Oxford | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Failing Better: A New Year’s Resolution, of sorts

Christ Church, Oxford University

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. Samuel Beckett

So it’s a New Year…2017. I love this hopeful period of looking back on the past year, and considering how to revise my life in the new year. I love its promise, a sheet of new fallen snow.

New Year’s Resolutions… Like most people, I have barely kept any perfectly, though over the years, I do eat less chocolate (to which I was once addicted), and far less sugar, cookies, and sweet treats (though still more than I should). I drink less coffee. I avoid red meat. I exercise more. I use the internet and social media less. I am tidier and more organized. Change happens.

Some people Jesus healed just like that, instantly. Some people he healed gradually, like the blind man whom Jesus choose to heal not with his mighty word which flung the heavens into existence, but though the messy, rather humiliating expedient of spitting on his eyes. At this, the man saw “men, like trees, walking.” Jesus tried again, placed his hands on the man’s eyes, and his sight was then restored.

Sometimes, we see “men, like trees, walking,” before we are healed. And of some things, sadly, we will never be healed. ALL of us on the day of our death will still be sinners; all of us will have little bad habits we still struggle with. We will sin less and less, but not be sinless. On the last New Year’s Day of our lives, we will probably be recording variants of “I will exercise more; I will eat healthily,” just as the most organised of us will probably die with things on their To Do lists. Jesus said that he who does not voluntarily heft his own cross was not worthy of following him. We do not do Jesus a favour by trying to follow him. We prove ourselves worthy of following Christ, the greatest enterprise of our lives, by voluntarily accepting suffering and self-denial. And for some of us, our cross is our own weakness, the resolutions we make and break, make and break.

My daughter Irene has just been accepted into the six year Medicine course at Christ Church, Oxford University. But until today, I’d say: Irene’s been offered a President’s Scholarship to Imperial College, London, given to the top 1% of the entering class–being cagey about her other application, because…. what if?

I feel like that when it comes to recording my New Year’s resolutions here. What if the spirit is willing and flesh is weak?

What if I fail?

If I fail, “what matters it?” as my toddler Zoe used to say. One of my mantras is “fail better.” I may not lose every excess pound, but, God willing, I will certainly lose some. I may not read as much as I want to, but God willing, I will read more than I did in 2016. I may not have a perfect diet, but, God willing, I will bless my body with nutritious food and exhilarating movement more than I did in 2016. I may not write as much as I want to, but God willing, I will write more than I did last year.

Jesus tells us that unless we turn and become like little children, we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And I think he has the same tenderness towards us as we havde towards our children when they were toddlers. We took Zoe to Florence when she was three; seeing ceilings painted blue, and sprinkled with gold stars, she wanted to paint her ceiling. I said, “Yes, when you are as good as Michelangelo.” And so she asked each day, “Mummy, am I as good as Michelangelo now?” “Almost,” I’d say. I think God views our grand plans with the same indulgence (though that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make them).

Be as tender with yourself as you’d be with a toddler… and be of good cheer, God feels the same tenderness towards you.

* * *

And so to record the ways I hope to revise my life in this New Year. I have taken up two active hobbies in 2016… yoga in the gym, and running, and I love both, but, in both, am hindered by my extra weight. So I am planning to severely eliminate sugar and chocolate from my diet. I used to use dark chocolate as a mood boost through the day, using a bar or two a week. Instead of that, I will pause, interrogate why I need comfort and seek the comfort of the Holy Spirit. When I fail in this, I will get back on the wagon, failing better than I did in the past.

I want to read more. For years, I have used the year as a unit, recording the books I’ve read, aiming to read one additional book during the next year. But I am going to take the month as a unit, and read or listen to one additional book a month next year. That would mean reading 5 extra pages a day each month, and listening to 5 extra pages on my walks, or as I do household chores. I can do that. I need to read a lot since I am in the revision phases of my book, and the more I read, the more easily language pours out of my fingertips, and revisions become quicker, more intuitive, and more fun.

I want to build up the steps I take each day to definitely 10,000, and perhaps 16,000, a level at which one can maintain a healthy weight without dieting, according to studies of the Amish. That would be nice. What’s helping? A Fitbit HR, which beeps every hour during which I have not done at least 250 steps, and then I get up and either tidy up for 5 minutes, or just jog in place, or on my rebounder.

