In which I Travel and Dream | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Why I want to go to Tonle Batie, Cambodia with Tearfund

I am applying to travel with Tearfund to Cambodia, to the village of Tonle Batie, near Pnomh Penh.

Cambodia endured extreme economic and social devastation during the years of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, which has left a legacy of widows and orphans; of people who find it difficult to trust each other enough to work together; and a generation without the education to swiftly escape poverty.

I have watched interviews with Yiv Toch, a hardworking mum, and with Gneam, 65, who had lost her husband to malnutrition under the Khymer Rouge, and, then, her second husband (given her in one of Pol Pot’s forced marriages). Both have no margin against hunger or sickness, save borrowing at 120%.

However, the local church, largely composed of recent converts, (and their energetic volunteer Pastor Ke Pich, a Tearfund worker Navy, and a Youth worker Thany) is catalysing the community, infusing it with new hope, enthusiasm, and energy to pull itself out of crushing poverty.

The little miracles Jesus describes in his Gospel stories are a reality here. Yiv Toch who was given 8 chicks describes, joyfully, how she now has 50, which she can sell for extra income. The two community pigs are pregnant. Landless families who dream of a bit of land can grow vegetables in the church’s communal garden.

The pump donated by a well-meaning church, was dug so deep that the water poisoned crops and then it broke; there was no money to repair it. The community brainstormed and decided to cooperate to dig a pond to store rainwater so that—in this village without running water–they can grow vegetables, even out of the rainy season.

Gneam inspecting the eggplants.

I love these real-life stories of using creativity, ingenuity and hardwork to escape poverty. It would be a privilege to tell them!

* * *

The roots of my Christian faith are entwined with the poor. When I first committed to follow Christ, aged 17, Christ’s command “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me,” leaped out at me from the Gospels, and I decided to work with Mother Teresa.

I worked with Mother Teresa for 14 months, and truly enjoyed hanging out with the poor, with the “scheduled tribes” in Orissa, whom India’s development hasn’t benefited, and at Kalighat, Mother Teresa’s Home for The Dying Destitute.

However, after I came to England, studying English at Somerville College, Oxford, I have worked as a writer, and in publishing. But each time, I listen to Heidi Baker mention God’s directive to her to sit at the feet of the poor, I uneasily feel as if I am missing out on a vital aspect of the Christian life. The Gospel is good news to the poor, and perhaps the Gospel alive in our lives must, in some way, bring good news to the poor.

* * *

I would particularly enjoy observing and telling the story of the village of Tonle Batie, Cambodia, since I am an entrepreneur. I have founded two businesses with minimal capital, and the second, a small publishing company, now solely supports our family. So I am impressed by the village’s income generation schemes, which will gradually create self-sufficiency through creativity and ingenuity.

* * *

Another reason I am eager to visit Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in the world, is that the primary theme of my blog, Dreaming Beneath the Spires, is the intersection of faith and theology with everyday life. Hanging out with the poor—close to stark reality—you encounter the great theological questions (and perhaps answers): Whether God is indeed just if we contend with him; why God permits suffering, and whether there is anything redemptive about it; whether the Gospel and the power of prayer work anywhere in the world; whether God’s love and care is an ever-present reality for people in Tonle Batie, Cambodia as for those in Oxford, England, where I live.

* * *

I love travelling: visiting new countries; understanding, soaking in, and photographing new cultures; and writing about them on my blog, sensitively and affectionately. Writing about travel is a secondary strand in my blog, and interests my readers. I would love to tell the story of how Tearfund’s partner International Cooperation for Cambodia, and the local church are helping people heal after the traumatic years of the Khmer Rouge; and to learn to trust one another, and work together for the future with hope.

* * *

I have been blogging for three and a half years, and have begun developing a “platform”– about 15,000 page views a month; about 1700 Facebook fans and friends; and about 34,000 followers on Twitter where I am active (and have been a finalist for the Christian New Media “Tweeter of the Year Award.”)

