Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

In Which Stars Make News Viral, and We Can Trust our PR to Him

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His birth could not have been more humble, more anonymous–in a manger, for there was no room at the inn.

Of their social network, only Elizabeth, Mary’s elderly cousin, confined by pregnancy, and married to the priest Zechariah who was temporarily dumb, had been told.

But everything was in the hands of God who loved Jesus, his son who would teach us to see differently, to think differently, and to live differently.

And so God splashed a new star in the sky, luring Magi, wise men from the east, astrologers and astronomers to Bethlehem, bringing news of the birth to King Herod. Shepherds heard angels sing of it.

The good news crossed national, ethnic and socio-economic boundaries; it reached the rich and the poor, the wise and the powerful. The King heard of it, the priests heard of it, the army heard of it, the scholars heard of it, the shepherds heard of it. While Mary and Joseph quietly went about their own business, telling no one about their marvellous child.

God brought about all the connections Jesus needed.

* * *

Today, as in the Prophet Habakkuk’s day, “The nations exhaust themselves for nothing.”

We live in a harried world of self-reliance, in which we can feel that everything depends on us.

Our world tells us exhausting things like, “It’s not what you know, but whom you know.”

We are told that new media—blogging, tweeting and Facebook– has eliminated the old gatekeepers; that now anyone can socially network their way into success, fame, and influence.

Right! To the old imperative of doing the work, we’ve added the new imperative to network to get our work out there, to get the word out.

And all this makes us busier and more tired.

* * *

But, oh man and woman loved by God, the one whose birth we are celebrating offers us rest.

Do your work peacefully, and leave your PR in the hands of a very clever God, who used stars and angel song so that, within days, the news of the birth of his son went viral.  He will be more creative than you could ever imagine.

Put your hope in him.

* * *

 At the end of this year, we cannot do better than to put our work, our lives, and our futures into his hands who promises us joy, peace, and answered prayer.

And to do so is exciting, for he specialises in surprises.

A new star in the sky: who would have thought of it?

I am entrusting my life to him today.

Join me?

 

My guest post for Share the Hope UK

In which Scripture is a Mountain, Not a Plateau, but It is All Treasure

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Picture  Michelangelo's David

The Greek Sculpture The Spear Bearer and Michelangelo’s David 

I read Scripture as a mountain with the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament building up to the revelation of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. Acts and the letters of Jesus’s disciples  then grapple with the seismic, big bang revelation of Jesus Christ.

And so our traditional way of reading Scripture, the traditional reading plan, which gives equal weight to every verse and chapter is, ironically, a bit lop-sided. You know…every genealogy, every law, every description of temple worship given equal weight with the Sermon on the Mount and the Upper Room discourse which contains the secrets of the universe.

* * *

However, we need a little bit of Jesus of the Gospels every day, or every week, because our eyes need His corrective vision. Without the continued brain- and heart-washing of the Gospels, we forget what He taught us about how to live.

And so in my reading of the Gospels, I come to Matthew 13, “every scribe who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”

* * *

Jesus calls the early revelations of God which culminated in Himself treasure.  And it is treasure because the shimmering brilliance of Jesus’ teaching emerges from it.

Jesus is steeped in the Old Testament and continually quotes it, resisting the temptations of Satan with quotations from Deuteronomy, thereby validating that book. Some of his most memorable sayings, which sound startlingly original are, in fact, quotations from the Old Testament. When he reduces the Law and the Prophets to two commands, he draws on Leviticus 19:18 for “Love your neighbour as yourself” and quotes Psalm 37:11, “the meek inherit the earth”  in the Beatitudes.

* * *

Trying to understand Jesus without understanding the Old Testament is like trying to make sense of Michelangelo’s David without knowing who David the Giant-Killer was, or without knowing how Greco-Roman art inspired artists in the Renaissance (or how the Greek sculpture, “The Spear Bearer,” inspired David.)

Or admiring Raphael’s “School of Athens” without knowing that he depicted Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Diogenes, and that the surly fellow in boots in the foreground is Michelangelo.

Or reading T.S. Eliot’s beautiful allusive “The Waste Land,” without knowing the title of the long Fire Sermon section is taken from Buddha’s eponymous sermon of the same name in which he advises his followers to give up earthly passion,  or that To Carthage then I came/Burning, burning, burning, is a reference to St. Augustine’s Confessions, when he comes to Carthage, burning with lust. The poem beats upon our pulses, speaks to our ganglia without the scholarship, but knowing its mass of literary allusion only enriches the poem for us.

So of course, the Gospels will speak to one who loves Jesus but has not taken the time to study the Old Testament so as to set him, his quotations, allusions and references in their rich context.

But the Gospels speak more richly and fully when you approach them  with a mind and heart that loves Jesus, but is also steeped in the context of the Old Testament out of which He emerged, and when you understand the 18 Old Testament books which Jesus quoted, and when you understand the old thing to which He continually contrasts the new thing He was doing.

