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Every Prison has a Door… (and We Usually Have the Key!)  

By Anita Mathias

     From Practice to Mastery Image Credit: https://guitarsquid.com

So, not being a super-disciplined person, I’ve struggled all my adult life with a few things, surprisingly common struggles for those for whom discipline is problematic.

I carry more weight than I should. Okay, I have lost 47 pounds over the last few years as I have changed my diet but I have more to lose. I have romantic ideas of waking with the dawn, but more commonly wake at 7 a.m. I have yet to run a supremely tidy and organised house; probably, half my stuff could be safely given away.  And I have rarely been a productive writer. Keats feared that he might die before his pen had gleaned his teeming brain. Me too, me too!

It recently struck me that each of these struggles which I’ve had for most of  my married life of 30 years, is to achieve something finite. I don’t have an infinite amount of weight to lose. I could lose it in a year or less! I don’t have an infinite amount of things to declutter; I could do it in six months as Marie Kondo says, or in nine months as Joshua Becker of The Minimalist Home says. If I turn in 5 minutes earlier each day… it’s not an infinite number of days before I will be waking up at 5 a.m. And if the tidying/organising, and exercise, and early rising creates time… who knows, I might even finish the books of my heart.

* * *

In what’s perhaps a metaphor, the enslaved Israelites who escaped slavery and Pharaoh wandered in the desert for 40 years. To walk across the Sinai desert should take 10-11 days, guides say. Similarly, many of the things people struggle with for decades could be dealt with in months or a year: weight, messiness, excessive night-owlness, for instance. Two professional women recently told me that they were chronically late. I struggle with that too… but less and less so. But chronic lateness can be cured–by strategies like adding 50% to the estimated driving time (a tip from Greg McKeown’s excellent book Essentialism),  and 50% to your estimated dressing-up time, and aiming to be seated, ready and reading 15 minutes before you leave the house!

These things we struggle with are what Jesus calls the light burden and the easy yoke, difficulties, but with God’s help, not impossibilites. It is possible to be tidy, of course–easy for those who have always been tidy, and hard for those who have never been tidy, but possible for everyone. Shedding unhealthy weight is easier for those who have good eating habits and the physical strength to exercise hard; harder for those of sluggish metabolism, or who are not strong enough to exercise vigorously. But it should be possible for everyone. (I’ve lost 25 pounds over the last 13 months, though a combination of the ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting. I just stopped eating dinner over six weeks ago, and skipping it was surprisingly easy!). Waking early is perhaps possible for everyone, though I have not yet been able to sustain it long-term. And finishing books is possible to everyone God calls to write.  

At our last few holidays, Cordoba, Berlin and Krakow (all this year, 2019, yes, we are travelling too much)  especially in Krakow, Poland, when we were not eating dinner, we were astonished by how free time opened up in the evenings when Roy and I lived with just a suitcase each, in a hotel suite, and how many loose ends of our family business, our lives and work, we were able to tie up after a full day of sight-seeing. We became wistfully determined to simplify our lives at home for the same sense of spaciousness and peace and extra time.

So, at the moment, I am (perhaps foolishly!) barely writing, but focusing on getting my home tidy and decluttered (especially because I want to move in a year or two). I am focusing on diet (keto!) and fitness, believing Rick Warren statement: if you want to change anything the first thing to do is to change your body to provide the energy for other changes. The decluttering, the spiritual peace and serenity from the order, the brisk walks and yoga to get healthy, the weight loss, the waking earlier, will release more writing time within a few days or a week. I hope so. I pray so. I believe so.

But for now, baby steps.

If you can’t fly, then run; if you can’t walk run, then walk; if you can’t walk, then crawl, but by all means keep moving. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Discipline, short-term suffering is painful for the moment, but it eventually yields what Scripture winsomely calls “a harvest of righteousness and peace.”

It’s what my friend Paul Miller, who discipled me for 5 years in the late nineties, called a J-Curve. The seed has to fall into the ground and die for fruitfulness, as Jesus died to provide the Spirit, and as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. The death of Jesus involved less than 24 hours of intense physical and emotional suffering, 3 hours of which consisted of immense, unimaginable physical suffering.  However, the fruits of the resurrection of Jesus reverberate on and on in the life of the world, in my life, and perhaps in yours, dear reader.

Jesus strikingly says that we are not worthy of him if we do not take up our cross, and embrace the suffering that a fruitful creative life calls for. In all these things I’ve mentioned, there is a cross, a small death, and much joy at the end of it. The cross I am bearing for the next six months is decluttering my house. It will lead to a resurrection of energy, and focus and time. The cross I am bearing for the next six months to a year is getting stronger and shedding the weight that hinders, which will give me the joy and resurrection of more energy and time. The cross of turning in early rather than surfing the net or desultory reading will add to the joy and productivity of early mornings. The resurrection that these things may bring will reverberate and echo, sweet and magnified, through the rest of my life, and perhaps, if God blesses my writing, though the lives of others too. May it be so Lord, Amen.

