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Keeping our Small Boat Afloat: Thoughts on Redemption, Giving up Regret, and my Thirty Year Marriage

By Anita Mathias

Our wedding portrait, 30 years ago

I love this verbally rich “worship song” from the young song-writer John Mark Macmillan

He is jealous for me.

Love’s like a hurricane, and I am a tree

Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.

 I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,

When I think about the way,

He loves us.

I love the whole song… different phrases at different times. Today, it’s the phrase, I don’t have time to maintain these regrets…

Like most people, I have regrets… mistakes I’ve made through accepting bad advice, through lack of self-confidence, through sinful or foolish choices, distraction, self-indulgence, anger, not putting first things first… the list could go on.

* * *

Roy and I at Christ Church, Oxford where Irene is doing Medicine. Between Auden and Lewis Carrol!

In Tennyson’s poem “Morte D’Arthur,” Arthur’s beloved Queen Guinevre has an affair with his beloved best friend, Launcelot, and Arthur, loving both, is silent. The adulterous lovers are caught in flagrante delicto by his nephew, Mordred, and there is civil war at the end of which Arthur lays dying.

Tennyson has him say,

                      I have lived my life, and that which I have done

       May He within Himself make pure.

That’s a prayer I often find myself praying, putting all I have done into God’s hands, the beautiful and the ugly, the wise and the foolish, and asking him to bring something beautiful out of even my mistakes and sins. Asking him to redeem them, and miraculously transform them.

For what is planted, after a period underground, inevitably emerges as something different, the undistinguished sunflower seed as glorious sunflowers–so redeem it all, Lord, the folly, the laziness, the wasted time, the wasted years, and because of your great mercy, bring something immeasurably different and far more beautiful from these grubby seeds, that I may go out with a vast “thank you.”

“I think that the dying pray at the last not “please”, but “thank you”, as a guest thanks his host at the door. Falling from airplanes the people are crying thank you, thank you, all down the air.” Annie Dillard.

* * *

At the Alcazar, Seville, last month

Later this year, I will have been married to Roy for thirty years. Thirty years!! Apparently, only 49 percent of marriages in this country reach this milestone, either through divorce or death, so, God willing, we will be in the happy minority.

The New Yorker writer Tessa Hadley describes long marriages this way: you hold onto your lover through the years, and he changes: a fairy, a dragon, a lion, a beloved man. That is the seminal truth of fairy tales: “What is essential is invisible to the eye, it is only with the heart that one sees rightly,” Saint-Exupery has his  The Little Prince say. Hold on, long enough, and the Beast turns beautiful; the Frog reveals his nobility; Cinderella the Ash-girl, turns regal; Sleeping Beauty comes alive….

* * *

Me, 30 years later!

However, the upcoming anniversary has put me into a reflective mood. I often say, “I wish I had prioritised you more, I wish I had put you first,” and Roy says, “Don’t say sorry; I’m sorry too, but we may have another 30 years, or 40, or more…”

And then I think of redemption. This story runs through scripture: People muck things up, and God redeems them. God not only makes something beautiful out of them, but something more beautiful than things were before the mess, dropped rose or apple seeds blossoming into thousands of roses or apples for decades.

So too in relationships, we sin against each other…inevitably given human selfishness and frailty; we repent, we ask forgiveness, we come together again, and the latter state of our relationship and marriage is stronger than it would have been if we had never blown it, lost our tempers, repented, and come together again to try again to build a relationship built on love and care, and looking out for each other, and trying to put each other first.

Difficult ideals… and undoubtedly, we will again fail, repent, apologise, come together, try again, our marriage under God growing greener, blooming brighter, a sanctuary for ourselves, our children, our old friends, and the new ones God brings our way, like

“a shelter from the wind
 and a refuge from the storm,
like streams of water in the desert
and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.”
(Isaiah 32:2)

* * *

I’m sorry/I forgive you by Libyan artist Arwa Abouon

On our honeymoon, way back in 1989, we took a cruise in a glass-bottomed boat in Florida, through coral reefs. There was an elderly German couple with us, every bit as touchy-feely, and full of lavish public displays of affection. So I, curious, then and now, quite illogically, sweetly asked them, “Are you on your honeymoon too?” “Mein Gott, nein, nein, nein,” the man said. “We’ve been married for forty years!” And then he added kindly, “May you two be as affectionate as you now are when you’ve been married for forty years!” It was a blessing. May it be so. Amen.

