Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, or First Things First

By

 

Roy & I talked last night about Jesus’ exciting statement, “Seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all the rest will be added unto you.”

Like the rest of Jesus’ sayings, one can only verify the truth of this by empirical evidence, by trying it.

C.S. Lewis in a more contemporary idiom says, that “When first things are put first, second things don’t diminish, they increase.”

I have found (more by failure than success) alas, that when first things are put first, a kind of peace and order pervades one’s life.


Putting second things first is a recipe for disorder.

Jake, my Collie Dog

By

 

Lovely run today with my collie Jake bounding beside me, his tail wagging with joy.

We have much to learn from dogs: joy, love, forgiveness, living in the present, revelling in movement.

I love seeing dogs leap & fly over the fields near our house, just delighted to be alive.

C.S. Lewis amusingly declared that while we may not have dogs in heaven (but we will!, we must!) we will at least have “the essence of dogness.”

I was amused to see statues to Collies in the hill country of New Zealand. Apparently, that part of the country would not have been settled without collie dogs.

I didn’t marry you for cleverer or stupider.

By

 

I (successfully) tried to get the lean, muscular Roy to go to the gym with me.

Exasperated, he said, “Anita, I married you for better or for worse, richer or poorer. I did not say “for stupider or cleverer.”

Irene listened with furrowed brows, then whispered, “Mummy, what does he mean? Who is getting stupider? Could it be Daddy? It couldn’t be you; or does he mean both of you?”

Well, it’s certainly not little Irene!

Irene and salad

By

Tried a salad recipe from a book I am reading with much interest and enjoyment–Helen Nearing’s “Simple Food for the Good Life.”

It was lettuce and fresh dandelion leaves salad.

Irene said, “MUM, I am so HUMILIATED! I am not a RABBIT.

Family Life–The Mathiases Play Balderdash

By

We played a family game of Balderdash yesterday. A bit like pictionary, pick a word, everyone gives a feigned definition while the picker gives a real one. 3 points for a correct guess, 1 if someone else guesses yours.

After a slow start, Irene, 10, got the hang of dictionary sounding definitions.

Scrivello, A antique builder’s tool, resembling a screw. Both parents voted for her. Zoe, “2 points for Irene.”

Roy, indignantly, “Hey, I said builder’s tool”

Zoe, sweetly, “Yes, but Irene wrote it.”

Both parents crowed over Irene’s genius, and apropos of nothing, of course, claimed she took after them.

Then we looked at Zoe, stricken, “You’re brilliant, Zoe. You are a classic late bloomer.”

She shrugged, steadily inching up the leaderboard while we argued over genetics.

And Zoe won!!

The Meek Inherit the Earth

 

 

The staggering rewards promised in the Gospels (C. S. Lewis)

By

 

If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

In which Fritallaria Meleagris, or Snake’s Head Fritillary tell me something of the goodness of God

By

Spring in the garden. A rhapsody indeed.

White Cherry blossoms. Daffodils! Cowslips. Flowering Judas tree. Forget-me-nots. Bright red tulips in my garden!

And fritallaria. These were never easy for us to establish in Virginia, so it a joy to see how easily they spread here.

We found a few wild ones in our paddock the year we first bought the house, and transplanted them to our main garden so that we could enjoy them more. However, as I walk there this year, I see more, and more.

Nature’s munificence tells us something of the goodness of God!

This flower, below, Fritallaria Meleagris, which we have in our paddock is also known as the Checkered Lily or Guinea Hen Flowers, or Snake’s Head Fritillary.

It was a regular feature in Elizabethan gardens. “The checkered lily was once in fact native of damp meadows throughout Northwestern Europe, but is today disappearing over much of its natural range from habitat loss and humanity’s population intrusions. It became endangered in England, where children picked them before they could complete their reproductive cycle. It is now protected and making a slow comeback in the south of England. And it will never be extinct for as long as people love them in gardens.”