 

Some resources which I found very helpful, and you might too.

Gary Taubes: Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

Gretchen Rubin describes reading this book as a lightning bolt moment that changed her eating habits, immediately, effortlessly and permanently. It has been a little bit like that for me.

To quote from Taubes: Carbohydrates are uniquely fattening because they elevate levels of insulin, and insulin signals to our fat cells to store fat, and to our lean cells not to burn it, which inhibits the use of fat for fuel. For a diet to successfully reduce obesity, it has to reduce insulin levels, and restrict carbs.

The Complete Guide to Fasting by Jason Fung on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk.

I found intermittent fasting far easier than I imagined, and I love the mental clarity, the physical energy—and, of course, the weight loss.

The Keto Diet: The Complete Guide by Leanne Vogel on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. More a dietary change than “a diet,” though I’ve never found losing weight as easy as on this.

Marie Kondo: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

I have some ambivalence towards her ideas, but I can testify to the huge amount of energy in many areas of my life as I began to donate my surplus stuff

Joshua Becker: The Minimalist Home on Amazon.com

I find his blog Becoming Minimalist motivating, and here it is in a convenient form

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk

Strongly recommend. Don’t we all need essentialism?

And if you’d like a Christian perspective on these things, a book by my friend and mentor Paul Miller.

J-Curve: Dying and Rising with Jesus in Everyday Life by Paul Miller. On Amazon.com

and on Amazon.co.uk

 

Filed Under: In which I celebrate discipline, In which I decide to follow Jesus Tagged With: decluttering, Early Rising, Essentialism, Gary Taubes, Intermittent fasting, Joshua Becker, Keto, Marie Kondo, minimalism, Productivity, The Cross, the easy yoke, The J-Curve, weight loss

A Pruned Minimalistic Life is More Fruitful

By Anita Mathias

07-DSCN9381

When we were in Tuscany in September, I saw grape vines pruned back drastically to about three feet, and above them, masses of plump abundant grapes, black, green, purple.

Grape vines grow as tall as you let them. We have some growing in our conservatory and the side of our barn, which are 10-15 feet.

These, however, were cut back savagely, sending all the energy upwards, and look at the fruit!

08-DSCN9387

* * *

I wish I had taken in this visual lesson earlier. How much more productive I would have been.

But I have learnt it now.

Cut back the inessentials, so that you can be fruitful in the essentials, the one thing you have been put on earth to do.

Jesus at the end of his life said, “I have done the work you have given me to do.” (John 17:4)

So cut back even the good things; the volunteerism; your social media friendships, so that the work he has given you to do, the fruit you want to produce, gleams more beautifully.

Ask yourself: Is this activity the work God has given me to do? If not, even if it is a good thing–taking a turn at leading the Bible study or serving on church teams and rotas–leave it for someone else, for whom it is perhaps the work God has given her to do.

* * *

Those vines struck me like a dart to the heart. Since then, I’ve been pruning—my possessions (getting rid of at least one thing a day) and my commitments. I have even been pruning relationships with negative friends, who drag me down and depress me, relationships I had not let go because of sentimentality and familiarity.

The fruitful vine is pruned so that it will be even more fruitful. One of those counter-intuitive truths which run like grace-notes through the Gospels.

Filed Under: In which I decide to follow Jesus Tagged With: abundance, focus, Fruitfulness, Gospel of John, minimalism, pruning, the work God has given us to do

Minimalism and Simplicity

By Anita Mathias

I love Joshua Becker’s blog Becoming Minimalist and the idea of Minimalism.

The only thing is– minimalism is not particularly a Biblical idea (not opposed to Biblical ideas or values, just not one of them). Abundance is more of a Biblical idea.

And I am too old and too tired to commit passion to something which was not one of Jesus’s values.

Simplicity, on the other hand, simplicity IS a Biblical value.

So I am going to pursue simplicity in all things–and blog about my pursuit as I get deeper into it.

Joshua persuasively describes some of the benefits of minimalism.

Are any of you pursuing either minimalism or simplicity? Tell me about it, please.

Filed Under: random Tagged With: Joshua Becker, minimalism, Simplicity

My Minimalistic and Opted-Out Christmases

By Anita Mathias

Van Gogh Starry OriginalThere was a time when I did Christmas.

Wrote and addressed a stack of Christmas cards and letters-a depressing, burdensome chore when all I wanted to do was read and write. Made family collages to enclose with them. Made Christmas cake and Christmas cookies. Set up the tree. And lights. And decorations.