In which Christ Desires Mercy, not Sacrifice

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Walking through grainfields

Jesus was always getting himself into trouble with the Pharisees, the stern keepers of the law, for his common sense and practicality.

 When his disciples were hungry on the Sabbath, he let them glean. (Matthew 12 :1). When he saw a man with a shrivelled hand in the synagogue on Sunday, he healed him.

Furiously accused for doing what was unlawful on the Sabbath, he answers simply, “ If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

“I desire mercy not sacrifice,” God says. He would, wouldn’t he? He does not need our sacrifices, for the cattle on a thousand hills are his.

What he does covet is our hearts, because he loves us.

He wants our hearts to be soft and gentle, because that is what his heart is like.

I desire mercy, God says.

* * *

I am becoming increasingly aware that the real battleground is within. Follow Christ becomes a joy as we increasingly win  interior battles against grumpiness, against meanness, against unforgiveness, against revenge.

On the days when I have woken up too early and am tired, I am astonished at how swiftly my inner stream of thoughts can turn to negativity. I tell Roy, “I need to be alone a bit. I am feeling negative,” to ensure I do not sin, and do harm with my words.

And then, I have to consciously turn that stream of thoughts to praise and thanksgiving.

* * *

It’s October now, autumn in England, and the leaves are falling. But we have clematis still in bloom in our garden, three rose bushes, one yellow buddleia, butterfly bush, a lone cyclamen, and a stray hellebore.

Always beauty, always something to thank God for, though the days grow shorter, and the nights longer.

And if my negative stream of thoughts turn towards other people rather than towards my own failures and struggles, then, Holy Spirit within me, remind me that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. Help me think of other people mercifully, with the same mercy the Lord God Almighty shows me, his child.

The Beatitudes, mostly, are things we do, rather than things we are. There’s hope in that!

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The Beatitudes are the blazing heart of everything Jesus taught. Once you’ve got them, once you’re living them, then you’ve begun to  “get” Jesus and the way he thinks.

And I am only beginning to!

For the Beatitudes to travel the longest journey in the world, from the head to the heart, is a life-long endeavour, a matter of stumbling, and getting up again, and I am just learning. I am a disciple, learning cognitively, emotionally, and experientially.

* * *

Mercifully, however, the Beatitudes are not ontological statements of reality. It’s not blessed are the beautiful; blessed are the brilliant; blessed are the bronze-skinned, which you either are, or are not.

Instead, it is blessed are the meek; blessed are the merciful; blessed are the pure-hearted, and these are things we choose to be and become through a series of noble choices.

We become gentle by choosing gentleness, again and again.

We become merciful by choosing to be merciful, again and again.

We develop the purity of heart which helps us see God by repenting of our sin, again and again.

Tiny step by step, we inch towards promised land where the meek inherit the earth, and we are shown mercy, and we see God.

* * *

How practically do we enter the blessedness promised in the Beatitudes? I guess it’s behavioural modification. If we are not merciful, we behave as if we are merciful. If we are not meek, we behave as if we are meek.

Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy, Jesus says. Tempted not to leave the tip after harried service? Leave it anyway. Tempted to let rip on anonymous feedback. Be merciful. Store up credit, and God, the great mathematician, will ensure that you will have mercy in your time of need.

I shopped at Amazon for years before I ever thought of selling there, and, often, voluntarily removed bad feedback I’d impetuously left, thinking, “Blessed are the merciful.”

When we started our publishing business, with just 1 title, then 5, then, 10,  too few to outsource all customer service (as we now do, of course), I personally sold books on Amazon, and often had to email to get negatives or neutrals removed. My success rate was amazing—as if the Universe, or God remembered all the times I was merciful, realising that mom and pop in their back bedroom wouldn’t be as efficient as Amazon, so why rate them that way. The mercy came back to me.

The Beatitudes are true, objective statements of reality, whether we realise them or not.

 

 

 

In which Jesus Promises Rest to the Meek

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I like Jesus’ great invitation at the end of Matthew 11:“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I like that fact that Jesus suggests we learn meekness by observing and studying him. So, obviously, meekness is not a natural character trait like being sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic or choleric, but a learned behaviour.

I have various mantras, what Gretchen Rubin calls “splendid truths.” (One of these, adopted from her, calms me down: “There is only love.”) I need to add one more: “I will learn how to be meek and humble of heart from Jesus.” Since, obviously, it does not come naturally!!

* * *

Why would one want to be humble of heart? Because pride is silly, narrow and self-centred. We are not focused on anything important, anything worth having, but merely on self, on how others perceive us, and treat us.

Why would one want to be meek? Because being gentle is the best way to be, rather than being proud and aggressive.

