Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

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Chasing the Wild Goose of the Holy Spirit: In Praise of Retreats

By Anita Mathias

A Canada goose flies under a clear blue sky. In traditional Chinese culture, the wild goose symbolizes a letter or an exchange of correspondence due to its use by the ancient Chinese to carry messages over long distances. (Janet Forjan-Freedman/Photos.com)

 Is God more present in one place than another?Does it make sense to leave the comfort and familiarity of your daily surroundings to seek God in places—retreat centres or pilgrimage spots– “where prayer has been made valid,” in T. S. Eliot’s phrase? Where God was rumoured to have shown up in the past, or to be currently showing up?Does it make sense to go to conferences to listen to other people’s deep, life-changing experiences of God rather than stay home and experience him quietly for yourself?

For most of my life, my answer to these questions was No.

I wanted to experience God in my daily life, amid the wear and tear of marriage and parenting and housekeeping and writing and church.

I was wary of seeking mountain-top experiences which would fade once I got down to the valley simply because they often had, leaving me discouraged. Far better to experience God little by little in the valleys, and have this experience permeate my whole life.

I guess you could say I was not really hungry.

* * *

It’s the rare person who’s hungry for God while you still hope that your life can work very well, thank you, without God.

So it took a period of brokenness—of a manuscript being rejected; of having to totally lay my writing aside to found a business to pay for private school for the girls; of being purified in the crucible of marriage—for me to want to be filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit, and his gifts of love, joy and peace more than I wanted to be a successful writer.

And this God-longing is revealing itself in my use of time.

* * *

The ancient Celtic symbol for the Holy Spirit was a wild goose.

If the wild goose did not grace your backyard, you searched for him in places where he was last rumoured to have been.

And so when I run out of energy, of love, of joy, of a steady sense of shalom and the presence of God, I am happy to take time out, to seek the wild goose of the Holy Spirit once again.

* * *

And spiritual quests, luckily, are not the quest for the Holy Grail, where you either find the Grail, or you don’t. They are not all or nothing.

They are like treasure hunts in which one might pick up one gleaming golden feather one time, or a fistful of them the next, or bits of delicate down. And each of these makes your life more beautiful.

And finally, you chance upon the shimmering wild goose itself

* * *

Healing comes layer by layer. Revelation and clarity and guidance come layer by layer.

The Holy Spirit like water floods the soul of the seeker, sometimes in a trickle, sometimes a stream, sometimes a mighty flood.

I like the way the ancient Israelites constructed a cairn of stones to remember significant spiritual encounters.

* * *

Here are some of my cairns:

Learning soaking prayer at a Catch the Fire Conference with John Arnott, and somehow catching a deep awareness of the Father’s love for me, through the week-long conference, and through the practice of soaking prayer they taught. Receiving healing from adrenal fatigue at a healing prayer session. Receiving partial healing from emotional eating at Cwmbran and Harnhill Retreat Centre. Beginning to radically change my diet after a visit to His Place, Saarland, Germany, a holistic Christian retreat centre.

* * *

If you feel stuck in your personal life, or goals, or relationships, or feel the need of physical or emotional or mental healing, or would like to experience more of the presence of God who is energy and joy and peace, I would highly recommend going away for a retreat, personal or guided,  or a conference with speakers with an attested track record of fruitfulness and integrity (I find Bill Johnson, John and Carol Arnott, and Heidi Baker worth listening to.)

 

Why go away to experience God when God is everywhere?

1 God honours the humility it takes to inconvenience ourselves to seek him.

Namaan the Syrian has leprosy. His slave girl tells him about the prophet, Elisha in Samaria who can heal, and off he goes pompously with chariots and horses and silver and gold and clothing to be healed.

But Elisha merely send him word  to bathe seven times in the Jordan.

Namaan is furious: “Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?”  

His servants tell him, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” 

So Naaman bathes in the Jordan, and is cleansed.

