Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Milestones to the Gallows: A Guest Post by Les Norman, Founder of DCI

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I am honoured to host this guest post from Les Norman, the founder of DCI 

les_norman_gallowsThey called us illegal. They called us illegitimate. It was all true. They were right. Men who occupied pulpits on Sunday, called us ‘Mongrel Ministries on Monday because some of the less comfortable people in their churches came our way to see if Jesus could make something of them. Then, when one nationally known ‘name’ asked to visit, “the very next morning,” it seemed to me that the whole nation was in the mood for a hanging.

On the way to the gallows, I passed four milestones.

At 27 years old, entrepreneurial success had put a Rolls-Royce on the drive of a country home yet, in reality, this was a veneer over the ruins from a parentless childhood, a disastrous sort of teenage marriage and the memory-numbing cocktails of Scotch and NHS Valium. By unexpectedly following Jesus, really, because Jesus followed me, I discovered the healing power of the love of God, and everything changed. [Read more…]

10 Lessons from Heartbreak Time and Death and Resurrection in Writing my Memoir (Part I)

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Crows_Lake_in_North_Sikkim_MIND_HAS_MOUNTAINSSo, around 1987, when I was reading English at Somerville College, Oxford, Salman Rushdie read from Midnight’s Children at the Oxford University Majlis, the Indian society. And I stay up all night reading Midnight’s Children, transfixed. At least 95% of the novels, plays, poetry I had read until then had been written by British, American and European authors. Unconsciously, I thought of their countries, their lives, as the proper subject of literature.

Rushdie’s India was 15 years older than mine, but definitely recognizable. So all lights blaze: the moment many writers describe when they realize: “I can make literature out of what I know and have experienced.”

I quickly write about 25 pages in a green felt pen. I must dig them out.

* * *

I move on to America, to a Master’s in Creative Writing, in Ohio State University, 1987-1989 and I choose to specialize in, not memoir, but poetry, the form in which, like many beginning writers, I instinctively wrote.

So, it’s all poetry: courses in poetry, reading it, writing it, in the interstices of taking classes, and teaching Freshman composition. And then I go on to a Ph.D in Creative Writing at SUNY Binghamton in 1989–taking classes, teaching classes, writing papers, grading papers, a romantic busyness: lots of reading,  thinking and a little writing, but still…all I want to do is write.

I quit my Ph. D to get married, and suddenly get to write full time, as I had always wanted to. We wander around the US–to Cornell, New York, where Roy did a post-doc; to Stanford, California, another post-doc; and then to William and Mary, where he teaches. And I write poetry full time! And then I realize I’ve written through all the poem ideas I have, and am running dry.

* * *

I pick up memoirs, almost by chance. Patricia Hampl’s, A Romantic Education, describes, with verve and verisimilitude, a family in which food, and eating and drinking were shorthand substitutes for love—much like mine. Annie Dillard in “An American Childhood” describes an intense girlhood in Pittsburgh, a steel city like Jamshedpur in which I grew up. I read Frost in May, and Mary MacCarthy’s Memories of a Catholic Girlhood.

Dostoevsky describes his Prince Myshkin before an epileptic fit

“His brain seemed to catch fire at brief moments…. His sensation of being alive and his awareness increased tenfold at those moments which flashed by like lightning.  His mind and heart were flooded by a dazzling light.”

So too mine. About 4 years after the original idea, I saw my childhood and adolescence as a subject over the next few week and months, and hundreds of little memories rushed in.  I jotted them down and I burned with the desire to write the memoir. (As I do now).

* * *

And in the providence which shapes our ends, my husband, who had been teaching at William and Mary was offered a postdoc the University of Minnesota. I believed I could write anywhere, so was cool with going to Minneapolis, and my two years there turned out to be absolutely one of the most stimulating and creative periods of my writing life.

The Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, had an active literary community, particularly in Creative nonfiction and memoir. I applied to a graduate course in Creative Nonfiction  at the University of Minnesota to which I had to turn in a 10 page piece of writing. I wrote my first essay, “The Goblin Market” about the raucous open air markets, magical to a young child, and it won a Roberts Writing Award, $200.

Charlie Sugnet, my writing teacher at the University of Minnesota, and the weekly book excerpts he gave us to read opened the world of creative nonfiction to me. Annie Dillard says moving from poetry to creative nonfiction is like playing with the whole orchestra rather than a single instrument. Indeed.

