Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

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Grazie Signore! “Thank you, Lord, for those who have greater gifts.”  

By Anita Mathias

In his excellent The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning mentions the limited Antonio Salieri, court composer to the Holy Roman Emperor, who was conscientious, devout, and wildly jealous of the wildly gifted Mozart who–neither conscientious, nor devout–tossed off sublime music in the interludes of a life of “wine, women and song, and he didn’t sing much.”

Nevertheless, at the end of each piece of limited, uninspired music, Salieri added a postscript, “Grazie Signore.” Thank you, Lord.

Manning continues,“Grazie Signore, for other people who have greater gifts than mine.”

And that was a prayer I had never thought of praying.

* * *

Those of us brought up by restless parents with unfulfilled ambitions—and I guess that’s many of us!!—have, from childhood, absorbed ambition and striven to be the best, to win the prize, the first prize, if there are two.

An Oxford undergraduate recently told me that at school, she had to be the thinnest, the cleverest, the best in every field she was interested in, and there were many. At Oxford, however, faced with myriad people just like her, this drive made her ricochet between anorexia and bulimia. And exhaustion. Always exhaustion.

Oh, I know all about burnout and exhaustion (though not about slenderness!)

“If you do one good deed, your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one,” C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy. Since success elevates us to a vaster ocean, this drive to be the best will inevitably burn us out and exhaust us, diminishing potential achievement.

And worse, should God ever grant a foolish Salieriesque desire to be the best, some interest and challenge would leach away from our world. It is a blessing I take for granted—that in my social circles, professional circles and online circles, I continually encounter those who are more intellectually gifted, creatively gifted, spiritually gifted, and better read. Always someone to learn from.

We all take that blessing for granted. Even the greatest living scripture expositor, speaker, scholar, writer, prophet or mystic still has much to learn…from the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, leaving silvery snail trails to inspire…

So that’s it for envy—an occupational hazard of writers, according to Bonnie Friedman in her Writing Past Dark. Let me shed it with unforgiveness, and other cancers of the mind.

Grazie Signore, I resolve to inwardly rejoice whenever I read a writer or a blogger quite obviously better than I am.

Grazie Signore, for all those who write with the pen of angels, for they fill the world with exquisite language.

Grazie Signore, for original thinkers who make me too think.

Grazie Signore for the well-stocked mind of scholars.

Grazie Signore for all those who garden better than I, for in meandering around their gardens, I learn.

Grazie Signore for those read your word more deeply than I do, for they show me new things in it.

Grazie Signore, for those who encounter you more deeply than I do, who see your face more clearly, hear your voice more distinctly, for I learn more about you from them.

Grazie Signore, for those who are spiritually gifted, the speakers who revive my flagging spiritual fervour; the prophets who can tune into your thoughts; the mystics who can see your face and feel your heartbeat.

Grazie Signore, for the world so rich, so full of gifts, which you pour freely on all men and women.

 

Tweetable

Brennan Manning’s prayer: Grazie Signore, thank you, Lord, for those who have greater gifts. Tweet: Brennan Manning’s prayer: Grazie Signore, thank you, Lord, for those who have greater gifts. From @AnitaMathias1 http://ctt.ec/649U2+

Filed Under: The Power of Gratitude Tagged With: Bonnie Friedman, brennan manning, C. S. Lewis, Envy, Giftedness, gratitude, Mozart, Salieri, The Horse and His Boy, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Writing Past Dark

A Revelation of Divine Love Changes the Deep Structure of our Being

By Anita Mathias

The longest distance in the world is the eighteen inches from the head to the heart.

Until our personal revelation of the love of God, we limp as Christians, impelled by duty, not desire, not love.

But we really, really change in the deep structure of our being, when we realize what Karl Barth described as the most important insight in the millions of theological words he published—God loves me.

When, as Paul prayed for the Ephesians,  we have “the power, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge,” (Eph 3:17-19) it’s transformational. Paul says, mysteriously, that once we know this, we will be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

I find myself able more able to endure disappointment, sadness, frustration, boredom, uncertainty, the possibility of failure, and the reality of failure (!) when I lean into the certain knowledge of the love of God for me.

