random | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

“Of Gods and Men” Des Hommes et Des Dieux: A Sublime and Beautiful Film

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!

(Archive post)

The Redemptive Value of Work in Downton Abbey and Life!

By Anita Mathias

Our family has never yet got the hang of watching TV—the few times we’ve paid for cable or a licence, we never remember to watch it and cancel it within the month. So, we’ve made peace with watching documentaries etc. on DVD, gulping down several episodes at a time, long after everyone else has discussed it to death.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve watched Series One and Series Two of Downton Abbey—4 hours of it yesterday—and have thoroughly enjoyed it.

What stood out to me was the redemptive value of work, how the characters become sweetened, matured and fully rounded once they find useful work.

Lady Edith, the bitter, jealous, carping sister becomes sweet once she is useful—as a tractor driver, as a nurse. Lady Sybil finds such meaning in nursing the badly shell-shocked, maimed, gassed and burnt soldiers, that she finds herself unable to retreat to the world of parties, dresses, hunting and idleness.

Even Cora, Lady Grantham, the American heiress, finds herself energized and finds purpose in life once she was has a job: running Downton as a convalescent home.

* * *

Matthew, the upper-middle solicitor, who finds himself the heir of Downton wants to dismiss his Downton valet. He scathingly suggests that Moseley finds a grown-up occupation instead of dressing an adult as if he were a child. (And, in fact, having several servants is infantilizing—though, as infants would tell us if they could speak, much bliss there is in toddlerhood.)

Matthew changes his tune once Lord Grantham points out that his own mother found meaning, purpose and usefulness in running the hospital. Would he deny Moseley a job—and worse, the sense of being useful in it? He does not, and Moseley is instantly happier. Once his employers leave, he mopes around again, until the soup kitchen project keeps him busy.

* * *

The happiest characters in Downton are those who do a good job, and who are valued for it, Carson, Mrs Hughes, Mr. Bates, Anna. The least happy are those not absorbed in their work, or those who seek to shirk it, like Thomas, the evil footman, and bitter O’Brien.

* * *

Is Julian Fellowe’s sentimentalizing the value of work? He himself is a relentless worker, and quotes his father. “If you have the misfortune to be born into a generation which must earn its living, you might as well do something amusing.”

Fellowes breakthrough work appeared when he was 52. According to The New York Times, “The decades before that were often fraught with anxiety, even despair. He toiled as a midlevel character actor for 30 years with 12 rejected screenplays to his name until, incredibly, at age 52, he won an Academy Award for his first produced screenplay, Robert Altman’s “Gosford Park,” in 2002. But Fellowes, now 62, is the rare sort who, having won a life lottery, did not kick up his heels and make a fool of himself. He has worked like the proverbial dog — or American — for his continued success, and if that means he is more to the manner bought than born, that is fine with him.”

* * *

Work which helps others or which is valued by others provides us the validation, significance and respect we appear to need as a species.

However, work one loves doing is God’s gift to man, and I guess we should keep seeking until we find it.

The work we love doing may not necessarily be our paid work. For instance, no work I have ever done has been as satisfying or pleasurable as writing this blog. Yet, the income from it is negligible, and that’s okay, since I am not doing it for the money, at least not at present.

I suppose an ideal would be to make one’s living from work one loves. As Robert Frost’s tramp says,

My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.

In reality, there is a long period for many of us before the work we love supports us—and for that period, the joy in doing work we love must be our ethereal consolation.

* * *

And running a house, as Carson and Mrs Hughes could tell us– is among the most useful work: a mental, physical, psychological and spiritual blessing to those who live in it.

It is work I have no talent for, or interest in—though I thoroughly appreciate and enjoy the efficiency, neatness and cleverness of a well-run house.

Two years ago, my husband, Roy, changed his work, from being a professor of mathematics, to running a largely automated micro-publishing business which supports our family, and running our home smoothly.

All the years, when I was ostensibly a housewife, but in fact, read and wrote and dreamed a lot, I used to constantly wonder aloud to Roy what full-time homemakers did.