And I want to finish my book, and, luckily, I am gaining momentum, each chapter taking less time than the previous one… Fortunately, I am enjoying it.

We learn through our successes. We learn through our failures. And even if it all goes wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah!

How about you? What are your New Year’s resolutions?

Burn-Out Vanishes When We Rediscover Purpose

By Anita Mathias

When I blogged regularly, which I did for six years, I felt more alive, more alert, more attentive to my life, and what God was doing in it. In Frederick Buechner’s phrase, I listened to my life.

I have taken a six month blogging break, and the peril of blogging breaks (or writing breaks: ask Harper Lee or Margaret Mitchell!) is that you feel you have to write something substantial, beautiful, and meaty when you return to blogging …which seems daunting, and so you put off writing—and returning.

The cardinal rule for avoiding writers’ and bloggers’ block—and indeed for any endeavour—is to begin where you are, with something little and slight if need be.

So perhaps I should catch you up with a snippet from my life, and an insight stemming from it.

* * *

The country lane on the outskirts of Oxford, England which we live, unbelievably quiet and beautiful when we moved in over ten years ago, has changed its character as more people have moved in—“Traveller” families, as it happens. It has become noisier, less idyllic and scenic. The whole village was up in arms against “Travellers” moving in; there were public meetings and hearings; I was particularly troubled because they were moving onto a field adjacent to my large garden. But in prayer, I “heard” clearly that we were not to oppose them, so we did not; we ceased attending public meetings or lodging planning protests against them, much to our other neighbours’ mystification.

In early June, because of many and noisy neighbours in what had been a quiet and deserted lane, I realized that the time had come to move–from the countryside on the edge of Oxford, where I have happily lived for the last 11 years to the city, to North Oxford in particular. And we even had an offer to buy our house, phew!!

Why North Oxford? When I applied to study in Oxford as a student in the eighties, I felt a call, a leading to Oxford, and I have never felt a call to any other city. North Oxford is walking distance from my church, St. Andrew’s; from Oxford University where I am now on my second year of the German classes I am taking for fun; from the Ashmolean Museum; the superb Oxford Playhouse, friends, parks, the river, a good gym, yoga classes. I would be able to walk most everywhere.

North Oxford is, however, substantially more expensive than my country village on the outskirts of the city. It’s the most expensive area of the UK, outside of London!!

So…

* * *

Deciding to move has galvanized us. “God meant it for good.” We have owned a small business for almost ten years now, and we have started diligently and creatively expanding it to finance our move. So that’s a definite blessing that’s come from this decision.

Many, many, years ago, I felt a longing, to write a memoir. A call? A desire, a longing, a call–they are all intertwined. God reveals his call on our lives through the desires, gifts and experiences he has given us. But the book turned out to a bigger, longer project than I had visualized, and early rejections of the proposal at a hassled, overwhelmed time of my life broke me. Temporarily.

But writing this book was a mysterious call, all right, something that perched on my shoulder, and I didn’t feel free to move on to anything else until I had completed it. So I did not…move on to something else… nor complete it.

The tale has tragic overtones now, but God who loves good stories can make dark plot twists like Joseph-in-the-well-and-dungeon and Good Friday spiral upwards and morph into gold, into Easter Sunday

Anyway, when I decided to move because of my new and noisy neighbours, I swiftly realised that moving was out of the question until I had finished this book. Moving can be stressful, especially in middle age… People can lose their health, their peace and their papers…

So I decided to finish my book before I moved. Realising that living next door to my noisy neighbours was unsustainable in the long run galvanized me to do what I had always wanted to do for years, get some momentum on the book–which has been a great joy. How relieved, how delighted I will be when the book finally gets finished.

* * *

So here I am, writing slowly but steadily.

Funny thing… In June 2016, I was convinced that I was burnt-out. Our daughter Irene, our last nestling, didn’t want to go on holiday over the February or the June half-term breaks because of her mocks and A-S exams, and all I could think of was how tired and burnt out I was, and how I needed a long, active holiday, and to walk many miles a day to exorcise a cobwebby from my mind, and flood it again with oxygen and ideas.

