Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory–a classic description of writers’ block.

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Writer’s block develops through perfectionism, through not letting go of a piece of work when it is very good, rather than perfect, through viewing your work through the eyes of a imaginary critic.
Rodriguez describes the sterility as he tried to finish his Ph.D.
 
He wrote “sentences that were overly cautious, timid, strained, brittle under the heavy weight of quaifications.  I seemed unable to dare a passionate statement.  I felt drawn to the edge of sterility, capable of no more than pedantic, lifeless, unassailable prose.”
 “I grew to hate the growing pages of my dissertion on genre and Renaissance literature.”
Not surprising.
Writing that nourishes the heart and whole being, flows from the heart and whole being, not solely the head.

Gothic cathedrals and Medieval Stained Glass: Radiant Windows: Sand transformed by Fire.

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File:Cathédrale de Reims intérieur.jpg Interior of the Cathedral at Reims

 

I researched medieval cathedrals today. They were constructed over generations through a collaborative effort of entire towns.In the 12th Century, in Chartres, women from all social classes carried construction materials and food for the Cathedral builders, and powerful men, proud of their birth and of their wealth, harnessed themselves to the shafts of a cart and dragged along stones and wood. Sometimes, a thousand people, men and women, were harnessed to the same wagon, so heavy was the load. And all this happened in total silence. From time to time, the procession stopped and everyone sung hymns.

Medieval Stained Glass: Radiant Windows–Sand transformed by Fire. 

File:Sainte chapelle - Upper level.jpg
 The 12th century Abbot Suger who essentially invented Gothic Architecture.  He planned to fill his Abbey Church of St. Denis, near Paris, with “the most radiant windows” so that worshippers, surrounded by rainbowed light would feel inspired and closer to God. Medieval craftsman, transformed sand by fire into jewels and More Light, the credo of Gothic architecture.
File:Sainte Chapelle - Rosace.jpg
 
Rose Window at Sainte Chapelle

Amo Ergo Sum

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Amo Ergo Sum
Because I love
The sun pours out its rays of living gold
Pours out its gold and silver on the sea.

Because I love
The earth upon her astral spindle winds
Her ecstasy-producing dance.

Because I love
Clouds travel on the winds through wide skies,
Skies wide and beautiful, blue and deep.

Because I love
Wind blows white sails,
The wind blows over flowers, the sweet wind blows.

Because I love
The ferns grow green, and green the grass, and green
The transparent sunlit trees.

Because I love
Larks rise up from the grass
And all the leaves are full of singing birds.

Because I love
The summer air quivers with a thousand wings,
Myriads of jewelled eyes burn in the light.

Because I love
The iridescnt shells upon the sand
Takes forms as fine and intricate as thought.

Because I love
There is an invisible way across the sky,
Birds travel by that way, the sun and moon
And all the stars travel that path by night.

Because I love
There is a river flowing all night long.

Because I love
All night the river flows into my sleep,
Ten thousand living things are sleeping in my arms,
And sleeping wake, and flowing are at rest.

— Kathleen Raine (1908-2003)
 

In Which Jesus Prays for Protection so All Christians May Be One

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Father, protect them by the power of your name,
That they may be one
As we are one.
John 17:11

Protection is something I increasingly feel the need of. Partly it is because of living in the deepest country, where I do need the protection of angels in chariots of fire around our property.

Partly it is because I am a woman of unclean lips, and I live amid a people of unclean lips (as in Isaiah’s vision). So in a world where people lie, slander, deceive, manipulate, and do others down to get ahead, you need protection.
Where do we find protection?
In the power of his name.

And, interestingly, what does Jesus pray for protection for?
For relationships between Christians.

So Jesus, because I love you, let me not do anything to hinder or destroy the oneness you desire among Christians.

Resolving to live more slowly!

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Neither Roy nor I, I in particular, do well with busyness. I simply wilt and find myself quite unable to go on if I have too many uncongenial things to do.

So we have taken a dramatic and drastic decision to next month dramatically and drastically cut Roy’s work hours. I.e., he is going to retire!!

Other things are more important–running a peaceful and orderly household, for instance.

