Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Zapping Negativity and Worry Through Prayer and Faith

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praying-handsDr. Barbara Fredrickson in her book Positivity ( Norman Vincent Peale with data) says that “experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio to negative ones leads people to a tipping point beyond which they naturally become more resilient to adversity and effortlessly achieve what they once could only imagine.”

And how do we do experience three positive emotions to one negative one?

Well, here’s one way for a Christian: We interject prayer into our lives, until it becomes as instinctive as breathing. Okay, let’s start small: As instinctive as worrying!

Some examples…

  • * *

It’s University application season, and parents and children are getting nervous. None of us wants to drop the ball. My daughter Irene is applying to one of the most competitive courses in one of the most competitive Universities in Britain.

We can do this two ways…though worry and anxiety and striving, or in peace and quiet and trust and prayer from which the wisdom and strategies we need will blossom. I know which path we are going to take. So each worry, I plan to turn into prayer, so that, whatever the outcome, with God’s help this is going to be the most prayer-soaked University application ever.

* * *

I now try to add a 50 percent margin to everything I do. If I think it will take 30 minutes to get to small group, or to German class, I leave 45 minutes early, and use the extra time to practice German on Duolingo or catch up with email, and replies to Facebook comments or tweets. And this injects serenity into my day.

And what when things go wrong, as things are apt to do, and I am rushing somewhere and sense time is against me?  I relax. I do my Duolingo. I listen to my book on tape. I breathe. I close my eyes and pray (Roy drives!) about the next things in my day. I do not look at the time. Half the time, we are not late after all, and when we are… well, at least I don’t know how late. Being stressed about the outcome won’t change it, but using the time to retreat into the cave of God, there’s holiness and peace and wisdom and strength in that.

* * *

I’ve blogged for over five years now, and every now and then I hit a wall.

And the wall—a temporary plateau in subject matter, style and audience–is an important thing for a blogger to hit. Otherwise, we can go on autopilot, saying the same things we’ve said before, boring ourselves and the world!!

When I used to hit a wall, I would feel I should blog up, write more mandarin posts, carefully written, long, on subjects likely to speak to or engage many people. Yeah, sounds to me like a recipe for writers’ block, insecurity, frustration, weariness and stress. For it’s best to blog your weekday self, not your Sunday best!

But now that I am tired, when I hit a wall, I blog down. Share little things which interest me, a bit like Facebook. Share my fears, failures and worries. Find my subject matter in honesty about what it’s really like to follow Christ.  Find newness in honesty, the best place to find newness!

And then I pray—for ideas, for time, for energy, for readers, for deeper surrender, for the ability to abide in Christ ever more deeply, to burrow deeper into his heart, and record what I overhear as Isaiah did.  Prayer thus converts the butterfly flutter of fear when stats plunge into faith and assurance, which is a sine qua none for writing well and quickly.

* * *

I have lost 24 pounds since changing my diet, but as anyone who tries to change their body knows, scales have a mind of their own. And when they tilt upwards, I have learnt that there is only one thing to do to keep focused—return to thanksgiving for all I have lost. Renew a commitment to health, to 10,000 steps a day, and more fruits and vegetables!

Ask Christ “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” to show me the best way to get strong.

And my heart and emotions are stabilized and, indeed, hopeful.

* * *

Prayer calms me, opens my mind up to possibilities, reassures me of an infinite power beyond myself.  I work in a more assured and relaxed way.

These are the benefits of prayer, if there were no God.

But, of course, there is a God and so prayer has a power whose limits we can only guess.

Many things happen in our lives, and in other people’s lives because we have prayed.

So much so, that as Mark Batterson says, the transcript of our prayers can become the transcript of our lives.

 

Living in a Story Still Being Written

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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?

* * *

 Joseph, in the well, abandoned, betrayed.

All his dreams of glory—had come to this.

It seemed utterly meaningless–because the next chapter had not yet to be written.

* * *

Joseph in charge of Potiphar’s household.

The shepherd boy becomes the head butler in an Egyptian country house.

Was that the meaning of the well, and the humiliations of slavery at the hands of the hairy Ishmaelites?

Only part of it. The story was still being written. He was a character in a story someone else was writing. How could he understand his own story in medias res?

* * *

The dungeon, punishment for righteousness.

“But, Lord, I thought I understood the plot you were writing. Now WHAT are you doing?”

Utterly forsaken.

* * *

 But the dungeon was the way for the butler of a small manor to meet royalty.

Again, God blessed Joseph. Again, he rose to the top. And once again, apparent failure and humiliation were the means of Joseph’s elevation to an entirely different social, economic and political circle.

Let no one underestimate the creativity of the Master Craftsman of the Universe.

