In which I chase the wild goose of the Holy Spirit Archives

In Praise of Desert and Wilderness Experiences

John the Baptist, his heart and mind and spirit filled with the word of God, pregnant with his calling, does not do what we would today if we sense a calling. He does not go to the cities, to Jerusalem; he does not seek a platform; in fact, he initially does not speak at all.

He goes into silence, into solitude and lets the silence and solitude mould him into the Prophet God wants him to be. He does not seek the audience, the ministry, or the influence; he seeks his God, and God brings it all to him–the ministry, the recognition, the influence, the crowds, the “cross”.

He put first things first: He put God first, and the rest came to him.

* * *

John the Baptist’s season in the desert of preparation for his prophetic calling was a period of extreme simplicity–in his clothing…a garment of camel hair with a leather belt, and in the simple eating, locusts and wild honey (protein and simple carbs) which helped him focus on the most important things…

In solitude, he got to know God, to know his voice, to let the Spirit which had filled him from his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15) strengthen him, so that he wasn’t thrown when crowds seeking baptism flocked to him “from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan” including tax collectors and soldiers whom he fearlessly challenged. The time in the desert was necessary for him to gain the strength to stand up to the priests and Levites and Pharisees and Sadducees, whom he scathingly labelled “a brood of vipers” (Matt 3:7) and not hesitate to confront Herod, precipitating his own death (Mark 6 14-29).

The time in the desert made John unique (among those born of women there is no one greater than John, Jesus says, Luke 7:28), for in the desert, he had unusual, totally inspiring company. God was in the desert; the Spirit of God hovered over the desert, there were ministering angels in the desert (Matt 4:11), and eventually the Son of God, Jesus himself came there. John the Baptist, “a voice crying in the wilderness,” sounded unique, he sounded like himself. He sounded like God

Thomas Merton writes, “Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives. They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint…They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavour to have somebody else’s experiences or write somebody else’s poems, or possess someone else’s spirituality. There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular-and too lazy to think of anything better. Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success and they are in such a haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. (Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation).

* * *

“God leads everyone he loves into the desert,” Paul Miller, a friend who mentored and “discipled” me for five years writes in his excellent book, A Praying Life, Moses, David, and Elijah among them.

We all have seasons of quietness, when, if we are to do the work involved in fulfilling our call, we must be alone and silent and quiet. God shapes us in that silence with his word, his spirit, and his love, until we are ready for the next season.

But desert seasons can be unendurably quiet. We can feel like failures while we wait.

However, if we try to short-circuit the desert season necessary for us to be shaped in silence into the kind of people who are able to bear the weight of the call of God, then the desert season gets prolonged, for we are not yet ready for our call.

* * *

For me the call to the desert in my life has been to retreat into silence and obscurity and “do the work: write the book.” I admit I have tried to get out of it by social life, volunteering in church, school and the community; teaching Bible studies, travel, adult education courses, films, theatre, money-making, money-saving, hosting and attending parties, “friendships” or small groups in which I did not add something of value to my friends’ life, or they to mine… But trying to get out of your calling, and out of doing what you have to do because of the sacrifices involved is not really satisfying. Ask Jonah. But God uses and shapes even our mistakes into a beautiful and useful story. Read the Book of Jonah.

By refusing to accept the deserts God calls us into, by filling them with noise, distraction, and busyness, we can prolong the season of preparation for our call. And, more chillingly, we may never do the work God has uniquely called us to do. I suspect many people never really step into their calling and vocation, for they are not willing to accept the sacrifice that preparation for it entails.

* * *

If God calls you into the desert, accept it. Do not numb the occasional loneliness and solitude with “crazy-busy, sugar, alcohol, the internet” (from Brene Brown’s list of the way we numb the pain of living, and then grow too numb to experience its joy). Pray, work, grow. Desert seasons end when you are ready for the next stretch of your call.

And the desert is not really a quiet, empty place. It is full of very important, very powerful, influential, and creative people you simply have to get to know to be happy and creative and fulfil your calling. God is in the desert. The Risen Jesus is in the desert. The wind of the Spirit blows and gusts through the desert. The desert is full of angels, to help you withstand the temptations of the desert–to too much food, to wanting power, to showing off. (Matthew 4 1-10).

It’s a quiet and desert season for me at the moment, empty-nesting, and guess what–I rather like it. With God’s grace, I hope not to short-circuit it, but to meet the one who came to the desert to meet John the Baptist, the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

P. S. I am reading through the Book of Mark, and hope to share a reflection inspired by that great and short book every Sunday. Join me?

Peaceful at Pentecost

By Anita Mathias

The Thames near Sandford-on-Thames, Oxford

Pentecost–the coming of the Spirit to a frightened and fearful huddle. It is one of my favourite Christian feasts, so hopeful… The Spirit comes not because we are worthy, often not even because we have asked him to, but because he is good, and kind, and desires to bless. He comes in his own way, on demand, to the humble repentant heart, Jesus says, and in the way He chooses, like water which softens hearts, like wind which cleanses them, like a dove which warms them, like fire which sets them ablaze.