I’m sorry/I forgive you by Arwa Abouon

In conclusion, a little, lovely bitter-sweet poem from Robert Bly

 

KEEPING OUR SMALL BOAT AFLOAT

So many blessings have been given to us
During the first distribution of light, that we are
Admired in a thousand galaxies.

Don’t expect us to appreciate creation or to
Avoid mistakes. Each of us is a latecomer
To the earth, picking up wood for the fire.

Every night another beam of light slips out
From the oyster’s closed eye. So don’t give up hope
that the door of mercy may still be open.

It’s hard to grasp how much generosity
Is involved in letting us go on breathing,
When we contribute nothing valuable.

Each of us deserves to be forgiven, if only for
Our persistence in keeping our small boat afloat
When so many have gone down in the storm.

 

Books I’ve mentioned which you might enjoy

If you’d like to fine-tune your marriage with insights from neuroscience, try Dr. Sue Johnson’s The Love Secret on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

or her book Hold Me Tight on Amazon.co.uk on Amazon.com .

Annie Dillard’s wonderful, powerful and poetic Pilgrim at Tinker Creek at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

The title poem is from Robert Bly’s enjoyable collection Talking into the Ear of a Donkey on Amazon.co.uk and on Amazon.com

How He Loves by John Mark McMillan on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Tessa Hadley’s book on long marriages: Late in the Day, on Amazon.co.uk and on Amazon.com

Tennyson’s “Morte D’Arthur” on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

The Little Prince on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

 

Filed Under: marriage, There is nothing but love Tagged With: Annie Dillard, EFT, forgiveness, giving up regrets, grace, Happiness, John Mark McMillan, marriage, redemption, Robert Bly, Tennyson, Tessa Hadley, The Little Prince, wedding anniversary

On Prayer-Walking, Seeking the Kingdom and Getting it All Thrown in

By Anita Mathias

2015-07-18_1437206340

Lake Bled, Slovenia where we were last summer

A friend describes her passion as: exercising and travel and exercising when she travels. The last phrase made me feel wistful because I never used to exercise when I travel. I found spending all day on my feet challenge enough. But then, on my return, it took me several weeks, a couple of months, to recover the distances and speed I had achieved before I went travelling–those personal bests.

On our last trip however, I exercised–ran for half an hour one day, walked a mile as fast as I could on the next, and, oddly, had plenty of energy for everything else.

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

What’s true of writing and blogging is true too of hoarding strength, as I did on holiday (or of hoarding money!). “You open your safe and find ashes.”

* * *

My own favourite thing is not so much exercising when I travel, though, as praying when I walk, and walking when I pray. I came back today from doing a German presentation at the class I am taking “for fun,” (which is proving far more challenging than I expected). And I walked and walked, all the cobwebs and adrenaline leaching from my mind, my spirit quietening down, turning naturally to prayer.

Worries surfaced and I took them to Father, for had not Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and neither let them be afraid,” and I prayed for his eyes to see. My lane has changed its character in the ten years I’ve lived here; five new people–four of them Traveller families–have moved in on what was undeveloped green belt land; my peaceful rural retreat has suddenly become noisy.

I had counted myself blessed to be able to buy a one and a half acre garden in Oxford. I love my garden, but I cannot maintain it in the eight hours a week I have budgeted to work in my garden. Perhaps—heresy—I would be happier with a smaller garden, .50 acre;  .75 acre?

I am always driving across town to North Oxford, to church, to small group, to visit friends, to the German class at Oxford University, to Writers in Oxford meetings, to walk in the University Parks, or by the river. The centre of my life in Oxford is there. The thought of moving there and walking everywhere is powerfully attractive.

I remembered a pastor saying that God guides us through a kick from behind, and a pull from the front. Is this it? Is it time for a move? Yes, I think so. If God is in an idea, it clarifies and strengthens through time. I think this is from him…

* * *

I brought my tired mind to God, and asked him to place his giant hand on it, and heal it. I brought my spirit to him, and asked him to breathe, breathe, breathe on it. For is this not the greatest inheritance we have, that Jesus promises us his Holy Spirit, that Jesus breathes on us, as he breathed on the disciples? I placed my worries in God’s hand, and let the Father sing over me, and quiet me with his love.

