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Garden pictures on Nov. 20th, and personal Facebook updates

By Anita Mathias

Ragged courgette plants may produce one last harvest
Houttuynia (a variegated herb)
Pigeon’s nest exposed by the falling grape leaves
One last yellow Buddleia
Pepper plant to be brought into the conservatory
Parsley flower/seed head
Duck drying off

A last strawberry
Pak choi (Bok Choi)
Apple mint seed heads (left for the goldfinches)
Medlar (Eastern European fruit)
Raised bed with lamb’s lettuce and spinach
Broad bean (winter hardy I’m told)
Cabbage
What are these lovely berries?
Ducks enjoying fresh water
Ducks about to take the plunge

Herb garden showing plentiful sage

Roy has been working from home since June 2010. He’s become super-organised, and usually has something in the oven for when the girls come home. Lancashire hot-pot today. Beef stew, lamb roast, and roast duck are some of his other specialties. His latest saying, “Men should run houses; we do SO much better!”
Face Book Status 
3 October
Ah, Roy’s latest culinary achievement–pretty darn good homemade, whole wheat bread. And it wasn’t too hard either. Thanks,Klaudia for giving us the idea. I think he is going to go on experimenting until he’s got it perfected!
12 October Looking forward to a quiet family weekend of movies and maybe board games. Thanks to Ruth and Matthew for introducing us to new ones in my first board games evening in years. I also enjoyed having Lesley Crawley, Alan Crawley, Erika Baker and Klaudia Schwenk here for lunch. They motivated me to get my house all picked up and tidy:)
14 October
Cold snap setting in. Grr. And we have booked a beach cabin belonging to Lee Abbey in Exmoor, Devon next week. We are looking forward to a week of some worship and quiet time at the Abbey, along with long walks on the beaches and moors. He leads me by still waters; he restores my soul. In moors of green, he makes me rest, by the quiet ocean.
16 OctoberWomen perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property!

Enjoying Roy Godwin’s “The Grace Outpouring” about the Ffald-y-Brenin retreat centre in Pembrokeshire. Going there in Dec. Has anyone been?

Irene, 12 who reads and listens to books on tape constantly speaks and writes like a book. She wrote a brilliant essay, & her teacher accused her of copying it from the internet. She didn’t. It’s just how she speaks and writes. She protested & the teacher said, “Of course, dear. Class, I would rather you expressed things badly than copied off the internet. I too, twice, when younger, was accused of plagiarism because my work was too good. Grrr.

The family’s bathroom is full of a dazzling array of haircare and beauty products–NONE of which I have bought or use! Sigh! #motherofIrene!

Enjoyed my Zumba class : high energy mixture of salsa, Latin and African inspired dance. Felt high as a cloud doing it. Now, happy but SORE!

Well-deserved Booker win for Julian Barnes. Still can’t believe his lovely “Flaubert’s Parrot,” lost to Anita Brookner all those years ago!

J B Phillips: “translating the Bible was like rewiring a house with the electricity plugged in.” So too is studying it! Must carve out time!

You know your daughter is doing A level philosophy when you say, “I can’t make myself pack till the last moment” & Zoe says, “Nonsense. That’s a fatalistic approach. Jean-Paul Sarte would be shocked!”

Zoe effortlessly did something on my new MacBook which floored me and Roy. Zoe, I said, amazed, we’re floored. No, you are not flawed, mum and dad, she said in all seriousness. You’re just old.”

Irene stands in front on the mirror, with a beanie hat on, trying to sneer . “Don’t I look really dodgy?” Zoe, “Nonsense. You can’t look dodgy with a dimple.”

We try to hike the Valley of Rocks in Exmoor. I tell Irene, “The First Rule of Mountains: Things change. Be prepared.” I stride off. She joins me 20 minutes later. It is a bright, sunny day, but she has brought 1) an umbrella 2) a coat 3) hat, gloves, muffler, 4) A bag of snacks 5 A book in case she gets bored 6) A torch.
“Don’t be so literal-minded, Irene,” I now scold.

