Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

My Sunday walk around my garden and the Oxford countryside

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The field next to our garden has two new foals.  Though still suckling, they have halters.

Clematis on our garden wall.  The flowers change from fuschia to bluish-purple to light mauve as they mature.

A birch in Marston, Oxford, where I was at a tea party today at Paul’s house.
Wisteria covering a house in Northmoor Road, Oxford, reminds us of the wonderful wisteria under which we had tea yesterday at the Watts house.
A view in Marston, showing blue, two shades of green, pink, yellow, and white.
This field adjoins our orchard

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When He Breathes the Spirit on me

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And he breathed on them, and said, Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22)
I’ve said too much.
I spoke too freely.
And I fear
I have betrayed a confidence
And, oh, of people I care about!
And I feel
Small.
The weight of failure
Shame
Regret
Presses on me.
         * * *
And then I feel you
Breathe.
Breathe on me.
Receive the Holy Spirit, you say.
And I too breathe it in,
I let it fill me.
Pulsing waves of mercy,
Waves of love,
Waves of the mystery
That you love me.
            
 You know, I’ve realised this so recently,
And it overwhelms me.
Where should I stray from that love?
Never let me dream of it.
Let me live in it
Right in its waterfall.
             * * *
You breathe on me
Until I am full of your love,
And I smile.

The Panic of Other People’s Success

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I wrote this as a guest post for Rev Angie Mabry-Nauta, and I am taking the liberty of reposting it here, because, well, its author lives here!!

How to Deal with the Panic and Futility of Literary Comparisons
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
How The Desiderata speaks to writers!
Many writers—late developers precisely because of their vastness of their ambition, and the uniqueness of their gift—compare themselves with others and panic. Here’s the blogger Rachel Held Evans anguishing about Anne Jackson’s effortless success.
Here’s Milton, aged 23:
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom showeth.
And how does he deal with the sad, uneasy knowledge that others are writing more, achieving more, becoming more famous?
He refers it to God:
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even 
To that same lot, however mean, or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heav’n;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great taskmaster’s eye.
How much I write, and if and when fame comes, I’ll leave in God’s hands, he decides. All I need to write, I have—if God gives me grace to use it. All I need is grace.
* * *
And then, by 46, he is blind–and has still not written the one immortal work he longed to, “something which the world will not willingly let die.”
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, he mourns.
Perhaps what God wants from us is our surrender, Milton muses. Perhaps he wants to place ourselves, and our talents in his hands, like clay in a potter’s hands. And then he can use us!
“God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.
They also serve who only stand and wait,” he concludes
And when he is fifty, his long labour and his long patience pay off. Paradise Lost almost writes itself; he said it was as if an angel dictated it to him each night. In the morning, the blind poet sat, dressed tidily, waiting to be “milked” by his daughters to whom he dictated it.
* * *
Gerard Manley Hopkins, another strikingly original poet, struggles when he sees the less gifted flourish, while he, the poet devoted to God and poetry, flounders
Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause.
But, like Milton, he realizes that there is no nourishment in this railing, and he turns back to God for inspiration and nutrition.
 Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain, he prays.
  * * *
And when we compare our ambition, our training, our gifts to our own output? Or compare ourselves to the more successful—but perhaps less gifted. And the comparison makes us sad!! What should we do?
We turn to God, who gives literary gifts. Who said to Moses, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute?  Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”  (Ex 4 11-12).  And we rely on his enabling!
* * *
How can Christian writers increase the odds that our words bless our generation, and, with luck, generations after us?
We cleave to Jesus in faith, for he promised, Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him,” (John 7:38). And as we drink, these streams of living water will inevitably flow through our work!
We seek an “anointing” from the Holy Spirit, the life-giving river flowing from God. Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” (Ezekiel 47: 12).
From our immersion in Jesus, our play in the fields of the Lord, our soaking in the spirit, will flow writing like fruit trees which will not wither. Which will bear fruit every month for food and healing.  
      * * *
There is a way of stress and hustling open to writers, worrying about readers, rankings, and sales.  And there is a way of peace: hearing God’s voice, drinking in his spirit, letting his words and thoughts flow through you. Making peace with being a stream-of-spirit blogger rather than a ninja blogger.
Success is not guaranteed, either way. The race is not to the swiftest, not favour indeed to the wise. Not every writer gets published; not every published writer is widely read; not all today’s writers will be read in twenty years. And not every writer who overhears and records God’s whispers will be celebrated in her hometown, or elsewhere (Mark 12 2-5).
But if you have tried the way of hard work and networking, and are exhausted, discouraged and broken, letting the Lord be your literary agentand muse is infinitely better!!
* * *
Our life and our literary biography is a story, co-written by God and us. He gives us some plot elements: intelligence, education, literary flair, and the time to develop it. We burnish these through study and practice. We can mess up our part of our story. Waste time in depression, anger, disorganization, and frivolity.
But he is the master artist who loves the theme of redemption and specializes in happy endings. And his master plot for creation is a comedy.  It ends with a marriage feast, eating, drinking and merry-making, according to Revelation.
And so we can safely entrust our story and our literary ambitions to him. Between us, we’ll write a beautiful happy ending!