When I looked at the time on my Runkeeper app, I had got my fastest times for a mile. Three years ago, I so despaired of my fitness that I (don’t laugh) got a walking coach to teach me to walk fast. Joanna said that I would not improve fitness, unless I pushed myself to walk as fast as I can. And I do push myself a bit every day, a fast mile on one day, and a half hour run on the next. However, since I got a Fitbit in January, I have faithfully walked 10,000 to 11,500 steps every day. And now with the increased endurance, I get personal bests without the bursting lungs, straining heart, aching muscles and sweat-drenching that it took before.

The sweetest things in life come while we are focused on other and usually better things. He was seeks to save his life will lose it, and he who seeks Jesus first will also get the things the rest of the world restlessly seeks for. (Matt 6:33).

* * *

In my first decade or two as a married woman, I was dismayed by the weight of domesticity (especially with a rather messy and absent-minded husband). All that shopping and cleaning and cooking and laundry and child-amusing; how on earth would I ever get any writing done, writing which I felt was my one call from God? So I grabbed and fought for and stole writing time, ignoring the mundane tasks of domesticity (though I loved the reading to children part), but I did not complete the big project of my heart. Perhaps God did not let me complete it then, for I had not yet learnt the lessons he needed to teach me.

More recently, I have revised my sense of calling. I am called to be a writer, yes, but that is not my only calling. I am also called to live in relationship with my family, to run a house and keep a garden pretty, and to be a friend of Jesus and to my real-life friends. The intensity about writing has vanished. Writing is part of my worship of Jesus, as is running a house and garden, and being a friend to my family and friends, and loving Jesus through prayer and studying his beautiful Words.

And as the intensity about writing leached away what I had wanted, time to write, is being given to me without angst and conflict. The pages are piling up on the big project of my heart.

Seek to save your life and you lose it. Seek first the Kingdom and all the things the Pagans run after will be added to you.

C. S. Lewis writes, “The principle runs through all life from top to bottom: Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it.   Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” 

2015-07-17_1437142289

Slovenia

Filed Under: Applying my heart unto wisdom, In which I get serious about health and diet and fitness and exercise (really) Tagged With: Annie Dillard, C. S. Lewis, Prayer Walking, Seeking the Kingdom

The Magical Moment in Which You Realize that You Are, or Will Be a Writer

By Anita Mathias

The Magical Moment in Which You Realize that You Are, or Will Be a Writer

Anne Sexton said she realized that she was a poet (I suppose she meant that she had the capacity to be a poet) while watching John Berryman read on TV.

It really a magical moment, the sort of moment in fairy tales when Snow White or Sleeping Beauty discover that they really are princesses.

My own moment came in two installments. In my early twenties I started writing poetry in a rush. And it was like,”Okay, I love this, I can do it. Not as well as Keats, okay, but well enough to give me, and perhaps some others, pleasure.”

My next moment happened several years later. I was reading a description of a family united around the consumption of gargantuan meals in Patricia Hampl’s “A Romantic Education,” and thought “Yes, that’s like my family. I can do this too.” Around that time, I read Annie Dillard’s “An American Childhood” about a bookish and privileged childhood in a steel town much like Jamshedpur, India, where I grew up, each chapter about a different passion or obsession, and I thought, “Yes, I can do this. And this is how.”

Life intervened in the form of two children, health issues, the need to work to pay for the girls’ private school education, but now I am back to writing happily, hoping to complete my memoir, and my slender volume of poetry.