But then an offer came to buy my house, and I decided to sell the house, and move, and to finish my book before I even contemplate moving. With that fresh hearing of the ancient call came a new momentum, and energy descended from the heavens.

I came across this quote recently, “Burnout is more often caused by purpose deficiency than vitamin deficiency.”

My burnout lifted, just like that.

I do not make bucket lists…I see God as full of kindness towards me, with open hands towards me, full of gifts, and am okay with accepting the gifts he pours out. But if I were to make a bucket list… well, finishing and publishing this book would be one of the few things in that bucket. And circumstances have now given me a sort of deadline.

* * *

Years ago, my mentor suggested that I have a writing goal. But incredibly, I didn’t then know how to set goals. You know I would hope to write two chapters, but instead wrote a teeny bit of one… and then what?

So this time, I started really, really ridiculously small, since I was adding a new thing–finishing a book–to a life already full with blogging, parenting, exercising, German classes, gardening, house-running, church, small group, writers’ group, etc. etc. I set the timer for 5 minutes, and decided to write 20 words minimum. The next day, I went for 40, then 60, and now I am at 2300 words a day, new or revised. I keep track of the words I’ve missed on busy days, and try to make up on the days when writing feels like flying (which are not that frequent, sadly).

So this is the second/third draft of the book, revising is not the most scintillating thing, but getting the book finished will be scintillating, so I try to sit down, revise 2300 words, do some make-up words, and then I’m all done for the day.

* * *

A couple of things that are helping me. I start my writing with reading, to take the revision process more joyous. (Currently reading One Man’s Meat, E. B. White’s memoir of country life which I have just decided is not for me, and Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves’ horrifying memoir of his service in the first World War).

I am using the Pomodoro technique, work for 25 minutes, and then take a 5 minute break to tidy and declutter, or bounce on my trampoline for 1000 steps, and then back to work. 25 minutes is a maddeningly short work session, but according to Britain’s NHS, one should take an active break from sitting every 30 minutes: “excessive sitting slows the metabolism – which affects our ability to regulate blood sugar and blood pressure, and metabolise fat – and may cause weaker muscles and bones. Essentially, the body is ‘shutting down’ while sitting and there is little muscle activity.”

I am using “Freedom,” software which blocks the entire internet for the short time I am reading and writing. Divided attention destroys productivity.

I have discovered that a three mile walk through a park or by a river resets my tired mind and floods it with oxygen again; I don’t necessarily need a week or a weekend away, though they are wonderful.

I have been influenced by a book I am reading by Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey, called “Spark: How Exercise will Improve the Performance of Your Brain,” about how running, lifting weights, yoga, dance and sport can spark a measurable improvement in cognitive ability… help you think more clearly, read faster and concentrate longer… essentially make you smarter. I have certainly found it to be true. I am taking yoga classes, and lifting weights, which helps me concentrate for longer, feel more alive and happier, and sleep better.

* * *

Take away? If you are listless, bored, burnt-out and aren’t getting anything much done, re-align yourself with God. Seek his marching orders for the hour in front of you, the day in front of you, the year. Each of us has been created for a purpose, and is intended to be a bright spot in the jigsaw, the mosaic that God is working on. Ask him to reveal the purpose he has for you in the coming year, or years, and then beaver away at it. Having a purpose and focussing on it has cured cancer patients, as we’ve all anecdotally heard; given the dying a new lease of life; lifted depression; helped people achieve more than they ever imagined possible.

What is the next purpose God has in mind for your one and precious life? Aligning yourself with the Father and working on it will fill your life with excitement and energy again.

Love, Anita, tortoising, and sometimes haring, away on the book she has always wanted to write.

The Good Things of January

By Anita Mathias

I’ve adopted Martin Seligman’s recommended habit of recording 3 good things about my day. Apparently, people who do this report being 25% happier within 3 weeks. I think it is true. I’ve often needed to scan my day carefully to see what was golden about it rather than nondescript. After a while looking for gold becomes a habit.

It’s been an extraordinary month in many ways, with many highlights.