Anita Mathias has written Wandering Between Two Worlds, and blogs at Dreaming Beneath the Spires. Her writing has been recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts award; she lives in Oxford, England with her husband and daughters.

Blogging: The Greatest Democratisation of Writing the World Has Seen.

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Stoke Poges Churchyard, Buckinghamshire


Thomas Gray who wrote “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” was an extremely self-critical poet, paralyzed by the fear of failure. Though he had devoted his life to a self-imposed programme of literary study, and was known as one of the most learned men of his generation, he published a mere 13 poems in his lifetime, 1000 lines, which might be mistaken for “the collected works of a flea,” he said sadly.

In the graveyard of Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, he ponders the graves of those whose lives were not blighted by ambition–or thwarted ambition.  

But were they any less gifted then the household names of their generation? Statistically, the inhabitants of Stoke Poges should have had the same probability of producing a genius like Milton, a leader like Cromwell as any other town. They did not. Why? Gray muses

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway’d,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;
Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.

Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation’s eyes,
Their lot forbad: 

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;
Along the cool sequester’d vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

He mourns these “mute inglorious Miltons,” “born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air.” 

                                              * * *

However, with the explosion of blogging, the gatekeepers are losing their power, and anyone with a winsome voice who speaks to people can eventually find her audience, though she might live far from urban literary hubs. Miltons, particularly female ones, are no longer mute or inglorious!

In fact, “Miltons”, who live far from the madding crowd, find a voice–and an audience. The farmer’s wife Ann Voskamp in rural Canada, mother of six children who finds the sacred in the everyday. Or the nomadic Jessica Bowman, to mention at random, two blogs I enjoyed this week. Sweetness is no longer wasted on the desert air, in Gray’s phrase. It can be shared. And that is good, for sweetness should be shared. 

Blogging is the greatest democratization of writing the world has seen–and probably its greatest explosion of shared knowledge and experience. That’s not to say an audience comes immediately—it still takes time, and application. However, one can gain one’s audience unmediated, based on whether your writing speaks to head, spirit and heart, without needing to convince a gatekeeper.


And that is one of the many reasons I love blogging.

The Faith of Children: Adventures in Bringing up Christian Children

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Irene at 4 in Switzerland, thanking God for the waterfall and Zoe behind her.

Once, when we were travelling in Switzerland with Irene aged 4, she needed the loo in a mall. The lady who left the loo held the door open for her, and she entered, omitting the 25 centime coin you pay to open the door.

