Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

  • Home
  • My Books
  • Essays
  • Contact
  • About Me

Goodbye to Everest

By Anita Mathias

1280px-Mount_Everest_as_seen_from_Drukair2_PLW_edit

When I was six years old, I wanted to be the first woman to climb Everest.

Well, I won’t be. That was Junko Tabei, a Japanese woman–a record which will forever be hers.

And neither will be I be the oldest person to climb Everest. That’s Yuichiro Muira, who climbed Everest aged 80. Nope, not going to train for decades to beat him (though it would guarantee keeping superbly fit!)

Ah, Everest. Shimmering Everest. A savage place, holy and enchanted. You have long inhabited the landscape of my imagination, and that is where you will stay. South Col, the Death Zone, the Khumbu Icefall, a river of ice with frozen cascades and romantic crevasses deep as a fifteen story building which abruptly open or close. Sheer faces of ice to be scaled with axes and ropes. Blizzards and avalanches; seracs: massive tottering blocks of ice; 360 degree views that stagger the mind–it’s all part of the architecture of my soul.

I will never climb Everest. The practicality of middle age forces me to admit this.

Because. I do not really like walking uphill. I am afraid of slipping. And I am afraid of heights! I am nervous on narrow mountain paths with precipitous drops. I do not enjoy extreme cold. And I really like warm clean private toilets and hot baths, and these will be in short supply on Everest.

As though as Jon Krakauer writes, commercial expeditions (in which barely fit socialites like Sandy Pittman are hauled to the summit by hardy sherpas) have made it possible for the just-about-fit to summit, I feel no call to devote two or three years to get fit enough to plausibly think of summiting Everest without dying in the attempt.

Everest in a vision once I saw.

The beautiful dream of climbing Everest, that symphony, that song, was just that, alas: a young girl’s dream.

Some dreams are meant to be dreams, dazzling dreams of the night, but not of the day. You imagine peaks bathed rose and orange by the rising run, and rivers and mountains of ice, and they are glorious. You look at photographs, read accounts of exploration and watch documentaries, and your soul thrills.

Everest has added beauty to your life. You do not need not haul oxygen bottles up to the summit, and stagger up the last few steps in the death zone, behind the long files of those who summit for bragging rights, or take your mandatory selfie where the earth stops and the flags of the nations flutter. You have travelled there in imagination. You have Everest within. There you on honey dew have fed and drunk the wine of paradise

* * *

I have another dream: Antarctica. No–not walking to the South Pole like Scott or Amundsen, just seeing it on a cruise ship. A friend got to do it for free, and write about it for the American Express magazine. I looked up prices.

But school fees, school fees. Antarctica or school fees? I am a good Indian mama, after all. Antarctica must wait.

Wait forever? Perhaps not. But should it wait for the rest of this life, my soul has been enriched by male Emperor penguins waiting out the long sunless winter, guarding their eggs; the great glaciers calving off into massive icebergs; crevasses into which you simply disappear; gleaming snowy expanses in which one could wander directionlessly forever.

I met Geraldine MacCaughrean at a Writers in Oxford /Society of Authors party a few years ago. Our family had listened to her White Darkness in the car, a description of Antarctica so vivid that it makes you shiver, and reach for a sweater. “Have you been to Antarctica?” I asked. “Oh no,” she said, frowning, shaking her head, and laughing.

She was a writer. Imagination and research can make Antarctica as vivid to ourselves and to our readers as if we had actually travelled there.

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. Or what’s a heaven for? Robert Browning wrote.

Our imagination and longing exceeds what we can do in this life, with its adamantine parameters of strength, time and money. God imposes some limitations on us; others are the fruit of our own imperfect choices.

And though we never grow too old to dream another dream and set another goal–some dreams, most dreams perhaps, will remain dreams. And that’s what a heaven’s for.

In eternity, which will far exceed this life, as this life exceeds the wildest imaginings of a foetus crouched in the dark and wet of the womb, I will fly and soar over Everest and over Antarctica. I will gaze at the views, and shiver with pleasure. And I shall be very warm while doing so.

 

Tweetable
Some dreams must be abandoned, like some writing projects. Nonetheless, they have enriched your life. From @anitamathias1 Tweet: Some dreams must be abandoned, like some writing projects. Nonetheless, they have enriched your life. @anitamathias1 http://ctt.ec/a7ZC8+

 

Filed Under: goals, In Which my Blog Morphs into Memoir and Gets Personal, personal Tagged With: Antarctica, Browning, Coleridge, Everest, Geraldine MacCaughrean, Jon Krakauer, Robert Falcon Scott, White Darkness

The Good Things of January

By Anita Mathias

IMG_3247I’ve adopted Martin Seligman’s recommended habit of recording 3 good things about my day. Apparently, people who do this report being 25% happier within 3 weeks. I think it is true. I’ve often needed to scan my day carefully to see what was golden about it rather than nondescript. After a while looking for gold becomes a habit.

It’s been an extraordinary month in many ways, with many highlights.

4-IMG_0847(2)

 

3-IMG_3293

We’ve just spent a weekend in Torquay, Devon, walking under blue skies on beaches studded with dramatic rock formations. The mere sight of the sea is meant to reduce stress, I’ve read. It’s true I realized as I sat in front of the picture windows in the villa living room, looking at the sea, with seagulls swooping and dive-bombing into it, and hills with, wow!, palm trees beyond the bay. The English Riviera!!

We walked on the coastal trail as well as on beaches. So grateful for increasing strength and health.

6-IMG_0849(2)

 

2 Irene and her best friends Hannah and Lisa won the first prize in the National Cipher Challenge–and a prize of £1000. The National Cipher Challenge was an 8 week decoding challenge with tasks of increasing difficulty. The final task took them 21 hours.

2B Irene entered a competition for a free ticket to a TEDx Oxford Conference.

She contrasted Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. An iPhone is extraordinary, giving you access to all the books, information and music in the world in a palm sized gadget. However, Gates will be remembered long after Apple has joined the scrapheap of history for pouring his resources into the developing world, into health, education and women’s rights.
He has started a cascade of generosity through his Billionaires club of 127 billionaires who have pledged at least half their wealth to philanthropy.

Irene came home exhausted on the day it was due, and I had just had surgery. She wanted to blow it off, but I said, “Irene, it’s all in your head; just get it onto paper.” And so she did. And that is an excellent thing for all writers to remember, including, especially, I myself.

3 Zoe is back to the heady whirl which is Theology at Oxford.

She got a first in 2 of 3 papers in her termly exams (Greek and Doctrine of Creation) and got a cheque for £50–£25 for each First!! Imagine being paid for academic excellence—I think it’s a rather good idea.

3B Zoe is one of the three students leading student ministry and student nights at her church, Oxford Community Church. She’s getting to use the ministry skills she honed at the School of Ministry, Catch the Fire, Toronto—which is excellent!