I am in an in-between season. Zoe my eldest is wrapping up her Oxford University degree in theology (prayers welcomed for her Final exams); she then has a church internship at St. James Church, Hoxton, London, part of the Stepney internship scheme. Irene is taking her last school exams ever, and, contingent on results, hopes to enter a six year course in Medicine at Christ Church College, Oxford.

I am working on a long book, the idea of which came to me decades ago!! I cannot say God told me to write it, but I can say that God called me to write, and this is the book which I feel led or impelled to write, for reasons God alone knows, and which I am slowly understanding. I am working steadily, revising 3000 words a day, while knowing that many may not make it into the final draft.

I am taking an eight week Mindfulness course at Oxford University. I am half-way through it, but the shift has been seismic, in my mental state, in my serenity, in my sleep, in my productivity. As I guess a sculptor would feel foolish or superstitious about describing his sculpture midway, so I will not quantify or describe it just yet, but whoa, am I glad I am taking it!

It’s a beautiful spring, warm golden weather, and once or twice a week, I go on a long walk, increasing my mileage by 10% a week, as the gurus recommend. (Don’t be too impressed; I’m at 13 miles a week, in my 5^th week of increases.) Chris McDougall who wrote the great running book Born to Run (and has converted me, amid much ouchiness to forefoot running) says something like, “If you have a problem that a four hour run can’t solve, then you ain’t going to solve it.”

Four hour runs I doubt I will ever do; I am a great believer in the minimum effective dose, just enough for health, but I have swapped out listening to audiobooks on my walks for prayer and problem-solving. That’s something else I’ve learned from my mindfulness course, listening to the wisdom of the body, and what its tense places are telling me; quietening down with deep, slow breathing, until the wisdom of the spirit emerges, the wisdom of the Spirit within me, the spirit who is breath, ruach, who Jesus transmitted to the disciples when he breathed on them.

Sealed Orders

By Anita Mathias

Sealed Orders

I am reading a memoir, Sealed Orders, by the American healer and mystic, Agnes Sanford. Interestingly, I’ve just read A Man Called Peter, by Catherine Marshall, her biography of her husband, Peter Marshall, who felt that he lived under “sealed orders.”
During wartime, commanding officers of ships, or squadrons operated under “sealed orders.” For security, and perhaps because the commander might have been tempted to disobey, he did not open them until he had reached a certain point in his journey.
I like the idea that we operate under “sealed orders.”
While God does give us a rough road map–I knew I was to be a writer, not a medical doctor, say–God does not tell us everything he is going to ask us to do….or ask of us in terms of suffering or challenge at the outset.
If so, we would find it overwhelming, or discouraging. We might never set out.
At each end of the road, at each turn of our journey, we receive “sealed orders” for that stretch of the road.

* * *

It is an exciting concept. God is never done with us. Into our fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties… there are new “sealed orders.” People to bless and influence; things to learn, and things to do and things to endure. Increased efficiency, increased skills, increased wisdom, and perhaps even, mastery of things we have long loved to do. And always the infinite depths and treasures of God to dive into, ever deeper. Always our puzzling, brilliant, invisible friend, Jesus Christ, to get to know better and better…

On Not Despising Deliverance

By Anita Mathias

“Do not despise prophecy,” the Apostle Paul says, somewhat surprisingly.

Why would we despise it? Because we tend to suspect what we do not understand? Or because prophecy can attract fools, charlatans, the unstable, and conmen seeking to gain power over others—as well as, of course, those who can genuinely tune into God?

I no longer despise prophecy because of personal experiences with those who genuinely had the gift of prophecy.

* * *

What about deliverance ministries? In the first church I attended as a Christian, in a small American town in the South, an individual gained power by labelling everything untoward as a curse or demon-caused–infertility, miscarriages, ear pain, a fear of flying–and exorcizing people. He offered to baptise me to mark my adult commitment to Christ, and when I spontaneously resisted total immersion (I was afraid, having only learnt to swim as an adult) he halted the baptism for an exorcism. (But I remained nervous!)

Eventually that person left the church, taking the best tithers with him, and founded his own church, heavily based around deliverance—a spiritually unbalanced church which, fortunately, did not survive

So I had question marks about deliverance.

* * *

Around that time, however, I picked up a book by Billy Graham, which surprisingly claimed that 90% of Christians are “demonized,” (as opposed to possessed). A dark power, what Paul calls, “evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, mighty powers in this dark world, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” controlled aspects of their lives. They were not entirely free when it came to their inability to forgive, perhaps; their out-of-control spending, addiction to sugar, alcohol, porn, anxiety, or negative thoughts.