Well, now that Roy is doing it, I no longer wonder. Keeping food in the pantry and refrigerator, cooking it, getting it on the table, clearing up, keeping up with the dishwasher, and laundry, and clothes, and tidiness, maintenance, replacements and paperwork (even with outsourcing the cleaning, and quite a lot of housework and odd jobs): wow, all this involves a lot of keeping one’s head on one’s shoulders and organization.

No wonder our stress level has been reduced dramatically, almost eliminated, now that someone is doing it full time. And its no wonder that I have been the most creative that I’ve ever been.

I viewed homemaking as drudgery and boring. Now that I am benefitting from someone else’s homemaking I see that is a sublime act of service, and a blessing to the inhabitants of a household (though that doesn’t necessarily negate that former two adjectives!)

I myself would never make a good homemaker, I think. God knows, I’ve tried for the first 21 years of our marriage until Roy took over. Just the very thought of dishes, and laundry, and cooking and cleaning made me too depressed to function. Oh Carson, oh Mrs Hughes, oh Anna, why is your breed extinct?

Do not Grieve for All that’s Broken

By Anita Mathias

Bread must be broken to be eaten.

The grain of wheat split to live

The chrysalis crumble for the butterfly,

The egg splinter for the chicken

The snake moult to grow.

And sheets of coloured glass

Must be shattered

To be refashioned

Into stained glass

Through which–

In shafts of radiance

Like the love of God–

Rainbowed light

Can shine,

* * *

And I consider.

Did growth spring green

From my own brokenness?

Yes, it always does.

My rejected manuscript

Got me to hone my craft,

Again, more diligently.

Praise the Lord for Fleas and Lice

By Anita Mathias

Here is Corrie Ten Boom’s famous flea story from The Hiding Place.

We lay back, struggling against the nausea that swept over us from the reeking straw.

..Suddenly I sat up, striking my head on the cross-slats above. Something had pinched my leg.

“‘Fleas!’ I cried. ‘Betsie, the place is swarming with them!’

“‘Here! And here another one!’ I wailed. ‘Betsie, how can we live in such a place!’

“‘Show us. Show us how.’ It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.

“‘Corrie!’ she said excitedly. ‘He’s given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!’

“I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. ‘It was in First Thessalonians,’ I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen.

“In the feeble light I turned the pages. ‘Here it is: “Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all…'” It seemed written expressly to Ravensbruck.

“‘Go on,’ said Betsie. ‘That wasn’t all.’

“‘Oh yes:’…”Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.'”

“‘That’s it, Corrie! That’s His answer. “Give thanks in all circumstances!” That’s what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!’ I stared at her; then around me at the dark, foul-aired room.

“‘Such as?’ I said.

“‘Such as being assigned here together.’

“I bit my lip. ‘Oh yes, Lord Jesus!’

“‘Such as what you’re holding in your hands.’ I looked down at the Bible.

“‘Yes! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all these women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages.’

“‘Yes,’ said Betsie, ‘Thank You for the very crowding here. Since we’re packed so close, that many more will hear!’

She looked at me expectantly. ‘Corrie!’ she prodded.

“‘Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed suffocating crowds.’

“‘Thank You,’ Betsie went on serenely, ‘for the fleas and for–‘

“The fleas! This was too much. ‘Betsie, there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.’

“‘Give thanks in all circumstances,’ she quoted. It doesn’t say, ‘in pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.

“And so we stood between tiers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.”

“Back at the barracks we formed yet another line–would there never be an end to columns and waits?–to receive our ladle of turnip soup in the center room. Then, as quickly as we could for the press of people, Betsie and I made our way to the rear of the dormitory room where we held our worship “service.” Around our own platform area there was not enough light to read the Bible, but back here a small light bulb cast a wan yellow circle on the wall, and here an ever larger group of women gathered.
“They were services like no others, these times in Barracks 28.

“At first Betsie and I called these meetings with great timidity. But as night after night went by and no guard ever came near us, we grew bolder. So many now wanted to join us that we held a second service after evening roll call.