Sometimes, God heals us in response to our own prayers, and, sometimes, in response to other people’s prayers. Both happen in Scripture— the second far more frequently.  Who knows why? I think God honours the humility it takes to ask for prayer.

It also ensures that we cannot position ourselves as some sort of super-prayer-warrior who can cure all our own diseases and ailments, physical, mental and spiritual by our own prayers.

 

2 We hear God better when we set aside time to do so.

Mark Batterson in The Circle Maker: Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears has a formula

Change of pace + change of place=Revelation.

Come on, be realistic. Home can be a talking-to-do list of duties and distractions. And there’s the phone, and mobile phones, and the internet. A good retreat centre will infuriate you by cutting wifi, thereby ensuring that you hear God rather more than you bargained for!!

If we struggle with making time and space and silence for God in our daily life—but feel the need for clarity, peace, blessing, healing, guidance—it makes sense to go away and seek these things.

 

3 God honours the sacrifice of money, time, convenience and career advancement that we make in seeking him.

 

4 Going away to seek God has been built into Judeo-Christianity from the very earliest days when the Jews went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year. A kind of holy-day, exercise,  community and God all thrown in.

 

5 It is generally so worth it.

I was talking to a woman who had spent thousands of pounds last year on a forthnight in the Bahamas, and came back with no more peace or joy than she had before.

Then she went on a weekend retreat at Waverly Abbey, and came back glowing, couldn’t stop talking about it, felt spiritually full and somehow different.

I love travel—it energizes me. However, etymologically, the English word travel is derived from travail: trouble, sorrow, suffering, hassle. It’s not always a spiritual experience for me (though it often is).

A silent retreat however clears my mind of all my whirling thoughts and worries, gives me clarity, and fills me again with the spirit of Jesus. It’s  a great investment of time.

* * *

Bird watchers are amazing. All they want to do is to see the bird—the kingfisher, the toucan, the macaw or the albatross and the penguins which I saw in New Zealand.

And I want to similarly seek the wild goose of the Holy Spirit until I have all of him, and he has all of me, and says, “Okay child, I have seen your heart. I will make you my dwelling place. I will come and fill you, and you will be my Anita, and I will be your God.”

Filed Under: In which I chase the wild goose of the Holy Spirit Tagged With: Bill Johnson, cwmbran revival, Harnhill Centre, Heidi Baker, His Place Saarland, John and Carol Arnott, Mark Batterson, retreats, Revival Alliance, The wild goose of the Holy Spirit

On How Forgiveness Sets Us as Free as a Falcon

By Anita Mathias

The captive falcon soars, riding the winds, reaching for the clouds, until she reaches the limits of her leash. And then, at the will of the falconer, she is reeled down. Earthbound!

The wild eagle, however, soars high, and higher still, effortlessly, soaring on thermal currents, using even obstruction currents to rise higher.

* * *

What’s the leash which prevents us reaching the spiritual heights? That keeps us earthbound?

It’s often our leaden backpack of grudges, resentments, and injuries. Dislikes born of slights, and slight half-forgotten injuries. An attitude of “just you wait, Henry Higgins.” Stuff we just have to release.

How does one forgive? Let go of anger and deep-rooted injury? Funny, though I have done it again and again, I don’t really know how one lets go of deep-seated anger.

I have images that help me, though. Tearing the check of what people owe me. Tearing up the injury and throwing it away. Cutting the leash that binds me to the person. Switching my focus to the beautiful face of Jesus.

Ultimately, forgiveness is an emotional miracle only accomplished by positioning oneself in the waterfall of God’s love. Letting it course through you, so that it washes away the injury.

Ultimately, I think we cannot forgive on our own. We need God’s help.

We need the power of the Holy Spirit within us.

* * *

 Though there are strategies which help.

Thank God for the good in the person you are struggling to forgive.

Ask God to help you see them as he sees them—with his magic eyes, which see people’s weaknesses and failures, and always forgives and never despises.

Ask God first to make you want to forgive.

And then to give you the ability to forgive.