Well, outwitted by the Swiss! If you enter a loo without the coin, the door won’t open when you want to leave. I was frantic. Somehow found the receptionist, after some delay, who came and opened the door.
Oh, Irene–she had been alone for a while, locked in a loo.
And when the door was opened, we saw a curly headed cherub, sitting on the toilet seat, smiling. 
“Aww,” said the dour Swiss lady, in spite of herself.
“Irene,” I asked, “Weren’t you scared?”
“Well, yes, at first,” she said. “Then, I prayed, and I wasn’t scared.”
The faith of children!
All that holiday, she spontaneously joined her hands and prayed thanking God for the bears she saw in the pit in Berne (which means Bear), the bears in Berne Cathedral, and for her own stuffed bear she called, “Bearly.” Thanked God for the waterfalls, and the flowers and the Alps and the snow and the high passes. It was as spiritual a holiday as my own, and I couldn’t have been prouder of her.
                                             * * * 
  I often tell the girls that prayer immensely improves one’s IQ, and one’s thinking. Now the answers one gets when one prays are not necessarily logical, may seem crazy or quixotic, but hey, they work. And as one obeys directives received in prayer, you trust the internal voice of God more, and your family trusts you more when you say you have received inner guidance as to a business or family decision.
When Irene played chess, she would frequently bury her face in her hands and pray when she either didn’t know what the best move was, or when she hoped her opponent wouldn’t see what the obvious best move was. (She was very good, ranked among the top two female players in her age group, but she has very sadly given it up.) And often, the inner voice would suggest moves, and she would startle us, by winning against far older players with far higher rankings.
                                     * * * 
Irene at 13 has developed into a serious minded young lady, who takes her studies very seriously, loves them, and excels at them. Her Mother’s Day card was in three languages–Chinese, which she is learning at School, French and English. (Zoe’s was in Latin, Greek, French and English. Their school, Oxford High School, is linguistically strong.)
And so, she often wants to skip church to do beautiful homework.
And I don’t let her skip church. She is fit and strong, friendly, and clever. But, if she does not develop the fourth dimension of her personality, her spirituality, she might well “limp” in life. And, so we insist in active involvement in church, and youth group—and once she gets there, she enjoys it.
I remember the excruciating boredom of church. I went to a Catholic boarding school and had to go to Mass 5 days a week until I was 16; to 2 choir practices a week; a hour of Benediction every Sunday, an additional hour of contemplative prayer, “Adoration” every first Sunday; Blue Army in Middle School, Catechism 5 days a week…Oh, I am sure there was more.
Like Irene, I have a freak verbal memory. Both of us can memorize poetry or well-written prose very easily, almost without realizing that we are doing so. So I emerged from all that forced religion knowing the Gospels almost by heart. (This helps in learning other languages; when I read them in French or the original Koine Greek, it’s easier, because I pretty much know them by heart in English.) I know the Psalms almost by heart, and Proverbs because I heard them read out every day in my childhood, and of course, have read them, and listened to them on tape often as an adult. 
In times of stress, and crisis, and emotional need, comfort came to me in the words of hymns I learned as a child; psalms I had unconsciously memorized as a child; or the words and actions of Jesus when I knew so well. Wisdom, guidance, comfort, peace.
And so, I believe there is some value in requiring children to go to church, because of the repository of wisdom they absorb!
                                     * * * 
Irene, however, does know her Gospels very well. We play them in the car on family trip in a variety of translations, and frequently read a chapter after dinner.
When the girls were younger, we attempted some of the family devotions suggested by Dick Woodward the pastor emeritus of the church we attended, Williamsburg Community Chapel. He suggested family prayer and Bible reading.
Well, Irene was 2 and Zoe 6. Irene completely confused God and her parents, which was rather flattering. She bowed her curly head, joined her hands, and asked, “Please may I have some mukie (milk)?” “No, no, Irene, don’t pray for milk,” we said
.
She frowned, closed her eyes, bowed her head, joined her hands and tried again,
 “Then, please may I have some joocy (juice).” 
Irene’s next prayer attempts were, “God please hep Zo-Zo no poosh me, no peench me, no puuul my hair!”
Zoe prayed earnestly when it was her turn. Dick Woodward however suggested an hour for family devotions, which was an awfully long time. Finally, Zoe burst out exasperated, “I wish God had never invented those Woodworks!!”
                                         * * * 
So, will my kids grow up to be Christians? You know, I believe they will. When all my attempts fail, I oddly relax, and try what I call the nuclear option, soaking the situation in prayer.
 I told Irene, “If you show no interest in anything spiritual, I am going to start praying that God will grab you, and he may need to do something dramatic to get your attention, and you may not like that.”

