goals and desires. And then we need a heart-transplant. We need repentance, literally metanoia, to change one’s mind.
We need God’s magic: grace to change, soften, and convert our souls.
Grace alone, which God supplies. Strength unknown, he will provide.
Yes, Grace: God’s magic. Flood my soul with it. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.
(Post by Roy Mathias)
The Oxfordshire village of Waterperry is home to Rowan Atkinson and the 8 acre Waterperry gardens. We visited the latter.
On the banks of the Thame, a tributary of the Thames.
It was a beautiful clear cold spring day.
New leaves with rain from earlier in the day:
Waterperry holds the national collection of saxifrages. There were well over a hundred labelled specimens in flower.
Helleborus Orientalis, Red Hybrid.
Chionodoxa
The ericaceous border displays a wide range of colors.
Waterperry has an extensive orchard of dwarf espaliered fruit trees.
The Knot Garden.
The “Family Apple Tree” has over 45 cultivars grafted on it. Each branch will bear different apples, and is labelled accordingly. Must return in the autumn!
A oak in the meadow.
Lichen on an apple tree.
A hedge pruned as a wall with a window.
Birdsong everywhere in the Spring. Here is robin on top of a cypress.
And while I worked, I built the most beautiful air-castles, and dreamed dreams, the pleasantest of which was of the time when I should talk like other people, and the thought of the pleasure it would give my mother to hear my voice once more, sweetened every effort and made every failure an incentive to try harder next time.
So I want to say to those who are trying to learn to speak and those who are teaching them: Be of good cheer. Do not think of to-day’s failures, but of the success that may come to-morrow.
You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere, and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles–a delight in climbing rugged paths, which you would perhaps never know if you did not sometime slip backward–if the road was always smooth and pleasant.
Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. Sometime, somewhere, somehow we shall find that which we seek.
We shall speak, yes, and sing, too, as God intended we should speak and sing.”
Helen Keller “The Story of My Life”
Today marks 3 years of blogging.
I have enjoyed it, absolutely, and am glad I started.
Benefits?
1 It has taught me to write easily, confidently and rapidly, which will be a blessing as I return to “real” writing. My memoir Up to the Hills, will be published next April by Prodigal Press.
2 It’s enlarged my world. I have met several bloggers and blog readers, some of whom have become good friends. And my cyber-friendships with commentators and blog readers has enriched and broadened my life. Blogging is a tremendous vehicle of growth.
3 Reading other blogs has changed me. I have been stretched by the can-do attitude and practical suggestions of Michael Hyatt.
From Donald Miller, I have learned about inciting incidents, and have created one of my own, an 11 mile a day pilgrimage in Tuscany.
From Jeff Goins, I have learned that writing every day makes it effortless. From Leo Babuata, that the way to major life changes is to make minuscule changes. And from Ann Voskamp that thanking God through the day changes everything. Reading beautifully written blogs, Sarah Bessey’s among them, enriches my life.
4 Blogging has taught me the pleasures of thinking deeply, and thinking things through. I have become braver and more confident about expressing my opinion, even when pushback is certain.
This has helped me grow as a person, and become more reflective. Reflective considered living and blogging has immense psychological benefits.
5 I definitely feel more alive and happy when I am blogging. When we take the kids to a cathedral, museum, botanical garden or a mountain hike, we suggest that they take cameras. Photographing beauty slows them down and they see it better.
For me, writing about my travels, my life, my ideas, my spiritual journey has the same function.
Blogging has slowed me down in good ways, and made me more reflective. The spiritual life begins when we slow down.
I am calmer, and have a more settled faith having worked out questions, querulousness, anger, and disagreements with my faith community on my blog over the last few years. I am far less likely now to write controversial posts!
6 A spiritual blog flows out of a spiritual life. When I am dry and have nothing much to write about I know it is time to repent and return.
7 If you blog with an open mind, reading other faith bloggers, and considering what they write, you will become more liberal. Without thinking too much about it, I assumed homosexuality was a sin around the time I started blogging in 2010. I have evolved. I have moved from a rather loosely held belief in inerrancy to a belief in the divine inspiration of scripture (though it is deeply precious to me, either way). Interrogating my faith, ironically, has led to it becoming deeper and more joy-giving
8 Self-confidence and stability—Blogging every day for three years has had a stabilizing influence on my life. Persisting in blogging every day has brought about confidence in my ability to write quickly (and, sometimes well). The confidence and discipline has spilled over into other areas. My house is tidier; I wake earlier; I have adopted a daily exercise habit of a 4-5 mile walk, and am losing weight—11 pounds since November!