* * *

Mini-magic happened. I had written two long essays that term in Charlie Sugnet’s class, one about my conversion experience, and one about working at Mother Teresa’s convent.

Within a few months, the two pieces won a Minnesota State Arts Board grant ($6000), a Jerome Foundation travel grant ($1800), a mentorship award with an established writer from the Asian community: David Mura.

Sugnet said that he could see my having a career. He suggested submitting a book about my experience in Mother Teresa’s convent to editors and agents. It was not, however, the book I wanted to write–I wanted to write a memoir of my early childhood. I visualized this period as the last 20-30 pages in it

But heck, I so wanted a published book and so I embarked upon a foolish quest that saddened and poisoned many years of my life–trying to write a book I was not truly in love with, and did not want to write with my whole heart. (Samina Ali, who was in one of these classes with me, described how she wanted to write about her arranged marriage to a Muslim gay man, but was so desperate for affirmation that she almost signed on to write a book called Demon Lover, about an incestuous relationship with her father.) 

Lesson 1: Write the book YOU want to write, the one you are in love with, not the one you think might be successful

 

So I was trying to spin a book out of 14 months of my life, wasn’t whole-heartedly in love with it, and craved validation. I joined a writers’ group with my friend, the lovely writer (and human being!) Erin Hart. Took more writing and literature classes at the University and the Loft, a literary centre, at which I taught a course in creative nonfiction. I submitted my essays to magazines and for grants and prizes and fellowships, instead of keeping just writing, and finishing the doggone thing. Which meant I was always backing up and polishing what I’d already written instead of just writing. Going forward.

And since American creative writing classes are based on the workshop model: much time waswasted reading and critiquing other amateurs work instead of communing with the greats! And this is true, for both teachers and students!

Lesson 2 Get it done, get it down, get it written. Don’t seek validation. Seek mastery.

 

In my second year in Minnesota I went to a writers’ conference in New England, trying to get an agent and editor and a hypercritical, ungenerous teacher there shredded my work at the sentence and grammatical level (she didn’t like my contorted pretzel-like sentences) destroying my confidence, making me analyse my sentences,  instead of just writing by instinct,

I took a course in grammar and editing which I perhaps did not need, but which helped me to write with the left brain too, and write better).  More tiredness, more distraction, more time wasted.

Lesson 3: Take the critique of teachers with a grain of salt, assessing them. Avoid mean-spirited, frustrated, bitter ones: tormentors rather than mentors.

 

I used a tenth of the $6000 State Arts Board grant to work one on one with Carol Bly (ex-wife of Robert Bly!), who could go off on wild riffs of rage about ideas and sentences or grammatical constructions she did not like, or, but was also hyperbolically lavish with praise. All rather alarming for someone who was moving from poetry to prose and was just learning to write beautiful prose.   She promised to send it to her agent when I had 100 beautiful pages.

More stress, more backing up and looking over my shoulder and obsessing over each word, each phrase, each sentence instead of looking at the big picture.

I started to write self-consciously, analytically, analysing each word, phrase, sentence, wanting them to be unassailable, joy turning to stress.

Lesson 4—Quit over-analysing. Write freely, write like a river.  You will never write perfectly in this life. Why should you? You are not God.

Learn to let things go. Ship.

 

Knowing my work would be critiqued as it was being written I started getting frozen and blocked. There was a four page chapter over which I got blocked for four months in my perfectionism, which turned out to be–unnecessary!

Lesson 5 when blocked, read, read, read. You might instinctively stumble on a form and language. If you are blocked on a chapter, move on. Perhaps you don’t have to write it.

* * *

In the summer of 1993, I go to the Squaw Valley Writers Conference in California and meet Harper and Row editor, Ted Solotaroff and an agent, Virginia Barber, who express an enthusiastic interest in my manuscript about working with Mother Teresa.

I come back walking on air to Williamsburg, where we had returned despite my desperate desire to stay in Minneapolis.

My husband wasn’t hugely supportive; he was establishing his own career as a mathematician. Life was stressful, lots of battles about who’d do the dishes and the laundry and the cleaning and the tidying. And then we had Zoe, a lovely grinny baby–and writing time and energy was at a premium. I wrote and revised the manuscript through the tired first two years of her life.

