random | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

On a LifeStyle of Forgiveness

The Giant Red Star Mira

“A Lifestyle of Forgiveness.” I owe this phrase to Jack Miller, father of our friend Paul. Jack, a pastor, writer, theologian, founder of World Harvest Mission etc. etc. wrote a moving book called Come Back Barbara.

Barbara, his daughter, was an angry renegade and prodigal, moved in with a druggie, as I remember from the book (I hope correctly.) No matter what Barbara did, Jack forgave her, as instantly as he could, and just resolved to love her more heartily. He developed a remarkable “lifestyle of forgiveness” in his phrase, letting things go, responding to insult with the determination to love in return.

Wow! Forgiveness can have as dramatic an effect on your spiritual life, as cutting all sugar and white flour, white rice, pasta etc can have on your health, mental health, energy levels, emotional well-being, and intellectual ability. (This cutting is a recent experiment for a season, and after the first 2-3 days, I feel great).

As I have written on this blog, I had a transformational spiritual experience in New Zealand last year. I stood transfixed by a waterfall rushing on, and saw a little pile of sticks, stones, leaves and creatures, that remained stuck behind a rock. If one does not forgive, one remained stuck behind a rock, not rushing on in the waterfall of God.

I had been treated unfairly a couple of years before this experience, and keenly felt the injustice. I brooded, probably got a bit bitter, and unhappy, and was stuck. Now I forgave totally and rushed on. And words came. I had been in the throes of a long winter of writers’ block, and now began to write easily, fluently and in a new style.
* * *

God must have really, really wanted me to learn forgiveness because I have had a lot to forgive this year!! I blogged about decisions made in the Christian community I belong to, actions and decisions which had left half the community seething and simmering. I blogged about these things in a series of outspoken posts called “The Screwtape Lectures” which left the other half of the congregation seething and simmering. Oh dear!

Tentacles of bitterness which defile many. People said and did things to me as a result of these outspoken, though honest, blog posts (now deleted, dear reader!). Oh dear, more things to forgive.

When I left for Spain on the 16th December, I had a LOT to process. Anger, hurt, desire for justice, annoyance at seeing injustice triumph, desire to see God vindicate me against my adversaries, and sheer mixed-upedness about whether God wanted me to continue the Screwtape Letters (and I’ve had an answer from him, a complex carbohydrate answer), some repentance, and sadness over the people I unwittingly hurt.

One of them, a woman I liked a lot, came over to chat about those blogs. I got tearful, as I do when overwrought. Seeing me cry, she got red, and started crying. Wow! Talk about weeping with those who weep.
* * *

There is nothing like travel when you are overwrought, when there are dozens of ideas racing through your head, when your emotions are unsettled.

In Spain, I tasted again the goodness of God. Sheer, unmerited mysterious goodness. I felt peace settle over my spirit again. Deep peace. The peace that, Paul says, transcends understanding because why should I be experiencing the peace of God’s love and God’s shalom, when I was not without sin in what I did, and when the road ahead was unclear? But there it settled in my soul, sweet honey. Shalom, well-being.

I loved God, and he loved me. He healed me. Set me back on my feet. Renewed me. Made me new.

I slept long and well and dreamed. In my dream, I felt again this honey of peace and joy slowly seep through my soul. Woke with incredible peace and joy. I said to myself, “I forgive everyone.” And then, my left-brain said to me, “Wait a minute, Anita. You forgive everyone? Don’t you need to go through the everyone and the aught and any and forgive them one by one.”

And so, like a good rationalist, I went through the people. A bit of mild annoyance remained at some particular bits of untruthfulness, deceit and perfidy, but basically, I had let things go. God had worked on my sleeping spirit. I felt amusement rather than anger at some things people had said and done to me, and just shook my head at them. Oh blessed relief!

God healed me, and put me together in those 9 days in Granada, when I slept a lot, and prayed a lot, and rested a lot, and listened to him a lot. He restored my soul. Restored energy, optimism, and joy. A sense of anticipation. The joy of life!
* * *

I am reading the early chapters of Matthew about the Magi following the star.

Star of wonder, star of light, star of royal beauty bright, where are you leading? It is definitely, but infinitesimally moving.

Oddly enough, for someone who has always believed that Christians need as much of koinonia, Christian fellowship, as they can get, I feel the star moving away. I have heard entirely too much anger-producing gossip by Christians about other Christians, and my soul needs to hear less. I have got too enmeshed in a smoke-and-mirrors, fear-filled, gossipy, internecine situation–where people are far more concerned about how other people perceive, value and rate them, rather than about what God thinks of them– and I need a short break from it, not from attending church, but from being quite so enmeshed in it. I need to move outwards. Where? Towards the edges of the congregation for now. And then? I am following the star.
* * *

Small ponds are unhealthy for fish and Christians. My Christian life in my church now feels like an unhealthy small pond.