9 Blogging frees me from the fear of criticism and the desire for approval. Some posts you know will evoke pushback or hostility and it’s freeing to write them anyway, and blow off the criticism. My own rule of thumb is I blow off all ad hominem comments, and delete them. Disagreement with ideas is fine, but when I realize both my views and my interlocuter’s are entrenched, I agree to disagree and “fade” –stop engaging.
10 Gratitude—Every year of blogging is better than the year before. You have more readers so what you write gets leveraged. Blog friendships increase in number and depth. As thinking “blogly” becomes a habit, you see blog ideas everywhere.
My blog has more than doubled since last year, largely due to being more active on Twitter.
I am grateful for my archive. I often return to it, and rethink, refine and reshare a post.
New Directions
1) I needed a metric to gauge whether my blog is healthy and growing. I had used page views, on the philosophy that whatever is alive grows.
However, this intriguing article in the New York Times suggests that when we are helping other people, we are far more motivated to work, and work hard.
So I may try summarizing particularly helpful books, articles and blogs on my blog, and choose topics to explore depending on how useful they might be to my readers.
2 I read blogs widely, mainly on my facebook or my iPhone, but rarely comment (laziness and rushing and because I read blogs when I am procrastinating writing). I am trying to comment more.
3 I have got into the habit of thinking in 800-1000 words. I would LOVE to get into the habit of thinking in 400-500 words to conserve time and energy.
4 I would love to do more Scripture blogging—and in fact, my Scripture posts land up being evergreen posts, thanks to Google.
5 Other evergreen posts are those I post on my travels. I am growing increasingly interested in doing more travel writing on my blog.
6 I tend to write about subjects I know (or think I know). I would like to use my blog to explore things I do not know, ask questions, think through new subjects, and use my blog as a vehicle of growth.
7 “Love is little. Love is low. Love will make my spirit grow,” goes the Shaker spiritual.
When stuck, I would like to blog “little” and “low.” Be real, not even think about “killer” posts (in any sense of the word), but just blog about the new things I’ve learned, the little thoughts, the little insights, the little experiences of my life. “If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
I don’t feel my blog has fully grown up, fully decided what it’s going to be and do once it’s all grown up, but it is enjoying growing up, and I am enjoying growing with it!
And thank you for reading and commenting!
And here are my most read posts of all time:
1 When Christian leaders stumble, the proper response is mourning.
2 The Parable of the Bridge, or when to say no to insistent people.
3 On Vaughan Roberts’ interview, and the case for gay Christian marriage.
4 In which angels sing and diamonds materialize: The Revival Alliance in Birmingham
5 Simon Ponsonby’s Butcher Sermon
6 Christians, quit being so oppositional
7 Why I am no longer a Catholic
8 When your theology makes you cry, your theology is too small
9 Why God is Profoundly Egalitarian and Why we Need More Female Clergy
10 So, is God to be found at the bottom of a laundry basket?
11 In which I trace my evolving views on gay Christians
12 Blogocracy—100 Influential Christian bloggers, as measured by Facebook followers
Do you blog? What do you love/hate about it? If you don’t, would you like to start?
At Easter time wild flowers are everywhere on Corfu — road sides, walls, abandoned lots … The first half are from slopes of Mt. Pandokrater, in the North East of Corfu. Many of the spring bulbs we know and love originated in the rocky hills of Greece and Turkey, and it is exciting to see them in the wild. To see a larger version of the image right click and choose the appropriate option.
Wild Muscari, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.
close up of wild Muscari, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.
Wild Iris are plentiful on Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.
A delicate white wild flower, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.
close up
The olive grove we walked through was very fragrant, and we recognised a few familiar herbs, mint sage, and thyme. There were probably a lot of others known to the locals.
A very fragrant wild mint, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.
A single Star of Bethlehem (?). about 5mm across. For some reason they seem to grow in the middle of a dirt road, between the tire ruts.
A close up of very plentiful red flower
European wild ginger (?), Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.
The characteristic leaves of cyclamen, which would have already have flowered.