4 After a long discussion with my oncologists, I decided to forego the chemotherapy which is standard for the stage of colon cancer that I was at, and go instead with intensive monitoring—CEA blood tests, CT scans, colonoscopies, the lot) and exercise, an increasingly healthy diet, and some supplementation with aspirin, vitamin D etc.

My cancer was not metastatic as far as the oncologists can tell and it’s possible the surgeon has removed every cancer cell… At any rate, I am letting food be my medicine, and my medicine be food as Hippocrates suggested, and am drinking lots of carrot juice, green smoothies, and moving steadily to a largely vegetable-based diet—soups, salads, roast veggies etc.

6-8 glasses of green smoothies and carrot juice can seem a lot—but hey, it sure beats chemo.! Roy calls it my veggie chemo!!

Exercise—I alternate doing two miles in two sessions, trying to walk as fast as I can building up to a 15 minute miles, with walking 2-3 miles the next day, again as fast as I can. My surgical incision has been slow to heal completely (prayers would be appreciated) , and once its completely healed, I hope to take up yoga and resistance exercises.

(PLEASE don’t send me ANY negative feedback, opinions or horror stories on this very personal no-chemo decision. On the other hand, positive feedback, stories, resources and inspiration will be welcome.)

5 I am back to normal, and because of the vegetable based diet and exercise, am more energetic than I was in my thirties. Well, I am weary and bone-tired some days (to be expected because I am writing hard and exercising hard), and bursting with energy on some days. Interestingly, the tired days are the days I have slacked off on my green juices and carrot juice and salads and veggies… I have never felt the connection of food and energy so strongly.

As I told a friend about how surprisingly well I feel, she said, “You know, maybe you have been healed.”

I was silent. Hundreds of people have told me that they’ve been praying for me. And of course, as Biblical and Christian history attests, just one simple heartfelt prayer from one person of faith can work a miracle.

Maybe, just maybe, God has listened–why should he not? Why should I assume he might not?–and arranged for any cancer cells which MAY be left to be killed, or go dormant.

Why not? Prayer works, I know it does, and perhaps, once again, God the great magician who daily pulls sunrises, sunsets and shimmering moons out of his hat, has pulled complete healing too.
May it be so. Amen!

What have been the best things of your month? Tell me!

Linking up with Leigh Kramer

Filed Under: personal Tagged With: diet, fitness, healing, National Cipher Challenge, Oxford, TEDx, Torquay

Anita’s Belated 2014 Christmas Letter and Early New Year Letter

By Anita Mathias

27-IMG_1518

Friends,

Happy New Year!! May it be a year of blessing and happiness for all of us

My Christmas letter has morphed into a New Year’s letter–which is kind of how my year went!

2014! What a year! Here it is:

January—I win an all-expense paid competition to go to … Cambodia with Tearfund.

Zoe gets an offer from Oxford University to read Theology. She worked in the Bridge in Gadsden, Alabama at the end of her gap year at the School of Ministry, Catch the Fire Toronto.

February—Family trip to France—Paris and the Loire Valley. Came back to find we had been burgled. Our car too and loads of stuff. A beautiful moment to discover that we had never got around to getting homeowner’s insurance!

March—Intense trip to Cambodia. Images here.

April—I publish my first children’s book: Francesco, Artist of Florence: The Man who Gave Too Much

Merry Labradoodle joins our family.

 

merry

 

anita_merry

 

May—Still exhausted after Cambodia, so go on a retreat to shake it off to El Palmeral, Spain, a retreat centre run by charming Mike and Julie Jowett.

(In fact, I have aggressive cancer, not that easily shaken off by rest and retreats!)

July—Irene wins the Anne Hogg Prize for Modern Foreign Languages (French and Spanish).

Lovely family holiday in Helsinki. (See images) I walk, walk, walk.

 

irene_anne_hogg_prize

 

August— Suddenly exhausted. I surprise Roy by continually murmuring, “I think I have cancer.” Take up running to feel better—but do not outrun cancer…

Irene goes to Poland and Germany on a school trip, and Zoe and Irene visit my mother in India.

Roy and I go to David’s Tent, a 72 hour worship festival. I’d like to go next year too. This prophecy I received was VERY significant for me, though it may seem heartbreakingly ironic in the light of the rest of year.

September—Interview by Maria Rodrigues at Premier Radio, Women to Women Show.

http://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Weekday/Woman-to-Woman/Episodes/Woman-to-Woman80

I’m on at 34:30 and the interview is 55 minutes!

October—Nice trip to France at half-term.

Zoe starts at Oxford University reading theology. She has a great first term, throwing herself into all manner of activities, from Cuppers drama, to Christian Union, Christian Theologians Society, Just Love (social justice), Just Lunch (Freshers studying the Book of Amos), Family of Friends (Charismatic Oxford students) and… oh, my head’s spinning already.

Jake the Collie, who was once “obese,” (thanks vet!!), gets thinner and thinner, until he has to be carried downstairs, limps painfully, and we say a tearful goodbye. It was cancer. Not to be taken lightly

I am still tired. See doctor. Severe anemia. Colonoscopy. Visually, it looks like cancer, the endoscopist says. It quacks like cancer…

 

zoe_church_lucky

P1020446_cropped

P1020446

November— I am the runner-up for “Tweeter of the Year,” in the Christian New Media Awards, and attend a glamorous awards dinner in London.

Roy and I celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.

Biopsy in. And it is…colon cancer! I have surgery on November 25.

December—

Biopsy in again. Fresh horrors. 45% of the lymph nodes removed have tested positive for cancer. Chemotherapy is advised. I am envious of my friends who had cancer at the same stage, declined chemo and are alive to tell the tale.

I don’t have peace declining chemo, because to go by the three oncologists I’ve spoken to, and the medical papers I’ve read, taking chemo will dramatically reduce my odds of getting cancer again, and will increase my odds of 5 year survival. Also, if it returns it may be metastatic and virtually incurable. Horrors!

So I guess I am going to go ahead with chemo next month.

10-20% of people who take the chemo combination suggested for me do not have side-effects. If you’d like to pray for me, please pray that I am among them.

I am also learning about mega-nutrition via juices and smoothies to strengthen my immune system to withstand chemo, and vanquish cancer.

Some people come out stronger at the end of chemotherapy and cancer because they start exercising and eat beautifully, my friend Azmy, a GP tells me. God willing, I will be one of them.

Stephen Jay Gould writes in his beautiful essay on his cancer, “The Median is not the Message,” “Attitude clearly matters in fighting cancer. We don’t know why (from my old-style materialistic perspective, I suspect that mental states feed back upon the immune system). But match people with the same cancer for age, class, health, socioeconomic status, and, in general, those with positive attitudes, with a strong will and purpose for living, with commitment to struggle, with an active response to aiding their own treatment and not just a passive acceptance of anything doctors say, tend to live longer. A few months later I asked Sir Peter Medawar, my personal scientific guru and a Nobelist in immunology, what the best prescription for success against cancer might be. “A sanguine personality,” he replied.”