I need a bigger pond.

Luckily, my life in Oxford has another centre of gravity. The very first month I arrived here, January 2006, I joined three groups to which I still belong. I joined a church, St. Aldate’s. I joined a home group, Headington. And I joined a writer’s society, an invitation only group, which now has about 160 members. We have made many friends there, genial, clever, well-read, often erudite people. So on my calendar
, for the next couple of months, I have dinners and lunches with fellow-writers, individuals and couples. It will be good to branch out into the wider world, to truly be quiet, gentle loving salt and light in another sphere.

I feel God saying I need to withdraw slightly from my church for the health of my soul. But I am steadily making Christian friends through my blogging, and that’s good too. Fresh air, a bigger pond!

Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

Christmases Past and Present

By Anita Mathias

We’re having an Oxford Christmas today and like Scrooge, I am thinking of Christmases past.

Oxford and Christmas. Both words come to me freighted with so many associations, memories, traditions, books, films, experiences.

Our family said that we would go to the Christmas Day service at our church, St. Aldate’s which usually does all things well (barring the occasional high decibel-osity of the worship music). But somehow none of us believed that we would really go.

We keep Christmas Day as the one sacred family day, and though I love having people over, the children would rather not have Christmas guests. (I am planning to invite people over on Christmas Eve next year, as our church is running a program to open your home to internationals over Christmas).

In our house, it’s a do as you like day. Christmas presents opened in pyjamas. The roast–duck or goose or turkey–put in still in pyjamas. The kids being very loud without being hushed.

The aromas of the roast bird filling the house. A slow meal. Christmas cake. A family game. A family DVD perhaps (Inkheart today).

It’s a day to relax and decompress, and those are the associations it has for us, a long day of resting, relaxing, family fun and decompressing. It’s like a Sunday without homework, or church or any housework.

We enjoy it so much that when travel over Christmas, we used to have a Mathias Christmas Day a week before. We’d have presents, turkey, Christmas music, rest, relax and have a family day on Dec 6th or 12th or 19th, whenever the postman had delivered the last present.

And then, around Christmas, we travelled. Sometimes California or Florida. Or Mexico, Costa Rica, Madrid, Barcelona. What struck me in these Spanish-speaking countries was that Christmas was was not an indoors private event as in English-speaking countries. Whole families went out into the public squares. When it was really, really crowded, they walked in curvy crocodiles, arms on each other’s shoulders, whole extended families together. They looked at the crib. They bought Navidad goodies. They celebrated together.

Our family is somehow immune to the craziness of Christmas. I used to send Christmas cards and letters to friends and family. I hated the task, and it was a pall over Christmas. Now I don’t send any cards or letters at all. I call my mother, and get together with close friends. I even gave up the Christmas letter, because I didn’t quite see the point of it.

When we were first married, I read a stress reducing tip for Christmas. Go to Christmas parties and events, but don’t have your own. Everyone is over-stretched anyway, so enjoy people without adding a stress to anyone’s calendar. And so we hibernate, making the most of all the social events, though we often have a day of cookie making, and invite the girls’ friends over, which they seem to enjoy.

Presents have gradually been retired from our Christmases. I personally have reached the stage where there is no particular material thing I really want. So I’ve sort of said “no Christmas presents” to Roy, or if I see something extravagant, like a sequinned shawl in a peacock pattern made to a Victorian pattern in the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition in the Ashmolean, I tell Roy he can buy it for me early. Actually this year, he wanted something. A fleece or two, and a pair of clogs. And by telling me he wants them for Christmas, he can get out of the dread task of shopping which he hates.

Presents for children are something else. We used to give them just a few things until they went to school (in America) where for weeks before Christmas, the little children talked about what they were getting for Christmas. I guess, being young myself then, I didn’t want my children to feel sad when they inevitably compared notes.

So I got catalogues, and clicked and clicked. Each year of Christmas presents was more extravagant than the previous one. Though the girls were thrilled with their presents,saying’ thank you Mum and Dad,’ and giving us each a hug began to be an effort. By the end of the Christmas bling, everyone’s cheeks hurt. The last year that we were in America, we gave them 14 presents each, and spent $1600 on presents. Because we had ten for Zoe, and nine for Irene, then bought 1 more for Irene, and saw 2 lovely things, then had to buy one more for Zoe, but bought two more. It’s like trying to cut hair perfectly straight. Too much. Too, too much. None of us are tidy people. Where to store all these things? Which to play with first? How to keep parts together? A mistake! We overwhelmed those little girls with presents.

