R. T. Kendall | Dreaming Beneath the Spires

When I almost missed the Uffizi Gallery, Florence

The Doni Tondo, a rare canvas painting by Michealangelo. Scroll down for more images.

I spent the first Sunday of January 2106 at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It was free, and advice online, as well as unsolicited advice on Facebook warned me that the lines were horrendous.

But visiting Florence and not spending a few hours at the Uffizi seemed like something I would always think of with sadness. Though I have visited the Uffizi before in the 1986 and 1997, I am a different person now, know more about art, and appreciate it more deeply.

In fact, when everyone cautions me against something, I often wonder if God is saying the opposite. If what “everyone says,” and the beautiful mind which created the Universe were in sync, what a beautiful world it would be!

(Digression. I thought of the time when I wanted to decline chemo after Stage III Bowel Cancer, and attempt a science project on my own body to find natural ways of preventing a recurrence, which would bless my body in the process, not curse it. I was staggered by the volume of unsolicited mocking and even hostile advice I got from people I had never met, people I barely knew, (and well as, of course, well-meaning people who, quite understandably believed I was being stupid). If not for two trusted friends, both women of vision and prayer, who corroborated what I heard God whisper to me, I might have been bullied into a year that would have been a nightmare of illness induced by toxic medication, rather than a peaceful idyll of recovering health. And chemo is not hugely effective for colon cancer. 30% of people who go through it die anyway; it only improves absolute survival by 10%. Digression done.)

When I heard the co-author of Grace and Forgiveness introduce her book on the power of forgiveness as worth a trillion dollars, I laughed but, yes, absolutely. She’s right!! In Grace and Forgiveness the Arnotts quote Mark Virkler: The Holy Spirit is always positive, and Satan is always negative. There is some truth to this. Negative advice from negative people cuts off hope and possibility thinking.

R. T. Kendall in The Anointing, tells of a British couple who sailed from Bombay to Southampton in 1904 to experience the Welsh Revival. When they walked off the docks at Southampton, they bumped into an acquaintance who said, “The Revival? Oh, it’s just Welsh emotionalism.”

Crushed, the couple bought a ticket on the next steamer, and returned to India.

But, as it happened, that foolish nay-sayer was wrong. In Wales, in 1904, people were experiencing God’s “love, vast as the ocean, loving kindness like a flood”. They were surrendering their lives to God, repenting of their sins, forgiving everyone who had sinned against them. They were experiencing spiritual joy, the spiritual life. All of which the couple missed because they listened to the negative words of a negative person!!

A long way to say: I am glad I went. The lines looked horrendous, but my family told me to sit down, and so I did, and brushed up on art history, totally absorbed, and all of a sudden, we were in, and I got to see as much as I had the energy for.

Botticelli, Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael…

I am so grateful to the Medici for collecting these treasures, and to the last of the Medici for gifting them to Florence.

And here are a few of my favourites.

Botticelli, Madonna of Pomegranate

Botticelli’s Nativity

And note the snooty Florentines amid the adoring throngs

Botticelli’s famous La Primavera

Notice the Virgin’s cool infinity scarf

Sandro Botticelli, Madonna of the Pomegranate–beautiful angels, very fashionable virgin with a cool scarf!
Sandro Botticelli, Venus coyly rising from the foam

Botticelli, Man with a coin. Note the self-confidence of his gaze.Botticelli, Pallas (and the Centaur)

Raphael (below). The Pre-Raphaelites, Oxford undergraduates when they banded together, somewhat unfairly decided that true art ended with Raphael!

Raphael’s portrait of Pope Julius II, the tormentor who chivvied, frustrated, angered and drove Michealangelo into genius–the inhuman effort of painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and, of course, crafting Julius’s own tomb.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation

Angels from Leonardo’s Baptism of Christ

Fra Lippo Lippi–This painting is one of my favourites!
I love the polychromatic angel’s wings in Lorenzo de Credi’s painting

On Forgiveness and Creativity: A Personal Experience of the Link

By Anita Mathias

Leafing through past journals, I see that, six years ago, I was stuck. I had spent four years establishing a business, probably the one thing in my life which worked better “than I had asked or dreamed of asking” (something I now pray for my writing!!)