What a year! Dear God, I don’t want to hurt your pride, or show off or anything, but I think I could have done a better job editing it! But whey-hey, I am just in the middle of the story and I do not know how God is going to work it out.

Oh yes, I was going to be positive, wasn’t I? There is a message in the bottle of cancer, and, next year, I am going to decode it. In Oxford, England, on December 21, the winter solstice, we had 16 hours 18 minutes of darkness, but also had 7 hours 42 minutes of daylight. Always some brightness on the darkest day. Next year, I will be looking for it, and cultivating a joyful and grateful heart.

The whole earth IS full of his glory.

Happy New Year, everyone

 

Love,

Anita

Filed Under: In Which my Blog Morphs into Memoir and Gets Personal, personal Tagged With: Cambodia, colon cancer, El Palmeral, France, Helsinki, labradoodles, Oxford University Theology, Spain, Tearfund

Anita’s Christmas Letter

By Anita Mathias

Christ pantocrator (Monreale Duomo)The  mosaic of Christ Pantocrator which we saw last week (Monreale Duomo, Sicily)

Merry Christmas, dear readers, and here’s my short and sweet Christmas letter.

2013 was a full year, and a good one.

We put 2012 to bed in Malta, which we loved. Neolithic temples, Crusader towns, and fabulous beaches.

January

Zoe was accepted by Jesus College, Cambridge to read Theology.

February

We spent a few days in Fflad-y-Brenin, a retreat centre in Wales. Very wet.

Resolve: Do not go on holiday in England in February if you can avoid it.

March

Enjoyed my church’s (St. Andrew’s, Oxford) weekend away.

April

Enjoyed Handel’s Messiah at Good Friday at Royal Albert Hall. Foretaste of heaven.

We spent a week in Corfu—which I loved, gorgeous beaches and mountains.

May

My friend Jules invited me to the revival meetings at Cwmbran, where I experienced God’s presence.

June

Yeah, it’s been quite a year of God-chasing. I went on a retreat at Harnhill Retreat Centre, Gloucestershire, with powerful prayer ministry.

July

Zoe graduates from Oxford High School winning   the Head’s Award for Academic Excellence, her school’s Award for Academic Excellence in Religious Studies, and a Commendation for Achievement in Philosophy and a commendation for progress in French,

Irene visits First World War battlefields; we stay home

Irene, who is growing in her faith, spends a week at Lymington Rushmore Christian Camp. She starts a baking blog, Life Among the Cupcakes.

I voluntarily took part in the Race for Life, first race since forced to run in school.

August.

We visit Switzerland, Italy (Lucca, Pisa and Genoa) and France—Laon, Troyes, all in our trusty campervan, which I love.

September

Roy and I visit the romantic walled cities of Tuscany with Kim and Penelope Swithinbank & their friends, on our first trip away without children in 19 years. Loved San Gimignano, Volterra, and Siena.

 Zoe leaves to the School of Ministry at Catch the Fire, Toronto for her gap year. She has heard excellent speakers; has done some preaching; some prophetic evangelism and outreaches; and discovered nascent spiritual gifts of preaching, prayer ministry and prophetic ministry. She believes she would like to do some form of Christian ministry as her life work.

October

A week in Cornwall, for half term. Loved the beaches, but it was rainy.

Resolve: Do not go on holiday in Britain in October, if you can avoid it.

November

I was nominated for “Tweeter of the Year” and so attended the Christian New Media Awards Conference and dinner in London. Met lots of interesting British social media people.

And heard Heidi Baker in Birmingham. Heidi has made preaching into an art form (listen to her on Youtube), but listening to her is both utterly convicting and inspiring at the same time.

December

Zoe home for a week.

Roy, I and Irene have just returned from a week in Sicily. Enjoyed the ancient Greek Temples, and the nature reserves, and the Byzantine mosaics at Monreale.

 

Other highlights—I’ve lost 11 pounds this year, by eating a whole lot more vegetables and fruits (discovery: green smoothies!!) and a whole lot less sugar and white flour, and longish walks. Total weight loss since Nov. 2012—16 lb.

Doing a bit better with my perennial struggle to balance blogging with its attendant distractions (Facebook, Twitter, emails, comments) with serious reading and writing. Am getting going with my book.

Spiritually, I have reached a calm, settled place, and am really experiencing the love of God. Blogging with its introspection and encouragement to change has been psychologically and spiritually good for me, though since I am trying to write a book, it’s been more haphazard than I would wish.

Zoe will be volunteering in the Bridge, Gadsden, Alabama, in January. The rest of her gap year is still jelling, but we are sure that she and Roy, Irene and I will taste the goodness of the Lord next year too.

And this is my wish for you, friends—“to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13)

Happy Christmas, and very happy 2014

Anita

Filed Under: In Which my Blog Morphs into Memoir and Gets Personal Tagged With: Christmas letter

I am from the Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter Body of Christ

By Anita Mathias

last_supper_cropped

 

 I am from the Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter Body of Christ

I am from earliest memories of Latin Masses in Jamshedpur, India

not understanding a word, and then, English masses,

I did understand, but was bored by,

and Post-Vatican II vernacular masses,

in Konkani, Kannada, Marathi on our travels,

understanding nothing, but doing our Catholic duty,

and saving our souls from hell.

I am from the painting of the Sacred Heart in the living room,
who followed me with his wistful eyes wherever I hid,
and I somehow knew He liked me, was for me.

And I am from luminous statues of Our Lady,
and Catholicism worn on the body,
scapulars, and medals of the infant Jesus of Prague
and showy rosaries of silver and gold,
and the infinite boredom of the evening family rosary,
and my mother’s eyes growing soulful as she said the “Memorare:” “Never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection,
implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided,”
and me, thinking, “Wow, if that is true,
that is amazing, and there must be a God.”

I am from Bible stories from before I could read
Abraham with his knife to Isaac’s heart,
David and Goliath, Daniel in the lion’s den,
and from the stories of the saints, a second language too,
Francis of Assisi, the Little Flower, and Father Damien.

I am apparitions of  the Virgin: at Lourdes,
and Fatima and Velankanni and Guadalupe;
and from the catechism, duly memorized and duly hated,
from imported Easter bonnets and Easter parasols,
and First Holy Communion with a white veil and white shoes,
and chasing George Kuriakose at communion prep.
singing “Georgie, Porgie, pudding and pie,
kissed the girls and made them cry,”

until, ironically, George cried.

I am from the One Holy Catholic Church,
which made my world more cosmopolitan,
with our Parish Priests, Spanish Fr. Calvo,
and Belgian Fr. Durt and American Fr. O’Leary.