Maybe, if you choose to—ask God to give you a love for the person you are struggling to forgive.

* * *

For in forgiving, you release a captive, and that captive is you yourself.  Nelson Mandela famously said that resentment is like drinking poison and then waiting for your enemy to die. And from what we now know of the toxicity of negative emotions, holding on to resentments may literally mean drinking poison.

Matthew 18 21-35 explains it best. In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. The one who will not forgive is thrown into prison and tortured.

True? Oh my goodness, absolutely. Have you had the experience of a beautiful meal out or a lovely hike ruined by an argument over past injuries? Or the bitter memories of past injuries surfaces at a trigger, and you express them, and that forest cat is out of the bag, with its claws, re-injuring you all over again? And the injury is almost as painful at the tenth or twentieth recounting as when it first occurred?

Release the forest cat of other people’s sins against you.

If you seek to forgive, and ask God’s help in forgiving, and forgive again and again as you remember the past injury, eventually you will succeed.

* * *

Grace and Forgiveness, a brief 70 page book by John and Carol Arnott is the best book on forgiveness I have read. The writing is deceptively simple and the content deep and transformative, and so, ironically, it takes 2 or 3 readings for it to traverse “the longest distance in the world,”–the 18 inches from head to heart.

The Arnotts say, “When we choose to stop living in grace, like the unmerciful servant, effectively, we are choosing to step outside of the blessing and protection of God and deliver ourselves to “the torturers.” At all costs, then, we want to continue living in grace.”

They go on in this illuminating passage.

There are many Christians today who wonder, “Why does everything seem to go wrong in my life? Why does there seem to be a curse over my life?” There are trying to work out why there doesn’t seem to be any protection over their life.

Often, this is be because they have made the poor choice in their relationships with others to “bury” the hurt and bitterness of past offenses instead of forgiving and releasing these to God.  By their choices they have made themselves vulnerable to attack by Satan.

By withholding mercy from others and exercising unforgiveness, they have stemmed the flow of God’s blessing and protection over their lives, leaving them open to assault from demonic forces.  Even if someone does the most terrible thing to you, you must never go back to the justice level. It must be grace, grace, grace. Leave justice with God. Do not allow your heart to become hurt, bitter and unforgiving.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Jesus placed the giving and receiving of forgiveness at the absolute center of the Christian life. We simply cannot take forgiveness for ourselves, but withhold it from others. “

* * *

I found this a switching-on-the-lights question to ask myself.

Is there any area of my life in which I am stuck in prison, turned over to the jailors to be tormented? Weight? Household organization? Writing? Waking early?

Is unforgiveness playing a part? Unforgiveness of those who have caused or contributed to the problem? General unforgiveness?

Releasing and forgiving those who have caused or contributed to the areas in which one is stuck may well get me and you unstuck.

And I am off to do it now!!

* * *

Image Credit 

Grace and Forgiveness on Amazon.com

Grace and Forgiveness on Amazon.co.uk

Filed Under: In which I forgive Aught against Any (Sigh) Tagged With: forgiveness, John and Carol Arnott, Nelson Mandela

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  • Jesus Knows the Best Way to Do What You Are Best At
  • On Using Anger as a Trigger to Transform Ourselves
  • Do Not Worry About What To Eat: Jesus
  • Happy Are the Merciful for They Shall Be Shown Mercy
  • The Power of Christ’s Resurrection. For Us. Today
  • Our Unique and Transforming Call and Vocation
  • Change your Life by Changing Your Thoughts
  • Do Not Be Afraid–But Be as Wise as a Serpent
  • Our Failures are the Cracks through which God’s Light Enters
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anita.mathias