* * *

Both I and my younger sister (Ph.D. in Immunology from Notre Dame University, post-doc and Cancer research at Sloan Kettering, now a partner in a Wall Street investment firm specialising in bio-tech) were raised with unrealistically high expectations.  Being amazing was a minimum requirement.

After colliding with the love of God, I frequently remind myself, “Anita, you don’t have to be amazing.” A burden drops off my shoulders. I can just be myself.

* * *

The revelation of the love of God comes in the oddest moments. I sometimes look around a messy room, and realise I am failing in an ideal I set for myself, orderliness, and then instead of feeling self-condemned, I relax into the realisation that God loves me. 

And from that, energy comes to clean the darn thing up.

* * *

I couldn’t blog well if I didn’t know in my bones that God loves me. For a good blog is an honest blog, and you cannot be honest if you fear criticism.

For in blogging, you reveal yourself—and, inevitably, reveal more than you realize. You may even reveal more than you consciously know about yourself. And what you reveal can be read wrong for people don’t read with their eyes alone: they read with their baggage.

And people can read you wrong, can decide they hate or envy you, can use things you’ve written to hurt you, or manipulate you, or wrongly label you. Oh, what an unsafe enterprise honest spiritual blogging is, and who would ever embark upon it if they did not know in their bones that God loved them?

* * *

After colliding with the love of God, I felt worries waft away like autumn leaves in the wind.

I feel relatively at peace about my relative lack of achievement, and hopeful for the future. I barely worry about sickness, money or retirement planning. I quickly convert any worries about my children to prayer. I try to convert my worries about my blog and nascent career to a strategy session in prayer.

* * *

My seminal experience of the knowledge of the love of God rooting itself in my heart and spirit happened in May 2010 during a International Leader’s School of  Ministry led by John Arnott during which I learned soaking prayer. Though at a healing service the previous month, when I had requested healing from adrenal fatigue, the vicar prayed that I receive a revelation of divine love. And just as I had dreamed that night, I felt electricity, honey, surge through my brain, and in retrospect, I see I am different.

* * *

While encountering the love of God has been transformational for me, it’s harder to pinpoint how to experience it.

My best shot:

1)   Pray to. 

“Pray that you may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3: 17-19)

And perhaps ask people to pray for you to receive this revelation of the love of God.

2 Hang out with God, just resting with him. Let prayer move beyond lists and agendas to just hanging out with God, soaking in his presence.

Here’s a quote from Brennan Manning, whose experience, interestingly, was like mine.

“My personal experience of the relentless tenderness of God came not from exegetes, theologians and spiritual writers, but from sitting still in the presence of the living Word and beseeching him to help me understand with my head and heart his written Word. Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the Gospel of grace.” (The Ragamuffin Gospel)

Have you had a revelation of the love of God? What is the best way to experience the love of God, not intellectually, but emotionally, in the depths of your being?

Image Credit 

Filed Under: In which I am amazed by the love of the Father Tagged With: brennan manning, Ephesians, revelation of divine love, soaking prayer, The love of God

The Root of Peace (from Brennan Manning’s “Ragamuffin Gospel”)

By Anita Mathias

Philosopher Jacques Maritain once said that the culmination of knowledge is not conceptual but experiential: I feel God. Such is the promise of the Scriptures: Be still and know (experience) that I am God.

My own journey bears witness to that. I mean simply that a living, loving God can and does make his presence felt, can and does speak to us in the silence of our hearts, can does warm and caress us till we no longer doubt that he is near, that he is here.

Such experience is pure grace to the poor, the children, and the sinners, the privileged types in the gospel of grace. It cannot be forced from God. He gives it freely, but he does give it, and has given it to such as Moses and Matthew, to Roslyn and me.

In fact, there is no one to whom God denies it. Ignatius of Loyola said, “The direct experience of God is grace indeed, and basically, there is no one to whom it is refused.”

In essence, there is only one thing God asks of us—that we be men and women of prayer, people who live close to God, people for whom God is everything, and for whom God is enough. That is the root of peace.

When we start seeking something besides him, we lose it. As Thomas Merton said in the last public address before his death, “That is his call to us—simply to be people who are content to live close to him to renew that kind of life in which the closeness is felt and experienced.”

Filed Under: In which I am Amazed by Grace, In which I am amazed by the love of the Father Tagged With: brennan manning, grace

Brennan Manning on Grace (from The Ragamuffin Gospel)

By Anita Mathias

 

An excerpt from Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel.