A yellow wildflower, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.
A thistle type plant, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.
The flowers pictured above are all from a wonderful olive grove. on the seaward side of Mt. Pandkrater.
Gnarled olive tree, Mt. Pandokrater, Corfu.
Here are some flowers from the rest of Corfu.
A road side display of wild flowers.
Daisies growing in a wall.
Wild ginger (?) on Paleokastristra’s Theotokos monastery roof, about to flower.
Severely pruned grapes with buttercups and other wild flowers.
The thickest buttercups I’ve ever seen.
Judas tree in flower.
Yellow flowers by the road.
Sea daffodil (not yet in flower) growing on the thin strip of land between Halikouna Beach and the Korission Lagoon. It is plentiful here, but endangered world wide.
Unidentified blue flowers by the road.
With Corfu’s mild climate, gardens are full of fruit trees.
Peach/nectarine (?) blossoms just outside our apartment
A lemon tree just outside our apartment.
A roadside orange tree.
code: E8PCC7EPSZVE
View from an olive grove on Mt. Pandokrater towards Albania and the mainland of Greece.
We hiked up Corfu’s tallest mountain, Mount Pandokrater today—not to the summit, sadly, but still an enchanted hike.
I was astonished to see so many of the bulbs which I’ve bought for my gardens just growing wild—stands of beautiful wild isis, muscari and chionodoxia.
Muscari growing wild in the rocks on Mt. Pandokrater.
Wild iris, Mt. Pandokrater.
Lots of sage and thyme a wonderfully fragrant wild mint.
A bank of wild sage with white flowers, Mt. Pandokrater.
Wild Mint, Mt. Pandokrater
What an amazing micro-ecosystem! Massive cactus growing side by side with olive trees, a smorgasbord of wild flowers, and delicate spring bulbs.
Cactus, probably not native, on Mt Pandokrater.
A delicate white wild flower.
A close up of very plentiful red flower
Star of Bethlehem (?). There were several–all in the centre, between the two tire ruts.
I had read how criminals visit the Great Smokies National Park, and leave with trucks of rare wild orchids which they sell on for $20-40 each. Well, there were thousands of pounds of bulbs growing wild here—nature’s beneficence!
I read yesterday how a family survived at the edge of the taiga in Siberia for decades off berries and bark, unaware that World War II had happened. Even there in that frozen climate nature apparently offered them enough to just about survive. The world is charged with the goodness of God!
Flowers grew out of rocks, abundance and goodness even in the most unpromising times and environments.
Daisies find a foothold in the rocks.
A healthy theology methinks is best worked out in the sun, and fresh air, in God’s creation, your muscles sweaty from hard work, or hard walking. Ora et labora. Prayer needs some work, or some walking to ground it. Saint Benedict got it right again.
Mirtiotissa Beach at high tide
Mirtiotissa beach, described by Lawerence Durrell as the most beautiful in the world, is certainly one of the most inaccessible on Corfu. Until recently, it was accessible only by a footpath. The modern road is reasonably wide but impossibly steep. Like many of Corfu’s West coast beaches, it is a small expanse of sand beneath steep cliffs, and according to the locals it gets smaller every year. (It’s also a nudist beach, but we reckoned (correctly) that is was too chilly to be nude.)
The Philoxenia Hotel, Ermones.
Neighbouring Ermones beach is fascinating.
Ermones Beach is a mixture of sand a tiny black pieces of seaweed.
The beach is a mixture of sand and small pieces of black seaweed; pleasantly bouncy under foot when dry, but a treacherous quagmire when wet. 
The sea is dark blue, light blue, black (from the sea weed) and white. It was a very stormy day (earlier we had lost our power because of a fallen tree) and the surf was wild.
Black and white surf, Ermones Beach Corfu.
Inland it was peaceful and pastoral as usual
Sheep grazing in a wildflower meadow, near Ermones, Corfu.
A unusual mixed herd of horses, donkeys and cattle being fed hay in a forest.
Severely pruned grapes with buttercups and other wild flowers.
One of Palaeokastistra’s beaches, as lovely as ever. (Again, very little sand)
What does the Greek say:? “Don’t even think of tethering your donkey here”?
A peaceful end of the day at Glyfada Beach — one of the large ones in the area
Sunset, Glyfada Beach, Corfu.