When my second revision of my manuscript was rejected by the agent and editor in October 1996, I lay face down on the carpet and wanted to die.

Lesson 6: Never confuse strong enthusiastic interest for a signature on a piece of paper.

(I later met at least three established writers who this editor had expressed a strong interest in, led them on and dumped. Why?

Read Part Two here

“For the Want of a Pencil” Scott Berry on his work in the Philippines

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DatagKids13 I was ankle deep in mud, trying to brush away disease-carrying mosquitoes that seemed to be fascinated with my exposed legs, arms and face. I had a 30 pound concrete construction block in each hand, which made swatting at nasty bugs just a little difficult. The tropical conditions on the Philippines island of Bohol were offering me some challenges that I’d never had to deal with before. The bugs were one thing, the daily rain storms that deluged the countryside were another. And then there was the heat — relentless and disinterested in my personal discomfort.

I was on a short-term mission trip to the Philippines with an organization whose purpose was to construct church buildings for needy congregations. Now I’m not a construction guy. I’m a former high school special education teacher who was just trying to do something “good”. The situation I found myself in was surreal. For those of you who have never been in a third-world country before, let me sum it up by saying, life there is truly different.

There was a dining area set up next to the work site. It was a simple affair of a few wooden benches and tables sitting under a very large tarp. It was surly no four star restaurant, but it served our needs.   The first few days there were rainy. The mornings weren’t too bad, but part way through the day, the rain would come. Sometimes it was torrential, but most of the time it was just a slow steady rain.

During one of those rainy days, I found myself hanging out under the tarp at the dining area. I wasn’t the only one. A few of the Filipino workers had also come in to take a break from the weather.  There was a young man whom I had noticed several times there at the work site. This boy was, in my estimation, of high school age. His name was Raymond. Once I began to recognize people a little better and put names to the faces, I soon realized that Raymond wasn’t just at the work site once in a while – he was there every day.

Raymond

Raymond

“Raymond,” I asked him. “Why aren’t you in school today?” He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. This was his church and his mom was one of the kitchen staff helping prepare our food. But his shrug wasn’t an answer to my question.

“Why aren’t you in school?”

“I don’t have a pencil,” was his reply.

“What do you mean, you don’t have a pencil?” I queried further.

Later on I spoke to Raymond’s mother and she confirmed that the boy was not in school due to a lack of basic school supplies. I was stunned. She went on to explain that she had many children. If she had any hopes of the younger ones ever completing the sixth grade, the older ones would have to drop out of school. There simply wasn’t enough money to go around.

I did some research and found that the typical Filipino student could get through almost an entire year of school for around twenty-five dollars. The older students, like Raymond, did have some extra requirements for school, but even then the amount they needed was minimal. I vowed that Raymond would go to school. I would ‘support’ him so that he could finish his education. It’s one thing to chose to live a simple Filipino life, but it’s another to live that life because you didn’t have a choice. It was my goal to make sure that Raymond did indeed have that choice.

The next week, I met several other children who were in situations similar to Raymond’s.  I soon learned that nearly 40 percent of all Filipino children are unable to finish elementary school because they don’t have basic school supplies.  Nearly half of these kids never finish high school for the same reason.

I had been truly touched by these children and their situation.  When I returned to the US, I began a non-profit organization with the primary purpose of providing school supplies to needy Filipino children so that they could at least graduate from high school.

I’ve since returned to the island of Bohol, where I’ve met with several children and their families who need help.  One of the communities is an isolated village called Datag.  Many of the children who live there don’t even have shoes to wear.  Many more don’t have proper clothes, and they surely don’t have the supplies they need for school.   School starts in the middle of June, so Educate: Bohol has spent the past several weeks gather clothing and shoes for these children.  We’re also collecting funds so that we can purchase and distribute school supplies.DCCKids1

It’s a very emotional assignment for me, but I wouldn’t trade it for any other.  The Filipinos are beautiful people who work hard and appreciate God’s blessings.  I will be back in June to help with the distribution of school supplies, clothing, and shoes.  But there’s another village nearby  . . . and the situation there is actually worse.   Through God’s guiding hand, I’m ready for the challenge.