Bought the kids 14 presents. I started ordering so they would not be sad at the competitive back to school question, “What did you get for Christmas?” and then went on, and on. Our cheeks ached with smiling as they opened them; perhaps theirs did too. Perhaps they felt like actors—ecstasy expected!—and then, there was a mass of wrapping paper and ribbons, and packaging to clear up, and parts to keep together. And more stuff to nag them about keeping tidy and organizing—and eventually, decluttering!!

We did a turkey, which none of us like, so that if they compared Christmases in school, ours would be the same. Did (other people’s) traditional Christmas dinner with all the fixings–glorious excess that left us in a sluggish overfed torpor even before the Bailey’s Irish Cream and Christmas pudding.

Gone, all gone, gone in incense wisps of peace.

* * *

First went the cards. I am on Facebook, and so are my friends. Cards are no longer necessary. I email the few people who still send me cards, but we don’t send cards, except to our mothers. If I have the energy, I write a Christmas letter and post it on my blog with a link on Facebook for anyone who really, really wants to know what I did all year.

The tree, we still do. But it’s a large beautiful fibre optic tree we bring out every year, with sentimental memories from the Christmas ornaments bought over the years. Irene likes to lie on the carpet and watch red, green, blue lights travel to the tips of the needles and back. And, well, so do I. In America, we had a potted living Christmas tree we brought in every year; I could not bring myself to buy a tree, and then throw it away.

Special treats cooked during the Christmas season—no longer. We have enough of these moment-on-your lips, lifetime-on-your-hips treats at parties.  The kids are getting a lot of chocolate gifts from their friends. Why cook things that are not a blessing to our bodies? I cannot do that to myself anymore. I do adore Christmas cake, but Tesco’s Finest Christmas Cake is better than Anita’s. We do have a traditional roast duck dinner, but that’s because we like it, but we don’t overdo the sides—or dessert.

* * *

Then went presents, and what a joyful goodbye! Roy and I are both trying to be minimalistic, so we tell each other one thing we’d really like, and the gift is in the hunter-gathering. Last year, Roy asked for a fur-lined winter hat. I’ve been borrowing it for weeks, so I’m asking for one this year.

While we give the girls a surprise whimsical gift or two, their Christmas present is one thing they really want—a camera, an iPad, a laptop, a kindle, an iPhone have been recent gifts, and a couple of coveted items of brand name clothing. They are teenagers in an all-girls’ school after all.

When they were young, Christmas was Christmas Day, and being told to wait for the sales on the 26th for their presents would have been a disappointment. And I guess retailers count on this traditional sentimentality. Now that they are older—13 and 18 and savvier, part of their Christmas gift is cash for the year’s clothes shoes, bags, accessories, and so they shop the sales the week after Christmas. They are wiser, and can understand and resist the lure of marketers to spend, spend, spend on the big day to create an illusion of perfection as tenuous and fragile as glass Christmas ornaments, and never mind the fiscal consequences. Spending the way an alcoholic drinks. Crazy!

* * *

Why celebrate the birth of the beautiful person who taught us that the Kingdom of God is within us by giving each other things, stuff, which will become clutter? People ruefully say this every year–and what a relief it is to opt out.

I am me. Why should I celebrate the same Christmas as every other person up and down this land? Why should I adopt other people’s Christmas traditions if they are not nourishing to my soul—and it is not nourishing to put up lights and decorations which will be taken down, to make things with sugar and white flour and chocolate which are not a blessing to my body, to send cards which will be opened, looked at for ten seconds and tossed aside. I will not do it!

It’s all a big consumerist keeping-up with the Joneses conspiracy. A spiritual occasion that has been hijacked by marketers, who sell us food to fatten us, alcohol to inebriate us, presents to choke our houses and wardrobes. Oh, how has the celebration of the birth of the simplest and wisest and most beautiful of men become this Belshazzarian feast of excess which strains bodies, emotions, spirits and finances? Are we celebrating Jesus or our traditions? Oh, I am opting-out!

* * *

We do not need to follow other people’s traditions. If you are young and newly married or a new parent, create your own joyful, restful, peaceful, life-giving, people rather than thing-centred traditions.

If you are not young, it’s not too late to gradually change your celebration so that Christmas is a time of rest, and peace and reading and extra prayer, and extra scripture and family and friends without the additional burden of gifts and cards and trees and cooking and shopping and lights and decoration and expense and maybe debt. Perhaps each year, rule out the least satisfying, most exhausting Christmas tradition, and put in a restful, minimalist one?

Don’t cook what you don’t love even if it’s traditional. Don’t send cards to those you don’t love.  Give home-cooked treats as gifts, and your sister-in-law who gave you the cashmere sweater in the ugly colour will be so cross that she’ll reciprocate with a home-baked cake next year—and you’ll both be released from the treadmill.

The decorated house, the creaking tables, piles of gifts decked in beautiful wrapping paper and ribbons and cards to be ripped apart in seconds– these bring us distraction, and tiredness, rather than serenity of that first night of stars whose eternal silence was shattered by angels singing of the glory of God!