I would be delighted to leverage my story-telling gifts and social media friendships to help raise money for Tonle Batie by telling its story. I regularly exchange guest posts with other established bloggers, and would love to to guest-post about my experiences in Cambodia.

Tearfund would like each blogger to inspire 20 people to contribute £3 a month so that 23 new families could go through the Church and Community Mobilisation process, being able to send their children to school, learn new farming techniques, and put food on the table. I feel certain my amazing warm-hearted audience of committed Christians readers as well as my personal and church friends and family would enjoy supporting this interesting unfolding story. I look forward to doing so myself.

* * *

Personally speaking, the practice of gratitude has been transforming my spiritual life and is an important strand in my blog. I was struck by people’s shining eyes as they described chickens multiplying, vegetables growing, not having to worry about having enough food, or having to withdraw their children from school. Oh I would love to learn and relearn gratitude for the goodness of God, which I can take for granted!

The Gospel is good news to the poor, and is the world’s greatest force for poverty reduction, I believe. Where it roots, people pray, which gives them new hope and precipitates divine assistance. People work with new enthusiasm, for the Gospel catalyses creativity. People act honestly, which breeds the trust on which co-operative entrepreneurship depends.

And since the Gospel is indeed the power of God, it will work anywhere in the world. It will be exciting to observe the Gospel at work, and Aslan on the move, in the community of Tonle Batie, Cambodia–and to tell the story of this new chapter in The Greatest Story Ever Told!

The Stunning Mosaics at Monreale Cathedral, Palermo, Sicily

By Anita Mathias

A guest post written by my husband, Roy

We had a peaceful afternoon exploring Monreale Cathedral and the adjacent 12th century Benedictine Cloister with its 200 twin columns each with intriguing individually carved capitols. Monreale Duomo is a 12th Century cathedral with some of the world’s best mosaics. The mosaics are far more extensive than those in St. Mark’s in Venice. I have only shown a few here.

The mosaic of Christ Pantocrator is 20 metres high (Monreale Duomo)

Here is the full view of the apse

Altar and Apse (Monreale Duomo)

There are several rows of mosaics, retelling events from the Old and New Testaments. Here is the section for Noah’s Ark (not usually seen in church art), the tower of Babel and the beginning of Abraham’s story

Noah’s Ark (Monreale Duomo, credit)

and a detail of Noah releasing a dove and a raven eating drowned people

Noah releases a dove. (Monreale Duomo)

Here is Jacob’s dream of a ladder to heaven:

Jacob’s ladder. (Monreale Duomo)

Here is Paul being lowered out of Damascus in a basket.

Paul lowered in a basket. (Monreale Duomo)

Perhaps the most interesting are the artist’s view of heaven.

Angel's offer praise around the throne. High above the altar. (Monreale Duomo)

Angels (or winged creatures?) offer praise around the throne. High above the altar. (Monreale Duomo)

The apse also has mosaics of the Virgin, and saints

The north transept is rather different, being decorated in marble.

Decorative pillar, north transept. (Monreale Duomo)

Crucifix behind the altar in a side chapel off the north transept. (Monreale Duomo)

Here’s Jonah (a little indistinct) being thrown overboard to the whale

One sees the Arab influence in the floor mosaics

Geometric designs showing Arab influence. (Monreale Duomo)

Monastery cloisters are generally very peaceful meditative places, and Monreale’s is no exception. There main attraction are the twinned pillars, each pair has individually carved capitols. Unlike the mosiacs in the duomo which display the progression of Biblical history, there appears to be no pattern in the capitols, each is a surprise.

Choistro dei Benedettini. (Note Arab influence)

Of course, Adam and Eve were there, but not in any special position:

Adam and Eve.

and here is Samson (identified for us)

Samson

but most of the capitol sculptures were more obscure scenes of battles, real and mythological creatures

Capitol showing a variety of animal heads.

An acrobat. (This position, also shown on the body of some of the pillars, clearly signifies something)

A hapless creature trapped when one of the columns was being positioned

A assortment of columns in the corner with a fountain.

A final view of the exterior of Monreale Duomo

Monreale Duomo (exterior).