There on the Lagerstrasse we were under rigid surveillance, guards in their warm wool capes marching constantly up and down. It was the same in the center room of the barracks: half a dozen guards or camp police always present. Yet in the large dormitory room there was almost no supervision at all. We did not understand it.

“One evening I got back to the barracks late from a wood-gathering foray outside the walls. A light snow lay on the ground and it was hard to find the sticks and twigs with which a small stove was kept going in each room. Betsie was waiting for me, as always, so that we could wait through the food line together. Her eyes were twinkling.

“‘You’re looking extraordinarily pleased with yourself,’ I told her.

“‘You know, we’ve never understood why we had so much freedom in the big room,’ she said. ‘Well–I’ve found out.’

“That afternoon, she said, there’d been confusion in her knitting group about sock sizes and they’d asked the supervisor to come and settle it.

“But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t step through the door and neither would the guards. And you know why?”

“Betsie could not keep the triumph from her voice: ‘Because of the fleas! That’s what she said, “That place is crawling with fleas!'”

“My mind rushed back to our first hour in this place. I remembered Betsie’s bowed head, remembered her thanks to God for creatures I could see no use for.”

* * *

More and more, I have been struck by how the very worst thing that happens in people’s lives sort of morphs into the very best thing. Yes, it makes sense to live in gratitude, praising the Lord anyway.

We don’t have a flea story, but we do have a lice story. When one of my daughters got into a selective private school in Oxford when she was 5. She was a chess and math prodigy, with a whole lot of chess prizes, so was selected by a very ambitious mother as a suitable friend for her hot-housed only child I’ll call Amelie.

Now Amelie had long blonde hair (and this mother would stand the two girls together, back to back, and then tell my girl, “Well, your hair’s long, but not as long as Amelie’s.”) Amelie’s hair was also crawling with lice, and in the break, she’d chase the others tossing her long hair, saying, “Lice, lice.” (A story I never shared with her mother, who’d never have believed it.)

So “lice letters” went home regularly, and every time, this other mother, an ambitious South African who came here, married her professor, breaking up his marriage, phoned or emailed me, telling me of the 45 minute trauma she went through delousing Amelie, and insisting I did the same.

The two girls were best friends, and genuinely fond of each other, but Amelie, who was a little politician was always grieving my daughter. “No, you sat with me last time, it’s X’s turn. I’ve invited X for a play date. Invited Y for a sleepover. No, you are now not my best friend.” My daughter is the faithful sort who has just a few deep friends, and this was throwing her into turmoil.

Finally, I had enough of the lice emails, since I was pretty sure that my daughter was getting them from Amelie, and told the other mother that if Amelie dealt with her lice, the problem would be solved. She was furious, told the teachers that Amelie wasn’t to sit near my daughter, and retaliated by having a party, and inviting the whole class except my daughter (Amelie’s supposed “best friend.”). Yeah, that’s what we are coming too–grownups behaving like children. I have no idea if this is a recent development or was always the case!

Well, much heartbreak. But that definitively ended the very competitive and fraught “best friendship” which had caused so much heartbreak, grief and volatility for 3 years.

My daughter formed other friends. She is a straight arrow with a warm, loving loyal heart. She’s had the same group of friends for the last 4 years, who are devoted to her and vice-versa, and is now very happy. She loves school, loves her friends, and is excelling academically and is very happy socially. She’s also very popular in her gang of seven girls, in which she a leader.

And what’s more, as I suspected, once the mother broke off her friendship with the other girl, she’s never had lice again. We had struggled with it for 3 years, and now, she’s foot-lose, lice-free and happy.

It took those pesky little creatures to break off a frenemy relationship which would have marred her school-life.

Yeah, praise the Lord even for fleas and lice!!

The Most Effective Time-Management Tool I Know

By Anita Mathias

Martin Luther

The last 7 days have been exceptionally busy.