We’ve just spent a weekend in Torquay, Devon, walking under blue skies on beaches studded with dramatic rock formations. The mere sight of the sea is meant to reduce stress, I’ve read. It’s true I realized as I sat in front of the picture windows in the villa living room, looking at the sea, with seagulls swooping and dive-bombing into it, and hills with, wow!, palm trees beyond the bay. The English Riviera!!

We walked on the coastal trail as well as on beaches. So grateful for increasing strength and health.

2 Irene and her best friends Hannah and Lisa won the first prize in the National Cipher Challenge–and a prize of £1000. The National Cipher Challenge was an 8 week decoding challenge with tasks of increasing difficulty. The final task took them 21 hours.

2B Irene entered a competition for a free ticket to a TEDx Oxford Conference.

She contrasted Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. An iPhone is extraordinary, giving you access to all the books, information and music in the world in a palm sized gadget. However, Gates will be remembered long after Apple has joined the scrapheap of history for pouring his resources into the developing world, into health, education and women’s rights.
He has started a cascade of generosity through his Billionaires club of 127 billionaires who have pledged at least half their wealth to philanthropy.

Irene came home exhausted on the day it was due, and I had just had surgery. She wanted to blow it off, but I said, “Irene, it’s all in your head; just get it onto paper.” And so she did. And that is an excellent thing for all writers to remember, including, especially, I myself.

3 Zoe is back to the heady whirl which is Theology at Oxford.

She got a first in 2 of 3 papers in her termly exams (Greek and Doctrine of Creation) and got a cheque for £50–£25 for each First!! Imagine being paid for academic excellence—I think it’s a rather good idea.

3B Zoe is one of the three students leading student ministry and student nights at her church, Oxford Community Church. She’s getting to use the ministry skills she honed at the School of Ministry, Catch the Fire, Toronto—which is excellent!

4 After a long discussion with my oncologists, I decided to forego the chemotherapy which is standard for the stage of colon cancer that I was at, and go instead with intensive monitoring—CEA blood tests, CT scans, colonoscopies, the lot) and exercise, an increasingly healthy diet, and some supplementation with aspirin, vitamin D etc.

My cancer was not metastatic as far as the oncologists can tell and it’s possible the surgeon has removed every cancer cell… At any rate, I am letting food be my medicine, and my medicine be food as Hippocrates suggested, and am drinking lots of carrot juice, green smoothies, and moving steadily to a largely vegetable-based diet—soups, salads, roast veggies etc.

6-8 glasses of green smoothies and carrot juice can seem a lot—but hey, it sure beats chemo.! Roy calls it my veggie chemo!!

Exercise—I alternate doing two miles in two sessions, trying to walk as fast as I can building up to a 15 minute miles, with walking 2-3 miles the next day, again as fast as I can. My surgical incision has been slow to heal completely (prayers would be appreciated) , and once its completely healed, I hope to take up yoga and resistance exercises.

(PLEASE don’t send me ANY negative feedback, opinions or horror stories on this very personal no-chemo decision. On the other hand, positive feedback, stories, resources and inspiration will be welcome.)

5 I am back to normal, and because of the vegetable based diet and exercise, am more energetic than I was in my thirties. Well, I am weary and bone-tired some days (to be expected because I am writing hard and exercising hard), and bursting with energy on some days. Interestingly, the tired days are the days I have slacked off on my green juices and carrot juice and salads and veggies… I have never felt the connection of food and energy so strongly.

As I told a friend about how surprisingly well I feel, she said, “You know, maybe you have been healed.”

I was silent. Hundreds of people have told me that they’ve been praying for me. And of course, as Biblical and Christian history attests, just one simple heartfelt prayer from one person of faith can work a miracle.

Maybe, just maybe, God has listened–why should he not? Why should I assume he might not?–and arranged for any cancer cells which MAY be left to be killed, or go dormant.

Why not? Prayer works, I know it does, and perhaps, once again, God the great magician who daily pulls sunrises, sunsets and shimmering moons out of his hat, has pulled complete healing too.
May it be so. Amen!

What have been the best things of your month? Tell me!

Linking up with Leigh Kramer

England: A Rhapsody

By Anita Mathias

I love England. I have now lived for at least 14 years each in three continents–Asia, America and Europe. If I could live anywhere I chose, I would choose England (as I have). (And if I could choose any English town to live in, I would choose Oxford–as I have.)

