Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Feel-good foods, a guest post by Roy Mathias

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Guest post by Roy Mathias

Perhaps in Lent I should not be writing about the different ways food can make us feel good.  So let me start with

Fasting.   It can make you feel terrific after a couple of days, but I’m sure can have too much of good thing.  Fasting is also the body’s natural response to some illnesses.

Comfort food.    This is usually a childhood favourite, warm, hearty, rich, simple, and usually inexpensive;  spaghetti and meatballs, Irish stew, fish and chips, pizza (my favourite), chicken tikka masala, bangers and mash, or a full English breakfast, followed apple crumble topped with ice cream if more comfort is needed .

Organic food.  Of course, for most of human history,all food was of  necessity organic.   The industrial revolution brought chemical fertilisers and pesticides and greatly increased harvests.  Organic agriculture ha recently become fashionable, but Sir Albert Howard, writing in the 1940, based on experiments started in 1910 says

“This law is true for soil, plant, animal, and man: the health of these four is one connected chain.  Any weakness or defect in the health of any earlier link in the chain is carried on to the next and succeeding links, until it reaches the last, namely, man.  The widespread vegetable and animal pests and diseases, which are such a bane to modern agriculture, are evidence of a great failure of health in the second (plant) and third (animal) links of the chain.  The impaired health of human populations (the fourth link) in modern civilised countries is a consequence of this failure in the second and third links. This general failure in the last three links is to be attributed to failure in the first link, the soil: the undernourishment of the soil is at the root of all.”

In “Farming and Gardening for Health or Disease” he presents the remarkable example of his uninoculated oxen, fed  purely organic high quality feed  living on his organic farm in Pusa, Bihar (India), resisting resisting infection with foot-and-mouth disease from the cattle in neighbouring farms with which they mingled.

Surely eating organic makes us feel better?

Home grown.  Our first home grown tomato of the season is ceremonially quartered and shared by the family.  The taste is nothing special, but there’s pride and pleasure in the plucking.

Fair trade.  Buying and eating fair trade makes us feel good as the pounds we are spend are doing good to a few farmers and are not  encouraging ruthless bottom-line economics.  COOP,  established by the Rochdale Pioneers in 1844 (based on the Rochdale Principles that are used in different forms by co-operatives worldwide), is  well known for its ethical trading and leadership in fairtrade.  In a major initiative they supported over 10,000 smallholder tea farmers organise into co-operatives, and so get fair trade status and power to negotiate higher prices.  Here’s a picture of a Kenyan tea plantation where some of the COOP tea comes from. In fact, you can join the revolution that was started over 150 years ago, and help out your local area and further afield.

 

 

The Relentless Evolution of Language

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British LibraryBritish Library

Nothing stays constant, not even words. Their means slips, slides, changes.


In church, children sing, “Our God is an awesome God.” Awesome now means an all-round cool guy, a marvellous person. It used to mean that which inspires awe and reverence.


Our semi-slang term “cool,”  a few decades old, borrows meaning from the French sang-froid,, literally cold-blood, or calm and  composure.


“Neat” no longer means tidy but cool.


“Nice” is probably the one word which has evolved the most.  It meant  “foolish, stupid, senseless,” in the late 13 century derived from the Latin nescius “ignorant,” from ne- “not” + stem of scire “to know.” The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adjective moving from “timid” (pre-1300); to “fussy, fastidious” (late 14c.); to “dainty, delicate” (c.1400); to “precise, careful” (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early) to “agreeable, delightful” (1769); to “kind, thoughtful” (1830). By 1926, it was pronounced by Fowler to be “too great a favourite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness.”
“I am sure,” cried Catherine, “I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should I not call it so?” “Very true,” said Henry, “and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk; and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything.” [Jane Austen, “Northanger Abbey”]

Sometimes, the evolution of language makes it hard for us to read a piece as the author intended it. W.B. Yeats in his great poem “Lapis Lazuli” writes
All perform their tragic play,

There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,

That’s Ophelia, that Cordelia;

Yet they, should the last scene be there,

The great stage curtain about to drop,

If worthy their prominent part in the play,

Do not break up their lines to weep.

They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;

Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.
Yeats meant gallantly and inexorably cheerful when he wrote “gay.” Today, the words would be read in a very different sense. 