Last Thursday, Zoe’s school had a long University open day in which we decided that Zoe should have a gap year, and apply in 2014 for admission in 2015, rather than 2013 for 2014.

On Friday, I hosted a brunch for the women’s group I am co-leading, then had a meeting with my co-leader and the leader of the cluster group in St. Andrew’s, Oxford. St. Andrew’s has a lot of support, oversight (and meetings) for the leaders of small groups. My church in America had it too, and while it takes time both for leaders and those providing oversight, it prevents the painful toxic situations that regularly occurred in small groups in my previous Charismatic church in Oxford—so that’s good!

On Saturday, I spent the day in London with my university friend, Jane and her family.

On Monday, I had tea in the Kilns, C.S. Lewis’s beautiful house with the acting warden, Malissa Kilpatrick.

On Tuesday, I had a fascinating stimulating coffee at the Ashmolean with Malcolm Guite, poet and priest, talking about G.K. Chesterton and Charles Williams—about whom Malcolm knows an enormous amount and talks captivatingly and engagingly. Well, talks like a poet!!

Wednesday we spent at Tearfund’s headquarters in Teddington, near London. I was to have coffee today with an academic who teaches English, and is interested in women writers in particular, but both of us were shattered!!

And in between, we had our bedroom recarpeted, which meant taking out and putting back everything (well, our housekeeper did it, but some of it in the wrong places) and taking out and putting everything back in the garage, which we got carpeted as part of its transformation to a games room.

Interestingly, until today, when the strain of the unaccustomed extroversion told on me (I am basically an introvert, as, or more, energized by Bible reading, prayer, writing and reflection than by a party or coffee, though those energise me too) I was quite calm. Today, I declared a Sabbath, took the day off to rest and catch up with sleep, and decided to work on Sunday instead.

I’ve managed to write through this busy week, with two full days in London, producing both daily blog posts, and working on my memoir. I think it was because I managed to pray through the week.

* * *

Praying when you are very busy is amazing. It’s like entering a tardis. You feel stressed when you enter it. The world seems too much with you. It presses in on you. There is simply too much to do, but you cannot do anything much because you are stressed.

And you enter the sacred zone of prayer, remove your shoes for you are on holy ground, and enter eternity: the presence of the Blazing Bush which burns and is never consumed. And it’s as if time pushes outwards, enlarges around you in silent, ever growing ripples, becomes unconcernedly silent and vast.

You enter deep peace. You are in some indefinable way changed and transformed, and can now face the challenges of your day steadily, methodically and with peace. When you leave your prayer room, it’s as if everything that happened before happened yesterday, and today is now a new day.

For me, praying when busy is no longer an option, but a necessity. I simply get too stressed to tidy the house for guests, to read or write or blog if I have been rushing around too much, or fretting, and need to take the time to rest, and soak in God’s presence until I am calm and clear-headed again.

* * *

Martin Luther wrote intriguingly “On a typical day I am charged with the pastorate of three congregations. I teach regularly at the seminary. I have students living in my house. I am writing three books. Countless people write to me. When I start each day, therefore, I make it a point to spend an hour in prayer with God. But if I have a particularly busy day, and am more rushed than usual, I make it a point to spend two hours with God before I start the day.”

Ah, there speaks a man who know what it was to rely on God!! And no doubt in prayer, God told him what to focus on in his seminal books. (Jack and Rose Marie Miller have been transformed, for instance, by Luther’s Commentaries on Galatians and Romans, and have transformed many others in turn through their Sonship Course). How to get to the heart of the matter with his students. How to deal with tricky pastoral issues. How to answer letters pithily, with no extra words, and which letters need not be answered. How to focus on his resident students intensely, but briefly.

And no doubt, prayer gave him peace and energy. Renewed him. He could work peacefully, efficiently and in a directed way for the rest of the day.

It’s one of those counter-intuitive things that show us that ultimately we don’t control our lives. That if the Lord does not build the house, in vain do the builders labour. I’ve been discovering recently that if I take the time to exercise vigorously for an hour the rest of my day is far more productive. Or if I have a 30 minute afternoon nap. Or a good night’s sleep. Or pray!!

