Jesus Christ | Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Even Better than the Alps… Thoughts on Returning Home

At Lake Konigsee, Bavaria (More pictures at the end of this post)

So I’m just back from a thoroughly refreshing summer holiday, hiking in the Bavarian Alps. On the boat trip to Konigsee, a very formal bugler played his horn, and the craggy mountains echoed the tune. It was a magical moment. We hiked all day in unspoilt, psychedelic landscapes, like a movie set, like heaven, I imagine, will be.

I quoted to my family, almost verbatim, a favourite passage from the Victorian preacher, Charles Spurgeon,

“If any of you can save up money to go to Switzerland, you will never regret it, and it need not be expensive to you. I have stood in the midst of those mountains and valleys; time would utterly fail me to speak of all the wonders of God which we saw in nature, and in providence.”

“One more remark, and I have done. If you cannot travel, remember that our Lord Jesus Christ is more glorious than all else you could ever see. Get a view of Christ, and you have seen more than mountains, and cascades, and valleys, and seas can ever show you. Thunders may bring their sublimest uproar, and lightnings their awful glory; earth may give its beauty, and stars their brightness, but all these put together can never rival him.”

I quoted this surrounded by mountains on every side at Konigsee, looking into their rainbowed reflections in a limpid, glacial lake. Spurgeon’s statement seemed academic. The beauty was exciting, exhilarating, emotionally overwhelming…

* * *

We hiked, we hiked for 13 days, Tergensee, Chiemsee, Konigsee, Neuschwantein Castle, the Black Forest…. I was hiking to deep and pleasant tiredness, but not exhaustion, averaging 12, 200 steps a day on my pedometer, several miles. And my heart was full of majestic mountains, of flower-strewn Alpine meadows, crystalline mirroring lakes, and streams, rippling. But then, though we had decided to spend 16 days hiking, I wanted to turn around. I had seen enough beauty for now, I was tired, I was ready to resume my regular life, meditating on the Bible, praying, reading, writing, gardening, running, yoga, family life, life with dogs.

Zoe said, “Spurgeon was right. Perhaps Jesus is better than the Alps.” And he is. Of Him, I never weary. I never weary of seeking his wisdom, of trying to see my life and my world through his eyes, of trying to align my life with the axis of his brilliant quirky vision. I never weary of reading his words, his encounters with people. How startling and unusual he is, how refreshing. How wise. How unique.

People know Jesus in different ways, and with different intensity. When I see someone who really knows Jesus, preserved in the written word, but alive and invisibly stalking the earth today, I realise how comparatively slight and shallow my knowledge of him is. And I resolve to deepen it. For when my life gets aligned with his wisdom, with how he would tell me to live my life were He visibly here, my life feels joyous, exciting, and refreshing, like those mountain streams.

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Anyway, a brief personal catch-up. We are in a liminal and lovely season as a family. Zoe has graduated from Oxford University with a good degree in Theology, and Oxford’s Headley Lucas Prize in Theology, and will be working at St John’s Church, Hoxton, London come September. And Irene has graduated from Oxford High School. She won the “Young Biologist of the Year,” award sponsored by Science Oxford and Nuffield Department of Medicine; her school’s prize for excellence in Chemistry, and awards for achievement in Maths, Biology, and academic excellence. Lots of book tokens!

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Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver.

Roy and I will soon be empty nesters, and have just begun to think about how to live this third age/stage of life well. I hope to read deep and write hard; to get physically strong through long hikes and yoga; to garden, to travel, to continue to learn languages (we’ve been learning German for the last two years), and to have friends over to leisurely meals. We’d love to grow spiritually deep, intellectually deep, and to continue loving God, and people. No doubt, we will keep refining our preliminary thoughts.

Wishing you a happy summer, dear readers. Enjoy this beautiful season of your one wild and precious life.

We visited my cousin Margaret and her husband Dirk in Munich

A bugler awakens the mountains which echo his horn’s music

On The One True Diet and The One True Faith

By Anita Mathias

I started gaining weight around puberty, at a time when, annoyingly, I stopping gaining height. Every few years, I’d step on the scales, and go, “OMG! Must do something.”