* * *

We cannot understand the story of our lives while we are living them.

We do not understand the significance of each plot element yet. They seem random, inexplicable, and cruel. It takes the retrospective glance to understand.

* * *

And my story? It has foolishness in it, ah so much—money and opportunity and years and talents squandered.

It has sin in it, my sin, and sins against me. It has apparent dead ends, missed opportunities, wastage, stupidity and heartbreak.

* * *

And because a master artist is still working on it, still writing it, it has gold in it, infinite possibilities for redemption.

I do not yet know how God will weave all the plot elements together into an eternal beautiful story, and make it all the apparent red herrings and random plot twists work out for good, but I know he will. He’s that smart.

And I trust him.

 

 

The Voices of Two Financial Planners in my Head. And I Choose

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Valley_of_flowers_uttaranchal_full_view

Thus speaks the voice of the world as expressed by Robert Frost’s in this poem,

Provide, Provide

The witch that came (the withered hag)

To wash the steps with pail and rag

Was once the beauty Abishag,

The picture pride of Hollywood.

Too many fall from great and good

For you to doubt the likelihood.

Die early and avoid the fate.

Or if predestined to die late,

Make up your mind to die in state.

Make the whole stock exchange your own!

If need be occupy a throne,

Where nobody can call you crone.

Some have relied on what they knew,

Others on being simply true.

What worked for them might work for you.

No memory of having starred

Atones for later disregard

Or keeps the end from being hard.

Better to go down dignified

With boughten friendship at your side

Than none at all. Provide, provide!

It is the voice of fear. You never know what’s going to happen.  Provide, provide.

* * *

 And then I read the parable of the Rich Fool, Luke 12 13-21 last week. He was somebody who certainly provided well, and yet God, who should know, called him a fool!!

And Jesus suggests an alternative financial planning strategy. If you have not saved, be completely relaxed. In fact, don’t worry about saving. Your Father feeds the ravens, clothes the lilies, has his eye on the sparrow, and on your thinning hair.

* * *

Listen to the voice of Jesus, the wise, startling, contrarian voice of Jesus:

 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

27 “Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 

And this precisely why the Gospel is good news. Good news for everyone, especially the poor.

If, like the majority of the world’s population, you have no savings to put in your storeroom or barn, rejoice anyway for Christ promises to clothe and feed you.

And if, like many people (including I, myself) you uneasily feel you have not saved enough, rejoice, for God promises to feed and clothe you.

And if, you are among the small minority who have saved more than you realistically need, rejoice, for you can give some of it away generously, storing treasure in God’s ultra-safe bank.

* * *

So which voice do we listen to? Trusting God in periods of fear and worry and uncertainty can be like going through a dark tunnel in which you hear rat’s feet over broken glass, see spiders loom in their aerial webs, whose urine is said to be so concentrated that a drop could blind you. And you hear voices whisper, whispers of dread.

But at the end there is light. God proves true to his promises.

How do I know? Two ways. Empirically, I have had repeated experiences of God working together everything for God. And through reading the Bible and reading biographies and hearing the stories of faithful Christians.

* * *

And what does not trusting God feel like. Providing, providing?  Relying on uour own effort, sweat, cunning and cleverness?

It also feels like going through a dark tunnel in which you hear rat’s feet over broken glass, see spiders loom in their aerial webs. And you hear voices whisper, whispers of dread.

And at the end? Yet, another tunnel of fear and worry! For the voices of fear never shut up.  “Perhaps you could lose it all. Inflation, taxation, the collapse of the banks, the financial system, the internet, the West. It’s happened before.” And, no matter the figures on your bank statement, the voice still says, Provide, Provide.

How do I know? I’ve known people like this.  Haven’t you?

* * *

 To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. (Ecc. 2:26)

Two pills, red and blue. Take the red pill of the world’s reality, refuse to entrust yourself and your money (or the lack of it) to God, and walk on the broad path of self-reliance. But this path narrows, worries never end, for few have the wisdom to realize they have enough.

Or try the blue pill of faith and trust, which few have taken, but has failed few. The road is narrow to begin with.   It’s quieter.

You are trusting God with your career, so there’s a lot less hustling, and a lot less noise. You are trusting God with your income and savings, so there’s a lot less hustling. You are trusting him with friendships, and with your work in the world. You try to remember to ask for his guidance before you act, so everything gets a lot quieter.

But gradually, after you have paid your dues in the valley of obscurity, as you prove to be faithful in small things, life opens out.

You emerged from the narrow, strait, dark mountain path to a sun-bright plain. A world in which you are walking in your Father’s blessing, and seeing his magic. Your Father’s world.

And you love it! You are so relieved that you decided to take Jesus at his word.