* * *

I am just learning to pray. I published an article in The Christian Century in 2000 called Learning to Pray, and now, 12 years later, I am still learning. I guess I will always be.

But it really is the most important time-management, productivity and efficiency tool. God through his goodness, in a session of desperate prayer five years ago, gave me a business idea which I could implement and enjoy implementing, and which now wholly supports my family. If I had not prayed, earning the same money would have taken thousands more hours!! He told me to blog during a prayer walk, and I have never enjoyed any sustainable work more than I enjoy blogging. (Well, I love writing poetry, but I know, from experience, I could not write poetry every day. Inspiration would run dry. I’d get bored!!)

I pray too about how to entertain, and frequently am given simple, doable menus, and tips on getting the house ready which are far, far simpler than what I would have done without prayer. God often tells me how to deal with my teenagers or husband or tricky people if I ask (though, sadly, I ask less often than I should!)

* * *

I wonder if we only really, really learn to pray when we reach the point of desperation, when we cannot do life on our own. Sadly, it was the case with me.

To be honest, the things I pray over are just the tip of the iceberg of the things I need to pray over—and that’s just in my own life!!

Balancing blogging and writing; how to do social media efficiently but not time-consumingly; mothering; being a friend to Roy; losing weight; waking early; financial decisions; garden decisions; house decisions; purchases…oh there is so much wisdom I need just for my own life, for starters, and yet, how slowly I learn the habit of praying over everything.

Oh what grace we often forfeit,

Oh what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry,

Everything to God in prayer…

A Day at Tearfund’s Headquarters, learning about the Real Hunger Games

By Anita Mathias

Matthew Frost, CEO of Tearfund

Simon Jenkins, Dave Walker, Pete Phillips, Anita

Richard Littledale

I spent the day in the Tearfund offices in Teddington, near London (invited as part of their first Bloggers Day) and met several other bloggers and digital media people whose work I knew—Richard Littledale, the blogger; Simon Jenkins, the editor of the wonderfully irreverent Ship of Fools(check out what they say about your church; or, on second thoughts, perhaps you better not); Dave Walker, artist of the hilarious churchy cartoons for The Church Times; Pete Phillips who teaches theology at Durham, Liz Clutterbuck, etc.

I knew very little about Tearfund’s work, and am always eager to understand more about the causes and solutions of poverty—and I am glad I went.

Matthew Frost, the CEO of Tearfund spoke grippingly for a couple of hours on Tearfund’s work. (Read Matthew’s take on the Real Hunger Games.)

He used a story of “Tom and Margaret” from Uganda who were converted, and thereby gained hope. They were particularly struck by the feeding of the 5000. They worked in a quarry for six months, and saved money. They bought chickens, sold the meat and eggs, bred them; and then bought goats with the proceeds. Sold milk and meat, bred them, and bought citrus trees with the proceeds.

All this with the help of the local church supported by Tearfund.

Matthew felt that the key to their transformation was that the gospel offered them hope.

* * *

This is a familiar rags to riches romance. Why doesn’t it happen elsewhere in Africa, and the fourth world? I remember asking my friends who worked with desperately poor people in Mozambique and Sierra Leone about whether the poor could grow tomatoes in pots; keep laying hens. No, she said, deferring gratification would be too hard. It would be too tempting to have chicken for dinner.

So interestingly, the way Tom and Margaret broke out of the cycle of poverty was the way Dickens recommends as the surest means to happiness, and the idea at the heart of Rob Parson’s simple but practical book, “The Debt Trap.” “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”Somehow or the other, consume just a little bit less than you earn. Somehow or the other, save just a little bit every month. Eventually invest it in capital goods (which help you earn more) or in income-producing investments.

* * *

I sat next to the dynamic young Jay Butcher at lunch. Jay was converted in his final undergraduate year. He was to be an aeronautical engineer. Well, Jesus wrecked that!