Nowadays much of the evolution of English is in the direction of the watering down of language. People use the noun “epic” as an adjective–“an epic fail,” and words like immense or massive, when they mean “not too bad.” This is now even apparent in Britain where understatement has traditionally been the norm, and people describe their well-being by the phrase, “not too bad,” whether they have just won the lottery, or lost their wallet. 

The exhibition, Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices (www.bl.uk/evolvingenglish) is now on at the British Library but only until April 3, 2011. (Free)

Experience some of it without leaving your computer.  Try  the Quiz http://www.bl.uk/evolvingenglish/quiz.html,  (I got 6/6 on the medium level, and 5/6 on the egghead level.)
Record your voice to add to the collection of English being gathered from across the globe. (http://www.bl.uk/evolvingeenglish/maplisten.html).  
  Listen to English as it is spoken around the world.
Tweet your comments, or quiz results,  using #evolvingenglish (link the #tag to http://bit.ly/dmIoPm)
Enjoy!

Sponsored Post

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Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus

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Christopher Marlowe

 

We saw the Creation Theatre’s production of Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus at Blackwell’s on Friday. Amazing to watch it surrounded by books in the Norrington Room.

I was amazed to realize how much of that sheer poetry I remembered from my undergraduate days–I have only seen Faust once since then.

 

Mephistopheles was a low-key demon who plaintively explains

Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.

Think’st thou that I who saw the face of God,

        75

And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven,

Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,

In being depriv’d of everlasting bliss?

 

As a century later Milton’s Satan would say, “Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell…” 

There was splendid poetry such as Faustus’s tribute to Helen of Troy

Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies!
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.

 

And then his anguished cries as the midnight nears,

O I’ll leap up to my God! Who pulls me down?
See, see where Christ’s blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah my Christ—
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ;
And the horror of eternity strikes him
O, if  my soul must suffer for my sin,
Impose some end to my incessant pain;
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be sav’d!

It was an amazing play, very dramatic, and played in an understated way.
On the face of it, Faustus made a sensible bargain. He did not believe in hell–or didn’t want to think of it–so for wealth, fame, success, sex, he bargains away his soul. Of course, as the hour of death neared, he had second thoughts….

Temptation was presented beautifully, with both the kindly and menacing angels speaking persuasively to Faustus’s shattered, tormented soul…
* * *

We had a fab and most stimulating weekend, though we were so shattered by Sunday that we did not go to church, which caused some guilt and sadness in me–not so much that I did not go to church, as because I did not take the girls, and that Roy would have profited, as would I.

Oh well, we had the plumber in during the morning for a leak, had a visitor whose visit spilled over the evening service, and felt so physically uncomfortable as I hadn’t exercised, that I chose the gym instead of church, and felt a whole lot better for it (probably).

When I am physically uncomfortable and haven’t exercised, I find it hard to pray. And a comfortable, well-exercised body does wonders for the soul.

And here are Zoe and Irene in the Norrington Room at Blackwells.  Each of them, true bookworms, grabbed a book in the interval. Note what they grabbed

 

Grace and Peace, Paul’s Letter to the Romans

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Romans Word Cloud

  In most of the New Testament letters,  rather than the typical Greco-Roman greeting chaire,          literally joy, one finds the formula “grace and peace” (charis kai eirene).

The typical Jewish greeting is shalom, which the Greek Old Testament usually translates eirene. “For the Hebrews and the people of the New Testament peace was not so much the absence of war or strife as the presence of positive blessing” (Wright, 53). 

Thus Paul incorporates a variation of the usual Greek greeting and the usual Jewish greeting into the blessing that he offers these Roman Christians–Grace and Peace. 

Grace (charis) is central to the Book of Romans.   

Christ encompasses both worlds, the Greek and the Jews. He offers unmerited free grace, and peace for the soul.

Immense concepts worth lingering and praying over.

Paul wrote immensely long sentences. Some of his sentences are the longest in the entire Bible, particularly those in Ephesians. It sometimes helps one to grasp his thought better if we split them up, almost as if they were a poem.

And so–deep breath– I embark on the Book of Romans. 

