Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

What I am Into: Fitocracy, Nicky Gumbel’s Bible in a Year, Malta, Salads and Augie March

By

Model of the Hypogeum, an extensive underground neolithic temple/burial ground (constructed between 4000BC and 2500 BC)1 Fitocracy—a wonderful online fitness MMORG game (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game.)

It was founded by a couple of Asian-American kids who got addicted to playing MMORG games like War of Warcraft or Everquest where the character gains “powers” and grows more powerful the longer you play. And while their avatar grew ever stronger, they themselves grew ever more unfit.

Dick Talens who weighed 230 pounds in high school says, “I remember one summer I’d literally wake up in the morning, play Everquest, eat a few times in the day, and just go to bed. And that’s all I did.” [Read more…]

Anita’s Superlatives: I am Travelling, Museuming, Reading, Going Vegan

By

12 DSCN5111

View from the Chemin de la Corniche (Luxembourg)

I’ve had an amazing week. And here are some superlatives.

Travel–Enjoyed a week at His Place, in Saarland, Germany run by the loving German Community Without Walls. A beautiful, restful and warm place with delicious healthy food. Loved it.

Luxembourg—Luxembourg City is gorgeous, and literally on a gorge. Enjoyed the staggering views, and the buildings built on a rock. I could have spent a couple more days there, just wandering around… Next time.

Wayne Negrini—Greatly enjoyed the hyper-energetic, larger-than-life, warm-hearted wise founder of the Community Without Walls, who spent several hours talking to us over a couple of evenings. He is as knowledgeable about natural health and healing as about the things of the Spirit.

And ladies and gentlemen, I intend to gradually educate myself about the former as much as the latter

The Eat to Live Programme—Part of my problem with weight loss is that I could never hear clearly from God as to what diet to follow. And I guess I needed to repent of and renounce seeking comfort or stress-relief or highs in food rather than God.

Well, I have done that, so was in a right place when Wayne suggested the Eat to Live programme by John Fuhrman M.D.  lending us some videos on it. It’s a low-carb vegan diet. I have been vegetarian before, for long periods of time, but never low-carb vegetarian, and never vegan.

But this diet (unlimited fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, and limited nuts and seeds) is doing wonders for me so far. Some weight lost easily, and I find I need remarkably less sleep, my mind is clearer, and my ability to think and concentrate is vastly increased.

Zoe and Roy who both independently wanted to go vegetarian are on it too. Irene burst into tears at the thought of it, as she loves meat and dairy, but so far, she’s enjoying the creative vegetarian food, and  we’ve told her to eat up on meat and diary at her school lunches!

Pre-Raphaelites at the Tate—A glorious exhibition, including many paintings from private collections.

Best Blog Post I’ve Read This Week.

Loved this post by Glennon Melton in which her husband tells her The News, and she’s suddenly a single mom. My philosophy of blogging is a little like hers, but being American and Californian, she goes much further in openness, honesty and self-revelation.

Glennon says: A life well lived is one lived in the light.  I learned long ago that living a secret life doesn’t work for me. To be healthy and sane —to feel safe—I have to live out loud. There is a saying in recovery: we are sick as our secrets. I refuse to be sick again. So I have to share my truth with you. 

“I only know as much of myself as I have the courage to reveal to you,”  John Powell wrote. The best  blogs I think come out of a relentless pushing towards honesty and truthfulness.

Best passage from an audiobook

We listened to “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” on our way back from Germany. Loved this description of how sanctification works.

The selfish Eustace is turned into a dragon, his animagus or daemon. Then Aslan, the Christ-Lion leads him to a well.

The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don’t know if he said any words out loud or not.

“I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

“But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So 1 scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

“Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

“Then the lion said” – but I don’t know if it spoke – “You will have to let me undress you.” I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.


“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.’

I am in a mid-life process of revising my daily life, schedule, work habits and rhythms, and making them more beautiful, more godly, more monastic if you like.

Some things I can sort of do on my own—put on Rescue Time or Antisocial to avoid internet distraction when I write; wake earlier; exercise; tidy up.

