Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Order from Chaos: The Process of Writing

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I love the process of writing. Everything seems chaos. There are too many ideas, and they are unruly. And as you try to sort them out, even more new ideas appear.

Then gradually, the flood of new ideas slows to a trickle. You have what you have, and slowly impose a rough shape on it.
And then, when the shape has emerged, comes the honing, the shining, the polishing.
I am writing an essay, which I have been returning to for over a month. The first few pages have gradually emerging form, but for the rest, “chaos lies over the surface of the deep.”
It’s frustrating when time to work on an emerging piece is limited, but having got there in the past gives you the assurance that you will get there this time too!

Work: Career vs. Calling

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The difference between career and calling is revolutionary.


A career is relentless: there is always more you can do, always people who are doing more, doing it better, there are random variables; it’s always more, more, more to ascend the greasy pole of fame and fortune and success.

Working at the very same thing because it is your calling or vocation sets you free to work in peace, to do what you can do and leave the rest in God’s hands.

“For me it all comes down to this: Did God give me this desire? If so, my success is not dependent on me, or how my call stacks up against another’s. My success is totally dependent on my obedience to the call.”

Karen Arneson, Secrets of Success

(Archive post from May, 2010)

The Treacle Bible, The Vinegar Bible and The Murderers Bible

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illuminated-bible
There are old Bibles that are famous for their misprints. When Bibles were expensive, only one printing of the Bible was widespread at any given time, and its mistakes became celebrated.
In 1823 when the Old Testament appeared with the verse “And Rebekah arose with her camels” instead of damsels with was known as the Camel’s Bible.
In 1804, the Lions Bible had sons coming forth from lions instead of loins.
In the Standing Fishes Bible, the fisherman must have looked on in such surprise when “the fish stood on the shore all the way from Engedi to Eneglaim.”
There are dozens of these: the Treacle Bible, the Bear Bible, the Bug Bible. In the Sin-On Bible, John 5:14 exhorted the believers not to “sin no more,” but to “sin on more.”
(Barbara Kingsolver: The Poisonwood Bible)
The Vinegar Bible 1717
The parable of the vinegar (instead of vineyard) in the headline about Luke 20
The Printers Bible 1702
Printers (instead of Princes) have persecuted me.
Psalm 119.161
The Place-Makers Bible 1562
Blessed are the place-makers (instead of the peace-makers). Matthew 5.9
The Bug Bible 1551
Thou shalt not be afraid for the bugges (bogies) by night (instead of terror). Psalm 91.5
The Treacle Bible 1568
Is there no treacle (instead of balm) in Gilead? Jeremiah 7.22
The Unrighteous Bible
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit (instead of not inherit) the kingdom or God. 1 Corinthians 6.9
The Wicked Bible 1631
Do commit adultery (instead of do not). Exodus 20.14. The printer was fined £300 for omitting the word not. All copies were ordered to be destroyed by Charles 1.
The Murderers Bible 1801
There are murderers (instead of murmerers). Jude 16
Let the children first be killed (instead of filled).
(I am indebted to Richard Littledale for the second list)

What are men better than sheep or goats…?

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My father, who loved poetry, recited this passage of the Morte D’Arthur to me a few

times and I have loved it ever since.

And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils Himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

but thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

For what are men better than sheep or goats that nourish a blind life within the brain, if, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, both for themselves and those who call them friend?

There is so much truth in it, isn’t there? What are men or women without a vertical dimension to their lives, without the underground river of prayer running through their lives and sweetening it? What are men or women without an interior life to retreat to, their own interior castle?

And Tennyson knew, as all praying people know, that it is an absolute fact that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.

What would you like to see wrought in your life, in someone else’s life, or in the world through your prayer?

Working Restfully

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We were created to work out of a place of rest, Sally writes in a beautiful blog post.
Indeed!
These are increasingly red lights for me: Being over-tired, being stressed, over-working, being anxious, obsessing.
Because you see, his yoke is easy, and his burden light.
 
When I am doing too much, am rushing ahead of him, am doing what I am not called to do, or doing more than I am called to do today, I am—no wonder!!—tired.
I love the image of two oxen in tandem, walking together, the experienced ox setting the pace for the younger one, while the yoke they bear makes the shifting of enormous loads relatively easy.
And that is how I want to go through my day, and sometimes do—with frequent rest breaks, prayer breaks, to make sure I am still plodding beside my lovely ox friend, going where he intends me to go—and at the pace he intends.
And here is an excerpt from Sally’s beautiful blog:
I was struck again that humanity was created to work from a place of rest; God rested and took in the wonder of his creation, and he invites us to rest with him. To enjoy being in his company, to revel in our createdness, to be before we ever start to do! I believe that we need to recapture the art of being, not simply the art of relaxing, because quite often relaxing is a form of doing….
We need to be in God’s presence, to be rekindled by the breath that gives us life,to breathe his air, to receive renewal for our souls and minds, spirits and bodies. To remember that we were not created to do anything alone, but rather to be in communion with the one who lovingly fashioned us in his image from the dust and called us his own.
In “Life After God” Douglas Coupland writes,
“Now here is my secret:
I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God- that I am sick and I can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me to give, because I no longer seem capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.”
I need God, I need God because I can’t do life alone, and when I try I soon run out of steam and find myself incapable of life. We weren’t made to do things for God, God does not want us to do things for him, we were made to live out a life with God, “to live and move and have our being in God.” (Acts 17:28).
As one who was always striving to do more, and to be more, this was and continues to be a deep revelation and challenge to me, and I pray that it will continue to be so. When I am “in” Christ, with God I am freed from the need to perform, I don’t have to do anything for:
“God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.” (Ephesians 3)
So here I am, sick and unable to be a disciple without him, and that is OK, because that is how it should be             

An Indian Summer and personal catch-up

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An older picture of our house on an Indian summer day. Except we now have a 30 sq. m conservatory in front of the white wall.

 

It’s a gorgeous Indian Summer in Oxford at the moment. I said to Roy, “The weather is so beautiful. I want to go on holiday.”

Roy, who most certainly did not want to go on holiday, said, “Well, go on holiday right here. I am taking a holiday day. I am cleaning out the garage. Join me.”
And so, ladies and gentlemen, I have decided to join him in an Indian Summer holiday. Not in cleaning out the garage, though. (Whoever decided gender roles has generally allocated barbecues, mowing the lawn, and cleaning out sheds and garages as male jobs, and far be it from me to mess with gender roles in this case).
I am going to have an Indian summer holiday at home for a few days–rest, pray, garden, declutter, exercise, and then return to writing fresh and unjaded!! Getting together with friends tonight, Friday and on Saturday, at their homes, which is great, company without cleaning.
Incidentally, holidays at home usually do not work for me–I get magnetically attracted to my laptop and books. But I am going to take 3 hours a day at least off the grid and books to exercise, garden, and do some home-loving.
We have two sets of guests coming over next week–and suddenly I looked at my home and garden critically and dispassionately. Yeah, some work could be done to restore some beauty!
* * *
You know, I always assumed that an Indian summer meant a summer like those in India. Yeah, me and Columbus–quite unimaginative!!
However, I listened to Daniel Boorstin’s brilliant history of America on tape a couple of decades ago. In The Americans: The Colonial Experience he tells us the etymology of the phrase. The brilliant summer like weather in the middle of autumn tempted the early settlers out of their walled encampments to enjoy the surprise gift of sunshine.
And behold, Indian raiding parties came thundering down, on the unwitting settlers soaking in the last bit of sunshine. The summer of the Indians. Indian summer!