Filed Under: In which I explore writing and blogging and creativity, random, Writing and Blogging Tagged With: Anne Sexton, Annie Dillard, Becoming a writer

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My Books

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India

Wandering Between Two Worlds - Amazon.com
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Amazon.co.uk

Wandering Between Two Worlds: Essays on Faith and Art

Wandering Between Two Worlds - Amazon.com
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Amazon.co.uk

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

Francesco, Artist of Florence - Amazom.com
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The Story of Dirk Willems

The Story of Dirk Willems - Amazon.com
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Premier Digital Awards 2015 - Finalist - Blogger of the year
Runner Up Christian Media Awards 2014 - Tweeter of the year

Recent Posts

  • Change your Life by Changing your Thinking
  • Do Not Be Afraid–But Be as Wise as a Serpent
  • Our Failures are the Cracks through which God’s Light Enters
  • The Whole Earth is Full of God’s Glory
  • Mindfulness is Remembering the Presence of Christ with Us
  • “Rosaries at the Grotto” A Chapter from my newly-published memoir, “Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India.”
  • An Infallible Secret of Joy
  • Thoughts on Writing my Just-published Memoir, & the Prologue to “Rosaries, Reading, Secrets”
  • Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India. My new memoir
  •  On Not Wasting a Desert Experience

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What I’m Reading

Country Girl
Edna O'Brien

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Mere Christianity
C S Lewis

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From my meditation on being as wise as a serpent h From my meditation on being as wise as a serpent https://anitamathias.com/2023/03/13/do-not-be-afraid-but-be-wise-as-a-serpent/
What is the wisdom Jesus recommends?
We go out as sheep among wolves,Christ says.
And, he adds, dangerously some wolves are dressed like sheep. 
They seem respectable-busy charity volunteers, Church people.
Oh, the noblest sentiments in the noblest words,
But they drain you of money, energy, time, your lifeblood. 
How then could a sheep, the most defenceless creature on earth,
Possibly be safe, among wolves,
Particularly wolves disguised in sheep’s clothing?
A sheep among wolves can be safe 
If it keeps its eyes on its Shepherd, and listens to him.
Check in with your instincts, and pay attention to them, 
for they can be God’s Spirit within you, warning you. 
Then Jesus warns his disciples, those sheep among wolves.
Be as wise, as phronimos as a serpent. 
The koine Greek word phronimos
means shrewd, sensible, cautious, prudent.
These traits don’t come naturally to me.
But if Christ commands that we be as wise as a serpent,
His Spirit will empower us to be so.
A serpent is a carnivorous reptile, 
But animals, birds and frogs are not easily caught.
So, the snake wastes no energy in bluster or self-promotion.
It does not boast of its plans; it does not show-off.
It is a creature of singular purpose, deliberate, slow-moving
For much of its life, it rests, camouflaged,
soaking in the sun, waiting and planning.
It’s patient, almost invisible, until the time is right
And then, it acts swiftly and decisively.
The wisdom of the snake then is in waiting
For the right time. It conserves energy,
Is warmed by the sun, watches, assesses, 
and when the time is right, it moves swiftly
And very effectively. 
However, as always, Jesus balances his advice:
Be as wise as a serpent, yes, but also as blameless 
akeraios  as a dove. As pure, as guileless, as good. 
Be wise, but not only to provide for yourself and family
But, also, to fulfil your calling in the world,
The one task God has given you, and no one else
Which you alone, and no one else, can do, 
And which God will increasingly reveal to you,
as you wait and ask.
Hi Friends, Here's a meditation is on the differen Hi Friends, Here's a meditation is on the difference between fear and prudence. It looks at Jesus's advice to be as wise as a serpent, but as blameless as dove. Wise as a serpent... because we go out as sheep among wolves... and among wolves disguised in sheep's clothing.
A meditation on what the wisdom of the snake is... wisdom I wish I had learned earlier, though it's never too late.
Subscribe on Apple podcasts, or on my blog, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's widely available. Thanks
https://anitamathias.com/2023/03/13/do-not-be-afraid-but-be-wise-as-a-serpent/
Once she was a baby girl. And now, she has, today, Once she was a baby girl. And now, she has, today, been offered her first job as a junior doctor. Delighted that our daughter, Irene, will be working in Oxford for the next two Foundation years. Oxford University Hospitals include the John Radcliffe Hospital, and the Churchill Hospital, both excellent.
