Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

My Week in Facebook Status Updates

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Daisy and Quicker, our new pet ducks.  Pet rabbits in the background.




Roses on our garden wall

Very interesting talk in small group on Chinese religion and culture. Lots I didn’t know. Duty and devotion to parents is one of the strongest held Chinese cultural values, followed by a kind of pragmatism that values things which work, such as success. When you present the Gospel to an ethnic Chinese person, a frequent early question will be, “What can it do for me?” though this might be put in code.


.Zoe has been going from one sleepover to another ever since her GCSEs and wonders if she’s “broken” Hmm…Today,the sweet sounds of Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet are filling the house as both girls have their Trinity Guildhall Speech and Drama exams tomorrow. Can’t wait to see their performances.

A nice, though very warm day. Enjoyed Blenheim Palace Gardens with the girls. Zoe’s back from her Lake District trip with friends, and it’s been the first time since those GCSEs started that we’ve been able to go out and relax as a family. The Secret Garden is Blenheim is looking lovely, though the hostas are a bit slug-eaten. C’est la vie!


750,000 public servants are on strike today in Britain. I love to know who voted for the Tories; there seems to be universal disapprobation of their policies. I supported Brown, but I really, really admire Cameron & Osborne’s attempts to balance the budget. A household whose non-mortgage debt is 80% of its GDP (as Britain’s is) is headed for disaster–and so is a nation. The UK needs to cut its debt before it morphs into Greece.

Irene, “My friend A has inherited a chalet in Switzerland.” Me well, “Oh, who knows, if you work hard & want to, you could buy one.” She, disdainfully, “I don’t want a chalet in Switzerland !” then wistfully, “I would love a laptop, though.” Me, “NO, No, No!” A running battle! She has a desktop to herself in the living room, but yearns for a laptop. But she’s just 12, and given social media today, it’s definitely NO for now. Can’t have a tween disappearing into the internet.

Just last month Irene had a big sleepover in tents in our orchard. Now she wants another. Roy says that sleepovers are one of childhood’s most magical memories–& everyone loves coming to hers with hide & seek in the dark, roasting marshmallows, making candy floss, chocolate fountains etc. Except Roy, I & Zoe don’t sleep much with giggling girls. So tell me, are sleepovers really a magical childhood memory? Should I?

Grrr. What’s wrong with me? I have been fighting off 4 colds this week, extinguishing them just for another one to reappear. Allergies? Change of season? Or…? Okay, fruit, and chicken and onion soup then.

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!

Is someone cursing America (thoughts inspired by Matt Appling)

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Americans celebrating the death of Osama Bin-Laden

 

Matt at The Church of No People has this interesting post
Read it. Matt says that people who forecast gloom, doom andj udgment on nations are viewed by those nations as barking mad.
Mad and bad.
It was ever the way with prophets. Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah were distinctly odd, and most unpopular.
It just so happened that they were right.
And, Matt asks, But is there any reason, other than we think that Pat Robertson is crazy, that he must be wrong?
I think God’s a big fan of“natural consequences,” which is handy, since doing bad things always results in natural consequences, saving God a lot of smiting that He’d have to do otherwise. Even if it’s not by God’s hand, America will be destroyed by our own actions, given enough time, unless we change course, or as the fundies might say, repent.
Several weeks ago, I participated in the “Rally to Restore Unity,” in which the goal was to say farewell to“flippant dismissals” of other Christians. Well, maybe we need to add this to our list of flippant dismissals we’re guilty of, and actually take a hard look at ourselves when some crazy person suggests that God is mad at us.(Except for Fred Phelps. We can flippantly dismiss him all we want…)
** *
I vividly remember a sermon I heard in Williamsburg Community Chapel several years ago. The preacher, a visiting Russian, said a pattern repeated itself throughout Old Testament history. God blesses people,they grow complacent, forget him, sin.
John Wesley talks about this. “Wherever true Christianity spreads, it must cause diligence and frugality, which, in the natural course of things, must beget riches! And riches naturally beget pride, love of the world,and every temper that is destructive of Christianity. Now, if there be no way to prevent this, Christianity is inconsistent with itself and, of consequence,cannot stand, cannot continue long among any people; since, wherever it generally prevails, it saps its own foundation.” From a sermon in Dublin in 1789.
A couple of days before 9-11-2011, Roy and I had a couple ofAmerican Christian friends over to dinner. We were talking about the materialism, the relentless getting and spending, the recreational shopping,the excessive focus on clothes and beauty, the relentless house proudness which brings no peace, snazzy cars one got into debt for considered symbols o fstatus; the immense amount of time and energy and worry squandered on one’s appearance, clothes, furniture, cosmetics, interior decoration. America needs a shock, a wake up call, we said. A couple of days later, she had it.
* * *
There was a time in which America was perhaps the most blessed nation on earth, as we humans understand blessing. Perhaps in fortiesand fifties when her churches were strong, and she gave the world outstanding,exemplary Christian leaders and their institutions like World Vision,Compassion, Operational Mobilization, Mercy Ships, YWAM, you name it.
· * * *
· And now? Where is America in the cycle ofBlessing-Complacency—Sin—Judgement—Repentance—Blessing.
I left this comment on Matt’s blog,
Indebtedness, hedonism, divorce, having other Gods (Gods ofmaterialism, lust, and comfort) disregard for the poor and the alien, lack ofinterest in God: all these things brought God’s judgment on the ancientIsraelites, as recorded in the Old Testament.
I have lived in America for 17 years. After 9-11-2001, Isensed a difference, a dramatic sea-change. There was an atmosphere of fear andsuspicion, and there was a rush to attack Iraq and Afghanistan which history isproving was unjustified.
God has certainly blessed America in the past. However, I nolonger have the sense that America is, any more, a nation particularly under God’sblessing. The events of September 2011 started an inevitable and inexorabledecline, in my opinion.