Well, Irene has great faith in my prayer, since we’ve seen so much change and changed around once we started praying seriously. Her little face grew troubled, and earnest and dark. 
“If you think God might let sad things happen to get my attention and convert me, why should you pray that I would become a Christian?” she asked.
Why indeed? Because life truly does not make sense without God. Life without God is like a very long, complex equation, the sort of thing Roy would work out, covering half a page, which never ever finds a solution, a logical, satisfying answer.  

Some links to blogs you might enjoy

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22 Words: The little dog smiles to himself at his friend’s troubles.
1 Ann Voskamp—The Happy Mom Manifesto
The only thing that has to be written in stone is when to pray.
If one’s not praying regularly, it’s only because something else is regularly loved more than God.
 5. Why be afraid of anything —  when our God is using everything?
7. This is always a choice: You can erupt — or pluck.  You can be an Erupter — or a Plucker. You can choose.
(Pluck a feather from your mother duck breast to warm your nest & nestlings)
10. Happiness isn’t when the house is perfect. Happiness is when His Word and your walk are in harmony.
I, (Anita) often pray, “Don’t let my blog grow faster than I grow spiritually. Don’t let the growth of my blog outstrip my spiritual growth.” It was lovely to see that one of the world’s most successful Christian bloggers prays this too!
 I (Anita) have been unsubscribing from people who cause me to sin (because I find them irritating or unrelentingly show-offy) but am now doing it with more rigour!! Also unsubscribing from school, college or old church friends whom I barely remember. And so my Facebook is far more interesting!!
(An old one I’d bookmarked)
“Our greatest need–my greatest need–is the daily presence of the Holy Spirit.”
These topics, the interior spiritual life are less popular than writing from the Church or other Christians, but so much better for our soul.

“There are so many layers to the healing of the soul. One practice that has brought incredible healing is the taking of a Sabbath. Now when we read the word Sabbath, most of us think that the real issue behind the Sabbath isn’t which day of the week it is but how we live all the time.
I decided to start taking one day a week to cease from work. And what I discovered is that I couldn’t even do it at first.
I would go into depression.
By the afternoon I would be so . . . low.
I realized that my life was all about keeping the adrenaline buzz going and that I was only really happy when I was going all the time. When I stopped to spend a day to remember that I am loved just because I exist, I found out how much of my efforts were about earning something I already have.
Sabbath is taking a day a week to remind myself that I did not make the world and that it will continue to exist without my efforts.
Sabbath is a day when my work is done, even if it isn’t.
Sabbath is a day when my job is to enjoy. Period.
Sabbath is a day when I am fully available to myself and those I love most.
Sabbath is a day when I remember that when God made the world, he saw that it was good.
Sabbath is a day when I produce nothing.
Sabbath is a day when I remind myself that I am not a machine.
Sabbath is a day when at the end I say, “I didn’t do anything today,” and I don’t add, “And I feel so guilty.”
Sabbath is a day when my phone is turned off, I don’t check my email, and you can’t get a hold of me.
Jesus wants to heal our souls, wants to give us the shalom of God. And so we have to stop. We have to slow down. We have to sit still and stare out the window and let the engine come to an idle. We have to listen to what our inner voice is saying.”