Roy and Zoe get stuck into sorting out our bookshelves, and I fear they will not eat till they are done. Roy was to fix lunch. “We have human bodies,”I remind him. “And human bodies need food.” “You have a human body, but the face of an angel,” he tells me. I wander off, digesting this happily, forgetting lunch.
I hear him say, “They say, ‘Flattery won’t get you anywhere. It’s not true!”
29 October
Zoe’s seventeenth birthday party–75 Indian nibbles, trays of pullao rice and naan bread, 5 curries–balti, pasanda, korma, madras, and tikka masala, kulfi and cake. Think we’re set! To be honest, Roy’s cooking one tray, and we are resorting to take-out for the rest–which should be just as or more delicious than our endeavours, hopefully!!
30 OctoberTrying to eat significantly less. Amazing how clear-headed this helps one feel and how well one can concentrate:)

Grieving for the hour of daylight so soon to be stolen from me. Celebrating it with a bonfire for Zoe’s 17th birthday 🙂 #Hatewintertime.

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song. – Maya Angelou

Roy’s just returned from our brilliant small group, which, sadly, I decided not to go to today. A member of the group who spends the meeting sleeping explained why. He’s an early riser. “Christians who want to go to heaven should be asleep by 11.” Lol! Never heard that one. Which gives me 48 minutes to be asleep. Good night, world!
2 November 
Don’t we all need a reference letter from the poor when we meet Christ?
Ann Voskamp

Confused. I wrote and spelled Indian English, then British English, until I moved to America in my twenties, and then wrote and spelled American English for 17 years. When I returned to England in 2004, I used American English, though have slowly begun shifting back to UK English. Thank goodness for spell-checkers, since I have honestly forgotten a lot of British spellings. Realised, not realized. Goodness!
13 November Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. It doesn’t mean you have to have lunch with that person. Anne Lamott.
Description: https://fbcdn-photos-a.akamaihd.net/photos-ak-snc1/v27562/23/2231777543/app_2_2231777543_9553.gifFor domestic goddesses: “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” William Morris
Okay, we attend a beautiful baptism and confirmation service yesterday. And you know what Roy whispers to me as we exchange the peace? “It’s like Halloween. The inflatable swimming pool for baptisms. The vicar in fishing waders. The bishop in golden vestments. His dishy chaplain in red vestments, carrying an outsize crozier.” Nope, not Halloween. Just a bit Anglo-Catholic!
14 NovemberLesley Crawley, Alan Crawley, thank for hosting such a relaxed, lovely lunch. Jules Middleton, I loved meeting you at last:)

Surprise gift of an evening! Was about to go out to a friend’s house at 7.45 p.m. when I was overtaken by a paroxysm of coughing. Stayed home. Surprise free evening. Yummy. Odd how happy you are when even things you had looked forward to going to get cancelled. I am so enjoying blogging these days:-)
16 November
 Overheard in our home, “Mum, you need to have an extremely interesting life to be on Twitter.” !!

‎22nd Wedding Anniversary. Roy gives me a gift engraved with, “When I count my blessings, I count you twice.” “Aww,” I say, and he adds, “I won’t say how often I count you when I count my worries and my problems.” 22 years, and we’re still untrained!!

My daughter, Irene, 12. “God should have put evolution in the Bible. If that’s not in there, it makes you wonder what else is not in there!”

A Scriptural mandate to rest!A whole day to rest! Oh how I love Sundays!! (Middle-aged moment!)


Roy has been working from home since June 2010. He’s become super-organised, and usually has something in the oven for when the girls come home. Lancashire hot-pot today. Beef stew, lamb roast, and roast duck are some of his other specialties. His latest saying, “Men should run houses; we do SO much better!”
3 OctoberAh, Roy’s latest culinary achievement–pretty darn good homemade, whole wheat bread. And it wasn’t too hard either. Thanks,Klaudia for giving us the idea. I think he is going to go on experimenting until he’s got it perfected!
12 October Looking forward to a quiet family weekend of movies and maybe board games. Thanks to Ruth and Matthew for introducing us to new ones in my first board games evening in years. I also enjoyed having Lesley Crawley, Alan Crawley, Erika Baker and Klaudia Schwenk here for lunch. They motivated me to get my house all picked up and tidy:)
L14 OctoberCold snap setting in. Grr. And we have booked a beach cabin belonging to Lee Abbey in Exmoor, Devon next week. We are looking forward to a week of some worship and quiet time at the Abbey, along with long walks on the beaches and moors. He leads me by still waters; he restores my soul. In moors of green, he makes me rest, by the quiet ocean.
Like · · 16 OctoberWomen perform 66 percent of the world’s work, produce 50 percent of the food, but earn 10 percent of the income and own 1 percent of the property!

