Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

An Amazing Business Success Story: The Story of Wall Drug, South Dakota

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Roy and I drove to Yellowstone National Park and the Badlands about 20 years ago. As we neared the town of Wall, South Dakota, more precisely, as we were about 100 miles away, we began to see signs. 99 miles to Wall Drug. Free Iced water, and 5 cent coffee. And so on, probably 200 signs, every half mile.  Of course, we stopped. We sipped, we bought. We marvelled at the Drugstore as big as a town, that employs a third of the town.
The Drugstore was founded during the Depression, when no one stopped in because no one had money to spend. The Husteads had run the store for the 5 years they had given themselves to make money–unsuccessfully.
One day, as they came closer to giving up, Mrs Hustead noticed the continuous stream of cars which drove by–without stopping.
It was hot, she thought, they might be thirsty. So she put up signs offering them free iced water. Free. No strings attached.
The store began to fill almost as soon as she put out the signs. Some bought icecream. Or sodas.
The business took off. It sprawled across the town. It never looked back.
A simple business lesson: Give people something they need, that blesses them, at a reasonable price, even free.
It is in blessing that we are blessed!
The founder sums it up: 


Free Ice Water. It brought us Husteads a long way and it taught me my greatest lesson, and that’s that there’s absolutely no place on God’s earth that’s Godforsaken. No matter where you live, you can succeed, because wherever you are, you can reach out to other people with something that they need!

 

The Law Simply Does not Work. In Marriage or Elsewhere. We need Grace!

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In the story of Eden, God gave Adam and Eve all the trees of the garden as food. Except, except–the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And which tree which was the most attractive to them? And irresistible? And eaten?

That is the way of the law. It makes doing what you are not supposed to, and not doing what you are supposed to, most tempting.

It simply does not work.

Like many couples who have been married for nearly 24 years, Roy and I have had a bit of counselling. The less competent counsellors have tried the law. Made lists. Anita will do this, Roy will do this.

Human societies, after all, are based on ground rules, contracts, predictabilities. There is something to that.

But once the law is imposed, and each has their To Do and Don’t List, guess what happens? I personally have never been able to keep to these contracts imposed on me for a whole week. (Though I can be a perfect angel for an hour or two, let me add!).

The law, rules, simply does not work in relationships.

And so, when one simple law didn’t work, God hedged the ancient Israelites in with The Law. Whole books of it. Leviticus, Deuteronomy. Oh incredible tedium.

And could they keep it?

One purpose of the law was to teach man that we could not keep laws, that we need a saviour.

And so, God found a new way.

Jesus came and gave it all, freely, in grace. And asked us to give him our all.

A new model for marriage. Grace, kindness without strings or bartering.

The law and rules will not work long time in marriage just as they did not work for Israel. Grace is what lubricates relationships.

God help us, and Jesus, give us your grace, and teach us grace!

In which I learn not to let my heart be troubled, but to trust Jesus

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Image Credit

“Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Trust in God; trust also in me.” John 14:1

This is one of my favourite verses from Scripture. Again and again, when I am stressed, I say it to myself, and, literally, by a mental decision, exchange fear for trust.

I do not mean that what I fear will never happen (though most people’s fears do not materialize). I mean that God will help me deal with it.

I remember the moment it became real.

* * *

I have an in-law, who is insensitive, pushy and (diagnosed) bi-polar. She made our engagement, wedding preparation, the day of our wedding, and the day and days after very difficult with random angry phone calls in the middle of the night or early in the morning, temper tantrums, rudeness, randomly showing up at our house at 6a.m. ringing the doorbells, many bizarre and irrational financial and other demands. Totally disruptive!

I thought the very worst thing would be if this person were ever to live in my house, with the chaos and devastation she caused, and that was one of my mental resolutions: She will never come to stay.

Turns out though, that this in-law had organised her life around visiting people, for weeks, a month at a time, visiting anyone who was good-hearted enough, or decent enough, to agree.

We deflected this successfully. She lived “down under,” which helped. And then Roy’s brother moved to the US, where we were living. And I felt sure that she’d visit Roy’s brother, and then either visit us, or slander us if we refused.

* * *

So I was worrying about this visit from this woman who was rude and insulting about me to my face, and would slander me to Roy if she had a minute alone with him. And would absorb my hospitality and then slander me to all and sundry.

I was walking on my treadmill, about 10 or 15 years ago, listening to the Gospel of John when this verse jumped out at me, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Trust in God, trust also in me.”

And I thought, “Anita, do you really believe this? Can you let your heart not be troubled, and let it not be afraid?”

And then I thought, “Ah, but this woman. She’s nuts. She cares for the good opinion of neither God nor man. She just wants what she wants.”

And then I thought, “But can God manage her?”

Believe it or not, I had to think about it for a while!! Could God deal with someone so closed off to him? And I decided, “I will trust him, whatever she does.”

And I felt peace.

