The Power of Gratitude | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Gratitude: A Secret to Happiness

Anita Mathias — Sun, 07 Jan 2018 13:57:03 +0000

Georgia O’Keefe All of us have a negativity bias which makes us more apt to remember one mean comment about our writing, our children, our appearance, or our characters, than dozens of positive ones. It’s true, isn’t it? More disquietingly, I’ve read, in Andrew Solomon’s brilliant The Noonday Demon that the myelin sheath around […]

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Grazie Signore! “Thank you, Lord, for those who have greater gifts.”

Anita Mathias — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 11:14:18 +0000

In his excellent The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning mentions the limited Antonio Salieri, court composer to the Holy Roman Emperor, who was conscientious, devout, and wildly jealous of the wildly gifted Mozart who–neither conscientious, nor devout–tossed off sublime music in the interludes of a life of “wine, women and song, and he didn’t sing much.” […]

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On Choosing Happiness Today

Anita Mathias — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 19:04:24 +0000

The three legged runner is the symbol of the beautiful Isle of Man which I loved exploring. Ah, that’s me. One foot in the past—well, naturally, I am writing a memoir. One foot in the present, trying to live each day well. One restless foot leaping into the future, planning, dreaming. But perhaps the most […]

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Let me be singing when the evening comes

Anita Mathias — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 20:55:47 +0000

My daughters, Zoe and Irene, returned from a visit to my mother in India moved and struck by a 91 year old childless widow called Jenny. Jenny lived alone, in a tiny house that a landlord had carved off from his own house. One “room” was a corridor. Her tiny bedroom leaked and the landlord […]

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The Words Which Change Everything

Anita Mathias — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 19:12:40 +0000

Words which take the hard shell of the present When it feels devoid of nourishment, just hard, just hard Take it and crack it, And reveal the sweet meat within it: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Though my day is not panning out as it should, Though my work is not panning […]

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