Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Deliver us from Evil

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One sometimes has a sense of oppression, of the world being against one. Though the years, I have begun to realize it is in fact, the presence of evil that I am sensing.

But God is the strongest power and force in the world. As Jesus said, His father could even now send twelve legions of angels, even in Gethsemane.
Prayer and Scripture are the best ways to ward off this sense of oppression, to remind youthat God surrounds you, that the whole world is in his hands.
I love Hannah Whitall Smith’s vision (in The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life) of people being surrounded by light. No darkness, no evil can touch one, unless God allows it to–and even then, he is there!

Favourite Books

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Christian Books Which Have Most Influenced Me

(with links to the book on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk)

General

C. S. Lewis
Prayer
Autobiography/Memoir
Poetry
Holy Spirit
Other

Trials and Temptations, James 1

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Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
 13When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. 15Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
 16Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. 17Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:13-17

Sermon notes.
God is a giver of every good and perfect gift.
Trials are just that, as in a court of law. How will you come out? Pure as driven snow, or??
The Venerable Bede distinguished between two types of trials and testing.
Exterior trials and testing–poverty, illness, accident–may be sent by God to try and test us. He know how we’ll do. We may not.
Interior testing–temptations to lust, anger, unforgiveness, malice, untruthfulness, fretting, rage, greed–come from Satan.

Screwtape letters–It is in the troughs, in the valleys, in dull and boring periods, our downs, that Satan lurks, seeking to “get” us. So true!!
“It’s all very well letting oneself go, provided one can get oneself back!” Amen!

One of the things to do in a time of temptation to sin is to close the doors of temptation.

He talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit in “waves of liquid love, waves of liquid power.”
And about the importance of praying in tongues for intercession, intimacy, worship and spiritual warfare!

Marc Chagall–Master of Colour!

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I loved the huge stained glass windows created by Marc Chagall in the Cathedral of Reims. Something about his whimsical flying figures appeals to me, feels to me like a metaphor for how my soul and spirit long to be.
I love the brilliance of the colour Chagall uses.

When Matisse dies”, Picasso remarked, “Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is.”
File:Yury Pen - Portrait of Marc Chagall.jpg
Portrait of Chagall by his first teacher.

Mark Chagall, Born in 1887 in a Russian Jewish shtetl of Vitebsk in a poor working class family. He later wrote, “Day after day, winter and summer, at six o’clock in the morning, my father got up and went off to the synagogue. There he said his usual prayer for some dead man or other. On his return he made ready the samovar, drank some tea and went to work. Hellish work, the work of a galley-slave. Why try to hide it? How tell about it? No word will ever ease my father’s lot. . . There was always plenty of butter and cheese on our table. Buttered bread, like an eternal symbol, was never out of my childish hands.”
A turning point in Chagall’s artistic life came when he noticed a fellow student drawing. It “was like a vision, a revelation in black and white.”

Chagall would later say how there was no art of any kind in his family’s home. When Chagall asked the schoolmate how he learned to draw, his friend replied, “Go and find a book in the library, idiot, choose any picture you like, and just copy it.” He soon began copying images from books and found the experience so rewarding he then decided he wanted to become an artist.

He left Vitebsk at 19 and later  published an open letter entitled, “To My City Vitebsk”:

Why? Why did I leave you many years ago? . . . You thought, the boy seeks something, seeks such a special subtlety, that color descending like stars from the sky and landing, bright and transparent, like snow on our roofs. Where did he get it? How would it come to a boy like him? I don’t know why he couldn’t find it with us, in the city—in his homeland. Maybe the boy is “crazy”, but “crazy” for the sake of art. . . You thought: “I can see, I am etched in the boy’s heart, but he is still ‘flying,’ he is still striving to take off, he has ‘wind’ in his head.” . . . I did not live with you, but I didn’t have one single painting that didn’t breathe with your spirit and reflection.

His biographer Lewis writes,”As cosmopolitan an artist as he would later become, his storehouse of visual imagery would never expand beyond the landscape of his childhood, with its snowy streets, wooden houses, and ubiquitous fiddlers, scenes of childhood so indelibly in his mind and invested with an emotional charge so intense that it could only be discharged obliquely through an obsessive repetition of the same cryptic symbols and ideograms .

Moves to Paris, but continues painting Vitebsk there. “My homeland exists only in my soul!” he wrote.

He marries Bella Rosenfeld, from a richer family. Her parents worry how he would support her. As has happened to artists before him (Scott Fitzgerald, Millais) becoming a successful artist now became a goal and inspiration.

Travel, for a visual artist in particular, provides an invaluable source of growth and inspiration.

Chagall, “I should like to recall how advantageous my travels outside of France have been for me in an artistic sense—in Holland or in Spain, Italy, Egypt, Palestine, or simply in the south of France.

There, in the south, for the first time in my life, I saw that rich greenness — the like of which I had never seen in my own country.

In Holland I thought I discovered that familiar and throbbing light, like the light between the late afternoon and dusk.

In Italy I found that peace of the museums which the sunlight brought to life.