The Praise of God or Man (Roman, Blog Through the Bible Project)

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 God praises those who are Christians inwardly, whose hearts are circumcised
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 blind, lights for those who are in darkness, teachers of the foolish because they have in the law and in scripture, the embodiment of knowledge and truth. Yet, they secretly do the very things they 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. 
Romans 2:28  Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.
The last sentence echoes Jesus’ wry, sad and exasperated comment in John, “How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?”
Accepting praise from one another actually militates against and weakens our faith.  Our sight and world-view become horizontal. We focus on what we can see, on people.
Our choices are no longer governed by what will, so to say, impress God but what will win us praise from people. (There is just a single occasion when Jesus is recorded as being astonished, and that was by the faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman.)
And we are the losers, because we dilute our faith, that essential navigational tool to steer us through the thickets of life.
Those, however, whose heart has been purified by the Spirit seek the praise, not of man, but of God.
And what peace there is in that, in seeking praise from the audience of one. 

Being Praised by God

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Romans, Blog Through the Bible Project

Romans 2:28 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.
The last sentence echoes Jesus’ wry, sad and exasperated comment in John, “How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?”

Accepting praise from one another actually militates against and weakens our faith.  Our sight and world-view become horizontal. We focus on what we can see, on people.

Our choices are no longer governed by what will, so to say, impress God (Jesus is recorded as being amazed at the faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman) but what will win us praise from people.

And we are the losers, because we dilute our faith, that essential navigational tool to steer us through the thickets of life.

Those, however, whose heart has been purified by the Spirit seek the praise, not of man, but of God.

And what peace there is in that, in seeking praise from the audience of one. 

Bees, Permaculture and Blessing

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We are soon to be beekeepers.


We have ordered a queen bee, a nucleus of 5 frames of bees, and a hive and all the accoutrements.

Now, I know nothing about beekeeping I hasten to add–and, having arrived at middle age fully cognizant of my limitations, will not be practically involved in beekeeping. (I have ordered the hat, veil and gloves for myself, but the full head to toe suit for Roy.) 

Roy’s father and maternal grandmother had backyard hives, and so he has absorbed some beekeeping lore from them.

A hive of bees in the backyard apparently “blesses” the entire garden. The flowers pollinated are bigger and brighter. Vegetables pollinated by bees are bigger. Your harvest of fruit increases exponentially, tempting to me since I have a small orchard, though a continually expanding one as I learn more about forest gardening.

Bigger vegetables, brighter flowers, bountiful harvests of fruit. Introducing bees to one’s garden certainly resembles the blessing of God.

Carol Wimber in her amusing book “The Way it Was” writes lyrically of the joyous few months after she and John Wimber became Christians. Joy filled their hearts, the songs flowed, lyrics flowed. “Even our gardens were more brighter, more lush and verdant.” Or something like that.
                                          * * * 

The honey from local bees–and how can one get something more local than from the bottom of the garden?–is meant to protect one from hayfever, which is tempting to me, as I have an odd form of hay-fever that hits in the last week of June/early July. Some people have said that it’s probably an allergy to the grass pollen and mould spores in the garden and orchard. I am currently trying a radically sugar and carbo free diet to see if that helps. I know my allergies are far worse when I have sugar!
                                           * * *

We are also experimenting with permaculture. Our garden/orchard is huge–1.5 acre, and I could like to plant it intensively–fruit, veggies and flowers, but spend no more than 1 an hour a day, and 2 on Sunday in the garden (with Roy spending a bit more than that). 

So I am trying to learn permaculture techniques to minimize labour in the garden. People estimate that one can grow enough fruit and veggies to feed one’s family as well as having a pretty flower-filled garden with no more than a few hours a week in the garden (which I need for the exercise, tranquillity, and the opportunity for clear thinking and praying it affords) if one uses the techniques of permaculture.