And then, we moved to England, where houses are smaller. The first Christmas here, we gave them £50 each in lovely golden shiny pound coins, and 50 pences, and 20ies, tens and fives and 1s. We scattered these all over the house. Irene, who was five woke up, saw them, and stopped spell-bound, picking them up, and playing with them quietly in the corridor. When Zoe woke up, she said in awed tones, “Zoe, there’s MONEY in the house.” She had had a head start, but they raced around for ages, finding money in the bathtub, corridors, stove, every possible place. Some was never found as is the case with treasure hunts!! They remember the surprise of their treasure hunt as a magical memory.

We had one extravagant Christmas in England, when we left shopping till Christmas eve, and then scoured the shops, spending something like £1000 trying to find the elusive perfect gift. Some of the presents bought in that panic of exhaustion, the girls have not worn very much. Some they love.

No more. Now we just give them one or two things on Christmas Day, and then give them a largish budget for the sales afterwards, to get the year’s wardrobe. I sometimes go with them, sometimes not. I really, really hate crowds and sales, and would rather pay more to get the perfect item than snap up things because they are cheap. However, it must be said that things are seriously cheap in post-Christmas sales.

There are several inches of snow on the ground. We often have a Christmas Eve ramble but this year, I don’t know if I am going to summon up the gumption to leave my house.

What a retrospective ramble. Since this is my first year of blogging, we don’t yet have a family policy of whether blogging is okay on Christmas Day while the turkey is being prepared for the oven.. That is Zoe and Roy’s job. I have never learned to cook well–and have given up on trying to learn to cook decades ago. Within the first few months of our 21 year old marriage actually. There are some men who never cook, which is deemed okay. Why not have some women who never cook? Yeah, I think blogging is okay on Christmas Day.

The British Library’s Exhibition on the Continuing Evolution of English

By Anita Mathias

British Library

Sponsored Post

One of the things on my list for the New Year is to go to the British Library exhibition on Evolving English, which continues until the 3^rd April 2011. It has treasures such as the only surviving manuscript of Beowulf, Shakespeare ‘quartos’, the King James Bible, Dr Johnson’s dictionary and recordings of famous speeches by Churchill, Gandhi and Mandela — together with early examples of advertising posters, lists of slang, early newspapers from around the world, trading records, comics, adverts, children’s books, dialect recordings, text messages and web pages.
I speak and write a particularly hybrid English—in an accent to match!!–because of my migrations between three English speaking countries. I began speaking English in India where I was one of the quarter of a million who spoke it as a first language. (Another 232 million speak it as a second or third language). I first came to England as an undergraduate student at Somerville College, Oxford University, and spent three years here in the eighties. After that, I moved to America to go to graduate school, and lived there for seventeen years. I returned to England seven years ago, and have lived here ever since.
What particularly struck me was how much spoken British English had evolved in the 17 years I had lived elsewhere. There was a plethora of new slang. I saw controversial ads for a “Chav-free holiday.” Chav? What’s that? Wikipedia suggests the offensive backronym “Council Housed And Violent” or the suggestion that pupils at Cheltenham Ladies’ College used the word to describe the young men of the town (“Cheltenham Average”). Chavs, in turn, according to my research, have their distinctive vocabulary and world view summarized by the statement, “I ain’t bovvered.”
Indeed, language had evolved as much as fashion had. Slang evolves constantly as yesterday’s vivid terms become today’s hackneyed phrases, and we need new words to express our strongest emotions and hang-ups. In fact, there is probably no better way to track the evolution of English than to compare the Facebook statuses of my young friends in their teens and twenties with those of my generation, people in their late forties. The younger people almost appear to be speaking a different language, more vivid and colourful than our language, which tends to be more static. Facebook and blogs probably contribute to a far more rapid dissemination of slang compared to 25 years ago when slang originated and caught on within one’s peer group.
The overuse of strong words, of course, leads to the watering down of their meaning. “The reaction was immense” people say, when it was mild approbation. “I massively respect you,” “I am desperate to see you,” people say to express rather mild respect or desire. There are new expressions of delight, “Score. Major score. Win.” Another expression I have come across is the present continuous, often modified by so, “I am so loving this.” Though British English seems to be to be drifting in the direction of Americanisms (“how awesome!!”) there are charming British-only expressions adopted from the language of children—“Six sleeps till Christmas” abbreviated to Crimbo, which is a neologism I hadn’t heard a quarter century ago.
Visit the website. It includes a quiz which I initially played at the Easy-Peasy level, getting 5 out of 6, though I admit some answers were guesswork. I then tried the Egghead level, and scored the same!! http://www.bl.uk/evolvingenglish/quiz.html,

