Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Biggest Losers, Grace, and Silver Linings

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I read the New York Times’ distressing account of The Biggest Loser show. Because of their rapid weight loss, the participants’ metabolisms dramatically slowed down, as happens with any diet. Researchers discovered that, six years on, the … [Continue reading]

On the Surprising Physical and Mental Health Benefits of Forgiveness

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Image Credit Because of common grace, secular researchers and psychologists can offer us trenchant insights on the spiritual life. I have long been interested in forgiveness (particularly HOW we do it) because it is one of the fundamental … [Continue reading]

The True Fairy Tale of the Life of Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury

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He had been “the shyest, most unhappy-looking boy you could imagine,” --so journalist Charles Moore recollects Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, a fellow-student at Eton, and Trinity College, Cambridge. The alcoholic father, who had custody … [Continue reading]

On the Benefits of Writing Down Our Prayers

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We are listening to A Praying Life by Paul Miller, a wonderful book on prayer in the car. (I was, incidentally disciplined by the author for almost five years, as he mentions in the book). Anyway, Miller tells us that he often prays aloud. Jesus … [Continue reading]

Sealed Orders

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Sealed Orders I am reading a memoir, Sealed Orders, by the American healer and mystic, Agnes Sanford. Interestingly, I've just read A Man Called Peter, by Catherine Marshall, her biography of her husband, Peter Marshall, who felt that he lived … [Continue reading]

Hope for Limping Christians. Changing your Character is both an Act of Will and an Act of Grace

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  Neuroscientist James Fallon was (interestingly!) studying the brains of murderous psychopaths, using brain scans of his family as a control group of the healthy. He suddenly noticed the unmistakable brain scan of a psychopath among his … [Continue reading]

Leaving “A Little Juice”—One Secret of Persisting in Running, Writing, and Living Well

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                                                                                Eric Liddell: When I run, I feel his pleasure.   Haruki Murakami has a strange and wonderful book called "What I Talk about When I Talk about Running.” What he … [Continue reading]

Seeking a God’s Eye View of Success

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My daughter Irene succeeding at walking. I was mentored in my thirties by a friend who genuinely knew God, but was nevertheless conservative and sexist, and made me feel guilty about my call to write which he saw as “dabbling.” He felt I should … [Continue reading]