In which I decide to follow Jesus | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

On Not Wasting a Desert Experience

Anita Mathias — Sun, 13 Sep 2020 14:44:20 +0000

So, after Paul the Apostle’s lightning bolt encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he went into the desert, he tells us… And there, he received revelation, visions, and had divine encounters. There he pondered on the simple teachings of Jesus in the context of the logic and story of the Old […]

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On Yoga and Following Jesus

Anita Mathias — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 09:20:07 +0000

I returned home from boarding school in Nainital in the Himalayas, aged ten, to find everything in my father’s life had changed. He, aged 56, had taken up yoga. And so our mornings became dramatic with simhasana, the lion’s roar, which punctuated the hour long yoga session, which was precious to him, and soon became […]

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Every Prison has a Door… (and We Usually Have the Key!)

Anita Mathias — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 22:01:21 +0000

From Practice to Mastery Image Credit: https://guitarsquid.com So, not being a super-disciplined person, I’ve struggled all my adult life with a few things, surprisingly common struggles for those for whom discipline is problematic. I carry more weight than I should. Okay, I have lost 47 pounds over the last few years as I […]

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Life by the Inch

Anita Mathias — Sun, 12 May 2019 18:17:15 +0000

One step. That’s what I like best about following Jesus. It’s difficult, it’s carrying your cross, but all we have to focus on is one step… one step forward, one step of biting your tongue, one step of empathy, one step of kindness, one step of self-control, one step of making the right choice. And […]

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It’s all God’s money: Thoughts on “the Cattle on a Thousand Hills”

Anita Mathias — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 20:54:12 +0000

The Staffordshire Horde of Angl0-Saxon gold One of the hardest things to have wise, sane, healthy thoughts about is money–since money is not mere zeroes on a bank statement, but the fruit of our labour, and our luck; a force which affects almost every area of our lives…our housing, surroundings, health, education, friendships, social […]

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The Things Worth Doing Badly

Anita Mathias — Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:08:57 +0000

A tyrannical statement we’ve heard as children, and said as exasperated parents: If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Which means we might never learn or do new things, for who has margin for one additional thing? In fact, the opposite is true…anything worth doing is worth doing badly. * * * […]

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On Living Life Single-hearted and Double-handed

Anita Mathias — Sat, 04 Jun 2016 16:54:14 +0000

I had a fascinating conversation over a church lunch with a retired British missionary who had worked in Indonesia for 45 years. He had a boyish smile, and sparkling eyes. At an age at which most people have two or three major subjects of conversation—their health; their children and grandchildren; or the general decay of the […]

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In which I am Against (Most) Military Interventions, & Musing on Invisible Weapons of the Spirit

Anita Mathias — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 22:33:02 +0000

My church, St. Andrew’s, Oxford, is experimenting with a café church format; a couple of worship songs, and then a brief sermon which we we discuss in small groups. Around Remembrance Day, November 11, we discussed war, and Christians in the military. In the Sermon on the Mount (which the pacifist Anabaptists, precursors of the […]

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When You Think it’s All Over, And That End is a New Beginning

Anita Mathias — Mon, 04 May 2015 13:26:29 +0000

So John, beautiful, sensitive evangelist, is exiled to Patmos, a Roman penal colony, by the Emperor Diocletian. It’s all over for him. He who had been one of the three with Jesus at every climactic moment of his ministry; who had leaned on Jesus at the Last Supper feeling the physical and verbal beat of […]

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On Being Christian with a small c or a big C

Anita Mathias — Wed, 02 Jul 2014 06:58:46 +0000

Image Credit Our family was discussing a writer who has done paradigm-breaking innovative work. “Is she a Christian?” my daughter Irene asked. “Yes. She’s a Christian. With a small C, I’d guess.” “What’s that?” Irene asked. “Hmm… Someone who goes to church, more or less respects Jesus and the Bible, but who does not see […]

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