And so I tried Weight Watchers, but counting calories made me feel a bit crazy. I tried faith-based diets, which don’t work too well on your own, and then a totally crazy, totally wonderful faith-based diet with a group at Grace Presbyterian Church, Williamsburg, Virginia, Gwen Shamblin’s Weigh Down Workshop, whose tenet was—really! really!!– eat anything you want, as much as you want, but only eat when you are hungry (as defined by a growling stomach), and stop when you are full. I rapidly lost 10 pounds on it, and would have lost more…but it’s surprisingly hard to eat only when you are physiologically hungry.

I tried Overeaters Anonymous and lost 6 pounds on it, but, sadly, strayed from its austere discipline once I stopped attending group meetings. I also found all the intense spiritual inventory stuff intensely difficult.

I tried the Atkins/South Beach, and lost weight on that too. According to the Metabolic Typing Diet, I am a protein type, rare among Asians apparently. I don’t gain weight on meat and fish metabolizing them easily, but rapidly gain weight on carbohydrates. So I had lots of duck, lamb, beef, pork, sausages and bacon, lost weight, and gained colon cancer. Now, that didn’t work out too well for me, did it? Bowel Cancer is a risk of Atkins/South Beach/Paleo diets.

After the shock of the diagnosis, and the pain of surgery, I reverted to the diet that all my research suggested was healthiest, the Nutritarian diet advocated by Joel Fuhrman, Dr Dean Ornish, Dr. Colin Campbell…basically fruit, vegetables, beans and legumes with limited carbs, some fish, limited diary, no meat. Following this diet, with cheats and breaks (for it is no easier to follow a diet than to follow Christ) I’ve gradually lost 22 pounds.

As far as I am concerned, this diet of fruit, vegetables, beans, nuts and legumes is The One True Diet.

But I have learned something from the failed and abandoned diets . Gwen Shamblin’s Weigh Down Diet offered the concept of eating when one is hungry, and stopping when one is full. I have learned to ask myself, “Am I hungry?” Atkins/South Beach taught me that starchy carbs, which I love, are my downfall, and to limit them. Overeaters Anonymous made me aware of the times I eat when I am not hungry.

Learning from failed and nutty diets? God is merciful like that.

* * *

I am thinking about religions.

I believe Christianity is the One True Faith. I love several books of the Old Testament, but chiefly I love Jesus, and have discovered his way really works. Each time I obey him it’s like a great exchange from darkness, confusion, grumpiness and muddle to light, peace, guidance and joy.

But I also believe that God, that Jesus, is too kind and merciful to leave huge swathes of the world in darkness. So while there is One True Faith, I believe some of God’s goodness, light, and mercy shine on all who seek him, whether they have been taught to call him Jehovah, Rama, or Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

A sincere follower of Judaism has the treasures of the story of David, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the minor Prophets…great riches.

Islam requires prayer five times a day, a practice which apparently offers physical and mental health benefits. Muslims are forbidden to drink or gamble, which averts much family misery. Giving is a sacred duty, and this increases happiness, according to all happiness research. (Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, though significantly poorer than Indians, are more generous, which leads to Pakistan and Bangladesh ranking higher than India in the UN’s World Happiness Rankings).

Buddhism has the blessings of meditation, Zen, and vegetarianism; Hinduism has yoga and meditation, and many Hindus are vegetarian, which is good for people, animals and the planet. Mormons, whose faith requires them to eschew alcohol, tobacco and coffee; limit meat, and fast once a month (giving the money to the poor) have a high life expectancy.

Because of the goodness of God, all the world religions I know something about reflect some of his goodness.

* * *

But I am delighted to be a Jesus-follower. Following Jesus is, I am convinced, the One True Faith. Each year, I follow him, imperfectly, imperfectly, I can, at a moment’s notice, list ten reasons I am glad to be a Christ-follower, and why, oh, of course, following him is the One True Faith. The reasons expand and expand.

Today’s list of 10 randomly ordered reasons for why I believe following Jesus is the one true faith, the best way to live.

1 Because he said, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed,” and that saves me time and stress, and keeps me focused on what’s important.

2 Because he commanded us not to worry about anything at all, since the God who looks after the birds and flowers will look after us

3 Because he condensed the law and the prophets to one counter-intuitive principle –Love, which is good for the heart, better than vegetarianism. What’s more, he’s practical. What is love? Do to others what you would have them do to you

Because obeying Jesus’s command, “Do not judge,” saves us from futilely meditating on our grievances.