Ten lessons from the life of Samson

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As often in Scripture, Samson’s divine destiny is underscored by the fact that he was an unlikely candidate–he was born to a sterile mother of a subject people, after an angelic visitation and promise.
He is “special” from his youth. “He grew, and the Lord blessed him, and the spirit of the Lord began to stir him.”
The Spirit descends on him unpredictably, enabling him to destroy the lion, for example.
People who are sometimes spirit-empowered can have significant weaknesses: Girls, gold or glory in Bill Hybels’ phrase. Samson’s is girls. He cannot resist the pleading of his Philistine fiancée, and tells her the riddle of the lion and honey to his own monetary cost.
God is still good to him, almost “covers for him,” and when he finds himself obligated to give the Philistines 30 sets of garments, he’s enabled to swiftly slay 30 other Philistines, and take their garments.
Samson is a “tragic hero,” to whom bad things happen because of a mixture of his own lack of judgement, and other people’s treachery. However, God does not desert this tragic hero, and when he is handed over to the Philistines, the Spirit of the Lord comes on him, helping him to accomplish feats of superhuman strength, such as killing a thousand Philistines with a donkey’s jawbone!
Despite his weaknesses–his anger, his hot-headedness, his weakness for women–God continues to show him favour, as when he opens up a spring in the desert to satisfy the thirsty Samson.
His attraction to women repeatedly overcomes his better judgment. Sadly, he is still not capable of learning from his mistakes. He falls in love with another Philistine woman, Delilah, and continues trusting her, despite repeated proofs of her treachery toward him. He cannot resist female cajoling!!
The Spirit of the Lord stays with him through many errors of judgement, and hot-headedness. Finally, when he risks the symbol of his consecration to God—his long hair—which Delilah shears, we are told “the Lord left him.”
However, the Lord does not entirely abandon his flawed servant. His hair grows again. His heart turns towards God. And in response to his prayer, “O Sovereign Lord, remember me. Oh God, please strengthen me just once more,” he is given superhuman, supernatural strength once again, and pulls down the pillars of the temple, killing three thousand Philistines—and himself.
Samson’s story explains the phenomenon of the flawed man of God who is still a brilliant writer, preacher, administrator, or leader, while lustful, greedy or obsessed with fame or power.
And for them, for Samson, for us when we mess up, there is this consolation: God loves us. His spirit does not rapidly depart from us even when we prove ourselves unworthy of him. And when it does, we can still implore him to return, with our repentance and renewed surrender. And then, he mercifully shows us his face once again, and fills us again!

Ninja Blogging versus Stream of Spirit Blogging

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Painting by Fitzy

Rachel Held Evans and John Piper are Ninja bloggers. Pretty much every post is well and carefully written, and appears to have gone through multiple drafts.

I sometimes wonder if I should blog that way–producing the best writing I am capable of in every post, even if I have far fewer of them.
                                   * * * 
I produced carefully written, much revised and rewritten work for years. And also developed writers’ block–was so self-critical that writing became anxiety, self-doubt and work rather than play for me. It lost its joy.
For me to try to blog that way would be the sure way to stress and writer’s block. 
For me blogging is a way to psychological, spiritual and emotional health, as I keep current with what I am working out intellectually or spiritually or emotionally. It is deep play.
So, I have made peace with being good-enough rather than consistently excellent in my writing on this blog (as in all other areas of my life).
                                  * * * 
One of the most empowering writing teachers I had, Charlie Sugnet at the University of Minnesota, would give us really low-bar, low risk of failure assignments. I did the best writing of my life that term. (See this  or this published in my first book, Wandering Between Two Worlds).
 
Setting a low bar—being willing to open myself to the possibility of small failures on a daily basis–that is the only way I can see myself maintaining this enterprise of sharing my innermost thoughts with the world on an almost-daily basis without burning out.
* * *
What I am far more interested in could be called, I suppose, stream-of-Spirit blogging.
To hear what the Spirit is saying to me. To record it.
When I don’t know what to write about, which is often, I either look at my drafts folder for the overflow of those creative days when I have ideas for five posts, or I ask, “What is the spirit saying to me? What worry, joy, emotion, idea, insight or epiphany is uppermost in my thoughts?” And then I play with it. And as I do, the germ of the idea frequently develops into a fully-fledged 800 word blog post.
My blog will consist of other posts, of course, but this will be one way for me to maintain my own interest in it. To try to hear what the Spirit is saying to me, and to record it. (God’s ideas are limitless, and by tapping into them, we too find limitless ideas for blog posts.)
“A man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” Robert Browning wrote.

So I guess my perhaps far-fetched ultimate ideal for the blog is that I may overhear what the Spirit is saying to me, and saying to the Church, and record it. Can a blogger or a blog have a sort of prophetic ministry? Who knows? Perhaps!
                                          
(edited archive post)