* * *

What happens in deliverance? Someone with greater faith or spiritual authority uses their faith to expel dark powers from areas of your life. Uses their intimacy with God to implore God’s protection, a hedge, a strong tower in that area of your life.

You find freedom. Your sleep becomes deeper and more restful.

* * *

I have been married for 26 years. Anger used to be an issue in our marriage, and we’d get all histrionic and historical, and have time-wasting fights. And since life was short, I no longer wanted to waste time on stupid fights. I wanted to use wisdom and intelligence, stepping back, thinking rationally about the issues, acting using my mind and spirit, not my agitated emotions.

I eventually decided no more. No more fights. I have had enough. I will act with wisdom. It takes two to fight, and I will not be one of the two.

In the Old Testament, people marked important junctures of their lives— a major decision, an encounter with God–by building stone pillars. I wanted to mark my decision. When I visited a worship festival which had a deliverance ministry, I signed up for one on one prayer. The prayer minister was not slick, or well-educated. He called the little area of my life which was out of self-control and Spirit-control “a critter.” He prayed with me to expel it. I sighed and sighed as I physically felt relief, sensed something leaving, something generational, felt a huge sense of relief, lightness and freedom.

Harriet Lerner calls marriage the dance of intimacy. If one partner had strong emotions they cannot process, they can press their partner’s buttons, and start a fight. So they get to avoid dealing with their own discomfort. Eventually, couples get addicted to the adrenalin of anger.

After prayer, I found less anger in myself. I might yell a little, and then find I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t summon up the anger, the passion. I realised that to act out would be acting like a fool.

It was as if God had erected a hoop, an invisible boundary around me that I could not cross. I was experiencing the paradoxical freedom of being possessed by God’s spirit… I did not have to retaliate, angry word for angry word, historical accusation for accusation, all that foolishness. I could be still and quiet and write. I could go for a run. I could have a nap.

* * *

The other deliverance was equally astonishing. I was having coffee with a Christian friend, a woman a couple of years older than me, whom I respect and like for many things…her love for people, her spiritual wisdom, her warm heart, her bounciness and cheerfulness. And, since as Thoreau says, “Every man is the builder of a temple called his body to the god he worships,” I admire her too for her body; she’s all muscle. She swims, plays tennis, and runs half-marathons, faster than most men. I once did a run with her, and she did 3 miles in the time I did one. Oh well!

My friend asked, “So how are you really?” And I said, “It is well-ish with my soul, but…” (choose the path of humility, Anita, I said to myself) “I have been told to lose weight for my health and immune system, and, well, I haven’t been hugely successful.”

And then she told me a story I would never have guessed at. This slim attractive woman had been a binge-eater in her twenties. She binged, then purged, so that though she had been twenty pounds overweight, nobody guessed at her secret sin. But she knew. And she could not break her addiction to binges. One day, she cried out to the Lord in her distress, and, she said the only way she could describe it was—she was delivered. She no longer binge-ate; she got a job which required physical activity, and for her to be at her goal weight, and, within the year, she was.

I sighed, and knew that this was a moment for humility. This was a moment of destiny. So I said with simple intensity, “Will you pray for me to be delivered?”

She prayed. Listening to someone pray I can often tell whether they have entered the Throne-room, whether they have connected with God, and, often, I can intuitively tell if the prayer will be answered.

I knew I had been delivered from an addiction to food. I had to wait to see whether the deliverance would work out as the blind man was healed, first by seeing men like trees walking, and then seeing them clearly.

* * *

My daughters noticed the change first. We were on holiday in Tuscany, which has some of the best comfort food on the planet, morish food which releases addictive dopamine, and I found myself eating some of my spaghetti alle vongole, spaghetti and clams; linguine gamberetti, zucchini e zafferano, linguine with shrimp, zucchini, and saffron; spaghetti carbonara; or ravioli with spinach and ricotta, noticing that I was full, and then offering tastes to anyone who wanted them. “Mum, whatever diet you are on, we like it,” Zoe said.

But I was not on a diet. I had begun to find it physically difficult to continue eating once I was full! There was a force within me, reminding me to stop once I had had enough.

The Spirit is a remind-er, Jesus says, an internal reminder, bringing things to our remembrance.

* * *

And then I returned home, and would reach for a snack, and Someone, a kindly Someone, asked, “Anita, are you hungry?” And I would say, “No, but I am sad. I am bored. I am agitated. I am stressed; I am feeling hyper. I need a snack to help me settle down before I write. I need a reward after I write. I need a snack to help me transition between two activities.”

And the Spirit would say, “Ask Jesus to fill your Spirit.”

I would remember: I could ask the Holy Spirit to possess my spirit. Or I could eat a bar of chocolate. I prayed; desire for the stress-relieving snack receded. (And sometimes I succumbed. Sometimes, you see men like trees walking before you see clearly.)