For some things, like eating when stressed or sad or bored or frustrated, a habit I formed decades ago, I need help.

And sometimes, the help Aslan/Jesus gives can hurt at first, but then, it feels so good.

Murakami’s “What I Talk about When I Talk about Running”: The Connection between the Creative Life and Exercise

By

murakamiAvailable on Amazon.com

I am thoroughly enjoying listening to Haruki Murakami’s “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running,” as I am trying to learn to run (using the NHS Couch to 5K app.)

When Murakami began to write full-time, he gained weight. “If I wanted to have a long life as a novelist, I needed to find a way to keep fit and maintain a healthy weight.” He is an introvert, so running suited him.

As he runs, he changes physically–losing all his extra weight, and developing muscle.  “Now, after years of running, my musculature has changed completely.)

And he finds the hour or two of solitude as he runs important to his mental well-being. The endorphins and “runner’s high” “heal the loneliness,” of his solitary novel-writing. ‘This is not so much an intentional act, but an instinctive” solution, he says.

If he feels frustrated, he goes running a little further, “to physically exhaust” his discontent. The experience leaves him physically stronger, and he thus “improves himself.”

And as his muscles “groan and scream,” his “comprehension meter shoots upwards, and he grasps things.”

He writes, “Having a body that easily puts on weight was perhaps a blessing in disguise. If I don’t want to gain weight, I have to work out hard every day, watch what I eat, and cut down on indulgences. Eventually, your metabolism will greatly improve, and you’ll end up much healthier, not mention stronger. You can even slow down the effects of aging. Whereas the physical strength of people who naturally keep the weight off deteriorates as they age. If you don’t exercise, your muscles will weaken, as will your bones. So this physical nuisance should be viewed as a blessing.”

He says the most important things for a novelist are talent, focus and endurance—the same traits a long distance runner needs.  Running helps him write, and vice-versa. Each of his passions gives him the traits he needed for the other.

* * *

 Anyway, I have loved listening to him as I am trying to learn to run, which, sadly, has not been easy.

But, in running, I have found a form of exercise I enjoy and I really look forward to my every second day short run!

The Daniel Plan for Weight Loss and Vibrant Health, by Rick Warren of Saddleback Church

By

I’ve decided to apply the consistency and the persistence that made my dreams come true in some areas of my life to my quest for vibrant health (and weight-loss).
I’d like to highlight the Daniel Plan from Saddleback Church, put together after Rick Warren realised he needed to lose 90 pounds. (He’s lost 60 in a year!)
It’s put together with well-respected medical doctors, Dr Oz, Dr Amen and Dr Hyman.
Okay, it’s the only life-style change, diet and fitness programme I have ever seen or embarked on which sets off NO internal alarm bells. Not—“Is cutting out a food group (fat, meat, carbs, dairy) even healthy?” Not “Is this so restrictive that my metabolism will plummet, making me gain back all I’ve lost?” Not “Will I be able to keep to this diet and do without so many favourite things?” Not, “How long am I going to be able to do all this weighing and measuring?”
Not—WILL it work? Of course, it will. I somehow know that.
Here it is at a glance. No white devils—white sugar, flour or rice. 70 percent of every meal should be fruit and veg—up to 10 servings a day. Protein for breakfast. Protein snacks. Exercise. Earlier bedtimes.
It is eminently sensible and practical.
The website is a rich source of videos, blogs, articles, information–full of motivation. It’s a 52 week programme.
And I have started.
I have lamented my declining fitness on this blog, so how am I doing? Well, I hit my personal highest weight (is that personal best or personal worst?) in mid-Jan, and since then have lost 5 lb.
My goal is to ensure I lose half a pound a week, or 26 pounds by mid-May next year. A small, sweet, achievable goal I intend to achieve.