And besides, the meek inherit the earth: The value of meekness, even in regard to worldly property and success in life, is often exhibited in the Scriptures. It is also seen in common life that a meek, patient, mild man is the most prospered. An impatient and quarrelsome man raises up enemies; often loses property in lawsuits; spends his time in disputes and broils rather than in sober, honest industry; and is harassed, vexed, and unsuccessful in all that he does. (Barnes Notes on the Bible.)

* * *

So how does one learn to be meek? Practice. Practice meek practices.

So that is what I am training myself to do.

Let others have the last word. If someone puts you down, let them.

Overlook lots of things. Blow things away with the breath of kindness. When spoken to harshly, you don’t need to retort in kind.   Return a gentle answer or none at all when someone gets irrational through tiredness. This is particularly useful in family life: the blind eye and the deaf ear so that one can get on with one’s work.

Ignore negativity directed at you on social media as much as possible. Block repeat offenders.

Practice, practice, practice, one step after another, until all this becomes second nature!

* * *

Learn from Jesus how to be gentle and humble, and the prize is the rest we seek, as we work–as we sleep–as we relax–as we live.

Our souls are as rested when we work, or hang out at home, as they are after a week of beach and mountain walks, because we are choosing meekness which obviates conflict, and we are choosing humility, daily defining all our grand ambitions, and then placing them in his hands to grant–or not.

Living in the “Flow” of God’s River

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waterfall_davidson_river_lg

Whoever seeks to save their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. (Matt 10:39) NIV.
If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. (Matt 10:39) New Living Translation. 

* * *

Time cannot be saved; it is a river. It flows, 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week. You cannot save it.

Use the hours well, make them shine, and when you cannot, release them without recrimination into the river of time. Already, the giver of good gifts is sending you more.

* * *

Strength cannot be saved. The more we spend it, the more we exercise, the more our strength grows. Are our bodies telling us something?

* * *

Ideas rust and atrophy when saved. But creativity blooms in the expending of it.

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes,” Annie Dillard writes in The Writing Life. 

* * *

 I reflect on these things, and squirm, since, for much of my life,  I have been exceedingly precious, careful, indeed stingy with time.

Donald Miller says in Blue Like Jazz, “I believe the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil, but rather have us wasting time.” I tend to believe him

And so I have been too careful with time, grabbing too much for reading and writing, instead of investing in friendships and activities which would perhaps have brought happiness or health or peace or growth, the rough edges of my character smoothed away.

And I used to burn out with metronomic frequency, growing too tired to read and write.

* * *

Money is the other thing people try to save.

I was relatively relaxed about money as a single woman. When I married and decided not to work for money (except for spells of teaching creative writing at William and Mary and the Loft at Minneapolis), I tried to be careful with money because of guilt over wasting money Roy had earned. And when I was preoccupied about saving and investing–and what a dreadful use of time all that was!!– money was not particularly plentiful.

However, I gradually began to see money as a river from God, some of it flowing to me, giving me the desires of my heart, and some of it flowing through my hands to other people. God was giving me that money to use, or spend, or give away.  This river is not to be dammed up and saved, just enjoyed; held lightly, not held on to–for there is plenty more where that came from.

Sometimes I “lose” money, make unwise decisions; sometimes, I am taken advantage of, and money flows through my hands to someone else. That is okay; it is the nature of the river.

When I relinquished my concern about finances to God and turned my attention to other things, they were no longer a particular concern. There seemed to “always be enough.”

* * *

Hmm. Would this work with time too?

“Wasting time?” My father used to ask me with the expression of greatest disapproval and severity (though most of the time, I wasn’t!), and I turned the same disgust on myself if I judged myself to have wasted time.

But I now see “wasted time” as seeds. It’s inert; it seems nothing good came out of it. But put into God’s hands, who knows what beauty may emerge from those seeds?

* * *

So my time challenge is two-fold. To see time as a sparkling river coming towards me, and seek to use it well, while being totally relaxed when things don’t work out as I hoped, and time, apparently, has been wasted.

More, to learn the habit of surrendering my day and its hours to God, giving them to him, asking him to bless them, and work in them. (I haven’t yet learnt this habit!).

* * *

And—here is the challenging part: deliberately “lose” some time, give some time away for the sake of Jesus.

How can I do this?

Now, because my domestic skills are meagre, and because my husband is practical, I do not do much in the way of cooking, shopping, laundry or housekeeping. We have a cleaner who also does some housekeeping. We have gardening help. And Roy who works from home, keeps it running efficiently.

I have often spent more hours serving my church, in leading Bible Studies and speaking, than in serving my family

But for the sake of Jesus, I am planning to help my family in a tiny specific way.

It probably won’t be noticed, except by Jesus for whose sake I am doing it, but it will bring more peace to my soul, and since Jesus says that he who loses his life for His sake will find it, it will be a counter-intuitive surprising way of “finding” time!