Romans 1

 1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus,
called to be an apostle
and set apart for the gospel of God—
2 the gospel he promised beforehand
 through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures
3 regarding his Son,
 who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David,
4 and who through the Spirit of holiness
 was appointed the Son of God in power
 by his resurrection from the dead:
Jesus Christ our Lord.
5 Through him we received grace and apostleship
to call all the Gentiles to the obedience
 that comes from faith
 for his name’s sake.
 6 And you also are among those Gentiles
 who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
 7 To all in Rome
who are loved by God and called to be his holy people:
   Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 

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What I am Giving up for Lent: Internet Addiction

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Image–Neurocritic




No, I am not giving up anything to make there be less of me. I have had such a fraught relationship with food for many years that I now think of food more in terms of health, and life-long dietary modification rather than a short-term abstinence (with a longer term rebound, perhaps).


No, I am going to give up a minor addiction. I have broken a serious coffee addiction, and milder addictions to chocolate and sugar, and thought I was addiction free, but no.


The mild addiction I have, which I hadn’t realized was one until recently, is a mild internet addiction. 


Quaerentia, (which is the fanciful blog name of a priest called Mark Meynell who writes a very interesting literary/Christian blog) has an article called Webwise.


In it, he talks of 
“ADDICTIONS – Surfing is addictive: like a infinitely-channelled TV where you keep flicking over in the vain hope that there may be something more interesting to look at. Furthermore, you can get sucked into thinking that just because information is available, it is necessarily important or useful. [NB Wurman’s Information Anxiety (Indianapolis: QUE 2001):  I haven’t even mentioned the more obvious porn or gambling addictions that the internet can feed. I’m just talking about plain old surfing.”


I co-own a small publishing company with my husband, I am an active blogger on lightly monetized blogs, I keep in touch with many people. So, much that is interesting to me comes via the internet–business news, money earned, blog comments, emails.


And when there is nothing of interest–which is, of course, the case for more minutes than not?


I surf. Click to the New York Times for something fascinating, to the Guardian, to Christianity Today, to my own blog, to Lesley’s blog, other friends’ blogs, blogs on my blog roll, to Facebook, to my personal email, to our business email.  A little internet fox’s trail. All this will yield something of interest probably.  And then, when it is time to get up, exercise, do some housework, stretch and do some real writing, I can repeat the little fox’s trail. Find something else of interest or distraction. And then do a last email check before I get up. Some has come in, deal with it. And then….


I do most things with a timer on, count up or count down, and when I look at the timer, I am frequently baffled. Did I really need to read the New York Times article on the 87 year old billionaire planning his 125 birthday, or the global cash flow from immigrant women in domestic work abroad (half the GDP of the Philippines, incidentally, 35% of Tajikistan) or how men’s sexual prospects are increasing even as their job prospects diminish?  http://www.slate.com/id/2286240// Apparently, I thought so at the time.
                                                                        * * *


Now, if I am to be a writer as well as a blogger–and write more books rather than just blogs–I obviously need to break this time-consuming addiction.


And I now think that with soul perturbations as with bodily dysfunctions, much time can be saved by getting a correct diagnosis. 


Jesus had one in John 6, Unless you eat my flesh, and drink my blood, you have no life in you. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me.


So, this is temporary emptiness of soul. I am trying to fill it with blogs, and newspapers, and magazines, and news, and twitter and facebook checks and rubbish.


Will it work? Will it fill my soul? No. I hope not. It cannot. 
                                                                              * * * 


So since the lights came on after reading Quaerentia’s article, I close my laptop when I notice I am aimlessly surfing, and pray for the Holy Spirit. 


I often think of a lecture illustration I once saw. A woman filled a goblet with car keys, and house keys medals and coins and notes and necklaces and rings and bling and there was still room. Still emptiness.


She then poured water–and every atom of space was filled.


So that is what I need–not distraction, not surfing, but the water of the Holy Spirit filling my restless soul.


And fortunately, Jesus promises that his Father WILL give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks for it.


And I know that is true because I have asked many times. And received.


As I will do again and again when I find myself aimlessly surfing on dry ground, with a laptop on my lap.