He interned for a church after graduating, read the Old Testament, and heard the scalding, uncomfortable call in Amos and Micah for compassion on the poor. He worked with a Human Rights organisation for a couple of years, and then joined Tearfund.

He’s a passionate and charming Campaigns Officer—and learnt all his skills on the job!! He’s working on the Unearth the Truth campaign now, which is lobbying the EU for full transparent disclosure of transactions of multinationals in Africa. £3000 is lost every second due to corruption. It simply vanishes. Africa is very rich in natural resources, and the sales of its natural resources—gold, oil, diamonds, mining rights, land—brings it 9 times the aid it receives. However this money largely vanishes into the pockets of the corrupt, or into private Swiss bank accounts. Corruption is possibly Africa’s largest problem. (And so you can see how non-taxable enterprise—the hens, goats, garden model might well offer hope to her people.)

The Tearfund staff seemed happy and charming. I would have imagined that people who see poverty, corruption and injustice on a daily basis would become bitter and angry. (Well, I fear I would!) But perhaps, like “Tom and Margaret,” they have hope. Campaigns do work eventually, Jay said, perhaps not as thoroughly as campaigners wish, but they do work, incrementally.

Matthew Frost said, “Prayer is the most significant development intervention there is.” And that brings hope to Uganda, and hope to London!

Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ by Dallas Willard. (A Guest Post by Paul Hughes)

By Anita Mathias

Please click here to see this post on my new blog, with up to date comments.

Can We Love Chocolate Cake?

Dallas Willard and a Disciplined Life

By Paul Hughes

Renovation of the Heart:

Putting on the Character of Christ

Renovation of the Heart has influenced me more than any other non-fiction book. And it did so when I understood it and when I didn’t. This remains odd to me how a book can serve and work, whether I notice it at the time or not.

I know it is central to book magic, of course. But as Dr. Willard himself would say, there is “knowing” and there is knowing.

There is “intellectual apprehension” and there is interactive relationship.

It’s not the only lesson he’s taught me.

Going My Way

I first heard Dallas Willard’s name more than 20 years ago, and I think I finally made it through his first major book, Spirit of the Disciplines, 10 years after. Ten years more and I began to understand it.

Which means it’s time to start all over again.

I mean none of this to scare you away from the author, a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, or his books, including the Disciplines, Hearing God, The Divine Conspiracy, and, Renovation of the Heart — the book that, in one sense, completes my travels, and in much another, well … starts them all over again.

In fact, I hope you’re excited.

Because to be honest …

It’s incredible.

Personal Training

It’s also difficult.

The two are related.

It has been this way for me, coming as a woeful pilgrim daily — or at least on those days when not fleeing fearfully — to these ideas and actions … and the often repeated reminders that neither my ideas nor my actions are what’s doing the work.

Or as Anne Lamott says elsewhere,

the things you do that you think keeps the world
spinning, are not what keep the world spinning.

This has been a difficult lesson. Though becoming like Christ is, as Willard says, far easier than the alternative.Not becoming like Christ.

One of Willard’s refrains throughout is Christ’s own comment on walking with Him–My yoke is easy and my burden is light–but if we’re being honest, at first it does feel like what it is: a yoke and a burden.

Conspiracy Theory

His four books fit together, and Renovation is the lead singer in this merry band.

Its subtitle is Putting on the Character of Christ, and Chesterton’s counsel to pay attention to subtitles is vital here. Willard means what he says: his goal is that we put on — as garment or cloak or even, depending on how far gone we are, a mask as in Beerbohm’s The Happy Hypocrite — the very life of our Lord.

That is Dallas Willard’s ultimate aim in this ultimate book, and it has been his life’s work:

That we actually become like Christ, in all we think, feel, say, do, and live.

This is not metaphor or hyperbole. He means it, and the four books build to that end, connecting in the order they were published: Hearing God (originally, In Search of Guidance), The Spirit of the Disciplines, The Divine Conspiracy, The Renovation of the Heart

The first is about talking and listening to God, friend-to-friend.