I sometimes use the extra energy not “celebrating,” to serve—join a group singing carols at a retirement home, or serve lunch to homeless, at which my husband was mistaken for one of the homeless men, and asked, “When have you last eaten?” by a rude woman, and with exquisite sensitive manners, he pretended he didn’t remember just to spare her feelings.

* * *

Rather than celebrate Christmas just like everyone else—tree, gifts beneath it, lights, decoration, cooking, dressing up, frivolity, triviality la-di-da—we started, in contrapuntal harmony, a family tradition we really enjoy. We go away.

One of my treasured Christmas memories is walking by La Jolla Cove in San Diego, California, watching the harbour seals lounge and lollygag. People were out, running or walking by the beach. Celebrating the goodness of God out in nature! Other Christmases have seen us in the unspeakably lovely Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica; in magical New Zealand; in Mexico, Granada, Barcelona, Madrid. We are going to Malta this year.

We walk by beaches or in the mountains, sleep in, read, talk, eat out, and come back rich in memories, but with little clutter.

Travel is not necessarily cheap, of course, but then neither is a traditional Christmas–£835 in Britain, while the average American spends $854 on gifts alone.

I am not suggesting Bah-Humbugging everything about Christmas. Keep the parts you love. Keep Christ.

Christmas is for people, Christmas is for peace, Christmas is for rest. Christmas is for quieting the manger of one’s heart and silencing the lowing of consumerism, that there may be more room to welcome and listen to the Beloved One whom we are, after all, celebrating.

The Radical One who shocked everyone by shaking up their ideas and has shaken up our family’s Christmas, and returned it to us as a sheer gift.

Christmas, for us, with the girls at home for three weeks, has become nine days in the sun on holiday, and then fifteen days at home, watching dvds, reading, playing family games, sleeping in, resting up, glorious lazy peace and winter walks observing unusual understated glory.

And just a little bit of Christmas music in the background:

“Glory to God in the highest

And on earth, peace to those of good will.”

 

Filed Under: In which I stroll through the Liturgical Year Tagged With: Christmas, minimalism

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https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/28/believing-is-s https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/28/believing-is-seeing-miracles-according-to-your-faith-let-it-be-done-to-you/
Jesus was the only person in the Bible who restored the sight of blind men. The two blind men called out a simple prayer, known as the Jesus prayer, “Jesus, have mercy on us. And their faith activated a miracle when Christ replied, “According to your faith, be it done to you.” And healed them!
The same simple prayer changes things in our lives, too; the transcript of our prayers often becomes the transcript of our lives. However, we live in the “already-not yet” Kingdom. We often see answered prayer but not always, because God often has a happier biography in mind for us than our scripts, which might involve endless scrambling up ladders of striving, success and ever-more. Faith also involves leaving these worries in his hands.
A recent walk around Oxford—Christ Church and Ma A recent walk around Oxford—Christ Church and Magdalen College in particular, with my cousin, Dr. Prem Pais, recently retired Dean of St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore, and his wife, Dr. Nalini Pais. It was lovely seeing them, and showing them beautiful Oxford.
And I’m excited that my little meditation podcast is listened to in 167 cities in 14 countries. A bit astonished, really, and humbled!
Here’s the latest one, on how Christ always knows the best way to do what you are best at. https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/20/jesus-knows-the-best-way-to-do-what-you-are-best-at/
When we are out of our depths and bewildered, Jesus can take the wheel, and add a 1 to our zeroes. But if we manage to surrender our strengths to him, then he can astonish us with exponential growth, adding zeroes after our 1. And, of course, surrendering everything to his wise, kind Lordship is the very best way to live.
https://anitamathias.com/.../jesus-knows-the-best- https://anitamathias.com/.../jesus-knows-the-best-way-to.../
LINK IN BIO!
Jesus knows the best way to do what you are best at!!
Simon Peter was a professional fisherman. And Jesus keeps teaching him, again and again, that he, Jesus, has greater mastery over fishing. And over everything else. After fruitless nights of fishing, Jesus tells Peter where to cast his nets, for an astounding catch. Jesus walks on water, calms sea storms.
It’s easy to pray in desperation when we feel hard-pressed and incompetent, and, often,
Christ rescues us in our distress, adds a 1 before our zeroes.
However, it’s equally important to turn over our strengths to him, so he can add zeroes after our 1. And the more we can surrender our strengths to his management, the more he works in those areas, and blesses them.
A walk around beautiful Magdalen College, Oxford, A walk around beautiful Magdalen College, Oxford, with a camera.
And, if you missed it, my latest podcast meditation, on Jesus’s advice on refocusing energy away from judging and critiquing others into self-transformation. https://anitamathias.com/2023/05/11/on-using-anger-as-a-trigger-to-transform-ourselves/
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
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