Enjoying Roy Godwin’s “The Grace Outpouring” about the Ffald-y-Brenin retreat centre in Pembrokeshire. Going there in Dec. Has anyone been?

Irene, 12 who reads and listens to books on tape constantly speaks and writes like a book. She wrote a brilliant essay, & her teacher accused her of copying it from the internet. She didn’t. It’s just how she speaks and writes. She protested & the teacher said, “Of course, dear. Class, I would rather you expressed things badly than copied off the internet. I too, twice, when younger, was accused of plagiarism because my work was too good. Grrr.

The family’s bathroom is full of a dazzling array of haircare and beauty products–NONE of which I have bought or use! Sigh! #motherofIrene!

Enjoyed my Zumba class : high energy mixture of salsa, Latin and African inspired dance. Felt high as a cloud doing it. Now, happy but SORE!

Well-deserved Booker win for Julian Barnes. Still can’t believe his lovely “Flaubert’s Parrot,” lost to Anita Brookner all those years ago!

J B Phillips: “translating the Bible was like rewiring a house with the electricity plugged in.” So too is studying it! Must carve out time!

You know your daughter is doing A level philosophy when you say, “I can’t make myself pack till the last moment” & Zoe says, “Nonsense. That’s a fatalistic approach. Jean-Paul Sarte would be shocked!”

Zoe effortlessly did something on my new MacBook which floored me and Roy. Zoe, I said, amazed, we’re floored. No, you are not flawed, mum and dad, she said in all seriousness. You’re just old.”

Irene stands in front on the mirror, with a beanie hat on, trying to sneer . “Don’t I look really dodgy?” Zoe, “Nonsense. You can’t look dodgy with a dimple.”

We try to hike the Valley of Rocks in Exmoor. I tell Irene, “The First Rule of Mountains: Things change. Be prepared.” I stride off. She joins me 20 minutes later. It is a bright, sunny day, but she has brought 1) an umbrella 2) a coat 3) hat, gloves, muffler, 4) A bag of snacks 5 A book in case she gets bored 6) A torch.
“Don’t be so literal-minded, Irene,” I now scold.

Roy and Zoe get stuck into sorting out our bookshelves, and I fear they will not eat till they are done. Roy was to fix lunch. “We have human bodies,”I remind him. “And human bodies need food.” “You have a human body, but the face of an angel,” he tells me. I wander off, digesting this happily, forgetting lunch.
I hear him say, “They say, ‘Flattery won’t get you anywhere. It’s not true!”
29 October Zoe’s seventeenth birthday party–75 Indian nibbles, trays of pullao rice and naan bread, 5 curries–balti, pasanda, korma, madras, and tikka masala, kulfi and cake. Think we’re set! To be honest, Roy’s cooking one tray, and we are resorting to take-out for the rest–which should be just as or more delicious than our endeavours, hopefully!!
30 October 
Trying to eat significantly less. Amazing how clear-headed this helps one feel and how well one can concentrate:)

Grieving for the hour of daylight so soon to be stolen from me. Celebrating it with a bonfire for Zoe’s 17th birthday 🙂 #Hatewintertime.

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song. – Maya Angelou

Roy’s just returned from our brilliant small group, which, sadly, I decided not to go to today. A member of the group who spends the meeting sleeping explained why. He’s an early riser. “Christians who want to go to heaven should be asleep by 11.” Lol! Never heard that one. Which gives me 48 minutes to be asleep. Good night, world!
2 November 
Don’t we all need a reference letter from the poor when we meet Christ?
Ann Voskamp

Confused. I wrote and spelled Indian English, then British English, until I moved to America in my twenties, and then wrote and spelled American English for 17 years. When I returned to England in 2004, I used American English, though have slowly begun shifting back to UK English. Thank goodness for spell-checkers, since I have honestly forgotten a lot of British spellings. Realised, not realized. Goodness!
13 November Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. It doesn’t mean you have to have lunch with that person. Anne Lamott.
Description: https://fbcdn-photos-a.akamaihd.net/photos-ak-snc1/v27562/23/2231777543/app_2_2231777543_9553.gif
For domestic goddesses: “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” William Morris

Okay, we attend a beautiful baptism and confirmation service yesterday. And you know what Roy whispers to me as we exchange the peace? “It’s like Halloween. The inflatable swimming pool for baptisms. The vicar in fishing waders. The bishop in golden vestments. His dishy chaplain in red vestments, carrying an outsize crozier.” Nope, not Halloween. Just a bit Anglo-Catholic!