https://anitamathias.com/.../on-using-anger-as-a-t https://anitamathias.com/.../on-using-anger-as-a-trigger.../ link in bio
Hi friends, Here's my latest podcast meditation. I'm meditating through the Gospel of Matthew.
Do not judge, Jesus says, and you too will escape harsh judgement. So once again, he reiterates a law of human life and of the natural world—sowing and reaping. 
Being an immensely practical human, Jesus realises that we are often most “triggered” when we observe our own faults in other people. And the more we dwell on the horrid traits of people we know in real life, politicians, or the media or internet-famous, the more we risk mirroring their unattractive traits. 
So, Jesus suggests that, whenever we are intensely annoyed by other people to immediately check if we have the very same fault. And to resolve to change that irritating trait in ourselves. 
Then, instead of wasting time in fruitless judging, we will experience personal change.
And as for us who have been judgey, we still live “under the mercy” in Charles Williams’ phrase. We must place the seeds we have sown into the garden of our lives so far into God’s hands and ask him to let the thistles and thorns wither and the figs and grapes bloom. May it be so!
Spring in England= Joy=Bluebells=Singing birds. I Spring in England= Joy=Bluebells=Singing birds. I love it.
Here are some images of Shotover Park, close to C. S. Lewis's house, and which inspired bits of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings. Today, however, it's covered in bluebells, and loud with singing birds.
And, friends, I've been recording weekly podcast meditations on the Gospel of Matthew. It's been fun, and challenging to settle down and think deeply, and I hope you'll enjoy them.
I'm now in the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus details all the things we are not to worry about at all, one of which is food--too little, or too much, too low in calories, or too high. We are, instead, to do everything we do in his way (seek first the Kingdom and its righteousness, and all this will fall into place!).
Have a listen: https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/03/do-not-worry-about-what-to-eat-jesus/ and link in bio
“See how the flowers of the field grow. They do “See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. Or a king on his coronation day.
So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” 
Of course, today, we are more likely to worry that sugary ultra-processed foods everywhere will lead to weight gain and compromise our health. But Jesus says, “Don’t worry,” and in the same sermon (on the mount), suggests other strategies…like fasting, which brings a blessing from God, for instance, while burning stored fat. And seeking God’s kingdom, as Jesus recommends, could involve getting fit on long solitary prayer walks, or while walking with friends, as well as while keeping up with a spare essentialist house, and a gloriously over-crowded garden. Wild birds eat intuitively and never gain weight; perhaps, the Spirit, on request, will guide us to the right foods for our metabolisms. 
I’ve recorded a meditation on these themes (with a transcript!). https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/03/do-not-worry-about-what-to-eat-jesus/
https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/03/do-not-worry-a https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/03/do-not-worry-about-what-to-eat-jesus/
Jesus advised his listeners--struggling fishermen, people living on the edge, without enough food for guests, not to worry about what they were going to eat. Which, of course, is still shiningly relevant today for many. 
However, today, with immense societal pressure to be slender, along with an obesogenic food environment, sugary and carby food everywhere, at every social occasion, Jesus’s counsel about not worrying about what we will eat takes on an additional relevance. Eat what is set about you, he advised his disciples, as they went out to preach the Gospel. In this age of diet culture and weight obsession, Jesus still shows us how to live lightly, offering strategies like fasting (which he promises brings us a reward from God). 
What would Jesus’s way of getting fitter and healthier be? Fasting? Intuitive spirit-guided eating? Obeying the great commandment to love God by praying as we walk? Listening to Scripture or excellent Christian literature as we walk, thanks to nifty headphones. And what about the second commandment, like the first—to love our neighbour as ourselves? Could we get fitter running an essentialist household? Keeping up with the garden? Walking with friends? Exercising to be fit enough to do what God has called us to do?
This meditation explores these concerns. #dietculture #jesus #sermononthemount #meditation #excercise #thegreatcommandment #dontworry 