Paul Tillich in The Shaking of the Foundations writes:

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life…

 It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.

Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know.

 Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything, do not perform anything, do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.”

If that happens to us, we experience grace.

Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last “trick,” whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school; the deathbed convert who for decades had his cake and ate it, broke every law of God and man, wallowed in lust, and raped the earth.

“But how?” we ask.

Then the voice says, “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

There they are. There  we  are—the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life’s tribulations, but through it all clung to the faith.

My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.

 

Filed Under: In which I am Amazed by Grace Tagged With: brennan manning, grace

Inspiration from Brennan Manning’s “The Ragamuffin Gospel”

By Anita Mathias

Brennan Manning

 I am listening to Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel on my iPod as I walk (on the hottest days of the year to date). And I experience grace. I allowed myself to become overweight through 3 decades of being sedentary, and eating carelessly and unthinkingly. And I get to listen to amazing stuff—the Bible, Blue Like Jazz, and The Ragamuffin Gospel—as I walk to fend off further weight gain, and with grace, burn off some unnecessary pounds.

Anyway, the rest of this post shares some of Brennan Manning’s fabulous insights from Chapter 1 of The Ragamuffin Gospel .

“As we read Psalm 123, “Just as the eyes of slave are on their masters’ hand, or the eyes of a slave-girl on the hand of her mistress,” we experience a vague sense of existential guilt. Our eyes are not on God

Our approach to the Christian life is as absurd as the enthusiastic young man who had just received his plumber’s license and was taken to see Niagara Falls. He studied it for a minute and then said, “I think I can fix this.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky caught the shock and scandal of the gospel of grace when he wrote in Crime and Punishment:

At the last Judgment Christ will say to us, “Come, you also! Come, drunkards! Come, weaklings! Come, children of shame!” And he will say to us: “Vile beings, you who are in the image of the beast and bear his mark, but come all the same, you as well.” And the wise and prudent will say, “Lord, why do you welcome them?”

And he will say: “If I welcome them, you wise men, if I welcome them, you prudent men, it is because not one of them has ever been judged worthy.” And he will stretch out his arms, and we will fall at his feet, and we will cry out sobbing, and then we will understand all, we will understand the Gospel of grace! Lord, your Kingdom come!”

 

I believe the Reformation actually began the day Martin Luther was praying over the meaning of Paul’s assertion that righteous shall find life through faith (see Romans 1:17). Like many Christians today, Luther wrestled through the night with this core question: How could the gospel of Christ be truly called “good news” if God is a righteous judge who rewards the good and punishes the evil? Did  Jesus really have to come to reveal that terrifying message? How could the revelation of God in Christ Jesus be accurately called “news” since the Old Testament carried the same theme, or for that matter, “good” with the threat of punishment hanging like a dark cloud over the valley of history?

But as Jaroslav Pelikan notes: “Luther suddenly broke through to the insight that the “righteousness of God” that Paul spoke of in this passage was  the righteousness by which for the sake of Jesus Christ, God made sinners righteous through the forgiveness of sins in justification.

When he discovered that, Luther said it was as though the very gates of Paradise had been opened to him.”

What a stunning truth!

“Justification by grace through faith” is the theologian’s learned phrase for what Chesterton once called “the furious love of God.” He has a single relentless stance toward us: He loves us. He is the only God man has ever heard of who loves sinners. False gods—the gods of human manufacturing—despise sinners, but the Father of Jesus loves all, no matter what they do.

But, of course, this is almost too incredible for us to accept.

Nevertheless, the central affirmation of the Reformation stands: Through no merit of ours, but by His mercy, we have been restored to a right relationship with God through the life, and resurrection of His beloved Son. This is the Good News, the gospel of grace.

With his characteristic joie de vivre, Robert Capon puts it this way: The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellarful of fifteen hundred-year-old, two-hundred-proof grace—of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly.

The word of the gospel—after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started… Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.

Filed Under: In which I am Amazed by Grace Tagged With: brennan manning, Dostoevsky, grace, Luther, Romans

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Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India

Wandering Between Two Worlds - Amazon.com
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Wandering Between Two Worlds: Essays on Faith and Art

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

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The Story of Dirk Willems

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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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Country Girl
Edna O'Brien

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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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