The second lays the foundation for spiritual disciplines, describing many.

The third moves through the Sermon on the Mount, a sketching of the Kingdom of God.

The fourth unpacks human personality, buffing each part to glossy shine for life in that Kingdom.

Together the four — relationship, disciplines, life in the Kingdom, and total reformation of every dimension of our being — form the basis for Christ’s call, which Willard describes as : A divine conspiracy for worldwide, perpetual revolution.

No problem.

Exodus to En Gedi

Willard’s background is American Protestant. He was born in Missouri, grew up in the heartland, and was an ordained minister before turning to university teaching. He believed he would have greater access to more venues as a professor rather than a pastor.

Well, American Protestants often identify Israel’s religious history with their own —national and personal. They see slavery, redemption, traveling in the wilderness, God’s leadings by cloud and fire, crossing into the promised land, and so on, as mirroring their own journeys, even presaging them.

For good and ill, the kiln of Christianity in the U.S. often forges these connections. For instance, Christians may see our sin, its solution, this life and entering heaven as matching up with Egypt, Sinai, finding giants in the land, and crossing the Jordan.

Willard takes a different route, and it makes a great difference. For him the Christian Journey — culminating in the renovation of the heart — would still set Egypt as the problem and the Exodus as the solution: we are sinners, and saved.

But the giants in the land are the hindrances to complete spiritual transformation, and our crossing the Jordan happens now, in this life,

Smooth Stones

Leonard Cohen says it this way—

It goes like this, the fourth, a fifth,

The minor fall, and the major lift

The baffled king composing

Hallelujah!

— but for Willard, we are not quite baffled kings.

Rather, spiritual formation in Christ makes sense. Renovation of the Heart says several, specific, systematic ways into spiritual formation exist— and I … you … we … can. literally. do. them.

Always.

We can live into Christlikeness. We can know not only What would Jesus Do?but What He actually did and What He is now doing in six areas of the human person, six smooth stones —Thoughts, Feelings, Body, Will, Social, Soul

— and (to mix metaphors) each of these can be seeded, cultivated, and matured into the likeness of Christ. This is, well … the Renovation of the Heart.

However we parse a person — mind/body … body/soul/spirit … physical/emotional/spiritual —it will include all of the above. He couples thoughts and feelings as “the mind” and sees the will as an action of the heart, for instance, but essentially, that’s it.

That’s us.

It’s something Jesus knew, something He did, and something He told us to go and do as well : Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

It can be done.

And More

And for years I tried and tried and tried and tried.

And for all my efforts became a rotten Pharisee.

And I can’t say all of how I changed.

And perhaps you already know.

And then it was all Him.

And the book helped.

A lot.

Chocolate Conclusions

In many of his talks, and not a few of his books, Dallas Willard speaks of love. He says it is to will the good of another, which I would amend as to will and work for the good of another.

He says because it’s about willing the good of another, we can’t — just for instance, let’s say — love chocolate cake. We can’t will its good, he says, because what we want to do is eat it.

It’s all right if we can’t love chocolate cake.

As long as we can love each other, it will be Jake.

And we can.

And this book can help.

For more information

Dallas Willard by Dieter Zander

Dallas Willard’s two most recent books are an essay collection, The Great Omission, and Knowing Christ Today, which reflects his current efforts in showing how spiritual knowledge is a realm of knowing, of legitimate enquiry, and of talking about life, the universe and everything. Willard’s website has many dozens of articles, essays, and presentations, from nearly 50 years of teaching, preaching, speaking, and listening. Some of these are beginning to show up as short Kindle and electronic efforts, such as “Getting Love Right.”

About Paul

Paul Hughes is a writer in Southern California. He is married to the beautiful Michele, and between them they have four children, ages 11 to 19. He writes on faith and culture, expressed in the people and phrasing of The Poet and The Priest — reflected on his website, his Facebook page, and Twitter. His books include Your Mom’s a Hypocrite, Tebow: Throwing Stones, and love every day.