 

In Which He Loves Me Anyway

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 My day is running away with me, and I am not getting much done, and I look at the clock, and realise my day is not working out very well.
And that’s when it’s lovely to realise that God loves me when my day works out with mathematical precision, and loves me when it doesn’t.
Loves me when he gives me blogs which are right at the first typing, and loves me when I spend hours on a post which flops,
Loves me when my house is a mess, and I am a mess, and loves me when we’re all shinily together.
Loves me! Loves me, loves me, loves me, just because he’s lovely.
The love of God, the love of God!
It is indeed the great theme I could ponder forever, and just scratch its surface.
And so, instead, I’ll rest in it.


The Hills are Alive with Angels in Chariots of Fire, and Christ Walks on the Thames

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 Billy Bragg sings Jerusalem at Greenbelt 2011
 And did those feet in ancient time.

Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green and pleasant Land

William Blake
Blake refers to the pleasing. apocryphal tradition that the young Christ visited Glastonbury with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea. 
And though the answer to all Blake’s questions is No–it is thrilling: the notion that those feet, in ancient time, walked upon England’s mountains green, that the Holy Lamb of God was upon England’s pleasant pastures seen, and the Countenance Divine shone forth among our clouded hills.
What is no less thrilling but actually true is those feet still walk upon England’s mountains green, that the Holy Lamb of God is among England’s pleasant pastures seen, and that the Countenance Divine shines forth among our clouded hills.
We just do not slow down enough to see or recognize him walking beside us.
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Visionaries and prophets on the other hand can always see the one walking beside. Always another walking beside us. Can see the hills around us ringed with angels in chariots and fire. Can see Jacob’s ladder between heaven and Charing Cross, as Francis Thompson saw it, or between Heaven and Oxford. Can see Christ walking on the water, not of Gennesaret but Thames, or the Isis and Cherwell.
Here’s one of my favourite poems by a Christian mystic, Francis Thompson.
The Kingdom of God
1
“IN NO STRANGE LAND”
O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
5 Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air—
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumor of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
10 And our benumbed conceiving soars!—
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places—
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
15 ’Tis ye, ’tis your estrangéd faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
20 Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
2
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry—clinging Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Genesareth, but Thames!
Oh, may I always see Him walking beside me.

When Should we Quit Praying? Or, How to Pray for Impossible Things.

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Nik Wallenda performs a walk on a tightrope during a training session in a wind-driven mist at Niagara Falls, New York, on Monday.

Nik Wallenda performs a walk on a tightrope during a training session in a wind-driven mist at Niagara Falls, New York, on Monday.

 Image Credit

I’ve know a lovely man who, a few years ago, fell off a ladder, and broke his back, severing his spinal cord. As a result of that tragic minute, he became a paraplegic, wheelchair bound. They have been told the spinal cord damage is irreversible.

This has been near impossible for his loving wife, in particular, to accept. Prayer for healing has consumed their lives. Going to healing prayer centres, getting people through the country to pray. They have found it hard to be in home groups, because most members lacked the faith to continue praying for complete healing, which, is, apparently a medical impossibility.

But faith that he will be healed has shaped their lives. When they remodelled their kitchen, they put counters at the usual level, not handicapped accessible. She galvanized everyone to pray for healing in time for their daughter’s wedding, so he could walk the bride down the aisle, but, alas, that did not happen.

But she remains convinced her husband will be healed.

* * *

I salute her faith.

However, I have long been on prayer ministry teams, but do not pray for things I lack faith to believe will happen. When a much childless older woman asks me to pray for a baby, I think biology and fertility and inexorable facts, and try to get someone with more faith to pray for her.

To my shame, I lack faith to pray for healing when people in wheelchairs ask me to pray that they will walk again, or near-blind people ask me to pray that they will see. Technically, I believe in miracles; practically, if I can’t “see” it happen, I don’t want to toy with their faith, and damage it further. To pray for something I do not have the faith to believe will happen feels almost like mocking God, and so I get help.

Heidi Baker says the blind have seen and the lame have walked when she has prayed for them, and I believe her. These miracles have been attested by eyewitnesses from many nations.  But that is her “anointing,” what she has faith to believe will happen, and so what she sees happen, again and again.

My faith, far weaker than hers, is strong in different realms.

* * *

There is a saying in Charismatic circles: You must see it to receive it.

I frowned the first time I heard that;  it sounded as if it came from a productivity book. But I now think it’s true.

Secular people would call it “creative visualization.” Perhaps, you must somehow “see” it happening in the spiritual realm to be able to believe it will happen –and then to later see it actually happen in the physical realm. And so I never pray with people for things I cannot “see” happen or believe will happen.