And I am from St. Mary’s Convent, Nainital,

my boarding school in the Himalayas,

and being loved by beautiful Irish Sister Josephine,

a Protestant convert who adored Jesus and the Bible,

and was sceptical of all Catholic add-ons,

and taught me to be the same, in a Convent where

we walked to the nuns’ cemetery on All Saint’s Day

holding candles and praying both to and for the dead

in general confusion, and were sentimentally pious

about “Our Lady,” well, had a devotion to her.

 

And I am from Holy Weeks with the church
shrouded in purple for Maundy Thursday,
and late night prayer vigils because He had said

“Can you not stay awake one hour with me?”
and incense flung in the flames, and following
the Priest and the Paschal candle into the dark church
with our little candles (Careful, don’t burn your hair)
on Easter Saturday as the priest intoned, “Christ our light,”
“Thanks be to God,” we said
and we saved bits of palm as bookmarks
and nervously stuck out our tongue for the host,
sometimes withdrawing it too early,
and, “Oh, you dropped the body and blood of Christ!”

 

And I am from boarding-school Catholicism which made me cry with boredom, and which I recollect as torture—

Mass five days a week at 6.15 a.m.,

weekends devoured with Benediction, Adoration,

Stations of the Cross, Rosary, Blue Army and Choir practices.

 

And if any of us are still Catholics, well, that would be a miracle,

Wouldn’t it? And I am not.

 

And I stopped believing in God for a season,

Of course, I did.

 

But I am also from knowing the Bible, in and out,

fruit of all that enforced church time,

knowing hundreds of hymns by heart,

and Biblical wisdom surfacing from the depths of memory

when I least expect it.

I am from a religious conversion, straight out of school,
while reading Catherine Marshall’s Beyond Ourselves,
and The Cross and the Switchblade,
and straying into a charismatic meeting
and being baptized in the Holy Spirit
which I asked for, and receiving the gift of tongues
which I specifically asked not to receive.
and deciding that the best way to serve Jesus
was to work with the poor.

So I am from Mother Teresa,
entering her convent as an aspirant at 17,
where I enjoyed adoration and meditation,
and spiritual reading (an introvert’s spirituality,)
but struggled through lauds, none, vespers, compline,
vocal prayer, novenas for “a special intention,”
litanies and rosaries recited while you chopped vegetables.
Oh, the religious noise!

I am from Oxford, England,
revelling in English Literature in Somerville College,
listening to a lecture on how Christ
fit all the hero archetypes in Lord Raglan’s “The Hero,”
and deciding that he was a hero, not God,
and suddenly feeling all alone in the world.

But later, after earning a Masters’ in Creative Writing

in America, I realise that my life, without Christ’s help,

had been pedestrian, uninspired, and unsuccessful

and surely Jesus could have done a better job running it.

At a friend’s suggestion, I systematically try to do what Jesus says,

and faith returns, and how sweet it is.

 

I am from feeling my way into faith again

at a Pentecostal Holiness church in Williamsburg, Virginia,

where the baptiser insisted we destroy my Father’s copy

of the Bhagvad Gita, and Roy’s grandfather’s snake paperweight.

“Thou shalt have no other Gods before me,” he quotes,

And when he tried to baptise me, I was terrified

to have him push my head beneath water,

–loss of control and all that—

and he thought that the fear was of the devil

and halted the baptism for an exorcism!

And I am from two years in Minnesota,
faith still weak, trying out John Piper’s Bethlehem Baptist
which was too heavily theological:
“The pleasures of God are in bruising his son,”
and how does that get one through from Monday to Saturday
which should be one purpose of a sermon?

And then, back to Williamsburg: Grace Presbyterian Church,

and experiencing “Sonship,” brainchild of Jack Miller

and watching how theology made him come alive,

and made his eyes blaze as he talked about Wesley and Whitfield

my eyes filled with tears, for I realized I loved theology,

and there I was, a secular literary writer, and I had realized

that what I really wanted to do was play in the fields of the Lord.

And I committed to studying my Bible daily, and praying daily,
and I learn theology the best way,
from my own direct encounters with scripture,
not mediated through Calvin, Luther or Piper’s encounters.

And I am from being discipled over five years
by Paul Miller of SeeJesus and learning to ensure
that the rubber of faith hits the road of life.

And I am from St. Andrew’s, Oxford, my current church home,
Book of Common Prayer, liturgy, robed clergy, and Taize.

And I am also from the spiritual discipline of blogging,
asking, “What are you saying today, Lord?”
What is scripture saying?”
and writing it down.

And I am from the international body of Christ.
I learn soaking prayer from the Arnotts of the Toronto Blessing,
which has changed me more than anything else,
resting in the presence of God, receiving revelation,
for God speaks constantly, and is never silent,
and when we are still, we hear.

And I belong to the Wild Goose of the Holy Spirit,

whom I chase at Ffald-y-Brenin, at RiverCamp,

and at the Revival Alliance Conferences.

And I am, more recently, from the revival meetings at Cwmbran.

 

I am from the body of Christ,

tasted in three continents in all its wild richness,

all its flavours, sweet, sour, salty, bitter,

making me who I am—

a mere Christian.

 

I am from Christ.

I am in Christ,

a one-finger typist in the body of Christ,

part of it, as it is part of me.

  