* * *

Scott Berry has published Return to the Middle, a non-fiction account of his recent experiences working as a missionary in the Philippines.

“We’ve all struggled with trying to do the ‘right’ thing,” says Berry. “But sometimes not everyone agrees with our actions and we quickly find ourselves in an uncomfortable conflict. Often, that struggle beats us down and, if we don’t take criticism well, we just quit. That’s what happened to me. But God offered me the chance to try one more time. He opened a door. I stepped through it.”

Return to the Middle is the story of how Berry allowed God to lead him through not only a foreign land, but also through foreign places in his heart.

His pastor and close friend, Tom Caffery, spoke of the man he met upon Berry’s return from the Philippines: “Like most who experience a mission trip, Scott was struck at the heart of what we can accomplish for Christ’s mission today.”

Berry founded a public charity, Educate: Bohol, as a response to his visit to the Philippines. He has since returned to the province of Bohol, where he has provided school supplies and other educational needs for over 125 children.

“The need there is tremendous,” Berry says. “We take so much for granted here in America. I wish everyone could have the opportunity to come visit the Philippines with me. I’d love to introduce you to some of the kindest people in the world who work extremely hard every day of the week just to survive. We can send a Filipino child back to school for an entire year for only 35 dollars. An American family spends that much on one fast-food meal that they don’t even remember a day later.”

Berry is a former special education teacher who taught in an inner-city school in Albuquerque. His passion for writing started at a young age and continued on through college. His writing skills were sharpened when he worked as a military historian, writing about the various operations of U.S. Air Force units around the world. Upon retirement from the military, Berry moved to Rio Rancho, New Mexico, just outside of Albuquerque, where he lives with his wife. They have an adult son and daughter and two grandsons.

Here is a link to Scott’s website and blog Educate: Bohol that describes his work further.

In which I Trip, Dust off my Knees, and Get Back into the Race

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Do not bring us to the test, Jesus advises us to pray–which suggests that those who pray this may be spared much testing and temptation. But in this world, there will be trouble (John 16:33) as Jesus reminds us in his luminous last supper discourse.

And one purpose of being brought to the test is that it reveals our hearts, our characters, and where we really are in our spiritual lives.

And the exam results often surprise us!

* * *

I guess I’ve failed a test in the last 11 days—but want to do better.

My memoir will be published next April, with the manuscript due on Dec 31st.

My editor has a fairly systematic plan with week-by-week tasks. Last week’s was to turn in an outline of the book. This week’s was to work out how many chapters or parts thereof I am to write per week between now and Dec. 31st. Divide the estimated word count of the chapters by the number of hours I have to write each week, and get the word count to aspire to per working hour.

All well and good—except the book has 3 major sections, and I have just finished outlining the first one. So 6 days behind, and only a third of the way through last week’s task.

Gosh, what a mass of material. I have actually written the book in first draft, but there are still dozens of pages of material I haven’t used, and because I wrote the book, topically, chapter by chapter, without an outline, there is some repetition.

However, the logical, orderly, obsessive part of me is now delighting in a firm structure, seeing chapters emerge organically, putting everything in its correct place.

* * *

Anyway, so I am working on what I should have turned in last Sunday, and am about a third of the way through, and am even working on Sunday which I rarely do.

Busyness, ah busyness, I have steadfastly attempted to avoid busyness for much of my adult life.  Stress and I don’t get on.

I tend to eat comfort food when stressed. I cut back on exercise.

And alas, I’ve done both this week, reduced my walking from 7-8K to 2-3 K (which meant I didn’t think that well, or sleep that well, or feel that happy). Ate a bit too much chocolate and cookies and sweet treats for the high instead of getting the high from “endogenous morphine” or endorphins  by running (which meant I didn’t think that well, or sleep that well, or feel that happy). Compromised on prayer and Bible study.

In short, I behaved in exactly the sort of way I would counsel my own daughters, or any young woman I was mentoring not to behave.

* * *

But this is not the way I want to write, and this is not the way I am going to write.

This is the way I want to write: I want to see myself hugged in the Father’s embrace.

I want to feel him breathe on me. I want to feel him breathe his Holy Spirit on me (John 20:22).

I want to write from that breathing on me. That is the only way I want to write.

I want to write in that dance with the Father, in union with him.

I want my writing to be worship. I want my writing to be joy.