                  
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Proverbs 5

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Proverbs 5

Warning Against Adultery

 1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom, 
   turn your ear to my words of insight, 
2 that you may maintain discretion 
   and your lips may preserve knowledge. 
3 For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, 
   and her speech is smoother than oil; 
4 but in the end she is bitter as gall, 
   sharp as a double-edged sword. 
5 Her feet go down to death; 
   her steps lead straight to the grave. 
6 She gives no thought to the way of life; 
   her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.
A woman or man who can seduce a partner from their first love is honeyed at first, but in the end there is bitterness in the new relationship. It starts sweetly, but ends bitterly–because of the guilt involved.
Adultery with its promise of newness is always tempting, but needs to be rigorously avoided–starting with the first temptations to it, which originate in the mind.

 7 Now then, my sons, listen to me;
   do not turn aside from what I say.
8 Keep to a path far from her,
   do not go near the door of her house,
9 lest you lose your honor to others
   and your dignity to one who is cruel,
10 lest strangers feast on your wealth
   and your toil enrich the house of another.
Don’t take on responsibilities not your own.


11 At the end of your life you will groan,
   when your flesh and body are spent.
12 You will say, “How I hated discipline!
   How my heart spurned correction!
13 I would not obey my teachers
   or turn my ear to my instructors.
14 And I was soon in serious trouble
   in the assembly of God’s people.”

 15 Drink water from your own cistern,
   running water from your own well.
16 Should your springs overflow in the streets,
   your streams of water in the public squares?
17 Let them be yours alone,
   never to be shared with strangers.
18 May your fountain be blessed,
   and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 A loving doe, a graceful deer—
   may her breasts satisfy you always,
   may you ever be intoxicated with her love.
20 Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife?
   Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?
A poignant appeal to marital faithfulness.

 21 For your ways are in full view of the LORD,
   and he examines all your paths.
22 The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them;
   the cords of their sins hold them fast.
23 For lack of discipline they will die,
   led astray by their own great folly.

Why is Forgiveness so Difficult?

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 What’s so hard about forgiveness? Partly, that it is an offence against justice. Someone has wronged us, someone owes us, and we simply have to let it go.

Not a good business practice. And on the face of it, a risky relational practice.
Not let it go once, but seventy times seven. Seventy times seven.
Sheer madness.
Like, like,  um… um…
Giving money generously when you still have a mortgage to pay, children to educate, an old age without adequate stock and shares to see you through? That dream holiday which may never become a reality.
And more, you give it to faceless people you will never see, this side of eternity.
Why?
Compassion. And….When I force myself to be generous to those in greater need,  with money I should rationally keep for myself, I remind myself that someone sees. An mighty, magnificent audience. Of One.

Who sees what I have done in secret.And in my time of need will give me what I need, full measure, pressed down, flowing over.

How do I know this?
Two ways. Because Jesus says so, and I believe what Jesus says by faith. Everything he says which I have tested empirically has been true, so I also believe what I haven’t had empirical evidence of. (Like, um… hell!)
The other way is I know it’s true is that in my own experience, I have received what I have given many times over. Not necessarily from those I have given to, in fact, generally not. Someone was watching; someone was keeping track, that someone gave me what I needed when I needed it, many times over, that Someone is good and I trust him.
                                                                              * * *
One of the hardest things about forgiveness sometimes is our sense that if we are silent, no one will ever know how we were wronged.
And if the injury or abuse happens in a church context, that the perpetrators will continue to sport burnished haloes in front of the church, while we, well, we know that inside they are “full of dead men’s bones and wickedness.”
It hurts when people have got away with sinning against us. When everyone thinks they are very fine people indeed, while we, we know otherwise.
That’s where faith comes in, and the connection between giving and forgiving. Just as we are content to give knowing that no one will ever know but Christ alone, so too we forgive knowing that God saw everything, he observed it, and it is in his hands. And he will see justice done.So we are releasing the debt owed us, the sins against us into the hands of a powerful God. He will deal with them with the same combination of justice and mercy as he deals with us.

We can forgive, partly because we are transferring our case to a higher court. And the verdict is up to it.

The Father saw, the Father knows, the Father will deal with it as he thinks best. And that is enough.

This is Stage 1 of forgiveness. Stage 2 is to love your enemies. I haven’t reached there. And the parable which I am considering in my Blog Through the Bible Project merely considers Stage 1.

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant
 Matthew 18
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Yeah, he’s showing off. Showing off his magnanimity. Hasn’t got it. ESV note: Within Judaism, 3 times was enough to show a forgiving spirit. 