You see my quest for health and weight-loss has now become so intertwined with my spiritual life that I just don’t feel shalom, a sense of peace and well-being when I am not exercising, or when I am eating sugar, chocolate, crisps, white flour etc –more than once or twice a week. I feel out of control, as I guess I am. And so I know that I will eventually succeed in this health endeavour. I no longer feel spiritually peaceful, happy, or good about myself when my eating and exercise is out of whack, or when I am gaining weight!
  * * *
Success is an interesting thing. It’s a mind-set, a way of thinking and behaving which becomes a habit. Once you have succeeded in anything—any area of endeavour, any goal you have set yourself, you are far more likely to succeed in other endeavours. You have the self-confidence, which is the most important component of success.
You have also, subliminally or practically, learnt to think from A to Z. What are the steps I need to take to see this happen? What can I do today? You’ve learnt to teach yourself the new information you need to succeed.
I am very impressed with the professionalism with which Rick Warren has put together the Daniel plan. I guess his great success with Saddleback Church, and with his book, and speaking has given him the tools and confidence and klout to put this together!

Beauty and God

By

My opinionated daughters engaged me in a heated theological debate on beauty this week.
Irene saunters into my bedroom. Her beloved black and gold Tinker Bell pyjama top has a tear down the seam.
“Irene, throw it away,” I say.
She scrunches up her face, “NO,” she says appalled.
I hand her a needle and thread.
“Then, mend it,” I say.
“No,” she says. “It’s a pyjama top.”
I, “You are a daughter of a King. There is no need for you to wear torn clothes.”
She, appalled again, “He couldn’t care what I look like. He didn’t care what he looked like.”
Me, a bit uncertain, “You don’t think God cares what you look like?”
She, “No! He’d just look at my face.”
Me, “Oh”
* * *
Zoe, 16, agrees with her sister. She wore contact lenses for 2 days, then declared that they were too much hassle. “But, but, but…” I stammer.
My very appearance-conscious father used to joke, “Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses” and got both his daughters contacts in our teens, my sister’s when she was ten!!
I can hardly say that to Zoe. I am, roughly speaking, a feminist, and have tried to raise them to be independent and self-confident.
Zoe, seeing me falter, adds, for good measure. “And I have decided not to ever use make up either.” I gave her a lovely triple layer make-up kit for her 16th birthday, full of the most gorgeous gold, and bronze and silver and purples, which I would have had fun using as a teenager. “What?” I say. “Make up is fun; it’s like art; it’s like painting.” The fact that I rarely remember to use it probably undermines my words.
* * *
I thought of an argument I had with a close American friend of ours, who was a mentor to us when we lived in America around the time Irene was born. I had gained a lot of weight during that pregnancy and he—we had regular bi-weekly spiritual direction sessions over a period of 5 years– was urging me to diet and exercise.
Me, “I don’t think God cares what I look like.”
He, “Anita, when you write how you put it is as important as what you say. Your appearance is part of who you are.”
I somewhat bought his argument—though I have gained another 18 pounds since Irene was born in May 1999. Sigh!
Yes, God loves beauty, and so perhaps we should try to look as attractive as we can, given our starting point?
                                                       * * *
So how should a daughter of the King look? A story I heard the father of the friend I’ve just mentioned tell has influenced my thinking on the subject.
Jack Miller and his wife Rosemary who had founded World Harvest Mission were visiting Uganda. They come late to a meeting, and every seat was taken except the ones right in front, next to the President, Idi Amin. Rosemary nervously tells Jack, “I’ll sit on the grass.” “Jack says, “Rosemary, no! You are wearing a lovely dress. You are a daughter of the King. Be brave. We will sit in front.” And they go and sit next to Idi Amin, who is gracious to them.
This is a useful principle for me when I declutter. If something is too old, faded, stained, worn—whether an item of clothing, or furniture or household item, carpets, towels etc.—to be in the house of a daughter of the King, out it goes.
                                                            * * * 
I don’t agree with Irene. I think God cares for his “original design” in us and wants us to fit and strong, and attractive in accordance with his original design for us. As is fitting for daughters of the King.
* * *
I noticed over the 17 years I lived in America that every female Christian leader and teacher was also slim and gorgeous. She would not have had much appeal to other Christian women if she had not been so. And so would not have been able to exercise her ministry as effectively
*  * *
I have have theoretically acquiesced that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and it is important to keep it fit. However, my resolutions falter on a weekly basis faced with chocolate, let’s say, or how much more magnetic my laptop is than weight-lifting. I guess the girls have picked up what I do rather than what I say.
* * *
I have two friends with the degenerative neurological disease, MND or Lou Gehrigh’s disease. They have speech and physical therapy. Their body will degenerate anyway—but fighting against it will so something to ameliorate the degeneration.
And so, if, despite trying, in fits and starts, to exercise and eat more healthily, I still gain a few pounds over a course of the year, I am trying not to be discouraged, but remember that if I did not, I could easily gain a few pounds in the course of a month—or week.
                                                               * * *
So what do you think? Does God care about what we look like? Would he like us to continue trying to look reasonably attractive—or is he mainly concerned with the beauty of our spirits?