Like · · Share · 14 November‎Lesley Crawley, Alan Crawley, thank for hosting such a relaxed, lovely lunch. Jules Middleton, I loved meeting you at last:)

Surprise gift of an evening! Was about to go out to a friend’s house at 7.45 p.m. when I was overtaken by a paroxysm of coughing. Stayed home. Surprise free evening. Yummy. Odd how happy you are when even things you had looked forward to going to get cancelled. I am so enjoying blogging these days:-)
16 NovemberOverheard in our home, “Mum, you need to have an extremely interesting life to be on Twitter.” !!

‎22nd Wedding Anniversary. Roy gives me a gift engraved with, “When I count my blessings, I count you twice.” “Aww,” I say, and he adds, “I won’t say how often I count you when I count my worries and my problems.” 22 years, and we’re still untrained!!

My daughter, Irene, 12. “God should have put evolution in the Bible. If that’s not in there, it makes you wonder what else is not in there!”

A Scriptural mandate to rest!A whole day to rest! Oh how I love Sundays!! (Middle-aged moment!)

Filed Under: In which I dream in my garden, In Which my Blog Morphs into Memoir and Gets Personal

To look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room,

By Anita Mathias

Close up of cherry blossom from the paddock. 





Share on site of your choice … Wikio

Part of the row of cherry trees we planted in our paddock in the winter of 2006



Luther famously was asked what he would do if he knew the world would end on the next day. Looking out of his window at the apples trees in bloom, he replied, “I would go plant a tree.”


Sensible man. We’ve just planted 10-15 fruit trees in the five years we’ve lived here–are planning to plant many more this year!!–but how glad we are that we planted those we did.


And here’s a poem from A. E. Housman, “And since to look at things in bloom, fifty springs are little room, about the woodlands I will go, to see the cherry hung with snow.”


And so will I!! 

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,         5
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,         10
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

A.E. Housman

Filed Under: In which I dream in my garden, In which I Spot God in Nature

Rhododendron, Clematis and other garden news

By Anita Mathias

An  images of established rhododendron from the internet.

The rhododendron ponticum bush we bought last year is thriving. Beautiful deep purple flowers.

Oddly for a plant of such beauty, it is considered an invasive pest in Britain, secreting toxin around its base so that no other plants can root there, hardier than native plants, toxic to grazers,

But I was greatly cheered to see its deep purple blossoms.

Other garden news: deep purple clematis, pink clematis, and white clematis by the ban; lovely purple columbines, yellow roses.

The hedge we planted 3.5 years ago is massive, with wild cherries, white dog roses and pink dog roses.

The rose bush we bought 4 years ago, which hardly seemed to pay its way, now does, with a mass of tiny rose blossoms.

Could not bear to run in the paddock, which is now a mass of Queen Anne’s Lace. It would mean trampling it.

Our garden needs a lot of work–and most of all, a pair of sturdy shears.

Filed Under: In which I dream in my garden

Composting–Garden magic.

By Anita Mathias

Boys and their toys! Roy has been so happy and content working in the garden of late, because he bought himself a whole lot of fancy toys. A strimmer, which cut our straggly bushes in no time at all, and a shredder to reduce all those branches to shreds for our compost heap.

Composting: turning useless shreds and scraps into rich, black garden soil is one of my favourite things–garden magic!!

Sadly, Roy has never been in favour of kitchen composting, so the few times we do it, the food gets rotten and smelly, and no one can bear touching it. We do compost leaves and twigs though, and enjoy the rich, crumbly garden soil

Now that we are whole lot less busy and more relaxed, we are going to have another try at kitchen composting. It’s a real win-win thing–using waste to create rich soil, which will provide a bumper crop of vegetables and herbs, and the waste from these is returned to create fresh rich soil in the circle of life God designed.