 22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Don’t keep track. Keeping track reveals that you might not have really got the heart of forgiveness, which is letting go of wrongs in mercy, as God lets go of your offences
Love means losing track. Love means a lifestyle of forgiving. Letting offences go almost as soon as they occur. Which is the royal road to happiness. 

23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
A talent was worth about 20 years of a day laborer’s wages.

   26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.


I grow more aware of cancelled debts as I grow older. I am amazed at the things God hasn’t punished me for, which he overlooked, which I appear to have got away with it. At his loving kindness, mercy and forgiveness of me, despite the many wrong things I have done.
   28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.i]”>[
A denarius was the usual daily wage of a day laborer
He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
   30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
   32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
That is the motivation for forgiveness which Christ offers us. That God has had mercy on us. That we haven’t had to pay up for all our sins and offences. So we just have to let some things go, into oblivion, or into God’s hands. 

34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
   35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
v.34 is almost literally true. We do live in a kind of torture, until we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. 
Wherever we go, if the offence comes to memory, it brings pain with it, and we re-injure ourselves.
As long as the memory of something makes you really angry, you have not totally forgiven–and are therefore liable to re-injury from the memory of the old offence. 
                                                                       * * * 
Forgiveness is ultimately a miracle. We can only do it if God gives us the grace to be able to. If God changes our hearts.Change my heart, oh Lord. Give me some of your grace and graciousness.


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What do a medieval church in Oxford and an Indian orphanage have in common?

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I read a chapter from my first book, Wandering Between Two Worlds at St. Nicholas Church, Oxford, last Saturday at a benefit reading for Divya Shanti, an orphanage in Bangalore.


One gets spoiled in Oxford, as events are rarely mediocre. My fellow readers included the poet, professor and editor, Jon Stallworthy– I owned anthologies of his when an undergraduate!–the novelist, Lorna Fergusson; a GP who writes about snails, and an American poet and playwright. And a minor bonus is that my book is now in the top 60 in the Religion section in Amazon. Not bad for a book published 4 years ago!!


Another way one is spoiled in Oxford is the wealth of history. St. Nicholas is a pre-medieval church, granted in 1122 to the canons of St. Frideswide’s Priory by Henry I. It has the oldest continuously used chalice in Britain, I was told–continuously used from the middle ages.


Since, for now, we go to an enormous church, 1200 or so regular attenders, we have had no experience of small Anglican parish churches. This congregation seemed lovely, warm, and supportive, and I was really impressed that they have adopted Divya Shanti, an Indian orphanage which they support regularly. It must be easier to get things done in a small church. They seemed cheery and good-natured, and worked together happily.


The reading raising over £1000 for a library for the school and orphanage.  It illustrates Mother Teresa’s axiom that perhaps all we can do is remove drops from the ocean of misery–but the ocean would be greater were they there. 


I thought too of Loren Eiseley’s starfish story.


Loren Eiseley, while writing his book The Unexpected Universe, was walking along the ocean in Costabel early one morning. It was shortly after a storm had subsided and as he continued walking, he noticed that thousands of starfish had been washed up on the beach. Ahead of him was a gigantic rainbow of incredible perfection shimmering into existence. At the base of the rainbow stooped a little boy, gazing fixedly at an object in the sand. Eventually, he flung the object far beyond the breaking surf.

Eiseley went up to him and asked, “Son, what are you doing?” The little boy answered, “I’m throwing starfish back into the sea because if I don’t they’re going to die.” “But there are thousands of starfish. In the larger scheme of things you’re not going to make much of a difference to all these starfish.”

 The little boy looked up at him, stooped down again to pick up another starfish and, gently but quickly, flung it back into the ocean. “It’s going to make a big difference to that one” he replied.

Eiseley was embarrassed, uncomfortable with the contrast of the little boy’s youthful, innocent love for the living with his own hardened, “mature” indifference to death. He had nothing to say and left, continuing to walk on the beach but unable to get the picture of the little boy out of his mind. It was a moment of truth for Eiseley, of deep soul searching and self-confrontation. In time, he returned to the star thrower, silently picked up a starfish and spun it far out into the waves. “I understand.” he said quietly. “Call me another thrower.” Together, still under the hues of the rainbow, they spent hours throwing starfish back into the ocean.




  Here’s a couple of links to Divya Shanti, the orphanage the church supports.


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