But creatively and spiritually, I was stuck. I missed my native atmosphere of books, words, ideas and poetry. My writing was slow, haphazard, without direction. Uninspired words trickled, slow drop by drop. I was reading my Bible most days, and trying to pray, dully, dutifully, but not really experiencing the electric energy of being possessed by God.

I had had a painful experience at a then-toxic church I then attended, which felt traumatic because it happened at a vulnerable period when I was overworking at our business, which wasn’t really my calling or passion, and was still adjusting to our move to Oxford, and to our new home.

A young woman who had been in a Bible study I had led in that church said she’d seen a vision of my heart—gold with pockets of ashes. Ashes! Exactly!

* * *

So my creativity was blocked and I kept playing this Vineyard awakening creativity song,

Flood over me like a river, my God,
Immerse me in your living streams.
Awaken the song that you placed in my heart.
Spirit, breathe on me.

But I also kept brooding over the incident, and was consumed with a desire for justice, for God to take my side, and deal with all who had injured me, and for me to be able to see that he had done so. Exhausted and overwhelmed at work, I repeated the words of the Old Testament prophets: “With your own eyes, you will see the punishment of the wicked.” (Psalm 91:8). “Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who attack you will come to nothing.” (Isaiah 41:12)

Like the widow who harassed the unjust judge, I wanted God to “vindicate me against my adversary,” wanted God to judge those who had told untruths about me, and had been unjust and uncaring towards me. Yes, pretty bossy and demanding of me. Oh, my heart had strayed far from the gentleness of Jesus.

And yeah, yeah, not really the best breeding ground for creativity.

* * *

That Christmas we spent a month in New Zealand, and visited Milford Sound, a breathtaking fjord. On the winding mountainous drives to it, we saw a glorious waterfall. Roy, Zoe and Irene clambered like mountain goats up slopes where I could see no foothold. I stood captivated, watching the waterfall in an almost hypnotic state.

A large rock jutted from the crashing waterfall. And behind the rock, debris piled up, sticks, stones, worms, leaves. STUCK, while everything else rushed on to the ocean.

* * *

And I watched, and thought–Oh my goodness, the three people whose untruths, manipulativeness and injustice towards me I still ponder, their lives have rushed on. They have won, I have lost; they are not thinking of me, they have moved on, but whenever I remember those incidents, I fume. And I remain stuck.

And though I had to forgive again and again as the incident returned to mind, I forgave them, there and then the best I could. R. T. Kendall’s convicting Total Forgiveness says you know you have forgiven when you can bless those who have injured you.

Well, I still thought justice would be a rather good idea, but I so wanted to forgive them for my own sake, so I blessed whatever was good in them—the warmth and hospitality of one, the concern for the poor and the environment of another, the kindness of another. I see blessing as a supernatural increase, so I blessed the good and sweetness which had drawn me to these women in the first place, and prayed for it to increase for the sake of Jesus and his Kingdom, both of whom I love more than myself (at least, I think I do). There is a cognitive dissonance between blessing someone, and wishing a Shylock-like vengeance on them. It’s not possible. Blessing them set my heart free from the grumpy pettiness which had possessed it in my season of exhaustion.

* * *

Before that holiday, I had been unable to get back into writing which is my native medium as water is to a kingfisher, as the skies are to an eagle. My sadness was affecting my health, and my kind GP had suggested five free sessions of psychotherapy. The therapist and I had gone through everything…where to write, when to write, routines, sleep.

The missing link was forgiveness.

That done, I felt free and happy. God flooded over me like a river, immersed me in his living streams, awakened the song he placed in my heart. I was writing. I was writing so much. My fingers were still stiff; my confidence had been shaken; what I wrote for the first year or so had little literary value, but still I was writing. I was flying.