·      * * *

Faith, however, does move mountains. My husband’s small group has been consistently praying for Tamsyn, the Manic Mum, who is a friend of the leader. As you can read, her husband Alex suffered a minor brain injury playing rugby in France with friends, which through a series of unfortunate medical mistakes, led to brain swelling, epilepsy, blindness, drastically impaired speech and movement. The French doctors delicately said he would be “a vegetable.”  The English doctors delicately suggested she put him in a long-term nursing home, and get on with life.

As Dr. Dean Ornish comments, the speed and even the possibility of recovery from brain injury depends on love, depends on how much time people are willing to invest in helping you rehabilitate.

Tamsyn, a Christian, refused to accept the predictions and has been helping Alex try to speak, move, respond, cross one minuscule milestone after another, as you can read on her blog.

* * *

And the power of faith and prayer should never be under-estimated. A mum in a small group I went to was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, the most deadly kind of brain tumour, and given two years max to live. Most people die within six months of diagnosis.

She got intensive prayer from our whole church, and is alive, functioning and even travelling, four and a half years later, despite some physical and mental deterioration.

I put this down to the power of prayer.

* * *

So how do we pray for impossible things?

I think the only way we can pray for impossible things with peace are the twin prayers Jesus prayed in Gethsemane.  “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

And then,  “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” 

Ah, how hard, how inexpressibly hard it is to believe in the good story God is writing in your life when it involves pits and dungeons, as with Joseph; dens and lions as with Daniel. The valleys and depths  in which one is prepared for the mountain-tops of glory and spiritual promotion!!

But, hey, ultimately, we are only co-authors of the story of our lives. We need the humility and flexibility to accept it when God appears to be writing a different plot, a different story, than the one we had dreamed of, and hoped for. Accept the plot change, even while we continue to pray for the plot we want.

Oh, this tight-rope walk of faith!! We only get through it without broken hearts because He, whom we love and trust, is our balancing wire as we cross the Niagara Falls of our lives with faith and hope. And a smile!

The Stars Sing of Him who has the Power to Make Dreams Come True

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One of the delights of living in the country, in a small village outside Oxford, is returning home at night, stepping out of the car, and looking up at the night sky, so vast and tranquil.

We live at the end of a dirt road, where all houses stop, so there are generally no lights to dim the brightness of the stars.
It is calming to stop and look up at the silent beauty of the stars. “Le silence eternel de ces espaces infinis” as Pascal puts it, the eternal silence of the infinite spaces.

* * *
Abraham, stuck in his tent of impossibility, was told to step out, look at the heavens. And count the stars.
An impossible task.
And a reminder that nothing is impossible for him who made those stars, and called them each by name.
Look up. Count the stars. And when you grow tired, remember the tireless one who made them.

* * *

Don Miller tries to make his book Blue Like Jazz into a movie. He hits obstacles. His life does not have a satisfying plot. He needs to lose 150 pounds, but does not pursue the goal in a consistent way. He would like to trace the father, who abandoned him, but has not pursued that consistently either. He sees these false starts and dead ends destroy the shapely form of the story of his life.

In A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, he describes how he set about changing the story he was writing with his life. He loses the 150 pounds. He finds his father.

* * *

Does your life have dreams long deferred, goals you should have accomplished, but haven’t?

Mine does. One is finishing the memoir on which I worked off and on for 15 years, and which, to be honest, had reached daunting proportions. And the other is reaching optimal health for my age, which includes weight loss. Still another dream is waking at 5 o’clock!

* * *

And the key to accomplishing both these goals will be saturating them in prayer. Placing the petri dish with my prayer requests in the force field of God’s power.

Remembering not to try to accomplish these goals on my own, but through constantly asking for and accessing, “his incomparably great power for us who believe, which is the same as the mighty strength  he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead.”

Living by faith. Continually leaning on God’s power and help and grace and ideas.

Oh, help me, God.

 

In Which Jesus Says That, For Our Sakes, He’s Glad About the Grief Which Deepens Our Faith

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  “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake, I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” John 11

 What?

So you considered it worth it?

That grief so shattering that we wished we too could just die.

That emptiness, life robbed of its point,

You were glad all that happened

Just so we could believe?

 

Is faith then truly the pearl of great price,

Worth anything

The golden key to your wonderland?

The only way we can step over

Into your kingdom, live in your sunshine?
Yes, for faith sets you free
to laugh, to live, to trust
to skip from day to day happily
Knowing
All things are in my hands.”

Faith sets you free
to sing like the birds of the air,
Bloom like a lily,
Laugh as a child
Knowing her father’s eyes are on her,
And they have a gleam in them. 

 

Oh Lord, I choose faith today,

I choose to believe what you say.

 

Lord, I believe.

Help thou my unbelief.