We haven’t planted any veggies this year, but we do have a greenhouse, so it is not too late.

Filed Under: In which I dream in my garden

Garden news–Queen Anne’s Lace and buttercups. Flowering Judas tree

By Anita Mathias

May 17th, 2010

I went for my daily run in our paddock today. The rain overnight had made the tall, flowering Queen Anne’s Lace bunch together so that it was like a sea of white. I couldn’t bear to run through it and trample it.

The buttercups are emerging. It will soon be a sea of yellow.

Lovely purple flowering Judas tree in front of the conservatory. And my beloved first orange roses have appeared!

Out of nowhere, purple and pink aquilegia, columbines have appeared, as if by magic. Garden magic!!

I love my garden!

Filed Under: In which I dream in my garden

Garden news–Queen Anne’s Lace

By Anita Mathias

One of the wonderful things about my garden is how suddenly things happen. I haven’t walked in my paddock for a few days, and when I go there now, it is a riot of Queen Anne’s Lace. Very beautiful!

“To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the renewal of life – this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do”. Charles Dudley Warner

Filed Under: In which I dream in my garden Tagged With: garden

Garden news

By Anita Mathias

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

And the mourning doves, with their ironic name, sing loudly and crazily of joy!!

Filed Under: In which I dream in my garden Tagged With: Garden news

God as Gardener

By Anita Mathias

John 15:1
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.”
God as gardener. That’s a lovely metaphor of Jesus’s.

Filed Under: In which I dream in my garden

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Recent Posts

  •  On Not Wasting a Desert Experience
  • A Mind of Life and Peace in the Middle of a Global Pandemic
  • On Yoga and Following Jesus
  • Silver and Gold Linings in the Storm Clouds of Coronavirus
  • Trust: A Message of Christmas
  • Life- Changing Journaling: A Gratitude Journal, and Habit-Tracker, with Food and Exercise Logs, Time Sheets, a Bullet Journal, Goal Sheets and a Planner
  • On Loving That Which Love You Back
  • “An Autobiography in Five Chapters” and Avoiding Habitual Holes  
  • Shining Faith in Action: Dirk Willems on the Ice
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What I’m Reading

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Barak Obama

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H Is for Hawk
Helen MacDonald

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Tiny Habits
B. J. Fogg

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The Regeneration Trilogy
Pat Barker