Wandering through a Deserted Garden in Sicily, I Pray to Build Things Which Last

By Anita Mathias

Abandoned garden surround by a wall topped with grotesque sculptures. (Villa Palagonia)

Villa Palagonia, Bagheria, Sicily

I like wandering around the deserted gardens which sometimes surround palaces and stately homes.

I wandered through the Baroque Villa Palagonia in Bagheria Sicily yesterday, whose grounds host massive grotesque gnomes, giants, gargoyles, mutants, and anthropomorphized monsters.

The villa was the home of Ferdinand, Prince of Palagonia, a hunchback, who took revenge on his wife’s lovers by cruelly satirizing them—often depicting them as hunchbacks!!

Hunchback (Wall around Villa Palagonia)

* * *

Oh full of passion and pride and ambition, they built these palaces and gardens, how intensely they lived, and now their gardens are just the habitation of stray cats, and the birds which sing sweetly and loud.

Cat on the wall of Villa Palagonia

Cat in the garden of Villa Palagonia

All dead. Him who hated and satirized; him who was hated…

Hating. What a waste of a life!

Walking through the garden, I felt eager to align myself with what matters, for one day through our empty gardens too, stray cats might stroll, and birds sing loud and sweetly, unmindful of all our pride, passion and ambition.

People, despite their wealth, do not endure;
they are like the beasts that perish.

Their forms will decay in the grave,
far from their princely mansions.
¹⁶Do not be overawed when others grow rich,
when the splendour of their houses increases;
¹⁷for they will take nothing with them when they die,
their splendour will not descend with them.
¹⁸Though while they live they count themselves blessed—
and people praise you when you prosper—
¹⁹they will join those who have gone before them,
who will never again see the light of life. Psalm 49

A row of grotesque figures adorns the wall of Villa Palagonia.

Figure on wall of Villa Palagonia.

Crowned figure guarding the gate of Villa Palagonia.

I thought too of Shelley’s “Ozymandias.”

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away”.

I am building things. I have built a small business which now solely supports our family. I am building a book. I am building a blog. I am building a platform on Twitter and Facebook so people read my blog. I am building a family life, and friendships, and a network of warm relationships here in Oxford, and with other writers elsewhere.

* * *

Arch crowned with grotesque figures. (Villa Palagonia)

But…

If the Lord does not build the house,

In vain do the builders labour.

In vain is your earlier rising

Your going later to bed. (Psalm 127)

I want to know what the Lord intends me to build with my life, and I want, oh how desperately I want, to build with Christ, to be aligned with his flow of ideas as I build, so what I build, whether books or a family business or blog may last longer and be more life-giving than the deserted books and palaces and gardens which litter our globe.

Hall of Mirrors, Villa Palagonia.

Formal Entrance to Villa Palagonia

Images from our Trip to Pisa: The Leaning Tower, Duomo and Baptistery

By Anita Mathias

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page, Saint Augustine.

A guest post from my husband Roy who loves the camera as much as I love words. (Though he’s done the words too, in this case:-)

The Leaning Tower of Pisa, one of the symbols of Italy, and a much hyped attraction, did not disappoint us.

Exterior views of the Leaning Tower, Duomo and Baptistery

These three pristine white buildings are in the center of a large green.

Pisa, Leaning tower and Duomo.

Pisa Baptistery (not actually leaning!)

Getting closer you see the exterior details:

Pisa Baptistery: Unused back door.

and here is a single panel

Pisa Baptistery: Unused back door. (A single panel)

Mosaic of main entrance of Pisa Duomo.

And on either side there are smaller mosaics:

Mosaic of main entrance of Pisa Duomo.

Pisa Duomo: Decorated column

An intriguing engraving, Pisa Duomo, exterior.

Interior, Duomo, Pisa

View of the main altar, Duomo, Pisa.

Mosaics above a side altar (Duomo, Pisa)

Mosaic above a side altar (Duomo, Pisa)

The mosaic of Christ does not have the typical austere expression:

The columns get in the photographer’s way, but do also produce some interesting views:

Here is a view through the backs of the aligned pews

A modern (I assume) lectern.