It kept happening. Someone would say something sharp or cross or stressful, and my blood sugar would plunge, and I would think, “I need chocolate. I need a slice of fruit cake.” And then I would think, “Anita, you are not hungry. Might the Holy Spirit do it? Invite him in.”

Voila, 100 calories saved.

I realised that I was rarely physically hungry, so much so that I almost wondered if I were getting ill again, but then I truly skipped a meal, and real hunger returned.

When I was hungry, Someone kept reminding me to ask, “Anita, what will bless your body?” And I would basically cook up a skillet of vegetables, toss in some shrimp or fish, and some noodles or brown rice or pasta. Good for my family, good for me.

And freedom too, to eat the odd bit of chocolate, the odd slice of pizza…

Simple changes, prompted by the Spirit’s reminders: Don’t eat when you are not hungry. Stop eating when you are not hungry. Choose what will bless your body.

I stepped on the scale today. A cumulative weight loss of 24 pounds, the easiest ones after that prayer. (I have more to lose, of course, but, by the grace of Jesus, want to keep my eyes on Him through the process).

He Was My Champagne; Now He Is My Bread. My Changing Experience of the Holy Spirit

By Anita Mathias

My first conscious experience with the Holy Spirit was also my most dramatic.

I strayed into a Charismatic meeting at my ancestral hometown, Mangalore, India, when I was 17. My father was patronising and mildly amused, and flatly refused to take me again. And so I went to the visiting Spanish priest preaching the retreat, Father Marcellino Iragui, and asked him to pray with me for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (about which I had just heard) and which he was to pray for on the last day.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “Is she hungry?” he asked my friend with me. Upon deciding that I was, he prayed.

And I felt nothing.

And woke that night, about 3 a.m. with overwhelming joy, worshipping and praising God in childlike and incoherent English, and then in a spirit-language which has never left me. It was the gift of tongues, glossolalia.

* * *

And for many years, decades even, when I prayed “Come, Holy Spirit,” that was what I was praying for: joy, champagne, an experience.

Gradually, I changed, experimenting more with Oswald Chambers’ life-verse inscribed on his tomb, Luke 11:13: If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

“I am sad, I am depressed. I feel lifeless. My spirit feels dead. Come, Holy Spirit.”

The first time I prayed this, with faith, I was amazed to find that my mood had changed. Almost like magic.

Now that I pray that more expectantly. “I am sad and empty. Come Holy Spirit.”

“I know the core of following Jesus is love, but I feel no love. Come Holy Spirit.”

“I am supposed to love my husband, but at this moment, I feel anger, not love. And murder is totally illegal. Come Holy Spirit.”

“The temperature of family life is hotting up, and I cannot change it. Come Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. Come and change the atmosphere.”

“I have a call to blog and to write, and my piece is not developing. It’s slow, and I don’t know how to write. You are the fountain of ideas and beauty. Come Holy Spirit.”

“I know I need to pick up this room before the cleaner comes, but I am so bored, finding it so hard to focus on it. Come Holy Spirit, fill my spirit with new wine while I do so.”

“Chocolate will change my mood, oh yes, but is there an alternative? Come, Holy Spirit.”

It’s bread, it’s bread, the bread of the Holy Spirit, given to help me in my weakness, in my low moods, when I am angry, when I need inspiration.

The Holy Spirit is no longer just champagne. He is bread, he is fish and eggs and vegetables. If I went through my day without him, that day would be sad; that day would be stressful and empty. I would live that day weak, and without God’s power to help me.

Come, Holy Spirit.

On Cancer, Declining Chemotherapy, Healing, and Future Plans

By Anita Mathias

B0006844 Colon cancer cells Credit: Lorna McInroy. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Cultured colon cancer cells showing the nuclei stained with DAPI in blue, the actin cytoskeleton in red and plectin (isoform 1k) in green. Plectin interacts with cytoskeletal actin, affecting its behaviour. This subtype of plectin promotes the migration of cells and may affect metastasis. Confocal micrograph 2005 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html

Human colon cancer cells

So hi there, I am back…back to regular blogging, back to health– physically, emotionally, spiritually and creatively.

So, news of my world: I had surgery for colon cancer on November 25^th, 2014, which now feels very long ago—like a bad, surreal dream.

I was offered chemotherapy, which would increase my odds of being alive in five years by 10%. The side effects as explained by my oncologist: Anaemia, progressive tiredness which persists for some weeks after the treatment ends. Depressed immune system and risk of infection: the treatment reduces white blood cell count. Bruising of nerves, peripheral neuropathy, numb hands or feet, which may make typing hard, and which sometimes is permanent. Nausea, diarrhoea, mouth ulcers. Temporary hair loss. Eye problems. Headaches. Muscles, joint and stomach pain. Abdominal pain. Changes in liver function. 1 in 200 die.

