Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Japan: Cool and Disciplined in a Crisis

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I am really impressed with the calm way Japan has continued functioning despite calamities of Biblical–and the Book of Revelation–proportions–earthquakes, floods, and now nuclear explosions.


See this video of supermarket worker trying to keep goods on the shelves DURING the earthquake!!
http://au.news.yahoo.com/video/national/watch/24491323/7805482/


Roy’s post-doctoral advisor, Gene Golub, used to say that he found there were striking similarities between the Japanese and the English (and the Chinese and French. He preferred the latter nations.) I would like to think that the English could deal with these triple threats with similar sang-froid–well, partly because I live here.


Given similarities in the psyche of the both nations, it is not surprising that Remains of the Day, an examination of upper-class 1930’s British society was written with astonishing pitch-perfect ventriloquism by Japanese Kazuo Ishiguro.


Pray for the people of Japan. 


And not to be evangelistically opportunistic, but pray for a foothold for the Gospel among these decent, hard-working, disciplined, family-oriented, honourable and honouring people.


My husband loved Japan, and spent his final year of high school there on a Rotary Scholarship. We visited Japan together in the 90ies, stayed with Japanese families, and travelled around the country. Much kindesss, decency, generosity and hospitality.  I was impressed. 

What’s your Six Word Love Story?

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Can you summarize your love story in six words? Here are people’s attempts at The New York Times.

I guess a love story evolves, and you see and tell it differently at different times. My attempt would be

 “Opposites attracted. Fierily. Happily. 21 years”

 Here are some others.
      Warning, love: I blog my breakups.

 

“ Dog approves; maybe this guy’s good?”

— Selma

Love hurts. Choose vodka or valium.

You lost me at hello “ma’am.”
Life’s like chocolates. Picked, processed, pooped.
Hearts clubbed by diamonds in spades.
Passion, fireworks, good loving. He’s gay.
But our domestic partnership was notarized….
Your new wife is too friendly.
There’s nothing sex can not fix.
Finally found love, at age 41.
Note to self: avoid head cases.
He wasn’t worth the panic attacks.
Chocolate is the coward’s bad apology.
Pet-sitting for ex-husband describes amicable divorce.
Loved her madly — then went mad.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/whats-your-six-word-love-story

Spring is Coming! Start to be Happy! “Coming,” a poem by Philip Larkin

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Coming
On longer evenings,
Light, chill and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice
Astonishing the brickwork.
It will be spring soon,
It will be spring soon –
And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.
             Philip Larkin

Why people continue to live where they live

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Getty Images, Fire in Natori City, Japan today
Debris at Sendai
Natori

If I were Japanese, would I continue to live there given the high probability of earthquakes, tsunamis and maybe consequent nuclear distasters? No, I think I would emigrate, if I could.


On the other hand, would I continue to live in Oxford, England, where I have spent a total 9.5 happy years if an earthquake struck us?


Yes, because I love it so much.


And that’s probably why people continue to live in Japan, or Christ Church or San Francisco despite the risks. 

Quest for Joy–9. Hellebores

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I love hellebores
which bloom in winter, 
sticking their brave heads above dead leaves,
stubborn emblems of hope 

Images from other people’s gardens, sadly, though I when I learn to download from my phone, I’ll upload mine.

True Confessions and Other Shallow and Weighty Matters

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Irene, I and the Sphinx, Vatican Museums. O Sphinx, reveal your secrets!

My father, though shy, was a highly original character. He loved anything sweet. When we went out to a buffet, or at a wedding for instance, he first ate dessert, filling his plate with cheesecake, black forest cake, trifle, Indian sweets, ice-cream. Then, if he was still hungry, but had his taste buds satiated by sugar, he would have some meat. Vegetables, he had a fine disdain for.

If he wasn’t married, and we did not have a full-time live-in cook, he would probably have lived on sweets. Somehow, he was never plump as he walked to work, walked back home for a cooked lunch and nap, walked back to work, and home again.

All this changed when he was 58. In a funny old irony, an Australian yogi came to Jamshedpur, the small Indian town in which we lived (I, however, spent most of the year at Nainital, in the Himalayas at boarding school). This Australian taught inspirational yoga to the officers of my father’s company, and they let him get away with astonishing things. For instance, at the requisite position in Surya Namaskar, they lay on their stomach, lifted their bottoms and farted in unison!!

And so my father began to eat salads, practiced colonic cleansing, became vegetarian, and took up yoga. For the rest of his life, and he lived for 31 years after that!!, he was basically vegetarian, did an hour of yoga every day, and walked for an hour a day.

So–don’t laugh–I had a cunning life plan. I would eat what I wanted when I wanted, never exercise unless I wanted to, take up exercise at 58, and then be fit and strong for the next 30 odd years, like my father was.

Well, when I had my first child in Williamsburg, Virgina, at 32, I had a thorough physical. It had included a strength test. “Grip harder,” she said, Oh believe me, I did. We re-tried it again, and again. My strength, she said, was that of a 80 year old woman.

In my twenties, all that interested me was reading. I got an undergraduate degree in English, a Masters in Creative Writing and English, and progressed some in a Ph.D in Creative Writing and English. Dropped out to get married. And then never really entered the work world, stayed home and read books, and thought and dreamed. And scribbled. 

I was sent to the gym to lift weights, my strength was confirmed by the trainer, and though it gradually improved, it’s never been age-appropriate.