* * *

And, as matters turned out, Roy’s brother, David, did indeed move to the US. But before that, we had moved to the UK.

And she did indeed visit David in the US for a month….

And she had, apparently, as I had feared, decided to visit Roy when she visited David. And so, though we were in Oxford, she bought a US-UK ticket, without telling us, and one day, as we were minding our own business, the phone rung, and she announced that she was in the UK for a surprise visit of 2 weeks.

It was the busiest time of our lives. The school and university term were in full swing. Roy was still a professor of mathematics, with a Chair in Applied Maths, head of a research group, and was spending all his extra time helping me out with our publishing business. We were hideously behind with the latter, with fulfilling orders, customers breathing down our necks, and didn’t have a minute to spare.

Besides, we teach people how to treat us. If I had let her stay, she, diagnosed manic-depressive, would buy a ticket to our house whenever she felt high, without warning, as she had now done. If I had let her stay, I would never have been able to breathe freely, never knowing if the door-bell was her.

She visited Roy for a day in his office, but did not set foot in our house. She stayed with other relatives and tangential connections, and has never paid us another “surprise” visit.

* * *

Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Most of our fears do not happen, and the ones that do, God can help us deal with.

The visit I feared as crazy-making, and depressing and boring and an explosion of lies and evil into my life has not yet happened in 24 years of marriage.

And if it had, God would still have protected me, I believe.

It is always safe to trust him, I believe.

Irene’s new bedroom furniture–seriously cool!!

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I have just bought this from John Lewis for Irene’s room in preparation for high school next month–and a serious declutter of childhood, and its lovely toys. Isn’t it a seriously cool and imaginative, space-maximizing, and practical piece of furniture? Though I would have preferred it in dark wood. She chose it herself. I really wanted to buy her John Lewis’s camper van bed, desk and lounge set–and she thought it was cool, but thought her friends might not. Such a consideration would no longer cramp my style–but then, I am no longer 11!

The more I look at it, the more I like it. A desk, a dresser, and two bookshelves and a bed–in the space formerly utilized by her bed. Perennial problems of keeping Irene’s room organized on the way to be solved–I hope!
Larger View

Larger View
Room Setting

Room Setting
Close up view

Close up view
Showing with mattress

Showing with mattress
Close up view
Close up view

 

Allah and Jesus: Thoughts at Ramadan

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When we moved into our house in Garsington, Oxfordshire, four and a half years ago, we hired a local Muslim moving company. No complaints, they liked us, we liked them, we are accustomed to dealing with Muslims and understand them.

Oh, one oddity! Like clockwork, they stopped at certain times, put our boxes down, put their heads to the floor, their bums in the air, and prayed. When we hired them by the day, we were told that they would take prayer times off. And not move any alcohol or our massive Celtic cross. Fair enough. Then we needed odd bits of manual labour, and they worked for us at an hourly wage, on condition that we paid them for prayer breaks and lunch breaks. We did.
I thought there was something lovely about it–taking time off in the middle of a busy day, to prostrate yourself in a yogic posture and commune with the Almighty.
We are committed Christians. They cross-questioned us on how often we go to church, on how many times a day we pray. Once, in the sense of sitting down to pray, but many, many times, when it comes to asking for wisdom or guidance or help or protection, or saying, “thank you.” They were unimpressed!
Then I wondered if the God they were communing with, Allah, as they knew and understood him, was quite the same entity as the Jesus we knew and understood, a wonderful friend.
Jesus is unique among all Gods in being a fully rounded person. Who loves his friends, is hurt by them, betrayed by them. Who is hungry, thirsty, sleepy, exhausted. Who is confronted, mocked. Who feasts, weeps, is astonished. A wise story-teller. A magnetic teacher. Who faces our dilemmas with calm, with strength and wisdom.
But most of all, he is unique in his death. A most unlikely death for a God. He dies as an utter failure. Thereby redeeming failure and changing its meaning forever. He dies a shameful, humiliating, ignominious, excruciatingly painful death. The End. Apparently.
And from that, springs a second act of glory.
His death, as the historian H.G. Wells says, was the turning point of human history. More human beings define themselves by his name than by any other. It is the most common name of schools, colleges, hospitals, orphanages. More to the point, his counter-intuitive teaching of paradoxes changes lives and changes hearts 21 centuries later.
The more I think about it, it is so unlikely–this humble life, ending in shame and ignominy, becoming the most potent transformer of  history on a macro level, and individual lives and hearts on a microcosmic level–that it just has to be true. If it wasn’t true, it couldn’t, wouldn’t have survived with such potency. Though, perhaps this argument, like Christianity itself, is heart-logic, not head-logic.

 

Facebook Posts from mid-May

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Jake the Collie now thinks he’s Zoe. We are going through our list of house and garden chores with frequent summons to strong, practical helpful Zoe when the going gets tough. She, working on her Othello essay, has developed selective hearing. But Jake appears each time, happily wagging his tail!



