In which I explore Living as a Christian | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

On the amazing Baptism in the Holy Spirit–and its limits!

Anita Mathias — Fri, 16 Mar 2018 21:25:37 +0000

John the Baptist’s preaching caused a revival, of sorts. “The whole Judaean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.” (Mark 1:5) This explosion of popularity did not throw him off course. He did not try to maintain his momentum or his platform. He stayed focused on the Message-giver, and his message […]

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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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Hope for Limping Christians. Changing your Character is both an Act of Will and an Act of Grace

Anita Mathias — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 20:09:17 +0000

Neuroscientist James Fallon was (interestingly!) studying the brains of murderous psychopaths, using brain scans of his family as a control group of the healthy. He suddenly noticed the unmistakable brain scan of a psychopath among his family’s scans. Puzzled, certain it has been misfiled, he has the technician break the code. The brain of […]

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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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On Planting Secret Seeds for the Kingdom and for the Love of Jesus. And on a Role Model of Christian Leadership

Anita Mathias — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 12:25:56 +0000

I am fascinated by the Moravians founded by the reformer Jan Huss, remarkable for their 24/7 prayer which led to a worldwide burst of missionary activity, remarkable for sacrificial exploits like selling themselves into slavery to be able to credibly preach the Gospel to slaves. Comenius, a Moravian Bishop (selected by Life magazine as one […]

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A Spiritual Late Bloomer, I Learn from Failure in my Messy Beautiful Life

Anita Mathias — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 19:00:01 +0000

When my daughter Zoe was born, twenty-one years ago, frazzled between nursing, and impractical plans of still writing, I made a mental prayer list to pray through as I pushed her stroller round our neighbourhood. And blush: All those items are still on my prayer list. 1 Losing Weight. I still have 12 pounds more to […]

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Never be Shamed or Humiliated by How Other People Treat You

Anita Mathias — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 14:01:16 +0000

Tarquin rapes the innocent Lucretia. Lucretia kills herself. She becomes the prototype of people who feel shamed because of things done to them, shamed to the point of death, as we read in media account of Indian girls or their fathers who commit suicide after gang-rape. Listen up: I tell myself, and I would wish to […]

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When the Risky Word of the Lord Came to the Lonely Prophets

Anita Mathias — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 19:12:33 +0000

I am listening to the Bible in a year while walking country trails. Listening to a whole book in a long walk or two, helps me see “the big picture” of Scripture and its themes. The Prophets have grabbed me. You just don’t mess with those Prophets, because God is with them. And yet, it’s a lonely […]

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Living in a Story Still Being Written

Anita Mathias — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 22:57:47 +0000

It can take ten thousand years for the light from the most distant stars in our galaxy to reach us. And if the speed of light can be so slow, if its story unravels so glacially, why are we astonished when we fail to immediately understand the story of our lives? * * * […]

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Busyness is not just FROM the Devil, it IS the Devil (Carl Gustav Jung)

Anita Mathias — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:06:00 +0000

An interesting idea to explore. I came across that statement about 25 years ago in Richard Foster’s classic, “Celebration of Discipline.” As someone who always has lots of books and movies she wants to read and see, places she wants to travel to, people she wants to hang out with, and things she wants […]

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