The adjuvant chemotherapy recommended supports surgery by killing any cancer cells which may (or may not!) remain. It’s like an insurance policy, and is potentially over-treating, the oncologist explained. Colon cancer does return for 40 to 50% of patients—i.e. hey, cancer is not a joke (or, at least, a very bad one!). Adjuvant chemotherapy reduces recurrences by 10%.

As I prayed, I became convinced that toxic chemotherapy which often causes permanent physical, emotional and intellectual damage was not the path for me. Not the path through the dark woods on which I would meet the Father, Son and Spirit whistling as they stroll.

Might anything besides chemotherapy give me a 10% survival benefit? My oncologist said that research shows that exercise increases survival after colon cancer. As does Vitamin D and aspirin. People know what they know and don’t know what they don’t know. Could there be evidence-based research that my oncologist had not yet looked at, did not know of?

“Oh God!” I prayed. “There are 298,000 species of plants. Surely, surely, some of them would zap any remaining cancer cells without the havoc wrought by toxic chemicals. Is it possible that God who placed dock leaves near stinging nettles did not create even one plant which would bless the body while neutralising cancer cells? Even one plant which would strengthen the immune system to “fight” cancer so that it would not spread? Surely God will lead me to such plants.”

In the Parable of Weeds in Matthew, Jesus recommends leaving enemy-sown weeds in the field lest, in uprooting them, good plants are uprooted as well. When I thought about chemo, there was no light in it. I felt sure chemo, for me, was not the way of the Spirit, that the Spirit would guide me to non-toxic therapies that might strengthen the immune system, rather than weaken me body, mind and soul in the process of zapping renegade demon cells.

* * *

As I called out to the Lord in my distress, the title of a book a friend had recommended popped into my mind: God’s Way to Ultimate Health by George Malkmus, who watched his mother rapidly grow ill and die from toxic cancer treatments rather than the disease. (A common experience, apparently!) Declining chemotherapy, he cured his colon cancer by aggressive doses of nutrients through juicing. A raw food diet. Supplements. Exercise. My friend recommended Chrisbeatcancer.com, who inspired by Malkmus used these strategies to heal his own Stage III colon cancer without chemotherapy.

Diet and exercise had been my Achilles’ heel, and so I had some of the lifestyle risk factors for colon cancer. So while I have not changed as drastically as I would have liked, over the last eight months I have changed what I eat, and I intend to continue, respecting my body as a gift God gave me, which I need to keep healthy for my intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical life to flourish.

Malkmus recommends a discipline which he says will change your life, and might possibly save it. Walk a mile as fast as you can, write down the speed; then, each day continue walking as fast as you can until you can do a mile in 15 minutes. Then walk two miles as fast as you can, until you can do 2 miles in 30 minutes; then 3 miles in 45 minutes, then 4 miles in an hour. I was walking a mile in 30-33 minutes after surgery, and am now down to a 21 minute mile (and walking 3.5 miles, over 10,000 steps) and am loving the increased fitness—especially because I can now be on my feet, exploring all day on holiday. I still need major improvements in fitness, but am optimistic, since I have been steadily improving my pace.

Other changes: Carrot juice. Green juice. Salads. A lot of vegetables, steamed or roasted. No meat. Less diary. Fish and salmon every day, since Seventh Day Adventist studies show that eating oily fish protects against colon cancer. A handful of supplements, some recommended by my younger sister, Dr. Shalini Cornelio who has worked in cancer research at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York City: Resveratrol (grape seed extract). Sulforaphane (broccoli sprout extract). Turmeric. Aged garlic. Probiotic supplements. Fish oil. Vitamin D. Aspirin. Calcium. Multivits.

So rather than a path of passivity, submitting to a toxic regimen, I took a path of positivity and challenge—exercise, and mega-doses of nutrients through juices, salads, and supplements to strengthen the immune system against errant cells. In eight months, it has left me stronger than I have been for years, perhaps decades, rather than significantly weaker.

* * *

I put out of my mind the fear of death. And any irrational fear of cancer. I told God I was making the best decision I could with the light given to me and if I had mis-read his will, and the days ordained for me were up before I had done my life’s work, well then, okay. He is the Lord of my cells. I will trust him with cancer and my life and death as with everything else. As I said, “Okay, Lord, I’ll leave the date of my death up to you. You choose,” fear and anxiety drained out of me and I could think clearly.

Chemo? No way.

And, oh me of little faith, after researching natural ways to strengthen my immune system to neutralize cancer cells, I also—repeatedly– asked Jesus to reach out his mighty hands and zap any remaining cancer cells in my blood stream.

Do I believe in the efficacy of prayer for physical healing? That’s one of the frequent questions I’ve been asked as a blogger over the last five years. Of course, I do…just as I believe in the efficacy of any prayer. Physical healing is not a special subset of prayer; miracles occur here, as in any realm we pray for with faith.