Here’s Pisano’s beautiful pulpit from 1310. It has an interesting story:

The pulpit by Giovanni Pisano was completed by 1310 and survived the Great Fire of the Cathedral of October 25, 1596 . During the restoration work, between 1599 and 1601 , the pulpit was dismantled and its pieces were placed in different places, including the Campo Santo and the warehouses of the ‘ Work of the Primate . It was not reassembled until 1926 , when it was rebuilt in a different location from the original one, and certainly not with the parties in the same order and orientation as was intended by the author, since there is no documentation of how it was the layout of the various elements, including the panels, before dismantling. I do not even know if he had or not a marble staircase.

The four columns “simple” were donated by Mussolini at the time to dictatorial power, because after the reconstruction of some parts (such as scale) were missing. To honor the Duce these columns were placed in plain view, placing the caryatids at the back, less visible, when, it is supposed, would have to be exactly the opposite. (Google translate’s version of a wikipedi.it article)

The renaissance pulpit.

A motif I have not seen before:

: Stained glass–He holds the whole world in his hands.

Sculpture of John the Baptist, on the way out of the Duomo.

The Baptistery

I believe, that in the early christian era, newborns, who had not been baptised were not admitted to the church, hence the baptistery was traditionally a separate building near the church. The Pisa Baptistery is unusual in that it is circular. (Typically, they are octagonal.) Anyway, onthe inside it was not as beautiful as the duomo.

Pisa, Bapistery from an upper gallery.

A view of out the upper window.

Playing the Leaning Tower game

It was a beautiful August day and the tourists were doing the same thing

Our daughter Irene, holding up the leaning tower, or pushing it over

It just takes a finger to support it

or two to pick it up

Picking up the leaning tower of Pisa.

Images of San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy

By Anita Mathias

(Roy and I were at San Gimignano, Tuscany, last month. It was a magical town. Enjoy Roy’s guest post on it)

San Gimignano, Italy’s most visited hill town is a photographer’s delight. Here are a few images to tempt you to visit if you are in Tuscany.

You enter an almost car-free zone. Our hotel was inside the walls, so we negotiated the narrow one way streets, and piazzas full of tourists.

An entrance to San Gimignano, Tuscany.

[Read more…]

On Long Walks, Spirituality and Creativity. And Images of Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

By Anita Mathias

I discovered a new pleasure this year which has become vital to my spiritual life and my ability to hear and God; my emotional balance and shalom; my psychological well-being; my ability to deal with stress; my creativity, and my happiness.

And no, it’s not prayer, though prayer, theoretically, offers all these benefits.But we are body as well as spirit, and so it is something akin to prayer–long walks.

* * *

I started long walks in January because I had signed up for a pilgrimage to Tuscany on the Via Francigena.

I was not fit, and have not found it easy to acquire the new habit of long walks every day. There have been many, many days lost because it was cold, icy, rainy, or I was too absorbed in my writing.

But I have got back to the stamina I had 16 years ago, when Zoe was 2, and I used to walk with other mums, pushing her in her stroller, for the whole 4 mile trail in Kingsmill, the beautiful resort-like community in Williamsburg, where we lived for 9 years.

* * *

It’s just a first step. Having been sedentary for so many years, four miles is a challenge! And my speed, I have discovered is not yet normal-person-speed.

So here I am on this pilgrimage in Tuscany on the Via Francigena, and I quickly discovered that I hadn’t trained sufficiently!

So I am doing a “pilgrimage lite” which has included exploring: San Gimingnano on Sunday, Volterra on Monday, Monteriggioni and Siena on Tuesday, more Siena today.

* * *

One of my personal mantras is, “If you can not succeed, fail better.” Success is the result of a dozen, or a hundred “better failures.”

So though I have failed in my training for this pilgrimage—I did not get my stamina up to 11-14 miles a day (more like 4!) or my speed to 2. 25 miles an hour on hills—I am going to continue long walks, which give me the opportunity to spend long concentrated hours with God, and tie in with my love of travel.

