Happiness | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Using God’s Gift of Our Talents: A Path to Joy and Abundance

Anita Mathias — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 17:14:50 +0000

Jesus, in his Parable of the Talents, memorably illustrates how human life and God’s kingdom work. Our life is a story we co-write with God, who hands us plot outlines: geography, gender, genetics, socio-economic position, creativity, health, personality, temperament, as well as our unique, innate gifts. God, considering our abilities, assigns us varying […]

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

Anita Mathias — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 18:48:11 +0000

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 […]

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Brexit and Deep Peace in Turbulent Times

Anita Mathias — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 23:14:17 +0000

So I supported the Remain campaign. I love Europe, and I truly believe that our world needs a United States of Europe to provide a counterbalance to the emerging ruthless power of China, as well as the power of the United States. I love borderless travel in Europe, and as a British citizen, I appreciated […]

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On Breaking the 22 Minute Mile, and Stumbling on Happiness

Anita Mathias — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 15:09:16 +0000

When I was 12 years old, I read Roger Bannister’s account of breaking the 4 minute mile, pushing himself to the outer limits of human possibility, “collapsing almost unconscious, like an exploded light bulb”. I was inspired–and astonished. Run a mile in four minutes. The thought of it still baffles me! I walked a mile […]

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On Choosing Happiness Today

Anita Mathias — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 19:04:24 +0000

The three legged runner is the symbol of the beautiful Isle of Man which I loved exploring. Ah, that’s me. One foot in the past—well, naturally, I am writing a memoir. One foot in the present, trying to live each day well. One restless foot leaping into the future, planning, dreaming. But perhaps the most […]

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On Flawed People, Perfect Art, and Happiness

Anita Mathias — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 21:13:04 +0000

In Creative Writing graduate school in the US, reading of the scandalous, chaotic and pain-filled private lives of the American poets whose luminous poetry I loved, I naively asked the professor if he thought one needed to be a good man or woman to be a good poet. (We were studying the “prophetic” voice […]

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The Ten Habits of the Happy Christian

Anita Mathias — Sat, 15 Mar 2014 21:18:36 +0000

Irene Mathias, aged 4 1 Seek Happiness George Mueller considered happiness the normal emotional state of the Christian. “I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, […]

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Re-opening the Ancient Wells which will Save our Lives Right Now

Anita Mathias — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 09:18:29 +0000

In arid ancient Israel, access to artesian wells made all the difference between prosperity, survival, or famine. And so when God blessed Isaac so that his crops reaped a hundred-fold return (Gen. 26:12) and he became very wealthy, out of envy, his enemies, the Philistines “stopped up all the wells that Abraham had built, filling […]

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On Razor-Blade Millionaires; the Moon on a Chain and Being Content with What you Have

Anita Mathias — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:11:00 +0000

I am listening to Gustave Flaubert’s A Sentimental Education on my iPod as I walk. It opens with a steamboat journey from Paris: “The hill on the right bank of the Seine dropped out of sight, and another one loomed closer on the opposite side. This hill was topped by trees dotted between bungalows with hipped […]

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The Arithmetic of Counting Blessings

Anita Mathias — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 21:43:00 +0000

I have started to keep a gratitude journal, noting five things a day I am grateful for. Like the hawk I saw float over the fields of Garsington. My pink rose bush in prolific blossom. And the very fact of slowing down and giving thanks, even, especially, when I am stressed or sad, does induce […]

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