But by the help of God that is how I am going to write.

* * *

 And guess what? I know this from many other experiences of falling and repentance.

When I write in this way, I will write better, write faster, write more tirelessly, “running, and not growing weary, walking and not being faint. (IS 40:31).” For I will be relying on refreshing from eternal springs.

Seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness (active voice) and “all these things will be added to you,” (passive voice, added to you, by the mercy of God who honours those who honour him).

And it took a week of “running” and writing in my own strength, and not getting very far for me to see that.

And now for another week of writing with the help of Christ who strengthens me.

To Be Wise on Social Media

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We saw, yesterday, the surreal spectacle of the entire might of Boston Police Dept., hundreds of officers, hunting down  Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a lone 19 year old teenager, whose murders and maimings at the Marathon and later were unquestionably evil.

 

But I found myself thinking of a terrified fox, its heart bursting with exhaustion, followed by a hunt, tireless men on horses, with well rested dogs. Obviously, I didn’t want more murders, but with the human instinct to side with the underdog, I thought of his terror, felt sorry for him, and found myself praying for him.

My laptop was at hand, so I tweeted, “Let’s also pray for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a misguided, terrified Chechen boy hunted by the entire might of the US!”

* * *

Oh my goodness! I was astonished by the reaction. I was characterized with filthy, filthy language I cannot bring myself to repeat; people hoped he would murder my family. People asked if I were crazy, suggested that I  …oh incredible, abusive language. (Interestingly, apparently the abusive people weren’t even following me, but saw retweets).

Roy said it was if I lobbed a hand grenade into a mob, and just stood there. He said, “You must have expected it.”

I honestly did not. If anyone’s hung out a lot with Jesus and his words, there is nothing astonishing about praying for an individual hunted by hundreds. If this were a movie, presumably people would be crossing their fingers for him. It’s praying for our enemies; it’s what keeps us balanced and human and keeps our angry, limited hearts sane. Yes, praying for your enemies—it keeps you sane, and keeps your heart sweet.

I deleted the tweet within ten minutes, but it had been retweeted, and so I got some abuse for hours. Block. Block. Block. Delete. Delete. Delete.

* * *

What stuns me most is that I honestly did not see it coming. Would I have tweeted it if I did? Not directly, no. Who wants to expose yourself to upset? But if I felt Christ wanted me to say it, I would have tweeted a direct quote from his words. Hey, you said it first, Jesus. Let them take it up with you.

* * *

Instead I prayed a different prayer (privately this time!). Lord, give me wisdom in social media.

And mentally slowed down, imagined myself kneeling before Jesus, imagined his hands on my head, my brain, and particles of his divine power coursing from his hands through my head, through my brain, changing it.

And I got up smiling, knowing my prayer had been answered. I would be wise in social media. Which doesn’t mean that I would be immune to anger and hostility and negativity and criticism on social media (or life)–for who is? It just that I would use words not carelessly or foolishly, but with wisdom, reflection, and deliberation, as a power for good (and then, one can withstand negativity).

My prayer would be answered, instantly—or gradually. Though it might need to be prayed again. And again.  

* * *

49 The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

50 “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”

The man took Jesus at his word and departed. 51 While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. 52 When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”

53 Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” ” (John 4 49-53).

* * *

Taking Jesus at his word, the sublime simplicity of faith.

How easy it makes our spiritual lives. Ask and you shall receive. Ask, leave the package of desire in his hands, and go on your way.

For you have left it in very good hands.  “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” (I John 5: 14-15)

And so, in simple faith, I know I will be wiser in social media.

 

Blogging and Penfriends

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  When I was growing up in India, letters with a foreign stamp were exciting, a window into exotic worlds. And every week, a thick envelope from Canada arrived, from my mother’s penfriend, Barbara Redlich, to whom she had written for decades, but never met.

Barbara was Austrian, and in a letter I’ve kept, wrote, randomly, about growing up in Austria after the Second World War. Everything was rationed; everything was scarce, even food. And, oddly, exercise books.

So schoolgirls wrote small on the line in blue ink, then coming to the end of the page, turned the book upside down, and wrote in black ink on what was left of the line.

A random little detail, but how it fascinated us.