I cancelled my last session of therapy.

* * *

You can be a nasty human being and creative, of course you can.

Unfortunately—no, no, fortunately–for me, anger, pettiness, resentments, unforgiveness, chewing the bone of past injuries blocks the creativity which streams down from above, God’s golden stream of thoughts, which, we are told, outnumbers the grains of sand on the seashore.

It’s when I am open to God, when there’s no block between him and me, no sin I am clutching, no bone of anger or injury that I have not relinquished, that I feel ideas and words flood over me like a river, that I feel immersed in those living streams

* * *

Evan Roberts, the catalyst for the stories Welsh Revival had four principles for those who want to experience the fullness of the Spirit. He repeated them at every meeting, leading to more than 100,000 conversions to Christ.

These include:

1 Confess every known sin to God, and seek his cleansing and forgiveness. Forgive everybody – everybody- so your sins may be forgiven.

2 Remove everything doubtful from your life. If you cannot decide whether it is good or evil, remove it. There must not be a trace of a cloud between you and God.

3 Total surrender. Obedience, prompt, implicit, unquestioning, to the Spirit of God. Do what the Holy Spirit prompts without hesitation or fear.

And guess what? These principles are also the grounds for Spirit-Breathed Creativity.

* * *

I’ve read biographies of Shakespeare and Milton, magical writers, or feminist poets like Sylvia Plath; apparently, none of them were very nice people. The beauty of their words thrills the soul, but their words do not change hearts or lives.

But given the shortness of life, why not aim to write beautiful words which might lodge in people’s hearts and spirits, making people happier and more Godward–words which do a little bit to establish the Kingdom of God on earth?

For that we need to be in direct communion with God, without blocks of anger, hostility, unforgiveness, or sin.

Then we can swim in the river, as its streams rush through us; we can write down the words and visions which stream down towards us from above, so that he may run who reads it.

Flood over me like a river, my God
Immerse me in Your living stream

Awaken the song you placed in my heart,

Spirit, breathe through me.

TWEETABLES

On the mysterious, inextricable link between creativity and forgiveness. NEW from @anitamathias1

To live in surrender, & in forgiveness, opens our spirits up to God-given creative ideas. NEW from @anitamathias1

Forgiveness and surrender: conditions for Revival, & for spirit-breathed creativity. NEW from @anitamathias1
Image Credit

Writing with the Wind of the Wild Goose of the Holy Spirit in your Wings

By Anita Mathias

Wild Geese fly in a V formation. The lead goose reduces the wind resistance; the others glide, almost effortlessly, in the currents she has created.

During a storm, the eagle waits perched on the edge of its nest for the wind to gain sufficient velocity. Once she knows the direction in which the wind is roaring, she spreads her wings wide, and effortlessly glides into the winds of the storm.

Have you ever seen hawks or eagles soar, wings outstretched, rising without a single beat of their magnificent wings, soaring, soaring? They are soaring on thermal currents—masses of air that rise when the ground rapidly warms up. Or sometimes, obstruction currents, when wind currents are deflected by mountains, cliffs or tall buildings. The resulting updraft lifts them to high altitudes at which they glide.

* * *

The Wild Goose was an emblem of the Holy Spirit in Celtic tradition.

And the eagle, in Scripture, is a symbol both of God, and God’s people.

Eagles never waste their energy flapping their enormous wings—they wait for, and then use thermal currents and obstruction currents to soar on the wings of the wind…

Flying is so much easier when we sense the direction the wind of the Holy Spirit is blowing in our lives, and in the world, and then open our wings and fly in that direction, using the energy he generates within us, and in circumstances around us.

* * *

I have been reading about “the anointing,” in R. T. Kendall’s splendid, “The Anointing.”

He writes: “The anointing is when our gift functions easily. It comes with ease. It seems natural. No working it up is needed. If one has to work it up, one has probably gone outside one’s anointing. If one goes outside one’s anointing, the result is often fatigue, that is weariness or spiritual lethargy that has been described as ‘dying inside.’”