Here are the facts about the exhibition:

Evolving English: One Language, Many Voicesopens at the British Library on 12 November and is open until 3 April
Cost: free
While at the exhibition you can record your voice to add to the collection preserved for future study and analysis.
The URL is www.bl.uk/evolvingenglish
Tweet using #evolvingenglish

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Blessed are the Have-Nots

By Anita Mathias

Blessed are the Have-Nots

When my daughter Zoe, now a sweet 16, was 4, I was obsessed with the Beatitudes. I knew they were true because Jesus said they were true and every other saying of Jesus that I had personally experimented with was true.

But how were they true?

Poor Zoe. I kept on explaining them to her all that year. That was the year she became a Christian. She now takes it for granted that “the meek inherit the earth” which was the most frequent saying in our household in the years that Zoe had to tussle with a strong-willed pre-verbal younger sister.

Luke 6

“Blessed are you who are poor,
   for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹ Blessed are you who hunger now,
   for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
   for you will laugh.
²² Blessed are you when people hate you,
   when they exclude you and insult you
   and reject your name as evil,
      because of the Son of Man.

²³ “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

   ²⁴ “But woe to you who are rich,
   for you have already received your comfort.
²⁵ Woe to you who are well fed now,
   for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
   for you will mourn and weep.
²⁶ Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
   for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

I then summarized the Beatitudes for myself, and anyone who would listen to me thus: God is the greatest good. Blessed are those who know him, for they can be joyful when there is no visible reason for joy, peaceful when there appears to be every reason not to be at peace, and full where others might see emptiness.

The greatest puzzle of the Beatitudes are that all human endeavour, Christian and non-Christian tends towards being rich, well fed, laughter (happiness), and the esteem and respect of our community. And yet, Jesus says,  “Woe to you,” to those who have these things.

And human beings endeavour not to be poor, to hunger, to weep, to be excluded, insulted and hated and rejected.

But Jesus says that those who are poor, and live in constant need and expectation of God’s provision are blessed. Those who hunger and turn to God and have him on their mind are blessed. Those who are sad now, and turn to God to fill their sadness, are blessed. Those who are hated, excluded, insulted and rejected because they are following Christ are blessed. They are treated as the prophets were treated, and will receive a great reward in heaven.
   * * *

On the other hand, those who are rich, well-fed, and at the top of the world now are living in a here-and-now world. They may well be false prophets who are not shouldering the cross, and may well experience woe in eternity.
   * * *

The Beatitudes grow with us. They mean different things to us at different times, according to the circumstances of our life.

What they say to me today is:

Blessed am I when I hunger
for what I do not yet have.
For my hunger will remind me to turn to God,
and he will satisfy me.
Blessed am I when I weep
–for my tears will remind me to turn to God,
And he will make me smile.
Blessed am I when people hate me
exclude me and insult me
and reject my name as evil
because I have been following Christ.
I just rejoice and leap for joy
I will have a great reward in eternity
Because I am treated as the false prophets were.

But when I am rich and well-fed and laugh and everyone speaks well of me–is there something wrong with this picture? Am I following one whose ministry was fraught with scandal and danger and peril.

And so this is my personal summary of the meaning of the Beatitudes for me: Anita, cheer up when you experience emptiness or sadness or life does not match dreams. When things don’t go as you want. In that emptiness there is room for God, and you will ask him to fill you, and he will. And Anita, remember God when all goes well, he alone can fill all the nooks and crannies in your soul which friends, or money or success or dreams come true cannot.

Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus!

God's Protection–Hannah Whitall Smith

By Anita Mathias

La Cartuja, The Carthusian Monastery, Granada

We are going to spend the next couple of days in the Alhambra. However, since we arrived at Granada at 2 a.m. last night–I know, bad planning!!–we took today easy, drove around, shopped, and visited the Cartuja, a baroque church and monastery in absolutely terrible taste, meant to be Catholicism’s answer to the Alhambra!!

The first thing which struck me was that it was absolutely too much. It was the church that had too much.

My daughter, Irene, 11, who has been taken to innumerable Gothic Cathedrals in several European countries almost wanted to stay in our Moorish rented house rather than trek out. However, she sat spell-bound by the magnificence, and did not want to move.

“I am so glad I didn’t stay back to read,” she said, “This is the best church I have ever seen!!”

What?!!