So be it. Amen!

In which Change can come like Magic and Miracles, or through Grace-and-Sweat

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                                                                                                                          Image Credit

They had heard of this amazing man who could heal.

And so, giving up a day’s wages, they go off in search of him.

Their mates say, “Heck, if this man were God, he could heal you without you going off to find him. God is everywhere.”

But, half-forgetting they cannot see, they are missing no opportunity to “see God.”

They are not missing their great chance, their big break, oh no, and so they go tap-tapping in search of him, buffeted by unfamiliar crowds, asking directions as they go.

They follow the noise, the shouts.

And as these intensify, they shout, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.”

 

And they follow him indoors.

Looking at them, he holds their hands, so they know he is talking to them, and asks,

“Do you believe that I am able to do this?” Matt 9 27-31

* * *

“Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. Do I believe he can?

He will know if I bullsh*t him.

But I do believe he can, that’s why I have been chasing him all day.”

 

“Yes, Lord,” they replied.

“Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you,” (Matt 9:29).

And their sight was restored.

According to your faith will it be done to you.

* * *

What would have happened if they had not believed?

It’s chilling to think of it. They would have continued begging for the rest of their lives.

They would not have chased Jesus, being buffeted by the crowds They would not have called out to him loudly, risking people’s sneers and laughter at their outrageous, childlike faith. They would not have followed him indoors.

They would not have answered “Yes, Lord,” when he asked them quietly, seriously, “Do you believe that I am able to do this for you?”

They would not have been healed.

* * *

None of us is entirely sole or whole.

But, by virtue of living in a world in which powers of evil prowl, in which they are people who do not hesitate at evil, in which there is some evil in each of us, we are all in need of healing. We all have areas of dis-ease, and dysfunction, whether physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual.

And what do we do with our areas of brokenness and blindness. How do we change?

* * *

I can tell you one way we are guaranteed NOT to change. And that is business as usual.

Continue doing what you have been doing before. Hope you lose weight, write more, read more, wake earlier, become a little bit tidier, and you have basically guaranteed business as usual.

* * *

How do we change then? How can light shine on our dark spots?

Remember that there is a healer. Go to him for healing. Go every day.

* * *

There are two ways healing comes, multiplication and addition. Magic, or Grace-and-sweat.

Instantly, by a sovereign act of grace, people have been delivered of their addictions to alcohol, or cigarettes or chocolate or coffee.

But healing also comes, slowly, step by step, working with Jesus. When we sense the cue to unhealthy behaviour, chocolate when we are stressed for example, we substitute a healthy behaviour: prayer, or a quick walk. (Read The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg on this).

Similarly, poetry can come in a flood, magic, multiplication, or more likely, through mastery of one’s craft, along with a little bit of inspiration (literally, the spirit within you).

* * *

The key question to ask when faced with areas of disease and dysfunction in our lives is this:

Do I believe that Jesus and I together can change this?

* * *

I am battling with changing a lifetime of habits of comfort-eating, and eating what is quick, convenient and tasty rather than what is the greatest blessing to my body. And a lifetime of sedentary habits.

I have lost 13 pounds since I started this adventure. The key question as to whether I will continue losing weight is this:

Do I believe that Jesus and I together are able to do this? Change sloppy eating, and sedentary habits.

If I do believe that change is possible, and I do, I will keep reviewing my simple rules: Eliminate sugar, drastically limit white flour, eat lots of fruit and veggies, go easy on fat. Don’t eat when not hungry. Walk every day.

* * *

Other areas of my life in which I am working for change.

2) Writing, aiming to write 400 words a day on my memoir, in addition to a blog. (This is working!)

3) Reading more, which makes one’s thinking, sensibility and writing style more sophisticated.

Everyone wants to read more, and the key to doing so is to have a plan and believe that you and Jesus together can change your life enough to make space for what you really want to do.  My current plan is to increase a page a day until I am reading 45 pages a day. Also, having started at a book a month, I am aiming at reading each book in one day less, (currently at 18 days a book).

4 Waking early. I am currently waking at 6.40 a.m. and love it. Love getting my quiet time done, important email caught up on, newspaper scanned, and blog posted by 10 or 11 a.m.

I am dreaming of 5 a.m. for both spiritual and literary reasons—both writers and great Christians swear by the benefits of waking at 5!

And I believe that Jesus and I together are able to do this.

* * *

So perhaps these are the steps to health and wholeness

1)   Admit you have a problem, that you are not living the life you want to.

2)   Ask Jesus for help. It may come “magically,” a lifting of the cravings for chocolate and sugar as happened to me. It may come slowly, as in me learning to enjoy long walks.

3)   Have a plan, worked out in consultation with Jesus in prayer

4)   Believe that Jesus and you together are able to do it.