Pedometers, Prayer Walking and the Bible on the Hoof

By

I love the idea of leverage: actions which yield (financial, psychological, physical, or creative) benefits out of all proportion to the time they take.
I started thinking in those terms when I founded my micro-publishing business. Given that I had limited time, how could I best use my time, talent, energy and money to make the most repeatable income? Now, my husband runs our family business—and I am beginning to apply these ideas to our daily life.
What small changes can I make in my daily life which will yield big benefits? Being tidy and decluttering is one. Paying off my mortgage and investing even small surpluses is another. Healthy eating. And exercise!!
  “Exercise is good for you in almost every way,” as an article in today’s New York Times said. It returns the time expended many times over in deeper sleep, improved concentration and cognitive  function, better mood, and probably increased creativity.
The only problem with exercise (for me!) is the doing of it! By temperament, I’d happily stay in bed with my laptop and books, and have a pj day everyday.
                                              * * *
Ah, the only way to change one’s life is to initiate several small micro-changes in one’s daily habits.
So I did two things. I got an Omron pedometer, supposedly the best pedometer. 10,000 steps a day (5 miles over the course of the day) is meant to be enough for basic fitness.
I have been steadily increasing this—am at 8000 now–and will reach 10,000 before our holiday in Istanbul this weekend. Sadly, one cannot reach 10,000 steps in the course of a normal day’s activities.  Most people reach a mere 3000. It takes one or two walks.
And how do I find the time for that?
Well, I reluctantly substituted my precious 45-60 minutes of soaking prayer for prayer walking. See David Cooke’s excellent post on the practice. And Lee Merrill’s guest post on my blog on her prayer walks.
The experience of praying on the hoof is different. It calls for quite an adjustment. Prayer walking, around the perimeters of our 1.5 acre property, and then on the fields and farms around us, is more distracting, especially in my own orchard and huge vegetable garden, as I see things which need to be done. My thoughts wander far more than when in my room, face down, in an attitude of surrender.
And, it’s April now. It’s spring.
Oh, to be in England now that April ’s there
And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
 Robert Browning wrote. Indeed! As I walk through our woods, and field after field, up on the ridge, surveying Garsington, and the hills around Oxford, and the birds sing, and the trees break forth into songs of blossom, I feel ecstatic. Full of joy breaking forth.
I pray, or maybe the beauty of the day prays through me in glorious praise. It’s not me and the Lord having a little business meeting, or a tutorial, or editorial session or a mentoring session as when I pray about my other concerns. It’s me speechless, just praising God (in tongues!) for the beauty and the loveliness and the joy in the air. (I live in the country, in a particularly lovely part of lovely Oxfordshire, IMO.)
Ah, Glorious distraction. It is perhaps no coincidence that the only instructions (I can think of) that Jesus gave us as to where we should pray was this,
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Mt. 6:6.
But because I have been trying to shift weight, and have only shifted 6.5 pounds in the last 3 months, I need to continue to make daily changes. And so making a sedentary activity I do daily an ambulatory one will be a good change. As well as helping me towards that elusive 10,000 steps on the pedometer.
I guess I will have to rely on some of the old “formulae” for prayer—such as the Lord’s Prayer– to keep my thoughts focussed. Andrew Wingfield-Digby, Vicar of St. Andew’s, Oxford, which we’ve attended for a year (and former chaplain of England’s cricket team and currently head chaplain of the international team of chaplains at the 2012 London Olympics) goes on two prayer walks a day, and his formula is TRIP, thanksgiving, repentance, intercession, praise, which I think I will use. The old one ACTS has language too outdated for me to connect with—adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, supplication.
               * * *
I have also been jogging (well, to be accurate, trying to jog) 3 days a week for the last few months, while listening to the Bible in a Year on my iPhone. So I am almost up to date with that.
I think the Bible needs a good editor!! Putting unedited Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy so early on makes it hard to persevere and get to the better stuff.
Perhaps listening while jogging is the best way to go. You enjoy the hints of the coming Christ; you enjoy the symbolism which Christ will enact, like the blood of the lamb on the gate posts to avert the angel of death; the scapegoat who goes into the wilderness bearing the sins of the people; and the Day of Atonement–but you have the consolation of the endorphins and your body’s “grateful pain,” happiness in its discomfort, to comfort you as jog along through the endless rules and regulations of Leviticus.
Am on Deuteronomy 30 now, so happy to report that I have womanfully jogged through Numbers and Leviticus and most of Deuteronomy!