Truly, people form their own innate aesthetic and there is nothing someone else can do to foist their loves and hatreds onto them.
* * *

And God was so merciful to us. We flew out of Gatwick on EasyJet yesterday; today, they announced that they are cancelling all flights between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. because of an ice storm. Dear Lord, let our good luck–or your merciful providence–hold for our return flight.
* * *

I have been thinking about God’s protection recently. Probably the best illustration I know of this is from a book by Hannah Whittall Smith called “The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life.”

Now, I read this in my late teens, which was a while ago, so if I remember it wrongly, forgive me.

Hannah has a vision of the Christian wrapped in a haze of golden light. Nothing could harm her unless the light parted to allow it.

So nothing can happen to us, unless God permits it.

And nothing can happen to us which God cannot work out for good.

Sometimes, even as he closes a door, he opens a window. Sometimes, though, there is a lag.

The Lord is my Shepherd. With him as my shepherd, I am safe. With him as my shepherd I can relax. Sometimes, though “the arrow that flies by night” flies around me, I am not only unharmed by it, but, praise God, I am even unaware that it has been flying near me.

Thank you, God for your protection. Deliver me from evil–evil I might do, and evil others might wish on me or for me. Amen.

The Third Way

By Anita Mathias

The Third Way

I love God. I love following him, even when I get it wrong (often!!). It is absolutely the most exciting adventure of my life.

I particularly love it when he makes fun of my limited intelligence, and blows my mind open.

He does this often when I limit my alternatives to two. And wrestle, “Lord, should I do this? Or that? This? Or that?” Sometimes neither alternative feels quite right. Both leave me feeling a bit heavy-hearted. I can see scriptural justification for both, and see both good and evil in the outcomes of both courses of action.

I fell face down before God right now to seek his wisdom on a particular course of action. (I set the time for 30 minutes, because I am busy, we are soon leaving for a week in Granada. But if he had not spoken in 30 minutes, I would have lingered for 90 minutes, and continued wrestling, perhaps while organizing my house, for an hour or two more until he had spoken. If his answer was, “Wait some more until I do tell you,” that would have been fine too.)

But I have a big task to complete before I leave to Granada, a doable task, but a big one, and God mercifully spoke just before my timer went off.

God told me what to do with what I was agonizing about. A third alternative, I had not considered. But one which does fill my heart with joy and energy.

So life is never just either/or. There can be an And. When God expands our mind.

And bless and strengthen me indeed, God, and help me to continue hearing from you, and to write only what I hear the Spirit saying to the Church. Nothing more. And nothing less!

The Lord will Fight for you. You need Only to Stand Still Ex 14:14

By Anita Mathias

The Lord will Fight for you. You need Only to Stand Still Ex 14:14

Moses says this to the Israelites when they were pursued by the armies of Pharaoh, hemmed in between the armies and the sea. (Which, of course, ultimately parted.)

Cool!

Does it apply at all times? When we are the righteous ones who are persecuted? Or also, when we have sinned and messed up?

Do we fight for our children only when they are in the right? I have often heard people talk despairingly of bad parents who will defend their children, whether they are in the right or wrong. But, I’m guessing, almost everyone has been that sort of bad parent.

I like this Psalm describing God delivering those who have seriously messed things up.

10Some sat in darkness and the deepest gloom,

prisoners suffering in iron chains,

11for they had rebelled against the words of God

and despised the counsel of the Most High.

12So he subjected them to bitter labor;

they stumbled, and there was no one to help.

13Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,

and he saved them from their distress.

14He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom

and broke away their chains.

15Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love

and his wonderful deeds for men,

16for he breaks down gates of bronze

and cuts through bars of iron.

17Some became fools through their rebellious ways

and suffered affliction because of their iniquities.

18They loathed all food

and drew near the gates of death.

19Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,

and he saved them from their distress.

20He sent forth his word and healed them;

he rescued them from the grave.

21Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love

and his wonderful deeds for men.

22Let them sacrifice thank offerings

and tell of his works with songs of joy. Psalm 107.

So, when the noise of battle rolls around us, we can, unbelievably, have peace in our souls, once we have surrendered the situation into God’s hands. He will fight for us, and help us write a good story with our lives. The outcome of every battle will not go our way, but that is because God has a different plan for us, a different story, which he is writing through battles won and battles lost.

And I love him for that.

The Mind-Expanding Prayer I am Praying Today

By Anita Mathias

I kneel before the Father,
I pray
that out of his glorious riches
he may strengthen me
with power
through his Spirit
in my inner being,
so that Christ may dwell in my heart
through faith.
And I pray that I,
being rooted and established
in love,
may have power,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep
is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge
—that I may be filled to the measure
of all the fullness of God.