* * *

We followed Barbara’s exciting life, week by week. She never married, but lived with another woman. Lesbians, I now surmise, but such a thought would never have crossed my mind then, or my mother’s, though my urbane father would have realised it.

 She and her friend/partner travelled the world, sending us photographs of the Victoria Falls in South Africa, and SA’s amazing botanical gardens. Immigration to Canada opened up the world to her.

* * *

I was bored of India. I begged my father to emigrate as so many of our friends and relatives were doing, but he had already emigrated to England, where he lived from 1944 to 1952,

He qualified as a Chartered Accountant, and then worked for Tubbs Clarke and Co., Chartered Accountants.

While he liked his boss who was fair-minded (and hired him after all!) he realized that he would always be held back by the petty racism of the English.  When an audit was requested, he heard his boss pre-emptively explain, “One of our accountants is an Indian.  Do you mind?”  Some did not.  Some did.  “It’s always best to ask,” his boss said, apologetically.

My father’s epiphany: “Why be a second class citizen in someone else’s country when you can be a first class citizen in your own?” He was now Controller of Accounts of India’s largest company, Tata Steel. We had a luxurious life. No way was he leaving to start again from scratch.

Any emigration to be done had to be done by us. My sister emigrated to the US in her early twenties and stayed there. I came to England, to read English at Oxford, moved to America, stayed there for 17 years, then moved back here 9 years ago, and am now a dual US/UK citizen.

* * *

Why am I telling you this? The same instinct that made Barbara Redlich and my mother write to each other weekly for decades, though they had never met each other. The instinct to record, share and preserve our lives, a human instinct since the cave painters of Lascaux.

Few people today have the time or energy to record their week in long, beautifully written letters which help them see the beautiful, the noteworthy, and the art in their own lives.

But facebooking stems from the same instinct, as does blogging. In post after post, we record our thoughts and lives and read other people’s.

Will you be my penfriend?

Starlight (A guest post by Angela Shupe, La Bella Verita)

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shutterstock_95537227

Starlight

Sleepless, I walked through the dark to my kitchen to peer out the windows at our backyard meadow cradled by woods. The strain of life had led me to feel things were more chaos than calm. Looking up, I saw the dark night sky speckled with tiny flickering lights. A moment of wonder turned into a half hour of stargazing. Stars carrying names from their Maker hung overhead. If that One, that Maker, could bring order to a sea of glimmering lights, surely He could bring order to my perceived chaos. I returned to bed, falling asleep in a room lit softly by starlight that soon gave way to dawn. Peaceful.

But, life is unpredictable. And I had no way of knowing as I gazed at the stars, that in a few hours, I would lose my closest friend. The one like a sister to me would wake up after dawn and breathe her last breath, only hours before I was to visit her. With her passing, a part of me died, as well.

Two months into my grieving, my husband decided it was time to take a trip. “I want you to get away…somewhere different,” he said. We drove five hours to a place we’d never been before, to be together, to mend a numbed and grieving heart. Get out into nature, hike along trails of dirt, dust and rock, deep into the woods. Years before, we’d backpacked into the wild, immersing ourselves in nature’s unspoiled beauty. His act of love and compassion moved me greatly. He was grieving, too, but watching me grieve deeply for one so loved, was difficult.

We arrived at our destination, a little inn perched on a hill with cabins scattered in the surrounding trees. On our first hike I stood breathless from the scenery, the otherworldly beauty a shock to my senses. Trees shot up from emerald green moss-covered rock. Bubbling alongside was a creek lined with delicate ferns that led the way deep into caverns carved into towering sandstone. Waterfalls spilled over the highest edges.

After a full day of hiking, we walked from our cabin to the inn for a quiet dinner by candlelight. Everything seemed hushed and intimate, the quiet necessary for a heart in pain.

We walked back to our cabin, hand in hand, after dinner. The trail was rocky and we’d not brought anything to light our way. We walked with eyes fixed on the path, to not lose our footing. Something made me stop suddenly and as we stood, I looked up.

Above us, the dark velvet sky was overflowing with starlight. A blanket of lights spread thickly over us like a canopy. Every square inch was covered in stunning brightness. Lights hung so low, so close, I stretched out my arm, sure my fingertips could just reach. In our focus to keep our footing, we’d almost missed it – until that moment. Beauty poured forth in starlight. And we stood in awe, beholding its intensity in a silent act of worship.