I like to read the Gospels taking Jesus at his word. I like to read the Gospels as if Jesus is alive today, and can reach out his hand and heal me as he healed so many two thousand years ago.

I prayed as Jesus commanded with a mighty mustard seed of faith. So why act as if Jesus hadn’t heard me, couldn’t hear me, would meanly not hear me, and take toxic drugs too? What’s the point of praying, and then acting as if God surely has not heard your prayers?

* * *

At my check-up on June 19^th, the colonoscopy, blood tests and chest/abdomen/pelvis scan showed no evidence of disease.

In her documentary, “Crazy, Sexy Cancer,” cute presenter Kris Carr says, “I would not call cancer a gift because I would not give it to you, but for me, it has been a gift.”

I would echo that.

I feel like one who has crossed over from death to life.

And I have, physically.

The Apostle John gives us a spiritual sign that we have crossed over from death to life…and it is not the absence of cancer cells. We know that have crossed over from death to life because we love one another, he says

Love, the spiritual gift before which eloquence or tongues, prophecy or scriptural insight, faith or generosity, count for nothing. For too a long a time in my Christian life, I have privileged these–effective prayer, faith, scriptural insight, prophetic gifting. I considered them my spiritual gifts.

I am coming like Christina Rossetti to believe that “all is small save love, for love is all in all.”

* * *

Oh, all sort of gifts came with crabby old cancer.

Living in the moment, free and bird-like. A remarkable diminution of worry. If I cannot control errant cells in my body but have to trust God with them, with the days of my life and the date of my death, why not trust him for everything else?

A freedom, a lightness came as I left my life, finances, career and death in God’s hands. I am practising not worrying about anything at all.

A wry coolness and lightness with whether I achieve my dreams or not.

A greater desire to write beautiful things that might last, things with some significance, that might actually bless people.

Momento Mori. Remembrance of Death. In the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the thoughtful placed a skull upon their desk as a reminder to focus because life was short and death was certain.

* * *

So here I am, back again. I spent some time deciding whether I wanted to be just a writer of books, or a blogger as well. In the end, I decided that blogging was a calling—yes, a ministry, my ministry–and that I should be faithful to it, so here I am. Back.

* * *

What sort of blogging will I do?

Honest blogging. Life is too short to be anything but honest, in one’s speech, one’s writing, and one’s relationships.

So I will blog honestly about where I am in my Pilgrim’s Progress.

Bunyan’s Pilgrim eventually reaches the Heavenly City. But while he staggers on his pilgrimage through the Slough of Despond, the Hill of Difficulty, Doubting Castle, and Vanity Fair, though he was such a very flawed character, he still had much to teach less-experienced pilgrims who had not yet encountered Giant Despair or Beelezub’s Castle, simply because he had transcended so many obstacles.

And so, though I would like my Christian story to be purely sheerly inspiring, I will tell it honestly to help such as I who struggle with the same temptations, the same spells in Doubting Castle, the same stumbles into the Slough of Despond, the same meanders into Vanity Fair.

Come and read?

Tweetables

I feel like one who has crossed over from death to life. From @anitamathias1

What’s the point of praying, and then acting as if God surely has not heard your prayers? From @anitamathias1

I prayed as Jesus commanded, So why act as if Jesus hadn’t heard, and take toxic drugs too? From @anitamathias1

“All is small save love, for love is all in all” New post from @anitamathias1

“He is the Lord of my cells.” New post from @anitamathias1

“Thin Places,” Where the Boundaries between the Spiritual and Physical Worlds are Almost Transparent

By Anita Mathias

sunset_calf_sound_7 Celtic Christians prized “thin places,” where the boundaries between the spiritual and physical world are almost transparent. Where we can sense shimmering in the physical world the just-as-real, invisible, supernatural world, charged with the glory of God, with hills ringed with angels in chariots of fire.

Could God really be more present in one place than in another? I wondered until I slowed down, calmed down, and began to experience the presence of God pushing though, and thin places.

* * *

Thin places—near mountains, rivers, streams, meadows, the sea—are, in fact, often places where people have worshipped and sought God for centuries. The air around beaches, waterfalls and mountains is rich in brain-activity boosting, depression-banishing negative ions. Benedictines and Trappists often built their monasteries in such places.

Is it fanciful to suppose that places in which thousands have prayed would attract the spirit of God—and angelic presences?

Perhaps what happens in a pilgrimage spot is not that God descends to earth in a shower of radiance and the earth ever after exudes his fragrance. Perhaps it is we who sanctify spots of earth when we bring our weary spirits, our thwarted hopes, the whole human freight of grief, and pray—our eyes grown wide and trusting; our being, a concentrated yearning. Perhaps that yearning, that glimpse of better things, attracts the spirit of God, and traces of that encounter linger in the earth and air and water so that future pilgrims say, “God is here.”