In Spain I was happy to find the inspiration of a mystical, if sometimes cruel, past, to find the song of its sky and of its people.

And in the East [Palestine] I found unexpectedly the Bible and a part of my very being.”
In Palestine, he felt he received an inner authorisation from the land of his ancestors, to plunge into his work on the Bible illustrations.”  He explains,  “In the East I found the Bible and part of my own being.” as he immersed himself in “the history of the Jews, immersed himself in “the history of the Jews, their trials, prophecies, and disasters.”
Chagall told Franz Meyer: “I did not see the Bible, I dreamed it. Ever since early childhood, I have been captivated by the Bible. It has always seemed to me and still seems today the greatest source of poetry of all time.”

A dry period after the death of his beloved wife, was followed by a period of extraordinary productivity. Chagall produced “paintings, graphic art, sculptures, ceramics, wall tiles, painted vases, plates, jugs large murals, stained glass windows, mosaics and tapestries.”

“The fading of traditional Jewish society left artists like Chagall with powerful memories that could no longer be fed by a tangible reality. Instead, that culture became an emotional and intellectual source that existed solely in memory and the imagination…. So rich had the experience been, it sustained him for the rest of his life.” Goodman notes,

Chagall designed his first stained glass windows when he was nearly 70. Isn’t that encouraging–to be able to take up a new art form when one is three score and ten? 

“Chagall reads the Bible and suddenly the passages become light.” Gaston Bachelard.

Chagall on the windows he created for the Hebrew University, “For me a stained glass window is a transparent partition between my heart and the heart of the world. Stained glass has to be serious and passionate. It is something elevating and exhilarating. It has to live through the perception of light. To read the Bible is to perceive a certain light, and the window has to make this obvious through its simplicity and grace…. The thoughts have nested in me for many years, since the time when my feet walked on the Holy Land, when I prepared myself to create engravings of the Bible. They strengthened me and encouraged me to bring my modest gift to the Jewish people—that people that lived here thousands of years ago, among the other Semitic peoples.”

Facebook Posts from April 2010

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Irene and I are making honey wheat bread. I have never made bread ever before, though the other three members of my family have, so they enjoyed patronising me. What hard work bread-making is!! All that thumping, pounding, and stretching! Waiting & hoping for it to double in size.

Spring, spring projects, a whirlwind. In our family, we parents revolve in as much of a whirlwind of excitement as the children. It was amusing to hear Zoe say, “Mum and Dad, doesn’t your Christian history class resume today? Good, so I’ll have a quiet evening.” Note though, that we’ve spent the last 2 evenings playing card games of their choice! And making pizza. And unpacking the last of our book boxes from America

 Cecilia, our singing teacher in school used to quote Augustine, “He who sings prays twice, Qui cantat, bis orat .” It is indeed amazing how beautiful music lifts and uplifts the sluggish, earthbound spirit. Just listening to Stuart Townsend. “I long to be where the praise is never-ending,. Yearn to dwell where the glory never fades, And cries of “Worthy” will honour the Lamb.

, “ Mum, did you know that I stayed up till 4 a.m. yesterday, reading all the library books we borrowed.” Me, “Yes.” She, “HOW did you know?” “Because I stayed up, doing the same thing.” Though undoubtedly, my reading, an A.S. Byatt novel, and a book on business was less compelling than hers.

I woke up today with the words of Jesus in my head (I wish that happened more often!). “I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as wise as a serpent, and as innocent as a dove.” What a vivid image! What protection might a lamb, surrounded by a herd of wolves, have? Apparently, two. Wisdom and goodness. No, three: the fact that the eyes of the shepherd are upon it!

How inventions happen. Irene made the most beautiful gingerbread men. Funny thing though: they smelled & tasted of GARLIC. “Irene, did you not wash the spoons and chopping board before using them?” “I did.” Dreadful thought: “Show me the tube you used.” “Dad squeezed it for me.” Fatal words. Intense garlic puree! Garlic “gingerbread” men don’t taste too bad when warm, but I will let Roy & Irene eat them.

 reading John and Carol Arnott’s interesting book on Grace. A quote: “Every negative thing and thought is always of the Enemy, and every postive, life-giving, up-lifting thought is always of the Holy Spirit.When we judge others, it almost always comes out as an accusation. We judge and accuse others and unwittingly find ourselves in agreement with the “accuser of the brethren.” The Holy Spirit is always positive, and Satan is always negative.”

Lots of Family Games this week: Whist, Rummy, Go Fish and Cheat. Articulate and Taboo. We draw lots for teams. Roy and I were together for Articulate and steam-rollered the children. I would have said, “of course,” but to our astonishment, they won at Taboo. I overheard Zoe tell Irene beforehand, “It’s okay, Mum and Dad won’t even know how to do Bendy Bob. Or to draw!”

 Thank you, Google for your alert, but I am not the Anita Mathias, whose obituary you sent me. I am still fully alive.