Filed Under: In Which my Blog Morphs into Memoir and Gets Personal

The Road of Excess Leads to the Palace of Wisdom

By Anita Mathias

“The Road of Excess Leads to the Palace of Wisdom,” is one of William Blake’s interesting paradoxes.
My husband (who, sadly, is not the most polite of creatures) sometimes says that I remind him of Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows.
Mr. Toad was overpowered by his latest enthusiasms. A boat—a caravan—a car! As he realized their charms, their indubitable advantages, he grew convinced that they were the best, the only possible way of doing things.  
Ah, embarrassingly familiar!! I loved reading “the classics” as a teen, as much for the cracking good stories, as for, well, having read the classics, the satisfaction of scoring them off my reading list. My goal was to have read all “the classics” by the time I was thirty, and I was progressing steadily towards it until I was 27, and married Roy, and then, well, life happened!
I only read poetry for a few years. In graduate school, and for the first year and a half of our marriage, pretty much all I did was read and write poetry, until, well, I wrote out all my poem ideas, and poetry began to seem too constricted for everything I wanted to explore in words.
If an author speaks to me, enchants me, I buy several of their books, sometimes all of them. If I am interested in a subject—an artist, medieval mystics, or natural healing, or herbs, or using natural supplements to balance brain chemistry, I tend to buy 3-4 books on the subject, and devour them. I then rapidly learn a lot about the subject, though it can be expensive, if it turns out to be less enticing than anticipated, or the waves of the next enthusiasm hit before I’ve sort of mastered this one.
I instinctively believe that if some is good, then more is better. When we planted spring bulbs in Williamsburg, we’d plant 700 or 800 each autumn so that the next spring was magical, seeing all our old favourites come up as well as the last year’s plantings.
It was sad to leave our Virginia garden which we had had for nine years, and so, we have never really thrown ourselves into planting up our Oxford garden, though it’s now our seventh year in it. However, we are slowly planting bulbs and perennials, and have a massive vegetable garden.
* * *
My favourite way of travelling is in a camper van. We first rented one in Switzerland ten years ago, and were amazed at how much we could see of the country in a motor home, which meant we could drop into several lovely sights in a day, start the morning in one little town, and continue until late in a summer evening, resting in the motor home on the way to sights, or over a brief cuppa or a picnic lunch.
For a while, I was convinced that it was the only way to travel, until we enjoyed the pleasures of renting quirky homes in Granada, Istanbul and Rome. My family say they prefer that, though I prefer seeing a huge amount of the country in a motor home, sleeping each night in a different place, especially the free wild camping in parts of Norway, Ireland or Sweden.
We stayed in retreat houses last year, at Lee Abbey and Ffald-y-Brenin and I did love the restfulness of staying in one place, doing nothing, just resting and soaking in God’s presence. On our return, Roy noticed me surfing the internet, absorbed. “I bet you are researching retreat houses,” he said. And indeed, I was.
If Aristotle was right in defining wisdom as the mean between extremes, exploring an extreme means that you learn what’s good about it, as well as its limitations. Then, once you’ve learned its limitations, you might, on the rebound, swerve to the other extreme. For instance, in a scenario familiar to dieters, if you’ve cut out all fat, or meat, or carbs from your diet, for a while you can’t have enough of them. And then, perhaps you return to a balanced diet.
To the path of wisdom, which is the mean between two extremes.
 In fact, my days of riding the wild horse of each enthusiasm to exhaustion are over. Yeah, I am middle-aged now, and am choosing the middle path. Striving for a life with a healthy balance of spiritual, intellectual, physical and social activities and interests. I try to make time to pray, read scripture, exercise, read, write, garden, and spend time with family or friends every day.
And oh, I believe, I hope, that all this sensible balance may mean that, paradoxically, in the long run, there may well be more energy to pursue any one interest.
   

Tweet

Filed Under: In Which my Blog Morphs into Memoir and Gets Personal

An Autobiography in Blog Posts: IV. Oxford Redux.

By Anita Mathias

A picture of our house from the back garden

Previous posts
1 An Autobiography in Blog Posts I. Childhood, Boarding School, a Novice at Mother Teresa’s Convent!
2 An autobiography in blog posts–II. Oxford, America, Marriage, Writing
3An Autobiography in Blog Posts: III. Williamsburg, Virginia, and a Desert Experience


And here’s the last installment

So we left to England, ostensibly for 9 months, but I had plans and schemes and dreams… and hoped never to live in America again. We were all excited, including the girls who loved and laughed and wept and thrilled and chilled over Harry Potter.
We went to Manchester in 2004, where Roy was a distinguished visiting fellow at the University of Manchester for a year. It was a lovely interlude. We arrived with 8 suitcases, and so housekeeping was easy. Then Roy visited America, and returned with 2 suitcases–housekeeping a little harder–and then, the shipment he’d sent arrived. Never again got on top of things. Lesson: Declutter, declutter, declutter—and housework is easy. I still have weekly decluttering sessions—as I have been doing for the last four years!!
We lived in Didsbury, Manchester, and found a good welcoming church, Ivy Manchester, and a good school, Didsbury C of E: an oasis of a year, friendly, open people, and lots of reading and writing.
And then Roy got another dream fellowship—an inter-disciplinary fellowship from the US National Science Foundation, to study a new discipline, anywhere he liked.
And well (of course) we picked Oxford—the Mathematical Institute at Oxford University, where he studied Mathematical Biology.
And then he was offered a chair, a Professorship of Applied Mathematics at the University of Birmingham in 2006.
And I flatly refused to move to Birmingham.
I had found a dream house where we still live, in Oxford, which I love. “Have no interest in Birmingham, won’t live there,” I said, dreading another 12 years in a place in which I’d rather not live. So, Roy sadly shrugged and agreed to commute.
                                                                 * * *
And so I buy the dream house, though, after using the proceeds from our house in America as a down payment, the mortgage was six times Roy’s then salary. And we put both girls in an expensive all girls’ private school, Oxford High school.
And so I guess for the first time in my life, I needed to work to finance this expensive life-style we had committed ourselves too.
So, were these two financial decisions, the too expensive house and the too expensive school errors?
Lol! I don’t know if I would recommend them to anyone else. But as Roy will tell you with great sorrow, I can be a bit of a holy fool where money is concerned. You see, I truly believe that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, that he is a loving father, that he will release money for the home which is just right for a family; the school which is just right for children. (Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t turn to me to me for financial advice. Or, perhaps you should!)
* * *
I am convinced that God has a sense of humour. He always has the last laugh.
In Williamsburg, where I was bored and lacking stimulation and full of self-pity, I was able to read and write (albeit not very much since I was depressed). In Oxford, one of the most literary cities in the world, for the first 3.5 years in business, I was not able to read or write, because I was consumed by business. Yeah, have done more reading and literary writing in Williamsburg, Virginia, than in literary Oxford, England, irony of ironies.
(Come on, Lord, this is not humour. This is irony! What are you trying to teach me? To rely on you alone for the fulfilment of my dreams?  And well, if heartbreak be the pencil to teach me that, then heartbreak is worth it. )
 I did however join Writers in Oxford, a social organization founded by Philip Pullman, yeah, 140 writers, and went to fortnightly drinks parties and social events, including one he hosted. Met several interesting, stimulating writers. Going there reminded me that I wanted to be a writer—ontologically wasa writer–and sometimes made me cry that I was not writing.
Ironically this September, I decided to focus on my blogging and writing, and so each evening became precious, and I dropped out. “Mum, why have you dropped out of Writers in Oxford now that you’ve become a real writer?” Zoe asks. Yeah, one can never get conceited in this family!!
    * * *
I didn’t think I could raise the kind of money I needed in a salaried job, and since I needed serious money, I decided to start a business. We are natural entrepreneurs, and have always been toying with ideas for businesses. I thought having a bookshop would be so cool, so I founded an online one, selling antiquarian books.
Well, the romance of books never died for me, even over that exhausting 14 months, though my hands quite literally gave out with all that typing, pricing and repricing.
Eventually we transitioned from working hard to working smart. I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad (which stresses the importance of creating assets which keep giving, rather than working for a salary, which gets spent up and needs to be re-earned). And The Lazy Man’s Guide to Riches which stresses that the way to work smart in business is to leverage your time, your money, your talents, or your products (create books or iPads which sell millions of times over through third parties, rather than sell thousands of Apple’s iPads…)
So I decided to found a publishing company and publish the best of the antiquarian books I was selling. Okay, founding business #2, while running business #1=exhaustion. I would talkabout my life, and cry, like a silly weepy woman, which I then was.
My predominant thought in the maelstrom of the complexities of publishing was, “I just want life to be easier” though I knew it should be “I just want Jesus.” That was the greatest period of stress I’ve ever known–financial stress, work stress, and health stress, since my immune system unhelpfully buckled, and I developed a stress-related illness, now cured. It’s given me a great understanding and sympathy for other people in financial stress.
* * *
Yes, yes, it’s getting high time for this dire tale to have a fairy tale ending, and thankfully it does. 15 months into publishing, we got our break with an author which did well, and we paid off our business loan, and were well into profit.
We thought we would stop publishing and go back to Math and writing, but in early 2009, a hugely popular BBC serial, The Victorian Farm kept mentioning a poetic, long out of print Victorian Farming manual called The Book of the Farm. I read that every second-hand copy available was snapped up even as the credits rolled on the first evening.
Roy said, “Let’s publish it.” I said, “But we have retired from publishing. We are going to be a writer and a mathematician again. Remember?” Roy who, like me, is an entrepreneur at heart, said, “Let’s publish it!” And so we did.
Magical days! I had been praying for a conservatory since October. We were quoted £21,000 for a classy one. Didn’t have a penny extra, but still prayed faithfully. We published this three volume book in mid-Jan, sold hundreds, then thousands of copies, and signed a contract for that 30 square metre, sunny, four season longed-for conservatory in February. It is my favourite room, my proof that miracles do happen.

