Germany | Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita’s Christmas Letter

Azure window, Dwerja, Gozo, Malta.

Merry Christmas, friends!!

And here’s a peek at my year!

Feb—Cancer (false) scare, ultrasound, biopsy, and I re-learn the great lesson, “Do not be afraid.” A restful half-term break on Barton by the Sea, by the New Forest .

In March: enjoyed a day at Tearfund’s Headquarters, listening to the CEO Matthew Frost, tell us about the real hunger games.

April—Istanbul. I am impressed by the persistence of beauty, despite all the devastation of the past; wonder if heaven will look a little bit like the Hagia Sophia; and muse on the dangers of theocracies. My favourites: The Blue Mosque, The Hagia Sophia of course, The Topkapi Palace, and the amazing Bosphorus Cruise, in the narrow strait between Europe and Asia.

Later that month, Patricia Bootsma, leader of Catch the Fire, Toronto, birthplace of the Toronto Blessing, prophesies out of the blue about my daughter Zoe, who was not there, and of whose existence she did not know. It changes Zoe’s outlook on life, and infuses much hope into our hearts.

Zoe later does brilliantly in her A-S exams, all A’s and 100% in Religion. She plans to read Theology at University, and has had several excellent university offers so far.

June finds us on the road again. A rhythm of six sedentary weeks of reading and thinking, followed by an active week or two of adventure and travel suits us best. (We are making the most of being self-employed!) We visit the amazing Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, and wild, remote County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland.

July – A visit from Roy’s brother Jeph, sister-in-law Kaaren and their bevy of charming children. And a course in the Christian History of Oxford at Wycliffe College, the local Anglican theological college. I was surprised by the immense impact that theology had on this city. I learn about John Wesley’s call to stand apart from a generation of triflers; agree that Calvinism is clever, but wonder what Jesus would have made of it; and conclude that if our theology makes us cry, our theology is too small.

August—We buy a motor home, and set off on an epic trip to Denmark, through England, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. We visited Haderslev, Hans Christian Andersen’s birthplace Odense, and Copenhagen, where I loved the Scandinavian prehistory section in the National Museum of Denmark.

I enjoyed listening to Heidi Baker at River Camp, and, especially, Mark Stibbe’s brilliant talk on writing. And then, the spiritual smorgasbord at the Revival Alliance conference (Heidi Baker, John Arnott, Bill Johnson), in which dozens of eyewitnesses, including my children, and a friend of ours, an Oxford-educated Physics teacher, claimed they saw diamonds materialize, as witness claim they do at Bill Johnson’s church, Bethel, in Redding, California. My take-away (literally) was the ten-minute praise timer recommended by Carol Arnott which beeps every ten minutes, reminding you to praise and worship God. I love using it.

October—I enjoyed a retreat at His Place, a Christian retreat centre at Saarland, Germany, and love Luxembourg.

December—We visit Malta. Highlights—the bay where St. Paul was shipwrecked; Malta’s Neolithic temples; Ramla Bay, and the magical Azure Window in Gozo.

Other highlights—Listening to the Bible in a Year, discovering Audible and listening to numerous books on tape as I walk, and beginning to use AntiSocial, an app which locks me out of the web when I write. I am slowly getting back into the groove of “real” writing, after taking 4 years out to work on the family business, and my blog has been a source of joy, pleasure and personal growth.

Henry Nouwen wrote, “To celebrate life together, to be together in community, to simply enjoy the beauty of creation, the love of people, and the goodness of God—these seem faraway ideals. There seem to be a mountain of obstacles preventing people from being where their hearts want to be.” We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year of being where your heart wants to be. And “Amor, salud y pesetas y el tempo para gustarlos …” Love, health and pesos and the time to enjoy them!!

Picturesque Saarburg and the Saar River Bend (Photoblog)

By Anita Mathias

(guest post by Roy Mathias)

A few photos from our recent trip to Saar region of Germany: The old town of Saarburg, The Saar River Bend Nature Reserve and a nearby tarn.

The medieval part of Saarburg in built on small hill by the Saar river. The small stream, the Leuk, runs through it, and not surprisingly there is a watermill. Remarkably, Saarburg has a waterfall in the middle of the town.

To best see these pictures click on any of the thumbnails below. Navigate the carousel with the arrows. Click on the black area to return to blog format. Enjoy!