I love gardening wh. plunges me into the world of nature, its checks & balances. I feed our pet rabbits weeds, shoots, leaves, apple & raspberry branches, strawberry leaves & dandelions. They eat dandelions first. Which prevents our lawn becoming totally weed-infested. What is the best way of dealing with a neglected garden? Tame a bed at a time, starting on that every day, or do a little on different beds each day?

What my ten year old told me on her way out to school, “Have a nice day, Mummy. And blog your heart out.” Cheeky child! I plan to WRITE today, Irene, though yes, I am loving blogging!

. We returned from Europe just before the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano erupted. But we are refinancing our house, & our mortgage consultant is in Thailand. Our children’s teachers are in Greece, Spain & Istanbul, enjoying the extended break. The printer will be late with overseas shipments for our small publishing company. 90% of fresh fruit in the U.K. is imported, and much of veg, so shortages soon…

An underrated aspect of God’s blessing is that it often come through the mind, in the form of good ideas. And an aspect of prayer I often neglect is asking God for good ideas “inspiration” whether on how to tidy a house, write a book, or run a business or parent.

Our cleaning lady from Zimbabwe is singing in rich, high voice as she cleans. She is singing worship songs; I believe I have heard the melodies before. She reminds me of Lena, our previous Brazilian cleaner who also sung as she worked. I love the sound of their singing. It has such a happy feel. Reminds me of Cinderella singing with her broom. Lovely to bring joy, happiness and music into domesticity!

The wisdom of Roy: I was reading an article by a younger friend, and was cross to come across words I didn’t know. (I am a vocabulary freak, and always look up unfamiliar words–with a bit of exaggeration.). Roy, comfortingly: “Don’t worry. When people show off, there is one thing less they know that you don’t!”

Wandered down Cowley Road, trying to find a restaurant. Democracy is far more time-consuming than a dictatorship, but for a family wh. included an American-born 10 year old; a teenager, ditto; & 2 Indian-born middle-agers: decent consensus, the First Floor Restaurant. Pan-Asian cuisine, an Indian, Chinese & Thai buffet. Delicious naan breads, good pullau, good snacks. Great family banter & laughter. Fun!

Nice famil
y walk yesterday through the University Parks from Magdalen College to Norham Gardens where I used to live as a student at Oxford. It was a Bridehead Revisted set, complete with amusing poseurs with better sartorial than punting skills.Everything seemed backlit, tender leaf-green and lush. Willow trees leaning into the stream. Ducks and geese on the waters, Families picnicking. Near perfect weather.

Andrew Solomon in his New Yorker article on depression “The Noon-Day Demon,” said “exercise filtered depression from his body”. That’s exactly how it is with me. Running helps enormously, filling me with endorphins, serotonin, high spirits, all that is good. Yoga too fills me with calm, alertness & a sense of well-being. And it’s one of the mysteries of being me that I do these things most days rather than every day!

 Balderdash, given us by Alan and Mary Reed (thank you!). Irene, 10, rapidly got the hang of dictionary sounding definitions. “Scrivello, A antique builder’s tool, like a screw.” Zoe, “2 points for Irene.” Roy, indignantly, “Hey, I said builder’s tool” Zoe, sweetly, “Yes, but Irene wrote it.” We parents crowed over Irene’s genius, each modestly claiming she took after us, while Zoe steadily inched up–and won!

Roy is working in Birmingham, 75 minutes away, today, and after having him at home every day for the last month, I am a bit grumpy about this. Of course, there is less talk, discussion, argument, distraction when he is not at home, but hey, this Penelope business is over-rated. I want him to work at home, from home!


Irene played chess for Oxfordshire U11 girls on board 2 in the National Finals in London, and won all her three games! Yay!


 a very colourful Baisakhi Sikh procession on Cowley Road, Oxford. Irene was delighted to see stuff from her unit on Sikhism. Men in saffron holding enormous glistening kirpans (swords). Women with brilliant sarees, shalwars & long hair. No kaccha, underpants, on display though. The funniest part was the cops on their bikes behind it, regular white Oxford lads, laughing and joking, and looking most out of place.

People who tell others exactly what they think of them are thought of as inappropriate, crazy or very rude. Social conventions demand niceness. Still, what a humiliation for Brown to be caught making nice with that abrupt old lady, then dismissing her, while wired up, as “just a bigoted woman.” I hope it doesn’t affect his campaign as bumbling Brown has more solidity & integrity than Cameron, whom I don’t quite trust


The Wisdom of Roy

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Bailey’s Irish Cream Haagen -Dazs Icecream for dessert today.
Irene, “Why don’t we have this more often? Can we not afford it?”
Roy, ” We can afford to buy it. We just can’t afford to eat it.”

Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, or First Things First

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Roy & I talked last night about Jesus’ exciting statement, “Seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all the rest will be added unto you.”

Like the rest of Jesus’ sayings, one can only verify the truth of this by empirical evidence, by trying it.

C.S. Lewis in a more contemporary idiom says, that “When first things are put first, second things don’t diminish, they increase.”

I have found (more by failure than success) alas, that when first things are put first, a kind of peace and order pervades one’s life.


Putting second things first is a recipe for disorder.