* * *

Oh, I love travelling. I am, sadly, somewhat addicted to books, reading, writing, and the internet, and getting away is the only way to unhook myself from these things.

Getting away re-sets my mind. Left to myself, I begin to run down after some time. It takes me longer and longer to get going, and longer and longer to get my work done.

After a break, however, I come back with a new mind. Refreshed, able to read fast, think fast, write fast, and write for long hours.

* * *

Also, it is, sadly, easy for me to get my life, my heart, my spirit, and my schedule slightly unaligned with God. And, if one is even slightly unaligned with God, if you lean slightly away, what you land up with is the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Very beautiful still, but, well, if it were not shored up by engineers and millions of euros, a disaster in the making.

But when I travel, when I walk alone contemplatively, when I walk in the hills or on the beaches, praying, I slowly re-align myself with God. I ask if I am on the right track. I ask him to reveal the plans he has for the next six weeks of my life, and the next year, or decade.

* * *

We explored bits of Switzerland, France and Italy last month in our camper van. And just on our way to Dover, we were caught in the most dreadful traffic jam and were barely crawling. I’m reading Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, which was also on my iPod, but I can no longer easily read in a moving car.

So Zoe suggested listening to the book, and following along, as a dual pleasure which I did for a bit, and enjoyed

And then, I thought, “Heck why all this striving? I am the child of a good God. Let me just rest in his love.”

I thought of Wordsworth’s poem, “Expostulation and Reply,”
“Nor less I deem that there are Powers

Which of themselves our minds impress;

That we can feed this mind of ours

In a wise passiveness.

“Think you, ‘mid all this mighty sum

Of things for ever speaking,

That nothing of itself will come,

But we must still be seeking?

Ah, doing nothing, resting, waiting. How alien to this modern world of scrambling, doing, achieving!

I closed the book, turned off the iPod, lay down, and rested. If God were to speak to me, fine. If not, I was content to rest in his love.

* * *

And he did speak that holiday, in fiction. Short story after story came, holy and mysterious, and I rapidly wrote them down. I told them to my husband and children; they got emotionally involved and totally drawn in. One was heart-breaking and ethically ambiguous, having come in a dream, and the children were outraged and saddened by it. I think the stories were lovely, and they came in their own tone and voice.

They belonged to a sort of dream-time, written in our camper van in Switzerland, Italy and France. I returned from holiday on August 15th, and I have not looked at them since.

What’s going on? Fear that they were not as good as I remembered? Interestingly though, letting first drafts sit is standard creative advice.

* * *

And now again on this holiday, short stories are coming, one or two or three a day, and I am rapidly writing them down.

Anyway, I need to have a plan if I am to finish in addition to my blog and my memoir. And part of having a plan is to have a trigger, a specific time/slot when I am going to write them.

So on my return from Tuscany, I am going to devote the first half-hour or so of the day to working on these stories. Quiet time, I will still have, even if I put it second; and the memoir, I am deep enough into that I will still write even if it’s in the semi-comatose last hour of the day.

And I might also work on my stories last thing at night for as long as my mind works. The writer Andrea Barrett once told me that her most creative times are first thing in the morning, and last thing at night.

So I might experiment with last thing at night, the sleepy, in-between phase, when the stern critic, the assaulter of creative work, is off dozing, and the muse appears, in her voluminous garments, and says, “Come, Dance.”

Anyway, enjoy images of Lucca which we visited last month. I particularly enjoyed walking around the city walls.

Aerial view of Lucca. The green strip round the old city is the top of the very wide Renaissance wall. (credit)

San Frediano

The Duomo (Cathedral)

San Michele in Foro

photo

Our Summer Holiday in Switzerland, 2003 and 2013

By Anita Mathias

Switzerland 2013

It’s our second holiday in Switzerland. We last came here 10 years ago, in 2013, when Zoe was 8 and Irene just 4.

It’s amazing coming back to our favourite places like the Lauterbrunnen Valley and the Trummelbach Falls ten years later, doing some of the same things, and reflecting on how much has changed.