As I walked down the country lane outside my house, a cup of tea in hand, I saw a herd of cows, very attractive Guernseys, in our farmer-neighbour’s field. It was a beautiful bird-loud day. It could have been out of a Constable painting or a Dylan Thomas poem. Timeless England!

I read about 500 illegal immigrants living in tent cities in Calais, hoping to come to England. The writer explained why. He said, “Can you imagine 500 men, women and children sleeping rough in Dover?” The council would do something about it.

I thought of what V.S. Naipaul in The Enigma of Arrival calls “the curious humanity of the English state.”

I do love this country, warts and all! I love their sense of decency and fair play. I love the fact that the police prosecute for racist tweets, an everyday occurrence in other countries. I love that, in this country, calling someone a “bigot” is one of the worst things you can say, in the judgement of both accused and accuser.

It was like a Church to me: Port Meadow, Oxford, at Sunset

By Anita Mathias

Port Meadow (Oxford) at Sunset.

Port Meadow (Oxford) at Sunset.

I walked last night on Port Meadow. An extraordinary experience! The blazing ball of sun slowly floated into the Thames, colouring it crimson.

An amazing natural event I have too often missed! Spectacular beauty lavished on anyone who would take a few minutes to observe it.

Wild geese arrived honking, with a beating of wings, settling in to their night homes on the river. Seagulls flew overhead, dropping shells, having eaten the mussel.

Graceful swans with impossibly elongated necks tucked them under their wings, ready to sleep. Baby ducks followed their mothers. Golden retrievers bounded.

There was perfect peace.

The sky stretched huge massive and endless over the flat expanse of Port Meadow. It reminded me of the Big Sky when we drove through Montana.

And I kept thinking:
The Heavens declare the glory of God
The firmament shows forth the work of his hands
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world. (Psalm 19)

Port Meadow (Oxford) at Sunset.

And here’s a poem by R. S. Thomas, about a similar experience

The Moor

It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God there was made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In a movement of the wind over grass.

There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart’s passions — that was praise
Enough; and the mind’s cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.

Sheridan Voysey’s “Resurrection Year”: A Book Review

By Anita Mathias

On Broken Hearts, Dashed Dreams and Resurrection Years

Last June, Sheridan and Merryn Voysey told us their story over dinner—ten years of infertility, IVF, and stalemated adoption (ten years which coincided with the success of Sheridan’s radio programme in Sydney) after which they settled in Oxford, seeking resurrection.

I’ve enjoyed reading Sheridan’s new book Resurrection Year. A few reflections:

1 Never define yourself by your “great sadness.” Maintain an attitude of gratitude.

Oh, for own healing, we need to keep our palms open to God, accept what he gives, and let him take what he takes. As cheerfully as we can manage!

One of Voysey’s goals in writing this book is to encourage people not to define themselves by their tragedies, for every life has much sunshine too.

2 Travel helps in the healing of the heart

Merryn Voysey’s dream had been a husband and kids. When the latter was denied her, she decides on “a consolation prize:” “Live overseas. Have an adventure.”

As an inveterate traveller, I know travel helps to heal the heart, restoring perspective. I travelled to Venice and Florence in 1998, a magical trip after a messy miscarriage with prolonged haemorrhaging which left me heart-broken and exhausted, exotically fainting! And came back with renewed physical and creative energy, a mind full of new ideas and a heart healed by distraction and beauty. So much beauty!

I was bored and stuck in Williamsburg where we lived for 12 years. When the chance came to move to England, I leapt at it, just to live in a stimulating place, not even caring about whether we’d be better or worse off. (And by the time we factored in private school, and dream houses, we were far poorer)

I love Mark Batterson’s formulation in The Circle Maker: Change of Pace + Change of Place= Change of Perspective.

Interestingly, the Voyseys’ path of healing also included a total change of scene. Sheridan left his radio show. They travel to L’Abri in Switzerland, founded by Francis Schaeffer, trying to find an answer to Merryn’s theological question, “Is God a meanie?”

Reading Greg Boyd’s Is God to Blame? they conclude that (while God is ultimately sovereign–my interpolation, not Boyd’s view) many factors decide whether prayer is answered: “God’s free will, human free will, angelic and demonic free will, the faith of the person praying AND the person prayed for, the number of people praying, how persistent the prayer is, the number and strength of spirits battling in the unseen world and the presence of sin.”