Irene’s (in red) 12th birthday party in our conservatory


It’s flower-filled here after my birthday party!

The business grew rapidly!! “It’s like being on a fast-moving train,” a friend who worked with us said. We got a group of 12 friends from church and Oxford to work with us, some full, some part time. And in July 2010, Roy at last retired from mathematics–obsessive, consuming work so incompatible with family life (so much like, err… err… serious writing!) and decided to run the company, and the home, and the children, and well, me, if he could! And I gradually stopped working in the business.
                                                      * * *
Taking up writing again was not easy. I had got out of the habit, had forgotten what was in my book.
I had “churts,” church-related hurts at church, which talking to other friends who’ve left (okay, not a reliable control group) was indeed toxic for them too. I had led three Bible studies there, and while leading one fell out my co-leader and the Rector’s wife, and was unfairly and sadistically untreated. The sadness and anger caused a kind of creative paralysis, and so, unable to start writing again, I mechanically went on working in the business and making money, past the point at which we needed it to pay bills.
The sadness of not using that one talent which is death to hide was affecting my health. My wonderful GP referred me to an NHS therapist who thought she could break the writers’ block in 5 sessions. In fact, it took 4.
I realized that the unforgiveness over the way I was unjustly and cruelly treated was creating a block in my creativity and my spiritual life and my happiness, I went through the hard work of forgiving and asking blessing on those who harmed me.  And the streams of creativity began flowing again
* * *
On a walk on a beach in Royan, France, I felt God calling me to blog, and I have always felt God’s blessing on it, though I don’t know what he is going to do with it.
And, not fully aware of how many people in that church were following my blog through our facebook friendships, I wrote a series of satires on church leaders who are ambitious, cynical, manipulative, ego-driven, neurotic, insecure, concerned with growth over shepherding. It was called “The Screwtape Lectures,” and Screwtape advises his acolytes to do the very things I had observed.
“You are saying we run the church as the Devil would advise?” the priest asked me in shock. Well, actually, Screwtape was (and satire needs exaggeration to work). I am told not to blog about the church if I want to stay, even in the form of allegory!!
And so three years after I should have made that decision, I decide to leave.  A vicar I know through blogging wrote to me, “à la Elijah, ‘You’re likely to starve there. Time to move on to somewhere safe.’
I moved to a normal healthy church, St. Andrew’s, Oxford .
I found a lovely supportive group of kind, intelligent, educated,  successful women, a group I am now co-leading. I felt happy in both this group and our couples’ group. And desperately wished I had left that unhappy toxic church three years earlier. Though I do believe in the value of desert experiences, and being in the wrong place at the right time.
Who is this who comes out of the desert leaning on her beloved? (Song of Songs 8:5).  My desert experience in that chaotic, badly run Charismatic church deepened my relationship with Christ. I spent more time with him in the anonymous quietness of the desert, and got to know him and hear his voice far more clearly.
Challenges ahead: Creatively, to learn to combine blogging and literary writing. Physically: by exercise and healthy eating to recover the physical health which has been compromised over several sedentary, stressful years. Emotionally and spiritually, I am happy after several turbulent years, and for that I am grateful!!

Filed Under: In Which my Blog Morphs into Memoir and Gets Personal

An Autobiography in Blog Posts: III. Williamsburg, Virginia, and a Desert Experience

By Anita Mathias


Part I–Childhood, Boarding School, a Novice at Mother Teresa’s Convent
Part II–Oxford, America, Marriage, Writing
And so to Williamsburg, we returned, mourning, mourning, mourning.
* * *

It was a wilderness experience.  I once walked in Oxford University Parks on a bleak December, and saw a scarlet macaw hop along. No, not kidding. Well, that’s how I felt in Williamsburg. I could not find soulmates. I was very lonely.