These involved minimizing human labour with techniques such as chipping all garden waste to make thick mulches which dramatically decrease the amount of watering and weeding. Roy really enjoys this–turning our unruly hedges, prunings and garden waste into mulches, which will soon become nutritious compost and increase the soil’s fertility for future years

Another permaculture technique we are adopting is focussing on perennial vegetables. We’ve planted 40 asparagus crowns, 
rows of strawberries, perennial onions, and some old English traditional vegetables–lovage, good King Henry etc. 
                                      * * *

A permaculture idea which is interesting me is creating a tight ecosystem in the home and garden in which nothing is wasted. Our ducks eat our table scraps. We eat their eggs. Their waste and the egg shells go into the compost. The rabbits eat the garden waste (well, the things they love, apple branches, hawthorn, willow, all fruit tree branches, twigs), their nitrogen rich droppings go into the compost. All paper and cardboard–and about a third of our household waste–goes into the compost.

Compost itself is magic–all this waste becoming black, rich, nutritious soil.

Our garden is all organic, of course, and we are learning as much as we can of natural methods of pest control, as with the birds in our five feeders, who are, of course, sheer delight!

And I do love gardening–but I go into the garden with my timer on my iPhone set for an hour, so that with the pleasures of being out with the birds–and now the bees!!– I do not entirely lose track of time.
                                         ~ ~ ~

It is my first year, well to be precise, my fourth month of gardening in England, though we gardened intensely and intensively in America for 7 years, so I have much to learn.
Any ideas or tips will be welcome. 

Should Yoga Scare Christians?

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   Should Yoga Scare Christians?

The Oxford church I used to attend, St. Aldate’s, had a deliverance ministry written by Neil Anderson called Freedom in Christ. It required you to renounce various things. Including yoga.
I went through the course with two rather unintelligent but dominant women who over a exhausting period of 4 hours insisted I read out the book, orally recanting and renouncing and repenting of lists of things, no matter whether I had done them or not, or even knew what they were.
“What’s this?” “Never mind, repent and renounce it.” I did it to speed my exit!!
Putting yoga on this list is an example of Christian narrow-mindedness. Yoga is a system of exercises and deep breathing, which calms body and mind. It brings a relaxed calm of mind and clarity of thinking by stretching every muscle in the body—and in the process, giving one immense flexibility.
Yoga was originally an ancient Hindu spiritual practice, of course, but a Christian can use its system of slow stretches and deep breathing to calm their mind, to think about important, even spiritual things, to focus on Christ. This is particularly true in a class, in which the instructor tells you what to do, and you do it with your mind in a calm, alive state.
Yoga is particularly good for recognizing the body-mind connection celebrated by the ancient Greeks–a healthy mind in a healthy body. It is difficult to have clear, inspired, creative thoughts–or even pray and reach a breakthrough– in a stiff, restless, tense and uncomfortable body. Conversely, a restless, stressed, hyper mind causes physical restlessness and discomfort.
The Benedictines realized this mind-body connection when they balanced prayer, study and physical labour. 
Yoga both calms the mind by exercising the body, and relaxes the body by calming the mind.
There is no inherent opposition between yoga and Christianity. I often pray or think while doing yoga in a class.
My father took it up in his late fifties, and practised it for 30 years, dying a very fit and limber 89. 
I do yoga off and on, and when I am practising it regularly, I find it clears my mind, stills my emotions, helps me feel calm and even happy, and I am, of course, a whole lot more flexible and energetic. 

Who then will be saved?

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Paul’s Sublime Statement on the Justice of God


Romans 2 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.
                                 * * * 
 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 into 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 and the vile god Tash have nothing in common. “We are opposites.” Yet Aslan accepted Emeth because  “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)

I posted this passage with some misgivings on my Read through the Blog and was not entirely surprised to receive three reproving comments.

Here was my response

  Hi, I agree, God would not have sent Jesus to die that horrific death–nor would Jesus have voluntarily endured it– if there was any other way that man could be reconciled with God.

However, Jesus tells us that he will say, “I never knew you,” to people who worked miracles in his name, and also Matt. 25, that he will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my father, enter in” to those who think they have never known him, but have been kind to numerous people they have encountered.

While I believe in hell, I simply cannot believe that people are condemned to hell because they have not believed in Christ. Christ himself did not say that.

Acts 10: 34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.

Romans 2:6 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. 8 But 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.”

I am aware that on this point alone I diverge from the standard evangelical interpretation of these Scripture–and on this point, I have always diverged from it.

I simply cannot believe that God will condemn the many kind, gentle, lovely people I have met on my travels who have never heard about Christ to torment.


Christ’s sacrifice on the cross could well have been more all-encompassing and all-sufficient than we realize.

I have to add that I am no theologian, however  🙂