What do I really want?

By Anita Mathias

Image credit

“Do I really want to?” I was mentored by a wonderful woman, Lolly,who had the age of 80 started asking herself this question.

She had been to Bible College, and became a minister’s wife at 22. So all her life, she would think, “Should I? Ought I? Is it my duty? Would God want me to? Would people expect me to? Would people be hurt if I didn’t? Would people be happy if I did? Can I encourage someone?”

When she was 80, she was invited to a big happening event in Williamsburg, Virginia. One of the richest families had adopted a child, and had a christening in the poshest hotel in town. It was going to be very posh, very exclusive, money was going to flow. The pastor of our church was invited, and was going happily. He was appalled when he found out that Lolly had been invited too, and declined, though she was also mentoring the adoptive mother.

“Why did you decline?” I asked. This was ten years ago, and I am ashamed to say I used to go to events like this, fund-raising dinners at $1000 a plate, if invited (and paid for!) for silly reasons like the prestige, the cachet, the name-dropping later, being “in.”

“Oh, I couldn’t be bothered,” she said. “I’d rather stay in and read. I am 80 years old. I have done what other people have wanted for most of my life. It’s high time I start asking myself what I really want to do.”

* * *

What do I really want to do? Well, what I really want to do most of the time is read and write and think and pray. I am turning down more and more social invitations, party invitations to do just this after slowing down and asking myself “What do I reallywant to do?”

Isn’t it surprising that so many of us live life on auto-pilot, do what’s expected, fall in with other people’s plans, desires and expectations without asking ourselves what we really want to do?

That’s not to say we shouldn’t do ministry. My first spiritual director suggested that I always have at least one person in my life to whom I give, spend time with, serve, without getting anything in return. He never said why, but I think it’s a good discipline if your work and ministry are visible, as mine are, and give you lots of feedback, attention, affirmation and praise! It keeps you real and humble. I have been given someone to whom I can be a blessing, and I am excited about it. (Of course, it’s someone who will be a blessing to me in turn….but God’s good like that!).

* * *

Where is my heart? What do I really want to do? What am I really excited about? Where are my passions?

Funny how people stop asking these questions.

To celebrate life together, to be together in community, to simply enjoy the beauty of creation, the love of people, and the goodness of God—these seem faraway ideals. There seem to be a mountain of obstacles preventing people from being where their hearts want to be. It is so painful to watch and experience. The astonishing thing is that the battle for survival has become so “normal” that few people really believe it can be different.”

Henri Nouwen, Seeds of Hope

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we constantly say No to our hearts, defer gratification? Why choose duty, and the unimportant shoulds over joy?

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart. W. B. Yeats

* * *

I am listening to The Sacred Romance by John Eldredge (which was recommended, incidentally by Lolly, who loved it) on my iPhone, in little scraps of time, here and there, as I do housework.

Somewhere along the way, we have lost heart. We do things without much enthusiasm, without much joy, in a half-souled way. We become dominated by Shoulds and Oughts, Eldredge said.

If I am doing things listlessly, mechanically, going through the motions, without much joy, I wonder if I am either not doing what God intended, or I am, but I have lost the way.

For instance, I am called to blog, but when blogging becomes a burden, a heaviness, it interesting to ask why. It’s almost always because I am not following my heart. My real interests may lie in little, short, not terribly significant posts like this one. But fear may say, “No. That’s boring!! Write something interesting, significant, ninja-like, meaty, on an important subject.” Say this too often, and you begin to develop blogger’s block, or blogger’s dreariness. Deny your impulses, the little 250 word posts you really want to write, and blogging becomes a burden, a duty, work, rather than joy.

It’s the same with anything. Our hearts give us a clue to who we really are, what we really enjoy doing, what makes us come alive. And yet how often people deny themselves their heart’s desire, stifle it, ignore it, until they get out of the habit of asking themselves what they really like doing, what really makes them come alive.

Two last thoughts, both true (up to a point).

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.” – Howard Thurman

“The vocation God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” ― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

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