And of course, I’ve suffered from the other peril of a sedentary life. I started gaining weight when I was 13, never a whole lot at a time, 2-3 pounds a year, but it has been an inexorable increase over the decades. 

And, as you can calculate, enough to affect my energy levels and quality of life.

Losing weight has never been easy for me. I am awed by my friends who can shed it by will-power and minor dietary tweaks. Not me!

I broke down and worked with a personal trainer and dietician last term. I had an extensive metabolic review based on “The Metabolic Typing Diet.”  It turned out that I was a protein type, the type who can metabolize protein, in particular dark meat, red meat, fatty meats, and fatty fish well, but gains weight easily with starches and sugars. Duh!

All of years of trying to lose weight with vegetarianism, and counting fat grams. Turns out, I had no problem with metabolizing fat or protein, just with starches. And sugar!

Okay, so I have lost 9 pounds, painlessly, on a rather luxurious Atkins type diet of duck, goose, lamb, beef, veggies, and no starch or sugar.

Now I’ve plateaued. 

I might try the South Beach Diet, like Atkins, but less restrictive. Has anyone tried it?

And I simply have to change my metabolism by building up significant muscle mass.  How? Well, I am lifting weights three times a week. Doing some tennis, yoga, swimming and running.

But more sporadically than I should. Though I do enjoy exercise once I get going, I am somewhat addicted to reading, writing, and just plain old thinking, and to my laptop, and find it hard to close it. So I guess I have to have a schedule to make sure exercise doesn’t get done last–which might mean not at all.

Fortunately, exercise is addictive for me, and after a few days of exercising daily, I feel physically restless and uncomfortable until I have exercised.

Why is all this on my blog? Actually, for accountability of sorts.. I got the idea from Adrian Warnock’s blog–The Start of a New Era of Fitness and Well-Being. Feel free to ask me how I am doing. It might remind me and keep me on track.


Share on site of your choice … Wikio

Gardening: The fountain of youth?

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Gardening was one of the biggest passions of our lives for the last seven years that we lived in America, and had a half acre garden, this . We planted thousands of bulbs (literally), a dozen fruit trees, dozens of hellebores, shade-loving plants, perennials. I used to know a lot about all sorts of plants, and hopefully still do.

And when we moved to England after 17 years in America, one of the top things in my wish list was a big garden. I was praying for an acre. We landed up buying a house with an acre and a half of garden. Though the house was charming

it was the limitless potential of the garden which got me

See what I mean?
I more or less decided to buy the house before we entered it. The salesman never had an easier sale.

However, an acre and a half has proved to be a lot more work than half an acre. Duh! And it has proved overwhelming to us, and it makes us sad that we’re always so behind, because we love beauty, we love gardening, we love plants, we love watching things grow, we love being out of doors, and we love the sound of the birds.
And because it was rapidly became overwhelming, I found myself going out to garden less and less often while it became like Sleeping Beauty’s forest.

For instance, I went out to garden this Sunday, after um… um…. more months than I care to remember.
* * *

In America, the garden was our family’s life. We would go out there as soon as the children came home from school and often spend three or even four hours there. There were dozens of little flower beds, we had a pond, fruit trees, swings, slides, a tree house, a rope ladder, a sand pit, a climbing frame, a fountain, bird houses and feeders, hummingbird feeders, a hammock, an outdoor wendy house,  lots of stuff for the girls and their friends to amuse themselves with. Smiling sun shaped bird houses, little terra cotta animals, wind chimes. It was magical. I would lose track of time, pray, forget my sorrows, such as they were.

Now, when I go out, there are so many things I am behind with, so many Honey Do’s for Roy who is stronger and fitter, but who doesn’t like “being bossed,” that it all gets rather stressful. So, over the last five years we’ve gardened in fits and starts which isn’t the way to garden, or do anything else.
* * *

But this time, I am going to persevere with gardening. I am making a little trail for myself, going from bed to bed, weeding, pruning… I don’t get the bed perfect, just a whole lot better, and then, next day, have another savage bash at it. Am getting to more beds each day.

“Little and often” is the best gardening motto that I have heard.
* * *

If there is a fountain of youth, I wonder if it is gardening? It keeps you supple, slightly stronger, and it is great for mental health to rest the mind, breathe fresh air, and listen to the birds. To bend double to the ground. To notice the rhythms of the earth.

I wonder why people stop gardening as they age. Maybe, they never get themselves out after a savage winter. After all, I went out for the first time on March 6th. Maybe, they are uncertain on their feet after a fall.

I had a traumatic fall in Costa Rica in 2003, which was misdiagnosed there as a break. The doctor didn’t speak English, nor I Spanish. My leg was in a cast, and I flew back early to the States in a wheelchair. Once I got to see a doctor–the fall was on Christmas Eve– it turned out that it was a savage sprain, not a break, and putting it in a cast was the very worst thing to do.

The ankle is still weak, and I have never been quite as confident hiking up mountains with the kids, or on icy roads or slushy paths. That’s how aging works. And I am still in my forties!!
Psalm 18:36 “You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn.” I pray this heart-feltly whenever I come across it. I have never broken a bone, and pray never to. I also pray never to sprain my ankle again, since my recovery was so slow and imperfect.

On the other hand, there are uses to walking with a limp. Ask Jacob!