Anita’s Superlatives: I am Travelling, Museuming, Reading, Going Vegan

By Anita Mathias

View from the Chemin de la Corniche (Luxembourg)

I’ve had an amazing week. And here are some superlatives.

Travel–Enjoyed a week at His Place, in Saarland, Germany run by the loving German Community Without Walls. A beautiful, restful and warm place with delicious healthy food. Loved it.

Luxembourg—Luxembourg City is gorgeous, and literally on a gorge. Enjoyed the staggering views, and the buildings built on a rock. I could have spent a couple more days there, just wandering around… Next time.

Wayne Negrini—Greatly enjoyed the hyper-energetic, larger-than-life, warm-hearted wise founder of the Community Without Walls, who spent several hours talking to us over a couple of evenings. He is as knowledgeable about natural health and healing as about the things of the Spirit.

And ladies and gentlemen, I intend to gradually educate myself about the former as much as the latter

The Eat to Live Programme—Part of my problem with weight loss is that I could never hear clearly from God as to what diet to follow. And I guess I needed to repent of and renounce seeking comfort or stress-relief or highs in food rather than God.

Well, I have done that, so was in a right place when Wayne suggested the Eat to Live programme by John Fuhrman M.D. lending us some videos on it. It’s a low-carb vegan diet. I have been vegetarian before, for long periods of time, but never low-carb vegetarian, and never vegan.

But this diet (unlimited fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, and limited nuts and seeds) is doing wonders for me so far. Some weight lost easily, and I find I need remarkably less sleep, my mind is clearer, and my ability to think and concentrate is vastly increased.

Zoe and Roy who both independently wanted to go vegetarian are on it too. Irene burst into tears at the thought of it, as she loves meat and dairy, but so far, she’s enjoying the creative vegetarian food, and we’ve told her to eat up on meat and diary at her school lunches!

Pre-Raphaelites at the Tate—A glorious exhibition, including many paintings from private collections.

Best Blog Post I’ve Read This Week.

Loved this post by Glennon Melton in which her husband tells her The News, and she’s suddenly a single mom. My philosophy of blogging is a little like hers, but being American and Californian, she goes much further in openness, honesty and self-revelation.

Glennon says: A life well lived is one lived in the light. I learned long ago that living a secret life doesn’t work for me. To be healthy and sane —to feel safe—I have to live out loud. There is a saying in recovery: we are sick as our secrets. I refuse to be sick again. So I have to share my truth with you.

“I only know as much of myself as I have the courage to reveal to you,” John Powell wrote. The best blogs I think come out of a relentless pushing towards honesty and truthfulness.

Best passage from an audiobook

We listened to “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” on our way back from Germany. Loved this description of how sanctification works.

The selfish Eustace is turned into a dragon, his animagus or daemon. Then Aslan, the Christ-Lion leads him to a well.

The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don’t know if he said any words out loud or not.

“I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

“But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that’s all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I’ll have to get out of it too. So 1 scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

“Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

“Then the lion said” – but I don’t know if it spoke – “You will have to let me undress you.” I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.’

I am in a mid-life process of revising my daily life, schedule, work habits and rhythms, and making them more beautiful, more godly, more monastic if you like.

Some things I can sort of do on my own—put on Rescue Time or Antisocial to avoid internet distraction when I write; wake earlier; exercise; tidy up.

For some things, like eating when stressed or sad or bored or frustrated, a habit I formed decades ago, I need help.

And sometimes, the help Aslan/Jesus gives can hurt at first, but then, it feels so good.

Germany and Me: How Nations Change their National Character. At His Place, Saarland, Germany

By Anita Mathias

Community Without Walls

When I was a teenager in the seventies, the libraries of the two clubs we belonged to were flooded with World War II novels. I remember, at the age of 11, reading QB VII set in a German concentration camp, Mila 18 about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, The Angry Hills, and Exodus.

Gosh, they scarred me for life, becoming the stuff of nightmares. I watched a few Nazi films with my parents, but very few since; I find them too upsetting. I had a horror of the Nazis, and by extension (and ignorance) a fear of all Germans.

And it didn’t help that my boarding school, St. Mary’s Convent, Nainital was run by German I.B.M.V. missionary nuns. As a new girl, aged nine, I once walked in to make my confession when Sister Mary Joseph was making hers. I stood stunned for a minute. She made her confession, came out and beat me savagely with her umbrella. Sister Secunda told the girls that I brought “the bad spirit,” into the class, and wondered if I were demon-possessed, I was so naughty.