We had rented a campervan that time. Now we’ve driven in our own campervan (RV). We left our dog in a kennel that time; now we’ve brought our dog, lovely Jake instead of lovely Trooper, whom we gave away when we left the US.

I was not a blogger then, and did not own a business. It was pre-Facebook and pre-Twitter, and we did not miss being disconnected from the world. I had a few essays out, and an (abortive) book proposal and checked on them at internet cafes, and emailed a few friends.

Now, I have a WiFi hotspot which works anywhere in the world, pretty much, so am as connected as at home–and like it that way, though obviously, I am not spending much time reading blogs, FB statuses, or tweets.

We’ve brought technology with us, laptops, iPads, iPhones, iPods, each to his or her own, because the internet, the world wide flow of knowledge is an extension of ourselves, has become part of the way we think (continually researching areas of curiosity) and the way we do life. We are unapologetic about it!!

We’ve changed; the world has changed; human consciousness has changed. Facebook, Twitter, blogs—all these barely existed ten years ago. They are now part of how I do life. Just like recording in a journal gets one to slow down, and take it all in, sharing your life in a blog or Facebook enforces a beneficial slowing down, paying attention, and reaching out and connecting which is a universal human impulse. Knowing I am going to write about it, photographing things as I go, enforces a heightened attention and I think that is a good thing.

Ten years ago, we lived in America and were American citizens. Now we live in England, and are British citizens too. Ten years, ago, we blinked at the stressfully high Swiss prices. Now, having living in England for 9 years, we’ve become inured to high prices.

Ten years, ago we had wild lively children, heard long before they were seen. Now we have savvy teenagers. Ten years ago, they would volunteer to cook us a meal at the campground kitchen and it was an grand adventure. Now, they’d rather read.

Ten years ago, we were intimidated by Swiss glares when the children were heard as well as seen, and by general Swiss dourness. Now, bah, the Swiss are just people, and if they frown and glare, I shrug! (Besides, they definitely seem to have grown nicer, or perhaps I have!)

Internally, I am happier, deeper, more content, more rooted in God. I have learned the secret of the bluebird of happiness. She lives within, that wild thing, and one must burrow within to find her.

A few then-and-now photos:

: Jake the Collie, with one eye blue and one brown, has been a photographed by many tourists to Switzerland!

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Some photos of the fortified hilltop village Gruyères (from where Gruyère cheese comes from). The symbol of Gruyères is the stork (gru, in French).

Driving along the winding road, on suddenly sees a fortified village

Looking out of Gruyères’ entrance.

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The “gru” is everywhere.

Medieval feast of St. John the Baptist, re-enacted 2003.

Switzerland has gorgeous scenery. All but one of these are from the Lauterbrunnen vallley.

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Dreaming in Laon Cathedral, Northern France.

By Anita Mathias

Laon Cathedral (Facade)

I’ve long wanted to see Laon Cathedral in Northern France, which featured in the Cathedrals of Europe course I took at Oxford University’s Continuing Education.

It was an enchanted sacred space, with Gregorian chant echoing through it.

Funny, when I am in a Gothic cathedral, I think of it as my soul’s natural home.

Laon Cathedral (Arches above the right aisle)

Laon Cathedral (triforium and clerestory)

Laon Cathedral choir. (Note the floor)

Laon Cathedral (Medieval stained glass)

Laon Cathedral (More recent stained glass)

These Gothic cathedrals built during medieval Europe’s building boom were sublime expressions of a community’s devotion. Entire towns and villages, men, women and children worked together to haul massive slabs of granite uphill, (often in silence, eye-witnesses say) to construct these noble edifices to the glory of God.

The gargoyles outside Laon Cathedral, unusually, memorialize the noble oxen who hefted the granite up the steep hill to the cathedral.

Oxen memorialised at the top of Laon cathedral.

Dragon on the facade of Laon Cathedral..

An icon of Jesus in Laon has made it a place of pilgrimage. I didn’t particularly care for the icon, but it did express one feature of the Messiah as mentioned in Isaiah, “He had no beauty that we should desire him.”