Because Jesus protects us from useless conflict by telling us to turn the other cheek. He’s so gentle. He said the meek inherit the earth. And in all sorts of ways, they do.

4 Because he was an early feminist. He thought sitting at his feet and listening to his teaching was taking the better path, offering Martha liberation from her kitchen. Store-bought pita and hummus would do just fine.

5 Because he understood that prayer was mysterious magic, and he summoned us to it.

6 He was realistic about trouble, sin and suffering, and offered us ways to transcend them. “In the world you will have trouble, but in me, you will find peace.”

7 He told us the Holy Spirit was even better than he was, and that He would come, and the Spirit did, and was as life-changing as Jesus said he was

8 He is a genius. He tells us counter-intuitive things about life, and oh my goodness, he’s right. He who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbled himself will be exalted. In the long run, it’s true, and in the short run–what peace, time and energy are saved!!

9 Delaying gratification is the only decent way to live, contemporary psychiatrist Scott Peck writes in The Road Less Travelled. Jesus said the same thing 2000 years ago, bluntly and memorably. “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. For whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses it will save it.” The grain of wheat, the comfortable old self, must be cracked open to come to new life.

10 He is treasure, and he offers treasure, though treasure found after searching and digging. “Joy, I give you. Peace, I leave you.”

Jesus is like a tardis. He gets bigger and bigger as you enter in, and in him is satisfaction for all our hungers and restlessness. “He who eats my flesh will never hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst,” he promised. His difficult mysterious ways, like a magic carpet, transport us to an exciting life, with magic and adventure.

Just words? Nope; experiment with obeying Jesus as closely as possible, and see what happens

Putting the words of Christ into practice immediately begins to bring truth, goodness, strength and beauty into our lives. Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy.

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IMAGE: Christ Pantocrater, Palermo, Sicily.

Why I have Decided to Follow Jesus

By Anita Mathias

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4 18-20)

“Come follow me, Anita?”

Yes, I will follow you, because life feels pointless without you.

I will follow you because the world without you—it doesn’t hack it: much labour for things which will not satisfy–without you

I will follow you because I am weary of myself. I want to lose myself in you. In that loss, I feel safe.

I will follow you because I don’t know how to do life. But your version of a God-bathed world, held safe in your Father’s hands, which the meek will inherit, I love it! I believe in it.

I will follow you because in worshipping you is my soul complete.

I will follow you because in you I find love, vast as the ocean.

I will follow you because of your goodness that flows like a waterfall towards me. I need but to kneel and receive.

I will follow you because (sorry, this is silly!) nothing makes me as hyper as your words, and the bubbly Holy Spirit you released through your death. In them is rest for my restlessness.

I will follow you because you promise complete joy. You are the narrow gate which leads to life. I will shrug off all that impedes me so I can enter through it.

* * *

I will follow you because no one ever spoke as you did.

I will follow you, because you are so clever. I love the way you got out of all those tricks and traps—taxes to Caesar and stoning that woman and dividing inheritances–with your cool, collected intellect. You instinctively think outside the box, you clever person. And if I follow you, you will teach me wisdom and to stay cool and calm under pressure. (And forgive, now, this selfish motivation).

Yes, I will follow you because you are brilliant. I love thinking about those wild things you said. “Take the lower place; turn the other cheek; the meek inherit the earth; don’t resist an evil person; give and you shall receive.” I love how obeying them, even in baby steps, turns my life upside down.

I will follow you because I know I will never “get” you fully. You will come to me with fresh challenges as long as I live, drawing me upward and onward. I’ll wrestle with your words till I die. Those Beatitudes! The Sermon on the Mount! A whole life’s worth of meditation and challenge.

I will follow you because you are the Word, and I am a writer. And so you will give me the words I need to speak, and protect me from words I do not need to speak.

I will follow you because He who drinks of the waters you give him will never thirst, but rivers of living water will flow from him. What writer would not want rivers of living water to flow from her?

* * *

I will follow you because you are spectacular. The way you cared for everyone you encountered as you gasped your way through the excruciating crucifixion—Wow, Jesus!

I will follow you because learning to love is important, and you know how, and you will teach me.