Of course, not all of them were mean. Sister Cecilia lived for music, and I hated singing. I disrupted so many choir practices by singing through my nose or crawling out of the room that she finally exempted me from attending them—the only girl so exempted. However, at the end of the year, when there was the long awaited “Choir Treat,” pastries, Indian sweets, and Hershey’s Kisses her niece sent her from America (which I privately mourned that I’d miss) she told me to come to. Without going to a single practice. Grace, grace, for those who repent at the 11^th hour!!

* * *

When I first came to England 28 years ago, I had a housemate who had done military service in the army, and was German in the stereotype of the World War II novels. But I noticed over the years, that the Germans I met were lovelier and lovelier. I think of my friends, Jan and Karoline Sassenberg—beautiful, lovely human beings. And I’ve met more and more sweet German Christians in Oxford, smiley, kind, mellow, and easy-going.

My first cousin, Margaret, dated a German man, Dirk Burghagen. He supposedly told her that the very best people in the whole world were Germans, and the very worst people in the whole world were Indians. In spite of that, they married each other!! Anyone who knows both nations can guess what Dirk meant. In many ways, the nations are diametrically opposed.

But nations change. The diametric opposite of an Indian is no longer a German, but probably the Swiss, antithetical in every respect. (And no, I am not going to get myself into trouble with either nation by spelling it out!)

* * *

After the Second World War, Jewish survivors and the nation of Israel had an unofficial motto, “Never Again.” Israelis no longer had time for Yiddishkeit, a gentleness, unworldliness, scholarliness, and sense of humour. Israelis call themselves Sabras, after the prickly pear–thorny, prickly, tough on the outside and (supposedly) sweet on the inside.

Well, the Germans have their own version of “Never Again,” their own collective shame and guilt. The vast majority are deeply ashamed of the sins of their fathers and grandfathers, ashamed of the Nazis, and are warm, hearty, decent people, law-abiding, hard-working, and disciplined.

And, ironically, the nation which destroyed Europe twice in the last century is keeping the European Union together, contributing a disproportionate amount to the European Union’s budget!!

Ah, hope! If nations can change their self-definition and national character, how much more can individuals!

* * *

We are visiting His Place, a lovely guesthouse run by the Community Without Walls, Saarland, Germany.

It was founded by Wayne and Irene Negini, who felt a call to carry on the reformation Martin Luther began in Germany, restoring the emphasis on the grace of God.

The Negrinis began to take people into their home in the tiny, rural village of Wehingen, Saarland and care for them physically, spiritually and psychologically. More and more people moved there with their families, and they gradually formed a Christian community, friendships growing into lifelong covenant relationships.

His Place, the community-run guest-house, is quite a unique experience. The Pastor lights the fire. The worship leader takes your orders. The worship team serves the food.

The Guesthouse is German. Well, it’s what I expected a German guesthouse to be–beautiful, detail-oriented, sweet-smelling, efficient, hearty and welcoming. Love it here!

And the food is a delight. Pea soup with coconut milk cream; stir-fried chicken, sweet potatoes and veg; and an almond cake for dessert. Heavily fruit and veg based, no sugar, hardly any carbs.

Physical health is too little emphasized by the Western church, but now that I have started to restoring my health through running, reducing sugar and carbs, and increasing fruit and vegetables, I am so enjoying the increased vitality, and energy. I have increased my writing hours by 50% with the increased energy, concentration and focus that feeling and being stronger, and sleeping better is giving me.

* * *

We attended the morning service at the church. I enjoyed the worship SO much. The fact that the worship was in German, which I barely know, helped me to switch off my analytical linguistic mind, and just enter the presence of God. Interesting worship—some familiar English language songs translated into German, some original German language worship songs, and some sung in English. Wow, Europeans are SO linguistic!!

The founders of the community, Wayne and Irene Negrini are currently on a cruise, and the ship is stalled because of turbulent weather somewhere in the Mediterranean. Well, perhaps it’s just how it was translated, but we, the church community, stood up, extended our hands and commanded the Mediterranean to be calm.

“Roy, are we commanding the Mediterranean to be calm?” I whispered, half-amused, half-impressed. Indeed, we were! I stood up, extended my arm dramatically with the rest, and had great fun commanding the wind and the waves. “Greater things than these shall you do, because I go to my Father.”

And now to check the weather report!