joy | 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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An Infallible Secret of Joy

Anita Mathias — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 18:56:28 +0000

I have always hungrily sought joy–primarily in reading and poetry as a child and teen… And, having lived in some beautiful places in my life, such as Nainital in the Himalayas during boarding school; and in Norham Gardens, facing the University Parks, for two years as an undergraduate at Oxford, I’ve almost unconsciously relied on […]

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My One Word for 2015 : Joy

Anita Mathias — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 14:04:31 +0000

I had wanted to choose “Accelerate” as my One Word for 2014 but God impressed “Alignment” on my heart, and it proved to have been useful through a tumultuous year—a cancer diagnosis, and surgery, the death of my beloved border collie Jake from cancer, a burglary. And some nice things too… being invited to Cambodia […]

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One Secret of Joy: Be More Dog

Anita Mathias — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 17:04:55 +0000

So what’s the secret of a dog’s wild energy and wagging tail? Their warm heart, their boundless capacity for love? Their short memories, their natural ability to forgive? Be more dog. http://youtu.be/yu9sWjnJFHU And here is Jake the Collie, in the buttercup meadow behind my house And me and Merry, my Labradoodle

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Walking Away from the Dreaming Spires; Walking Away from Joy

Anita Mathias — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 22:26:59 +0000

When C. S. Lewis went up to Oxford for his entrance interview, he accidentally walked away from the golden, gleaming, dreaming spires towards the "mean", grimy suburb of Botley. He sees that as a metaphor for his whole life until he became a Christian--choosing the second-rate instead of the most beautiful, most noble, most golden!

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“I will give you my joy, and no one will take it from you”

Anita Mathias — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 11:08:00 +0000

Jesus’s lovely promise in John. It is totally spectacular. On a grey, gloomy day as it is today in Oxford, England, we can remember that Jesus gives us his joy, and that nothing and no one–no circumstances can take it from us. By learning to forgive too, we can avail ourselves of some of this […]

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