* * *

I felt that when we visited Ffald-y-Brenin. There was a peace and holiness in the air. I could sense the presence of God in the stillness and especially around the high cross, placed on the highest hill of the retreat centre towering over the countryside.

I gave up analysing it after a while. I surrendered to the peace. As Eliot says in “Little Gidding,”

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid.

That peace, a sudden clarity of thinking and creativity? I guess I could call it the spirit of God.

Healing hung in the air. Looking back at my post written there, I see I was praying for healing from self-induced adrenal fatigue. Well, seven months later, it was completely gone, and I was gulping down books again, and writing a lot.

***

Just being by the ocean, watching it, listening to the roar of the waves quietens me, reminds me of immensity, of God’s infinite power, and opens me up to his spirit. I suddenly find myself praying in tongues. I pick up God’s guidance and directives most clearly on beach walks.

And, as all cultures at all times have noticed, mountains are specially charged with the presence of God. They are places for peace, serenity, and elevated thoughts. In the mountains, my thoughts instinctively gravitate to God.

* * *

And, of course, in our own homes and lives, places become thin because we often pray there.

I pray face down in my bedroom, soaking prayer, and the accustomed place and posture probably more quickly tunes my spirit to peace.

I also enjoy walking and praying in the fields around my house for I live in the country. Again the accustomed routine of walking and praying makes me feel happy and exhilarated and, within a short time, I find myself praying in tongues.

Thomas Merton writes about cultivating routines of prayer at the same place, and at about the same time, “My chief joy is to escape to the attic of the garden house and the little broken window that looks out over the valley. There in the silence, I love the green grass. The tortured gestures of the apple trees have become part of my prayer…. So much do I love this solitude that when I walk out along the road to the old barns that stand alone, delight begins to overpower me from head to foot, and peace smiles even in the marrow of my bones.”

* * *

Just we can feel stressed and uneasy by subliminal triggering memories of past trauma in certain places, or in the presence of certain people, our spirits can also swiftly be tuned to peace in places in which we have often experienced God’s spirit, on a particular seat in church, or on a particular country walk.

Working in my own garden is a thin place for me. Sooner or later, joy returns. Sooner or later, I find myself praying, often in tongues.

Another thin place for me is tidying up. I restore my soul as I restore my house. My body works, and feels happy working, but my mind is fallow. Clarity comes as I work, ideas. Peace returns, and I find myself praying…

* * *

Tweetable

“Thin places,” where the boundaries between the spiritual and physical world are almost transparent. From @anitamathias1

God Saw the Light was Good, but He Left Darkness Too

By Anita Mathias

In the beginning…

God’s first recorded words in the Bible are “Let there be light.” And there was light. And God saw that the light was good. (Genesis 1:4)

But he left darkness too.

And so it shall ever be. On June 21, we have 16 hours 41 minutes of light in Oxford, England. But we also have 7 hours 19 minutes of darkness. On December 22, however, we have 16 hours 18 minutes of darkness, but we still have 7 hours 42 minutes of daylight.

Some darkness on the sunniest day; some sunshine on the darkest day.

And so it always is, throughout our lives.

John drapes himself on us, heart flooded with love. On the other side, there’s Judas, serpent-heart despite his kiss. But eleven apostles out of twelve proved true. That is life too, and life is good.

* * *

Me, I am still living in summer, tasting the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I am healthy enough; my family is healthy. My children are doing well, academically, socially and spiritually, and are happy. We are paying our bills to date. I am enjoying my work. I am happy. I am happy.

But I am also allowing myself to slow down, and feel the sadness that God left in the beginning.

It has been an intense month. Jake, our eleven year old border collie, had a vast growth in his abdomen, and inoperable tumours in his liver which makes it uncomfortable to eat. So he stopped. How dreadful to watch a dog waste away. Finally, he could no longer walk, and we put him to sleep yesterday. The vet said it was definitely the right thing to do.

I have been feeling tired, and my blood work showed severe anaemia. So I had a colonoscopy, which showed a polyp. I am hoping for minimal surgery…but I must walk on the waters,, holding Jesus’ hand through that.

We have lost our wonderful cleaner, which has thrown us. He helped with everything—housesitting, chauffeuring kids, picking up purchases, garden work, painting, car cleaning, whatever needed to be done. An almost irreplaceable Man Friday.

Financially, we are still recovering from the burglary in February, of our car and electronics etc. We were underinsured, and so we have to put our nose to the grindstone to replace what we had to “borrow” from savings (earmarked for other bills) so as to replace the stolen things.

Love’s like a hurricane, and I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy, as John Mark Macmillan writes.

Couldn’t God have prevented all these griefs and hassles? I think, crossly.

* * *

In the Old Testament Book of Job, Job lost everything– children, wealth, health and the respect of his friends.

“Does it please you to oppress me?” he asks God (Job 10:3).