Anita Mathias now has a freshly painted kitchen, painted by Roy. I so wanted to paint it lavender, like the kitchens I saw in Provence (yellow, bright blue…) but Roy said if it was lavender, I would have to do all the cooking as he wouldn’t step into it. “Haven’t you heard of feminism?” I asked him. “I want a lavender kitchen” “And you are going to Ireland in July, and will then want a green kitchen,” he growled. He won! White!


So one man, Nick Clegg, is essentially choosing the next Prime Minister of Great Britain. So much for the democratic process! It reminds me of 2000, when, after all the expense and hassle of an election, the Supreme Court essentially chose the next President of the United States.


Anita Mathias hosted a tea party today for 14 adults & 17 children, all of whom got on well & none of whom were scratched by rabbits, chased by horses, barked at by the dog, or slipped into ponds. The party motivated us to mow our grass, trim our shrubs, re-do our rock garden, paint our kitchen & walls, & get rid of 10 loitering boxes of stuff, none of which our guests would have noticed either way, but it’s good to have it done!


As I walked down the country lane outside my house, a cup of tea in hand, I saw a herd of cows, very attractive Guernseys, in our farmer-neighbour’s field. It was a beautiful bird-loud day. It could have been out of a Constable painting or a Dylan Thomas poem. Timeless England!


Apple tree in the garden covered with dazzling white blossoms, soon to be replaced by bright red apples. Thank you!



Gordon Brown’s future according to today’s Guardian. “He will resign as an MP – the modern fashion – and has sufficient international standing to get a big job, probably in tackling global poverty, the passion he acquired from the David Livingstone stories of his Presbyterian childhood.” I think that is so sweet and touching. I wish him well. Good luck and God bless, Gordon! You were a man of integrity!



Wonders never cease. Roy, who is too reserved & shy to get Facebook, has decided to have a blog (about what he reads, learns, and experiences, with lots of photos i.e. not too touchy-feely). After we all commented on the dearness of ROY having a blog, I offered him “Blogging for Dummies.” He refused, “My readers are not dummies.” Then slunk back to pick it up. I asked, “But you’ve decided you might be one?” Silence!



‎”Dave and Nick: extras from Four Weddings, only with executive authority over a nuclear-armed G8 power,” tweets James Kirkup.



Cameron, once asked what his favourite joke was said, “Nick Clegg.” He now says, “If we sometimes have to eat humble pie, and we sometimes have to eat our words, then I cannot think of a more excellent diet.” Amen and Amen!



The writer G.P. Taylor on Philip Pullman’s new book, “Pullman shouldn’t be a coward and should write a book about Mohammed on his birthday and see what happens!” Hilarious!



 ‎”He did not think that there was enough quiet in the world. To realise God you need silence. He loved spaces for silence, and places of silence. He encouraged the practice of retreats. He was an inspiring conductor of retreats. He thought of the religious communities as little havens of quiet scattered across society ...” Owen Chadwick on Michael Ramsey, 100th Archbishop of Canterbury



We watched “The Secret Life of Plants.” A shriveled seedpod waited for the rain to burst it open and release its seeds; fungi waited for the rain to release their myriad spores. And in our own lives, prayer releases that rain. When we do not pray, we settle into dry and barren hopelessness; we shrivel. Prayer is like rain to those seedpods, releasing hope into what we considered the intractable areas of our lives.



Can miracles happen today? Breakthroughs in creativity? In writing? In publishing? Financial miracles? Breakthroughs in health? I retain my faith in them, because you see, I am incredibly well-connected. I know a guy who can change 5 loaves to 5000; can help me walk on water, and change that water into wine. And he whispers to me, “Do not be afraid. Trust in my Father. Trust also in me.”

The Greek Rooms, Ashmolean, "I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon"

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Roy and I spent the afternoon with Irene in the Ashmolean in the Greek rooms.

She can now spell Mediterranean, and rattle off the names of the 12 Olympian Gods.

Loved the jewellery, a lot like Indian jewellery, and still beautiful after 25 centuries.
Good replicas of Schliemann’s horde, including the famous mask of Agamemmon–“I have gazed upon the face of Agammemnon”–which we saw the original of in Athens.

 

La Cage Aux Folles

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I love French comedies, partly because so much is left unstated, relying on understated facial expressions.

We enjoyed watching La Cage Aux Folles, the old French comedy recently. It was tender and touching–the unbreakable bond between the Renato, the aging nightclub owner, and his star attraction and gay lover, the transvestite diva, Albin, and about the love between Renato, and his young, straight son who has just  got engaged to the daughter of France’s leading ultra-conservative politician.

She brings her parents to meet them, and the aging gays pretend to be models of respectability–with hilarious, and predictable conclusions.

But it turns out, the in-laws-to-be, like all holier than thou folk, have secrets of their own.

Okay, it’s campy, both sets of parents are so stereotypical that they are almost caricatures,  but it’s a fun film to laugh at on a Friday night, and what’s more, practise your French, while laughing.