I cried; I was furious with Roy. We were living there because he worked in a very esoteric area of mathematics, and the premier cluster of mathematicians in his area were at William and Mary.
I said, “Please quit, so we can live where we wish. Breed dogs. Let’s buy a farm. A Christmas tree farm. An asparagus and blueberry farm. Train bonsai!” (Yeah, creative, aren’t I?) Anything that will get us out of being chained to this materialistic, house-proud backwater, where everyone looks immaculately groomed, their houses and cars are immaculate, and few have read a book all year. Or written one.
And the latter category, sadly, included me.
* * *
And then, and then, the manuscript which I had sent the New York editor and agent did not interest either of them in the final draft. I lay face down on my carpet, and wanted to die.
Oh, I was so mad at Roy for not providing more help with child care and housework so I could write a good manuscript. The sadness caused weight gain, constant colds and coughs, debilitating allergies, insomnia, depression. The house was a mess.
A desert experience!!
Spiritually, the desert is the most richly blessed of places. I am certain of it. It may not be rich—will not be rich socially, or in terms of approbation, attention, success, friendship, perhaps not even economically.  Ah, but spiritually, you can grow fat when the rest of your life is thin gruel.
I was sick, I decided–spiritually, emotionally, even psychologically, since I was then on high dose of anti-depressants!! I needed the great Physician. I committed to spending 90 minutes a day in prayer in Bible study in 1996. I did not transform immediately, by any means. If anything, this commitment which I fulfilled before writing and which soaked up nervous energy, made me tireder, crosser, more anxious, highly-strung and frustrated in the short, even medium, run.
* * *
I could diagnose my spiritual plight, but was powerless to do anything about it.
  Jeremiah 17 “Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who draws strength from mere flesh
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6 That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
 7 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”
(I am delighted to declare that verses 7-8 describe me now).
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, Psalm 20:7.I was putting all my hope and faith in chariots and horses. In editors, in agents, in having a writers’ group as I did in Minneapolis, in networking. In living in a place with good theatres, visiting writers, literary festivals. In the stimulation of friends who read and wrote, and the creative exchange of ideas.
I taught Creative Writing at William and Mary with a friend, a writer who lived on a farm in the boondocks, and just steadfastly wrote books whereas I, putting faith in networking and the big break was successfully applying for fellowships to, and dashing around to idyllic writers colonies, the Vermont Studio Centre and The Virginia Centre for the Creative Arts in Sweet Briar. And to writers’ conferences: Bread Loaf, Wesleyan, Chenango Valley, Mount Holyoke. I should have just been writing!!
Just write, just write. Lots of wisdom to that. But I guess I was stuck.
It took a long period of dreams being crushed and broken for me to trust in God and no one else, not even, especially not, myself for the fulfilment of my dreams.
* * *
Eventually, eventually…little miracles began to happen, and my life began to change.
Well, I laid the manuscript aside, and through 1997, writing for an hour a day, wrote a tight, contorted story of early childhood, here and here, which won a National Endowment for the Arts award of $20,000. In this writing I did to take my mind off my stymied manuscript, my writing style came together, became instinctive.
I began to win writing prizes again, fellowships to colonies and conferences, and to publish all over: The Washington Post, London Magazine, Commonweal, The Christian Century, my pieces were picked up by The Best Spiritual Writing annual anthologies. I taught Creative Writing at William and Mary, though did not find it compatible with writing. Well, have never yet found anything that is!!
And life went on. I had two lovely happy girls. We bought a beautiful house in a lovely neighbourhood, Kingsmill, and lived there for 9 years. We travelled extensively—I craved the old world, art, culture, history. We visited Japan, Israel, New Zealand, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Holland, leaving Williamsburg as much as we could. Roy was earning well enough, and we were doing well enough through shrewd investing!
* * *
And surprisingly, what God used to help me out of the pit when I struggling with marriage, and with keeping up with the basics of running an orderly house (in which I was desperately failing!) was a teaching and speaking ministry.
I was asked to speak at events like women’s breakfasts, and evening banquets! I was asked to teach Bible studies, and taught four long, exhausting Beth Moore studies, which, with their saturation in Scripture, were an important part in turning my life around.
And why should someone struggling herself with the basics of marriage, being an attentive mum, and running an orderly house grow through teaching others? God’s mercy and sense of humour!! A depressed woman sharing her Prozac of the Word of God!
And I was sharing what was most precious to me–my time and intellectual, spiritual, and emotional energy. In return, I was blessed with stability in my life, emotions and faith; good friends; and deepened roots in God’s word.  That is ever God’s way. Share your limited oil and flour, your limited loaves and fishes, and they will be multiplied.
Another way I was blessed by sharing out of my poverty was that Paul Millersuggested an editing for discipling trade. And this discipling over five years was absolutely life-changing. I was also mentored by a retired pastor’s wife, Lolly Dunlap. As a couple they had done 4 or 5 people’s work, running a church, a radio ministry, schools, centres of learning disability, a ranch for youth, but now she lived in Scripture and got great nourishment from it. That was inspiring.
And I started gardening. Planted several fruit trees, thousands of spring bulbs, hellebores, hostas, a rare specimen garden. I so enjoyed watching them come up stronger each year in that garden I had for 9 years that I almost made peace with staying in Williamsburg.
* * *
I went on a retreat in November 2003 to a retreat centre called Richmond Hill, and picked up a book called I Lift up my Eyes to the Hills,coincidentally the same title as the unfinished book I was drafting. I realized that I had found my answer and abruptly left the next day.
It was about praying with faith for every area of one’s life. Praying, not hoping!! Though it was my writing I worried about, old dreams came uncovered. As beached whales long for immense salty seas, so in America, too fast, too new, too scary for me, I longed for ancient, low-key, gentle, literary Oxford, and began to pray about moving there.
I prayed for soul mates; the book suggested that you offer friendship to those God has placed in your life as you wait for the “glorious friends” you might want, and I did just that, made some good friends, and was, I was guess, happy.
I started praying very specifically for creativity like a rushing river, a prayer answered a little later than the other two.
* * *
In God’s time, miracles happen.
Roy wrote a brilliant paper that he worked on off on for 10 years. It won two prestigious prizes, one of them for the best paper in his area in the last 3 years. And finally fellowships and job offers poured in. (Well, just as well he didn’t become a dog breeder!)
One in Manchester.
And one—yay—in Oxford!!
Without desert experiences. one would never learn to lean, rather than run in one’s own strength and exhaust oneself.
Who is this who comes out of the desert, leaning on her beloved? (Song of Songs, 8:5). Yeah, it was me!

Filed Under: In Which my Blog Morphs into Memoir and Gets Personal

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Sign Up and Get a Free eBook!

Sign up to be emailed my blog posts (one a week) and get the ebook of "Holy Ground," my account of working with Mother Teresa.

Join 634 Other Readers

Follow me on Twitter

Follow @anitamathias1

Anita Mathias: About Me

Anita Mathias

Read my blog on Facebook

My Books

Wandering Between Two Worlds: Essays on Faith and Art

Wandering Between Two Worlds - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Francesco, Artist of Florence: The Man Who Gave Too Much

Francesco, Artist of Florence - Amazom.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

The Story of Dirk Willems

The Story of Dirk Willems - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk
Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
Runner Up Christian Media Awards 2014 - Tweeter of the year

Recent Posts

  •  On Not Wasting a Desert Experience
  • A Mind of Life and Peace in the Middle of a Global Pandemic
  • On Yoga and Following Jesus
  • Silver and Gold Linings in the Storm Clouds of Coronavirus
  • Trust: A Message of Christmas
  • Life- Changing Journaling: A Gratitude Journal, and Habit-Tracker, with Food and Exercise Logs, Time Sheets, a Bullet Journal, Goal Sheets and a Planner
  • On Loving That Which Love You Back
  • “An Autobiography in Five Chapters” and Avoiding Habitual Holes  
  • Shining Faith in Action: Dirk Willems on the Ice
  • The Story of Dirk Willems: The Man who Died to Save His Enemy

Categories

What I’m Reading

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Barak Obama

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance- Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

H Is for Hawk
Helen MacDonald

H Is for Hawk - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Tiny Habits
B. J. Fogg

  Tiny Habits  - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

The Regeneration Trilogy
Pat Barker

  The Regeneration Trilogy  - Amazon.com
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Archive by month