* * *

The Voysey’s resurrection year was partly inspired by Adrian Plass who advises them. “New beginnings follow death, as resurrection follows crucifixion.”

A river must flow. If you are blocked in one direction, see why God has permitted the blockage, and what you are now to do. Either override the blockage, or accept it, and flow in another direction.

A change of scene, moving to another country, is a first world solution, and the Voyseys (and I) live in the first world, and it has apparently worked well for them, as for us.

However, if a massive uprooting after sorrow is not financially or practically possible: Be comforted. There is great value in rootedness. Benedictines and Trappists add a fourth vow: stability, a commitment to a particular community, in a particular place. In rootedness and commitment one learns to love well, to love people one has known for years, and to know and love the anchoring land.

3 Seek the silver lining, but more, seek how your suffering can bless other.

The Voyseys begin to see some benefits to childlessness: “less financial pressures without little mouths to feed,” “flexibility to travel without thinking of schooling,” “write books” “have an international radio show.”

However, Adrian Plass advises them to move from acceptance and seeking silver linings to what Jesus did at the crucifixion: “an event so barbaric that one could not put a positive spin on it.”

Instead of trying to find “an up-side,” Jesus blessed people throughout his crucifixion. He was “positively crucified.”

He made his crucifixion bloom, ministering to his mother; the good thief (“Today you will be with me in paradise”), the mockers, (“Father, forgive them”), the centurion, converted by his grace under pressure, and to us, who have been forgiven by his sin.

Seek whom you can bless through this experience, Plass seems to be advising them, so that the process of resurrection begun in their trips to L’Abri and Oxford might bloom into blessing for many more people than they might ever have imagined.

Amen!

Sheridan blogs at sheridanvoysey.com.

Walking Away from the Dreaming Spires; Walking Away from Joy

By Anita Mathias

The Dreaming Spires
(credit)

Well, my daughter Zoe is in Cambridge today for her Entrance interview, and I have been thinking about Oxbridge interviews.

Fielding describes being interviewed to read English at Cambridge by Kingsley Amis, “the world’s greatest satirist,” who had recently written Lucky Jim.

Asked “What novel would you take on a train journey?” he says—no, not Lucky Jim, but Wuthering Heights—“I drone on about pathetic fallacies and thanatoid visions – just the kind of bilious bollocks the world’s greatest satirist needs to hear from a callow wanker on a sofa.”

Amis abruptly and scornfully terminates the interview. “My school is later informed that I am “woeful” and “without obvious potential“.

* * *

Here’s C.S. Lewis’s description from Surprised by Joy of arriving in Oxford for his entrance interview.

My first taste of Oxford was comical enough. I had made no arrangements about quarters and, having no more luggage than I could carry in my hand, I sallied out of the railway station on foot to find either a lodging-house or a cheap hotel; all agog for “dreaming spires” and “last enchantments.”

My first disappointment at what I saw could be dealt with. Towns always show their worst face to the railway. But as I walked on and on I became more bewildered. Could this succession of mean shops really be Oxford? But I still went on, always expecting the next turn to reveal the beauties, and reflecting that it was a much larger town than I had been led to suppose.

Only when it became obvious that there was very little town left ahead of me, that I was in fact getting to open country, did I turn round and look. There behind me, far away, never more beautiful since, was the fabled cluster of spires and towers.

I had come out of the station on the wrong side and been all this time walking into what was even then the mean and sprawling suburb of Botley. I did not see to what extent this little adventure was an allegory of my whole life.”

Or anyone’s!

I live in Oxford now. It is 97 years since Lewis came up for his interview, but the contrast between the golden, gleaming, dreaming spires, and mean Botley is still striking.

* * *

In the famous Alpha course, leaders often tell this story attributed to a Native American elder,

There are two dogs inside me. The black dog is mean. The white dog is good.
The black dog fights the white dog all day.

When asked which dog wins, the elder reflected for a moment and replied;

The one I feed the most.