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anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford # Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford #walking #tranquility #naturephotography #nature
So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And h So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And here we are at one of the world’s most famous and easily recognisable sites.
#stonehenge #travel #england #prehistoric England #family #druids
And I’ve blogged https://anitamathias.com/2020/09/13/on-not-wasting-a-desert-experience/
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. The same Judean desert, where Jesus fasted for forty days before starting his active ministry. Where Moses encountered God. Where David turned from a shepherd to a leader and a King, and more, a man after God’s own heart.  Where Elijah in the throes of a nervous breakdown hears God in a gentle whisper. 
England, where I live, like most of the world is going through a desert experience of continuing partial lockdowns. Covid-19 spreads through human contact and social life, and so we must refrain from those great pleasures. We are invited to the desert, a harsh place where pruning can occur, and spiritual fruitfulness.
A plague like this has not been known for a hundred years... John Piper, after his cancer diagnosis, exhorted people, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer”—since this was the experience God permitted you to have, and He can bring gold from it. Pandemics and plagues are permitted (though not willed or desired) by a Sovereign God, and he can bring life-change out of them. 
Let us not waste this unwanted, unchosen pandemic, this opportunity for silence, solitude and reflection. Let’s not squander on endless Zoom calls—or on the internet, which, if not used wisely, will only raise anxiety levels. Let’s instead accept the invitation to increased silence and reflection
Let's use the extra free time that many of us have long coveted and which has now been given us by Covid-19 restrictions to seek the face of God. To seek revelation. To pray. 
And to work on those projects of our hearts which have been smothered by noise, busyness, and the tumult of people and parties. To nurture the fragile dreams still alive in our hearts. The long-deferred duty or vocation
So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I have totally sunk into the rhythm of it, and have got quiet, very quiet, the quietest spell of time I have had as an adult.
I like it. I will find going back to the sometimes frenetic merry-go-round of my old life rather hard. Well, I doubt I will go back to it. I will prune some activities, and generally live more intentionally and mindfully.
I have started blocking internet of my phone and laptop for longer periods of time, and that has brought a lot of internal quiet and peace.
Some of the things I have enjoyed during lockdown have been my daily long walks, and gardening. Well, and reading and working on a longer piece of work.
Here are some images from my walks.
And if you missed it, a blog about maintaining peace in the middle of the storm of a global pandemic
https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/  #walking #contemplating #beauty #oxford #pandemic
A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine. A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine.  We can maintain a mind of life and peace during this period of lockdown by being mindful of our minds, and regulating them through meditation; being mindful of our bodies and keeping them happy by exercise and yoga; and being mindful of our emotions in this uncertain time, and trusting God who remains in charge. A new blog on maintaining a mind of life and peace during lockdown https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/
In the days when one could still travel, i.e. Janu In the days when one could still travel, i.e. January 2020, which seems like another life, all four of us spent 10 days in Malta. I unplugged, and logged off social media, so here are some belated iphone photos of a day in Valetta.
Today, of course, there’s a lockdown, and the country’s leader is in intensive care.
When the world is too much with us, and the news stresses us, moving one’s body, as in yoga or walking, calms the mind. I am doing some Yoga with Adriene, and again seeing the similarities between the practice of Yoga and the practice of following Christ.
https://anitamathias.com/2020/04/06/on-yoga-and-following-jesus/
#valleta #valletamalta #travel #travelgram #uncagedbird
Images from some recent walks in Oxford. I am copi Images from some recent walks in Oxford.
I am coping with lockdown by really, really enjoying my daily 4 mile walk. By savouring the peace of wild things. By trusting that God will bring good out of this. With a bit of yoga, and weights. And by working a fair amount in my garden. And reading.
How are you doing?
#oxford #oxfordinlockdown #lockdown #walk #lockdownwalks #peace #beauty #happiness #joy #thepeaceofwildthings
Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social d Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social distancing. The first two are my own garden.  And I’ve https://anitamathias.com/2020/03/28/silver-and-gold-linings-in-the-storm-clouds-of-coronavirus/ #corona #socialdistancing #silverlinings #silence #solitude #peace
Trust: A Message of Christmas He came to earth in Trust: A Message of Christmas  He came to earth in a  splash of energy
And gentleness and humility.
That homeless baby in the barn
Would be the lynchpin on which history would ever after turn
Who would have thought it?
But perhaps those attuned to God’s way of surprises would not be surprised.
He was already at the centre of all things, connecting all things. * * *
Augustus Caesar issued a decree which brought him to Bethlehem,
The oppressions of colonialism and conquest brought the Messiah exactly where he was meant to be, the place prophesied eight hundred years before his birth by the Prophet Micah.
And he was already redeeming all things. The shame of unwed motherhood; the powerlessness of poverty.
He was born among animals in a barn, animals enjoying the sweetness of life, animals he created, animals precious to him.
For he created all things, and in him all things hold together
Including stars in the sky, of which a new one heralded his birth
Drawing astronomers to him.
And drawing him to the attention of an angry King
As angelic song drew shepherds to him.
An Emperor, a King, scholars, shepherds, angels, animals, stars, an unwed mother
All things in heaven and earth connected
By a homeless baby
The still point on which the world still turns. The powerful centre. The only true power.
The One who makes connections. * * *
And there is no end to the wisdom, the crystal glints of the Message that birth brings.
To me, today, it says, “Fear not, trust me, I will make a way.” The baby lay gentle in the barn
And God arranges for new stars, angelic song, wise visitors with needed finances for his sustenance in the swiftly-coming exile, shepherds to underline the anointing and reassure his parents. “Trust me in your dilemmas,” the baby still says, “I will make a way. I will show it to you.” Happy Christmas everyone.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/24/trust-a-message-of-christmas/ #christmas #gemalderieberlin #trust #godwillmakeaway
Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Gratitude journal, habit tracker, food and exercise journal, bullet journal, with time sheets, goal sheets and a Planner. Everything you’d like to track.  Here’s a post about it with ISBNs https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/23/life-changing-journalling/. Check it out. I hope you and your kids like it!
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