I will follow you because you are magnetic. You are good, and you are kind. Nothing else in my world compels me as you do.

I will follow you because you are the Living Bread which came down from heaven. If I eat you, I will not hunger, and so in you is the solution to my food issues and addictions.

I will follow you because, well, what else could I follow? Ambition will exhaust me. Mastery of a craft will not satisfy my heart. Money? I earn enough for my simple-ish tastes.

I will follow you, because as C. S. Lewis said, what you say is so outrageous, it’s either completely nuts. Or true. And to me, it tastes of truth. You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

I will follow you, just because…I love you.

Christ is a Miracle Himself (Philip Schaff, The Person of Christ)

By Anita Mathias

From Philip Schaff, The Person of Christ

“No biographer, moralist, or artist can be satisfied with any attempt of his to set forth the beauty of holiness which shines from the face of Jesus of Nazareth. It is felt to be infinitely greater than any conception or representation of it by the mind, the tongue, or the pencil of man or angel. We might as well attempt to empty the waters of the boundless sea into a narrow well, or to portray the splendor of the risen sun and the starry heavens with ink. No picture of the Saviour, though drawn by the master hand of a Raphael or Drer or Rubens; no epic, though conceived by the genius of a Dante or Milton or Klopstock,—can improve on the artless, narrative of the Gospels, whose only but all-powerful charm is truth. In this case, certainly, truth is stranger than fiction, and speaks best for itself without comment, explanation, or eulogy. Here, and here alone, the highest perfection of art falls short of the historical fact, and fancy finds no room for idealizing the real; for here we have the absolute ideal itself in living reality. It seems to me that this consideration alone should satisfy any reflecting mind that Christ’s character, though truly natural and human, rises far above the ordinary proportions of humanity, and can not be classified with the purest and greatest of our race.

Christ’s person is, indeed, a great but blessed mystery. It can not be explained on purely humanitarian principles, nor derived from any intellectual and moral forces of the age in which he lived. On the contrary, it stands in marked contrast to the whole surrounding world of Judaism and Heathenism, which presents to us the dreary picture of internal decay, and which actually crumbled into ruin before the new moral creation of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth. He is the one absolute and unaccountable exception to the universal experience of mankind. He is the great central miracle of the whole gospel-history. All his miracles are but the natural and necessary manifestations of his miraculous person, and hence they were performed with the same ease with which we perform our ordinary daily works. In the Gospel of St. John, they are simply and justly called his “works.” It would be the greatest miracle indeed, if He, who is a miracle himself, should have performed no miracles.

Here is just the logical inconsistency, contradiction, and absurdity of those unbelievers who admit the extraordinary character of Christ’s person, and yet deny his extraordinary works. They admit a cause without a corresponding effect, and involve the person in conflict with his works, or the works with the person. You may as well expect the sun to send forth darkness as to expect ordinary works from such an extraordinary being. The person of Christ accounts for all the wonderful phenomena in his history, as a sufficient cause for the effect. Such a power over the soul as he possessed, and still exercises from day to day throughout Christendom,—why should it not extend also over the lesser sphere of the body? What was it for him, who is spiritually the Resurrection and the Life of the race, to call forth a corpse from the grave? Could such a heavenly life and heavenly death as his end in any other way than in absolute triumph over death, and in ascension to heaven, its proper origin and home?

The supernatural and miraculous in Christ, let it be borne in mind, was not a borrowed gift or an occasional manifestation, as we find it among the prophets and apostles, but an inherent power in constant silent or public exercise. An inward virtue dwelt in his person, and went forth from him, so that even the fringe of his garment was healing to the touch through the medium of faith which is the bond of union between him and the soul. He was the true Shekinah, and shone in all his glory, not before the multitude or the unbelieving Pharisees and scribes, but when he was alone with his Father, or walked in the dark night over the waves of the sea, calming the storm of nature and strengthening the faith of his timid disciples, or when he stood between Moses and Elijah before his favorite three on the mount of transfiguration.

Thus from every direction we arrive at the conclusion, that Christ, though truly natural and human, was at the same time truly supernatural and divine. The wonderful character of his person forces upon us the inevitable admission of the indwelling of the Divinity in him, as the only rational and satisfactory explanation of this mysterious fact; and this is the explanation which he gives himself.”

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