His friends insist that Job must have secretly sinned to deserve so much suffering, that he was under the Almighty’s curse—our intuitive (though unspoken) response to other people’s suffering

But Job insists he is guilty of no spectacular secret sin, “Let the Almighty answer me,” he demands (Job 31:35).

And God does. In the infuriating way only the Almighty can get away with, he answers Job in a series of questions.

“Who laid the earth’s cornerstone

While the morning stars sang together

And all the angels shouted for joy?

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?”

“Can you bind the beautiful Pleaides?

Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons?

Do you give his horse his strength

Who at the blast of the trumpets snorts, “Aha.”

God has put together this vast cosmos of sea and stars and snow, of lightning and lions and leviathans, ostriches, ospreys and eagles. Job, a very minor character in the complex epic of the universe, does not have the perspective to contend with him, God suggests.

God exists on another plane altogether, able to see the end from the beginning, to contain all things in his mind, to see the whole complex canvas of human existence at a single glance, and the glorious end of each contorted plot twist in our lives. While Job sees but one page, God sees the entire plot.

“Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker,
Does the clay say to the potter,
‘What are you making?’ the prophet Isaiah writes.

God is God. He chooses the plot of our lives, chooses the role we are to play in the cosmic drama. It is our task to play it well.

Job repents of his turbulent questions.

“Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,

things too wonderful for me to know.

My ears had heard of you,

But now my eyes have seen you.

Therefore I repent.”

And Job’s acceptance turns things around. “The Lord made him prosperous again, and gave him twice as much as he had before.” (Job 42:10)

* * *

Darkness, trouble, hassle is a fact of life, seven hours of darkness in our brightest day. “In this world, you will have trouble,” were among Jesus’s last words, though he goes on to say, “But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.”

When God created a pristine world that he could have shaped any way, he deliberately left a bit of darkness too.

Why?

For the same reason a story-teller leaves a bit of darkness in his stories perhaps. It forces the story to a better, more beautiful, more interesting conclusion. Cinderella had to sleep among the cinders; Sleeping Beauty had to prick her thumb on the spindle; the shard of ice had to enter Kay’s heart for us to have a story.

Artists instinctively know that they must frame brightness with darkness. Possibly God like Van Gogh found as much beauty in a starry night as a sunrise.

Winter strengthens the root systems of trees, sending them delving deep for nourishment. Without it, bulbs would not burst into blossom. Eternal summer can take a toll on mental health; in Greenland suicides are more common in summer. Seasonal Affective Disorder strikes in the summer as well as in winter.

If we had eternal daylight, eternal summer, unblemished happiness, we would not value them quite as much. A period of just-enough makes us appreciate how money can cushion and enrich life; a period of loneliness makes friendship precious; a period of failure sweetens success.

***

God left darkness and winter as facts of life. So what do we do when life does not go the way we want it to?

We fling up our hands and accept it, light as well as darkness, good as well as evil, trusting the one who sends both, light that shines in winter, the selah of darkness in summer.

* * *

We accept it, with thankfulness that our world with all its darkness is still under God’s protection.

The world tilts towards good as it tilts towards the sun.

Because, as we are told in the second line of Genesis, while all the world was darkness, the spirit of God still hovered over the water.

And so we have hope.

I am in a situation of chaos, stress and high emotion, and over me the Spirit hovers.

My dog is dying, and I am overwhelmed with sadness watching him, and over me the spirit hovers.

I want my anaemia to go and that polyp to be benign, and over me the spirit hovers.

Life will bring me light and goodness and joy, but if it presents challenges, I know this for sure: Over me the spirit hovers, always hovers.

* * *

And so I can face the future. And so I can smile.

Because as Gerard Manley Hopkins says,

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out
It gathers to a greatness,

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell:

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Ah the Spirit’s warm breast, his bright wings. So much love surrounding us, whether we feel it or not.

And so as John Mark Macmillan continues,

Then all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory

And I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me.

And I really do believe, what Paul wrote to the Romans: In all things God works for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28) Because he is super-duper powerful and creative, and so he can. Because he is good, and so he will.

And so I say with Julian of Norwich, “All will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well,” because the Holy Spirit broods over us, strengthening us, filling us with joy. He swoops down in light and joy, but something has his “dark descending” as Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it, continuing, surprisingly, ‘And most is merciful then.”

~~~~

Tweetables—

God saw that light was good, but he left the darkness too. Why? From @anitamathias1

Couldn’t God have prevented all these griefs and hassles? I think, crossly. From @anitamathias1

Suffering can force a story to a better, more beautiful, more interesting conclusion. From @anitamathias1

Possibly God, like Van Gogh, found as much beauty in a starry night as a sunrise. From @anitamathias1

Over to you

Have you seen the light shine in the darkness?

Have you experienced the brooding comfort of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the darkness?

This post is kindly sponsored by How to up your health game.