But first she’s leaving to work at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto for two months for her elective. 
Congratulations, Irene! And God bless you!
https:/ Images from a winter in Oxford—my belove https:/ Images from a winter in Oxford—my beloved book group, walks near Christ Church, and Iffley, and a favourite tree, down the country lane, about two minutes from my house. I love photographing it in all weathers. 
And I've written a new meditation--ah, and a deeply personal one. This one is a meditation on how our failures provide a landing spot for God's power and love to find us. They are the cracks through which the light gets in. Without our failures, we wouldn't know we needed God--and so would miss out on something much greater than success!!
It's just 6 minutes, if you'd like to listen...and as always, there's a full transcript if you'd like to read it. Thank you for the kind feedback on the meditations I've shared already.
https://anitamathias.com/2023/03/03/our-failures-are-the-cracks-through-which-gods-light-enters/
So last lot of photos from our break in Majorca. F So last lot of photos from our break in Majorca. First image in a stalagmite and stalactite cave through which an undergroun river wended—but one with no trace of Gollum.
It’s definitely spring here… and our garden is a mixture of daffodils, crocus and hellebores.
And here I’ve recorded a short 5 minute meditation on lifting our spirits and practising gratitude by noticing that the whole world is full of God’s glory. Do listen.
https://anitamathias.com/2023/02/24/the-whole-earth-is-full-of-gods-glory/
Our family was in Majorca for 9 sunny days, and he Our family was in Majorca for 9 sunny days, and here are some pictures.
Also, I have started a meditation podcast, Christian meditation with Anita Mathias. Have a listen. https://anitamathias.com/2023/02/20/mindfulness-is-remembering-the-presence-of-christ-with-us/
Feedback welcome!
If you'll forgive me for adding to the noise of th If you'll forgive me for adding to the noise of the world on Black Friday, my memoir ,Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India, is on sale on Kindle all over the world for a few days. 
Carolyn Weber (who has written "Surprised by Oxford," an amazing memoir about coming to faith in Oxford https://amzn.to/3XyIftO )  has written a lovely endorsement of my memoir:
"Joining intelligent winsomeness with an engaging style, Anita Mathias writes with keen observation, lively insight and hard earned wisdom about navigating the life of thoughtful faith in a world of cultural complexities. Her story bears witness to how God wastes nothing and redeems all. Her words sing of a spirit strong in courage, compassion and a pervasive dedication to the adventure of life. As a reader, I have been challenged and changed by her beautifully told and powerful story - so will you."
The memoir is available on sale on Amazon.co.uk at https://amzn.to/3u0Ib8o and on Amazon.com at https://amzn.to/3u0IBvu and is reduced on the other Amazon sites too.
Thank you, and please let me know if you read and enjoy it!! #memoir #indianchildhood #india
Second birthday party. Determinedly escaping! So i Second birthday party. Determinedly escaping!
So it’s a beautiful November here in Oxford, and the trees are blazing. We will soon be celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary…and are hoping for at least 33 more!! 
And here’s a chapter from my memoir of growing up Catholic in India… rosaries at the grotto, potlucks, the Catholic Family Movement, American missionary Jesuits, Mangaloreans, Goans, and food, food food…
https://anitamathias.com/2022/11/07/rosaries-at-the-grotto-a-chapter-from-my-newly-published-memoir-rosaries-reading-steel-a-catholic-childhood-in-india/
Available on Amazon.co.uk https://amzn.to/3Apjt5r and on Amazon.com https://amzn.to/3gcVboa and wherever Amazon sells books, as well as at most online retailers.
#birthdayparty #memoir #jamshedpur #India #rosariesreadingsecrets
Friends, it’s been a while since I blogged, but Friends, it’s been a while since I blogged, but it’s time to resume, and so I have. Here’s a blog on an absolutely infallible secret of joy, https://anitamathias.com/2022/10/28/an-infallible-secret-of-joy/
Jenny Lewis, whose Gilgamesh Retold https://amzn.to/3zsYfCX is an amazing new translation of the epic, has kindly endorsed my memoir. She writes, “With Rosaries, Reading and Secrets, Anita Mathias invites us into a totally absorbing world of past and present marvels. She is a natural and gifted storyteller who weaves history and biography together in a magical mix. Erudite and literary, generously laced with poetic and literary references and Dickensian levels of observation and detail, Rosaries is alive with glowing, vivid details, bringing to life an era and culture that is unforgettable. A beautifully written, important and addictive book.”
I would, of course, be delighted if you read it. Amazon.co.uk https://amzn.to/3gThsr4 and Amazon.com https://amzn.to/3WdCBwk #joy #amwriting #amblogging #icecreamjoy
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