Does Exercise Make You a Better Person?

By

Chariots of Fire

When I had a David Lloyd, Oxford, membership, I used to be surprised by how happy everyone seemed. Smiley, happy, positive and ebullient.

Most or all of the staff were probably not Christians, so there was no spiritual explanation at work. I had to look for natural explanations for why they seemed more happy and upbeat than the average person.

Undoubtedly, it was partly because of good management. Bad and mean management hurts business because employees become disgruntled.

However, the number of exercise classes the staff led each day, and the endorphins pumping through their bodies no doubt made them feel better physically, which made them feel better emotionally. And, if they were spiritual, the glowing health, and the well-stretched muscles, would have made it easier for them to experience God.

* * *

 I used to hate PE and games at school. I am now surprised at how good I feel after vigorous exercise, like a run. How euphoric even, how tolerant of human annoyingness, how clear-headed, how able to work for long hours. So resistant to annoyance and disappointment.

It’s like an inoculation of the mind and emotions, making me able to work longer and harder, to withstand reverses, to handle rudeness or shortness with equanimity.

Exercise makes us better people. It may not change the heart, make a stingy person generous, a malicious or malevolent person benevolent. But its short-term effects improve our personalities. If persisted with, it would change our characters (not least of all, in developing discipline). We become sunnier. Happier. Easier to live with. We sleep better. Think better, more clearly and rationally. We work better and for longer.

It injects sunshine into the personality. We are much less irritable and snappish; our mood is better; we feel better about ourselves. We feel more energetic, positive, optimistic, calm, forbearing, tolerant. In other words, we feel more like Christians.

In fact, perhaps exercise makes it easier for us to take up our cross and follow Jesus. I do believe it.

I have been struggling to develop the habit of daily exercise for 22 months (during which I have lost 24 pounds!!), and it’s still not as much of a habit as writing is, say. But I do exercise at least a little most days, and am miserable and cranky when I do not.

I am convinced of its benefits, and enjoy it once I have hit my stride, and so I will persist, until it is as much of a habit as writing is.

In Praise of Naps

By

I am doing quite well with waking up a little earlier every day because I do have a perfect, and perfectly restful nap later on, if I need to. One of my favourite descriptions of a nap is Iris Murdoch’s “Two days for the price of one,” in “The Good Apprentice.”

I also love Thomas Edison’s way of working– he had a couch in his lab, and would steal a nap whenever he was tired, and then get back to work, fresh and green.

Getting up with the sun has been a holy grail for me all my life, and I am now getting closer to achieving this, through the habit of stealing a nap or two when I am tired, so that when I do read, or write, or talk to my family and friends, I am fresh and full of beans. (Though not overwhelmingly so, I hope).

Of course, working at home makes this a lot easier.