I am looking forward to our family being less busy. Few families do well with it, and few people (except those with a poorly defined sense of self, who need constant validation from the outside world.)

Fiddler on the Roof

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It’s fun to watch childhood favourites as an adult.

I found Fiddler on the Roof unbearably painful as a teen especially the story of Motel, the earnest well-meaning tailor, who saves all his life for a sewing machine, only to–like the rest of the town’s Jewish community–have his dreams, hopes, ambitions, and material possessions swept away by a pogrom during which they were forcibly relocated.

Still sad now, but I enjoyed the humour this time, esp. the charming milkman Tevye, who thinks aloud as each of his daughters make love matches. “On the one hand. On the other hand. But the light in my daughter’s eyes.” And ultimately gives permission. I enjoyed his comic renderings of interior debate.

However, when one daughter marries a Russian, one of the family’s persecutors, he says, “There is no other hand. How can a fish marry a bird? Where would they make a home?”

A charming celebration of Eastern European shtetl life.

Simon Ponsonby and His Butcher Sermon

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“
Gustav Caillebotte

Simon Ponsonby’s Butcher Sermon

Sunday 6th June.

Here was the text, James 3.

1Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.2We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.

3When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
7All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 11Can both fresh water and salta]”>[a] water flow from the same spring? 12My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
Just before the reading, a shy, sweet and pretty young woman I haven’t seen before came up to give a prophetic picture she had received. It was odd, a lion with a heart in its mouth. Embarrassed, she guessed at an interpretation (but no interpretation can match the power of an image or metaphor.)

Simon Ponsonby was so overcome by this that he felt unable to preach his sermon, which, ominously for anyone foolhardy enough to pick the passage, began with “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”

He preached with great authority, sincerity, rhetorical power–and wow! (to go with the above)–brevity. He was a butcher, he said, and went on to prove it.

Leaning over, he pulled out a massive ox’s tongue, which he lovingly handled, caressing its cartilage, fat and gristle.

An unbeautiful thing, black-streaked. Eee-ooh, the congregation gasped.

Ponsonby said, “You think this is ugly. But this is tongue that has never lied, never cut down someone else, never puffed itself up, never exaggerated, never praised God and then slagged off the vicar!!, never abused, never cursed, never irredeemiably wounded another.”

“From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Salt springs cannot bring forth fresh water.”

He then went on to the lovely injunction in Col. 4:6 “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.”

Grace, in the Koine Greek was Charis–gifts, benefits, favours. So, let your speech be full of gifts, benefits, and favours.

And seasoned with salt. Let it be both prudent and savoury.

“Jesus was generous,” Ponsonby said, “when he opened his mouth, gifts came forth.”

He went on to say that we ourselves would be healed and blessed if our tongue spoke blessings.

The whole thing was over in 5 minutes max.

Visibly overcome, he sat down and asked us to use the extra time to reflect and repent in silence on our speech and our hearts.

God willing, Simon Ponsonby’s multi-sensory sermon will stay with us for a while.

May it be so, Lord.

On Learning Focus From My Mistakes

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Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered

So it says in the Book of Hebrews.

Most of us, learn from our mistakes. I wish there were a better way of learning. I get several requests these days from people I don’t know, hardly know, and sometimes hardly knew 30 years ago–requests to pick my brain, for information etc. I dispatch them with a line or two, or ignore them if there are several other ways for the person to get the information, or if I have no interest in advising the friend of a “friend” I don’t remember on how to get published or what poem her son should chose for his contest.

When I was in my twenties or thirties, believe it or not, I actually used to spend a lot of time over some of these requests–to read a long-lost friend’s daughter’s college application essay, to read a daughter’s poetry, to write references. What a waste of time!! Now I realise there is a via media between blowing it off, and doing a splendid job. If the person really has no claim on you, dispatch the request in a sentence or two– or if it’s ridiculous, ignore it. The world has already had a saviour, and he wasn’t me.

Jesus did not answer every request. He was kind to those who crossed his path, performing healing with a wave of his hand, but he kept his focus on the 12 he had chosen to invest in. Lucky them!!

Jesus, give me your focus.