My mind returned to that sleepless night months before, the flickering stars and the reminder that God is a god of order, not chaos. He most certainly could order my world spinning from grief. Stars that were called out by name, marched into position and shone vibrantly, warming my grieving heart and reminding me that my friend is not so far away.

After arriving back at our cabin, we stood on the tiny deck trying to capture the night sky on film. No picture could do justice to those stars now shining brilliantly in the not so far recesses of my memory.

Although I wouldn’t choose the pain of great loss, it’s a part of life on this side of the veil. After grief, we’re never the same. Perhaps out of the deep ruts of grief come understanding and knowledge that simply will come no other way. Joy after grief is deeper and richer, scars and all. We become more pliable, more teachable and the muscles of our faith are strengthened. We can stand on the other side of our battles with adversity, with questions yet unanswered, more certain of the goodness of a loving God, who stoops to intervene in the smallest of ways and sometimes brings the starlight to woo us.

 

Angela Shupe

Angela Shupe

Angela M. Shupe writes about life and faith on her blog, Bella Verita: Beautiful Truth at www.bellaverita.wordpress.com. Her writing has appeared in Women’s Adventure Magazine, Beliefnet.com, Today’s Christian Woman/Kyria, Relevant Magazine, Just Between Us Magazine and Radiant Magazine. Her writing has also been recognized by Biographile and Travelers’ Tales.

Living in the Updraft of the Wild Goose of the Holy Spirit

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Wild Geese fly in a V formation. The lead goose reduces the wind resistance; the others glide, almost effortlessly, in the currents she has created.

During a storm, the eagle waits perched on the edge of its nest for the wind to gain sufficient velocity. And then it spreads its wings wide and effortlessly glides into the winds of the storm.

* * *

 Have you ever seen hawks or eagles soar, wings outstretched, rising without a single beat of their enormous, magnificent wings, soaring, soaring? They are soaring on thermal currents—masses of air that rise when the ground rapidly warms up.

And sometimes, they soar on obstruction currents, when wind currents are deflected by mountains, cliffs or tall buildings. The resulting updraft lifts them to high altitudes at which they can glide.

* * *

 The Wild Goose was an emblem of the Holy Spirit in Celtic tradition. And the eagle, in Scripture, is a symbol both of God, and God’s people.

Eagles rarely waste their energy flapping their enormous wings—they soar on thermal currents, obstruction currents, and on the wings of the wind…

I have been reading about “the anointing,” in R. T. Kendall’s splendid book, “The Anointing.”

He writes: “the anointing is when our gift functions easily. It comes with ease. It seems natural. No working it up is needed. If one has to work it up, one has probably gone outside one’s anointing. If one goes outside one’s anointing, the result is often fatigue, that is weariness or spiritual lethargy that has been described as ‘dying inside.’”

* * *

 I find that with my writing on my blog, and indeed all writing. If I listen to what the Spirit is saying to me through the events of my life, record the mini-revelation or “revelations” given to me each day by the God who speaks continuously and is never silent (God is speaking. Not God spoke, but God is speaking. He is by His nature continuously articulate. A W Tozer) then blogging is quick, easy and delightful. And what’s more, it very often speaks to people.

But when I look at other people’s important mandarin posts, strategic posts that capture the zeitgeist and echo what everyone else is writing about, and wonder if I should go and do likewise that blogging feels heavy, a chore, work rather than play. Why? Because the wind of the Spirit is not helping me soar; I have to expend scarce energy with a mighty, exhausting flapping of wings.

There is a lightness to God’s work, an abounding creativity–tossing off creating zebras, giraffes, toucans, morpho butterflies or orchids. It is not fanciful to suppose that God was at play as these beautiful things came into being, step by step through the mighty forces of evolution. Work merging into delightful play.

* * *

 In his book, Homo Ludens, or Man the Player, the Dutch historian and cultural theorist, Johan Huizinga, suggests that culture stems from man at play, man simply playing with words, or music or paint or the sketches of mighty cathedrals.

And when I record the whispers of the spirit, write in the updraft of the wild goose of the Holy Spirit, blogging is easy, light and delightful. And I am playing in the fields of the Lord, thinking aloud, possibly, probably making mistakes–but oh, it is all such fun!!