https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/03/do-not-worry-about-what-to-eat-jesus/
Kefalonia—it was a magical island. Goats and she Kefalonia—it was a magical island. Goats and sheep with their musical bells; a general ambience of relaxation; perfect, pristine, beaches; deserted mountains to hike; miles of aimless wandering in landscapes of spring flowers. I loved it!
And, while I work on a new meditation, perhaps have a listen to this one… which I am meditating on because I need to learn it better… Jesus’s tips on how to be blessed by God, and become happy!! https://anitamathias.com/2023/04/25/happy-are-the-merciful-for-they-shall-be-shown-mercy/ #kefalonia #family #meditation #goats
So… just back from eight wonderful days in Kefal So… just back from eight wonderful days in Kefalonia. All four of us were free at the same time, so why not? Sun, goats, coves, bays, caves, baklava, olive bread, magic, deep relaxation.
I hadn’t realised that I needed a break, but having got there, I sighed deeply… and relaxed. A beautiful island.
And now… we’re back, rested. It’s always good to sink into the words of Jesus, and I just have. Here’s a meditation on Jesus’s famous Beatitudes, his statements on who is really happy or blessed, which turns our value judgements on their heads. I’d love it if you listened or read it. Thanks, friends.
https://anitamathias.com/2023/04/25/happy-are-the-merciful-for-they-shall-be-shown-mercy/
#kefalonia #beatitudes #meditation #family #sun #fun
https://anitamathias.com/2023/04/25/happy-are-the- https://anitamathias.com/2023/04/25/happy-are-the-merciful-for-they-shall-be-shown-mercy/
Meditating on a “beatitude.”… Happy, makarios, or blessed are the merciful, Jesus says, articulating the laws of sowing and reaping which underlie the universe, and human life.
Those who dish out mercy, and go through life gently and kindly, have a happier, less stressful experience of life, though they are not immune from the perils of our broken planet, human greed polluting our environment and our very cells, deceiving and swindling us. The merciless and unkind, however, sooner or later, find the darkness and trouble they dish out, haunting them in turn.
Sowing and reaping, is, of course, a terrifying message for us who have not always been kind and merciful!
But the Gospel!... the tender Fatherhood of God, the fact that the Lord Christ offered to bear the sentence, the punishment for the sins of the world-proportionate because of his sinlessness.  And in that divine exchange, streams of mercy now flow to us, slowly changing the deep structure of our hearts, minds, and characters.
And so, we can go through life gently and mercifully, relying on Jesus and his Holy Spirit to begin and complete the work of transformation in us, as we increasingly become gentle, radiant children of God.
Beautiful England. And a quick trip with Irene. A Beautiful England. And a quick trip with Irene.
And, here’s a link to a meditation I’ve recorded on the power of Christ’s resurrection, for us, today… and, as always, there’s a transcript, for those who’d rather read it.
https://anitamathias.com/2023/04/13/the-power-in-christs-resurrection-for-us-today/
#england #beautifulengland #meditation
Hi Friends, I've recorded a new meditation for Ea Hi Friends,
I've recorded a new meditation for Easter. Here's a link to the recording, and as always, there's a transcript if you'd rather read it. And I have an attempt at a summary below!!
https://anitamathias.com/2023/04/13/the-power-in-christs-resurrection-for-us-today/
“Do not be afraid,” is the first sentence the risen Christ says. Because his resurrection frees him from the boundaries of space and time, in each room we enter, Christ is with us--and his Spirit, who helps us change our hearts, our characters, and our lives. 
The seismic power which raised Christ from the dead is now available to us, for the issues of our lives, helping us conquer addictions, bad habits, and distressing character traits.
We access this dynamite power by practising prayer. We need, first of all, to slow down, and bathe and saturate our lives in prayer, praying for wisdom and blessing for, before, and during everything we do. 
And as God answers, our faith progressively increases, our characters change, and we begin to experience God’s miracles in our lives.
And a prayer:
Oh God of resurrection, 
Come with your dynamite power into our lives.
We put our old dreams and our new ones into your hands.
Bring them to life. Make them glow. 
Come like a mighty burst of spring into our lives
Bringing apparently dead relationships, dreams, 
The things we once loved, 
And all our dormant potential to radiant life.
We put our lives into your hands.
Make them beautiful.
Come Lord Jesus.
Amen
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