In which I get serious about health and diet and fitness and exercise (really) | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

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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The Spiritual Practice of Bible-Walking

Anita Mathias — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 18:09:46 +0000

A neglected corner of my garden I have loved the Bible for most of my life. When I skip time at play in the fields of the Lord, skip time with the Bible—that fresh, startling way of viewing reality—for even a week, I miss it. My life feels a bit flat and wearisome. I knew […]

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Listening to your Body, Listening to your Life

Anita Mathias — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 20:55:50 +0000

God speaks to us, guides us, and shows us his will through the circumstances of our lives. And sometimes, through our bodies. “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to a deaf world,” as C. S. […]

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On Prayer-Walking, Seeking the Kingdom and Getting it All Thrown in

Anita Mathias — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 08:50:54 +0000

Lake Bled, Slovenia where we were last summer A friend describes her passion as: exercising and travel and exercising when she travels. The last phrase made me feel wistful because I never used to exercise when I travel. I found spending all day on my feet challenge enough. But then, on my return, it took […]

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Biggest Losers, Grace, and Silver Linings

Anita Mathias — Fri, 27 May 2016 21:19:56 +0000

I read the New York Times’ distressing account of The Biggest Loser show. Because of their rapid weight loss, the participants’ metabolisms dramatically slowed down, as happens with any diet. Researchers discovered that, six years on, the metabolism of the contestants continued slowing down, and they continued gaining weight disproportionate to their calorie intake, their […]

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On Not Despising Deliverance

Anita Mathias — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 20:17:48 +0000

“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 […]

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On a Shortcut into Happiness

Anita Mathias — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 11:52:37 +0000

When we sleep, I have read, the unconscious begins to process, resolve, and heal the buried emotions of the day. That little inadvertent thing which seemed so massively embarrassing, but which everyone else has forgotten. The awkwardness, the stresses, the misunderstandings, the little buffetings of the heart. Anxieties, shame, fears, tensions, and triumphs–we relive them, […]

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On Cancer, Declining Chemotherapy, Healing, and Future Plans

Anita Mathias — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 09:58:55 +0000

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 25th, 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 […]

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Surprised: When Exercise and Prayer Provide Similar Benefits

Anita Mathias — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 11:49:52 +0000

“I’ve had a good day,” I say to Roy as we drift off to sleep. “Oh, I thought you said your day wasn’t going well,” he says. “Well it wasn’t, but then it got all turned around.” What turned it round? Well, I went on a 3.25 mile walk, walking as fast as I could, […]

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In Which I Tell You about a Weighty Battle

Anita Mathias — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 23:14:29 +0000

Obesity Influences Have you had “one step forward, one and half step backward” struggles, otherwise known as the dread vicious circle? I am delighted to say that, at the moment, I do not have any vicious circles in my life—those nightmare phases of life where everything you do has unintended negative consequences. You know: You […]

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