INSTAGRAM

anita.mathias

Writer, Blogger, Reader, Mum. Christian. Instaing Oxford, travel, gardens and healthy meals. Oxford English alum. Writing memoir. Lives in Oxford, UK

Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford # Images from walks around Oxford. #beauty #oxford #walking #tranquility #naturephotography #nature
So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And h So we had a lovely holiday in the Southwest. And here we are at one of the world’s most famous and easily recognisable sites.
#stonehenge #travel #england #prehistoric England #family #druids
And I’ve blogged https://anitamathias.com/2020/09/13/on-not-wasting-a-desert-experience/
So, after Paul the Apostle's lightning bolt encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he went into the desert, he tells us...
And there, he received revelation, visions, and had divine encounters. The same Judean desert, where Jesus fasted for forty days before starting his active ministry. Where Moses encountered God. Where David turned from a shepherd to a leader and a King, and more, a man after God’s own heart.  Where Elijah in the throes of a nervous breakdown hears God in a gentle whisper. 
England, where I live, like most of the world is going through a desert experience of continuing partial lockdowns. Covid-19 spreads through human contact and social life, and so we must refrain from those great pleasures. We are invited to the desert, a harsh place where pruning can occur, and spiritual fruitfulness.
A plague like this has not been known for a hundred years... John Piper, after his cancer diagnosis, exhorted people, “Don’t Waste Your Cancer”—since this was the experience God permitted you to have, and He can bring gold from it. Pandemics and plagues are permitted (though not willed or desired) by a Sovereign God, and he can bring life-change out of them. 
Let us not waste this unwanted, unchosen pandemic, this opportunity for silence, solitude and reflection. Let’s not squander on endless Zoom calls—or on the internet, which, if not used wisely, will only raise anxiety levels. Let’s instead accept the invitation to increased silence and reflection
Let's use the extra free time that many of us have long coveted and which has now been given us by Covid-19 restrictions to seek the face of God. To seek revelation. To pray. 
And to work on those projects of our hearts which have been smothered by noise, busyness, and the tumult of people and parties. To nurture the fragile dreams still alive in our hearts. The long-deferred duty or vocation
So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I So, we are about eight weeks into lockdown, and I have totally sunk into the rhythm of it, and have got quiet, very quiet, the quietest spell of time I have had as an adult.
I like it. I will find going back to the sometimes frenetic merry-go-round of my old life rather hard. Well, I doubt I will go back to it. I will prune some activities, and generally live more intentionally and mindfully.
I have started blocking internet of my phone and laptop for longer periods of time, and that has brought a lot of internal quiet and peace.
Some of the things I have enjoyed during lockdown have been my daily long walks, and gardening. Well, and reading and working on a longer piece of work.
Here are some images from my walks.
And if you missed it, a blog about maintaining peace in the middle of the storm of a global pandemic
https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/  #walking #contemplating #beauty #oxford #pandemic
A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine. A few walks in Oxford in the time of quarantine.  We can maintain a mind of life and peace during this period of lockdown by being mindful of our minds, and regulating them through meditation; being mindful of our bodies and keeping them happy by exercise and yoga; and being mindful of our emotions in this uncertain time, and trusting God who remains in charge. A new blog on maintaining a mind of life and peace during lockdown https://anitamathias.com/2020/05/04/a-mind-of-life-and-peace/
In the days when one could still travel, i.e. Janu In the days when one could still travel, i.e. January 2020, which seems like another life, all four of us spent 10 days in Malta. I unplugged, and logged off social media, so here are some belated iphone photos of a day in Valetta.
Today, of course, there’s a lockdown, and the country’s leader is in intensive care.
When the world is too much with us, and the news stresses us, moving one’s body, as in yoga or walking, calms the mind. I am doing some Yoga with Adriene, and again seeing the similarities between the practice of Yoga and the practice of following Christ.
https://anitamathias.com/2020/04/06/on-yoga-and-following-jesus/
#valleta #valletamalta #travel #travelgram #uncagedbird
Images from some recent walks in Oxford. I am copi Images from some recent walks in Oxford.
I am coping with lockdown by really, really enjoying my daily 4 mile walk. By savouring the peace of wild things. By trusting that God will bring good out of this. With a bit of yoga, and weights. And by working a fair amount in my garden. And reading.
How are you doing?
#oxford #oxfordinlockdown #lockdown #walk #lockdownwalks #peace #beauty #happiness #joy #thepeaceofwildthings
Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social d Images of walks in Oxford in this time of social distancing. The first two are my own garden.  And I’ve https://anitamathias.com/2020/03/28/silver-and-gold-linings-in-the-storm-clouds-of-coronavirus/ #corona #socialdistancing #silverlinings #silence #solitude #peace
Trust: A Message of Christmas He came to earth in Trust: A Message of Christmas  He came to earth in a  splash of energy
And gentleness and humility.
That homeless baby in the barn
Would be the lynchpin on which history would ever after turn
Who would have thought it?
But perhaps those attuned to God’s way of surprises would not be surprised.
He was already at the centre of all things, connecting all things. * * *
Augustus Caesar issued a decree which brought him to Bethlehem,
The oppressions of colonialism and conquest brought the Messiah exactly where he was meant to be, the place prophesied eight hundred years before his birth by the Prophet Micah.
And he was already redeeming all things. The shame of unwed motherhood; the powerlessness of poverty.
He was born among animals in a barn, animals enjoying the sweetness of life, animals he created, animals precious to him.
For he created all things, and in him all things hold together
Including stars in the sky, of which a new one heralded his birth
Drawing astronomers to him.
And drawing him to the attention of an angry King
As angelic song drew shepherds to him.
An Emperor, a King, scholars, shepherds, angels, animals, stars, an unwed mother
All things in heaven and earth connected
By a homeless baby
The still point on which the world still turns. The powerful centre. The only true power.
The One who makes connections. * * *
And there is no end to the wisdom, the crystal glints of the Message that birth brings.
To me, today, it says, “Fear not, trust me, I will make a way.” The baby lay gentle in the barn
And God arranges for new stars, angelic song, wise visitors with needed finances for his sustenance in the swiftly-coming exile, shepherds to underline the anointing and reassure his parents. “Trust me in your dilemmas,” the baby still says, “I will make a way. I will show it to you.” Happy Christmas everyone.  https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/24/trust-a-message-of-christmas/ #christmas #gemalderieberlin #trust #godwillmakeaway
Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Look, I’ve designed a journal. It’s an omnibus Gratitude journal, habit tracker, food and exercise journal, bullet journal, with time sheets, goal sheets and a Planner. Everything you’d like to track.  Here’s a post about it with ISBNs https://anitamathias.com/2019/12/23/life-changing-journalling/. Check it out. I hope you and your kids like it!
Load More… Follow on Instagram

© 2020 Dreaming Beneath the Spires · All Rights Reserved. · Cookie Policy · Privacy Policy