* * *

Yeah, it’s another way of gauging our thoughts, actions and choices, isn’t it? Are they leading towards the Heavenly City of the Dreaming Spires in which the Lord, high and exalted, is seated on a throne; and the train of his robe fills the temple with glory, while above him seraphim fly, calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isaiah 6)

Or, instead of “the fabled cluster of spires and towers,” are the thoughts and emotions I am harbouring leading to a mean, small-minded suburb of judgements, negativity, jealousy and competitiveness?

On a bad, bored day, I have to check my thoughts many times and ask—Do I want to live here, in this small, claustrophobic negative suburb?

When someone annoys me and my thoughts spiral repetitively, rehearsing the many and manifest failings of this person, as they gradually, in my mind, turn from grey to black to horrible–I need to stop and ask myself, “Is this the address I want to live at? Obsessing about this silly person’s silly faults? Or do I want to dwell in the secret places of the Most High?

* * *

“Stop, drop and roll,” my kids were taught when in elementary school in America—basic fire safety.

Well, when I find myself spiralling into negativity, or fear or worry, I have my own routine, “Stop, drop, repent.”

A) Force myself to think about the person’s good points; thank God for the goodness in them,

B) Meditate on whether I myself have ever been guilty of the annoyingness I see them. And so use this “beam research” as an energizing spur to repentance

C) Turn to Jesus, the Lord upon the throne. Ask for his Holy Spirit to fill me.

D) And remember my goals, long and short term, ask him for strength to fulfil them. Move from the negative to the positive; from the mean streets to the golden spires and towers; from a pointless drain on my energy to being re-energized.

* * *

Yes, turn to Jesus. For there is life

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. I give my flesh for the life of the world. (John 6,53, 55).

And I change my address. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me, and I in him. (John 6:56). No longer will I dwell in smallness and negativity. I will escape to the secret places of the Most High. Yeah, I will dwell smuggled in the recesses of Jesus, the Rock.

E8PCC7EPSZVE

The Poet, the Albatross and the Christian

By Anita Mathias

The Albatross

Sometimes, to entertain themselves, the men of the crew
Lure upon deck an unlucky albatross, one of those vast
Birds of the sea that follow unwearied the voyage through,
Flying in slow and elegant circles above the mast.

No sooner have they disentangled him from their nets
Than this aerial colossus, shorn of his pride,
Goes hobbling pitiably across the planks and lets
His great wings hang like heavy, useless oars at his side.

How droll is the poor floundering creature, how limp and weak —
He, but a moment past so lordly, flying in state!
They tease him: One of them tries to stick a pipe in his beak;
Another mimics with laughter his odd lurching gait.

The Poet is like that wild inheritor of the cloud,
A rider of storms, above the range of arrows and slings;
Exiled on earth, at bay amid the jeering crowd,
He cannot walk for his unmanageable wings.

— George Dillon, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

We saw huge, white albatrosses glide on their giant wings in New Zealand in 2009. Aloft, in their native element, they are majestic, sublime.

Once captured, and mocked by sailors who force them to waddle on deck where their giant wings hamper their walk, as Baudelaire describes, they are piteous and comic. The gigantic wings which helped them soar are now comic impediments

* * *

God designs an ideal medium, aerial, terrestrial, submarine, for each of us, and we are at home and happy when we are in it. God determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live (Acts 17:26). When we are in the right place, doing what we are meant to do, there is a sense of ease, a sense of soaring.

I have finally found this place. I am living in the town in which I have most longed to live, Oxford, with its heady combination of history, architecture, art, Christian and literary history, beauty, nature and stimulation.

I am beginning to get back into the work I most enjoy, creative prose, and am enjoying my blog. I am again enjoying reading. And I am enjoying the brainy, creative community in my church, St. Andrew’s, Oxford.

Of course, it took years for the pieces of the puzzle to fit together, and for me to discover work and a place which make me very happy.

Taking the time to discover the roles God has created us for, and the work which makes our souls sing—ah, these are worthwhile quests, for when we are doing the right work, and are in the right place and the right relationships, we can soar in the way we are designed to.

How about you? Have you discovered what you would like to make your life’s work? A church which permits your fullest flourishing? What are the dreams which God has placed in your heart, and are you able to work on them daily or weekly, at least a little?

What a string of personal questions! I’d love to hear your answers!

anita.mathias