* * *

I find that with my writing on my blog, and indeed all writing. God is speaking. Not God spoke, but God is speaking. He is by His nature continuously articulate, A. W. Tozer wrote. If I listen to what the Spirit is saying to me through the events of my life, record the mini-revelations or epiphanies given to me each day by the God who speaks continuously and is never silent, then blogging is quick, easy and delightful. And what’s more, it often speaks to people.

It’s when I write to grow my blog, wonder if I should write the topical posts that everyone else is writing, be strategic, capture the zeitgeist– that blogging feels heavy, a chore, work rather than play. Why? Because the wind of the Spirit is not helping me soar; I have to expend scarce energy with a mighty, exhausting flapping of wings.

There is a lightness to God’s work, an amused creativity—we get the impression He tossed off zebras, giraffes, toucans, morpho butterflies and orchids in a massive outburst of creativity. God was at play as these beautiful things came into being, step by step through the mighty forces of evolution. His work was deep play.

* * *

In his book, Homo Ludens, or Man the Player, the Dutch historian and cultural theorist, Johan Huizinga, suggests that culture stems from humans at play, humans playing with words, or music or paint or the sketches of mighty cathedrals.

And when I record the whispers of the spirit, write in the updraft of the wild goose of the Holy Spirit, blogging is easy, light and delightful. It has a bit of the playfulness with which I imagine God made the world. I am playing in the fields of the Lord, playing with God, thinking aloud, probably making all sorts of mistakes–but there is a fun and lightness to it all.

The Mental Habit That’s Worth a Trillion Dollars

By Anita Mathias

Grace and Forgiveness

I heard Carol Arnott say that her book Grace and Forgiveness is worth a trillion dollars.

Hyperbole, of course, but (Jesus, forgive this crassness!!) if I were to monetize it, learning and practising forgiveness would easily be worth well over £100,000, perhaps £500,000 in a lifetime. No, more!

Speculative, of course, but that’s possibly the monetary value of the immense productivity which would result from keeping one’s mind free of emotional turmoil and the petty resentments and grievances which so distract and drain one.

And imagine the creativity which would result from stepping into the eternal sources of ideas, the energy which would result from not judging other people, not revolving in your mind the sad old tedious tale of sins they have committed against you, but instead focusing on your own life, goals and purposes.

And of course, one would be SO much healthier physically and mentally if one could forgive, and refuse to judge. Some estimate that 60 to 90 percent of illness is psychosomatic, caused by our negative thoughts. Colds, flu, digestive ailments, allergies flaring up, insomnia, exhaustion—most of us have experienced these after emotional upsets; perhaps prolonged emotional strain could lead to more serious conditions.

* * *

Last week, I got so angry with a member of my family that I took to bed at 9 p.m. so that I would not sin with my words, not crush through a strongly worded expression of anger.

But I tossed and turned as I tried to pray in tongues, and pray the Jesus prayer to mitigate my anger and not judge. Some success, much failure!

Well, anger and judgement are not the best way to get to sleep. I was awake much of the night, my muscles stiff and tense, and slept in till 9 a.m. I would normally have slept for 8 hours.

Wow, how much could I have written in the extra 4 hours?

* * *

Forgiveness as a life-style. Letting injuries go as soon as they surface. I simply must learn it.

For anger is spending your energy in negativity. Judgement is spending our passion in negativity.

If we learned to forgive, we could instead invest that energy and passion in our own lives.

* * *

How do we forgive? The absolute best way is the way Jesus commanded.

We bless the person we are angry with. We pray for them. We ask God to give us a love for them (Luke 6:28) for our sake as well as for theirs, for love is a warmer, lovelier, more energizing thing to have in your heart than prickly, cold hatred.

And “Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” (Luke 6:35).

As a child, we will have access to the goodness of God’s household: financial provision, unleashed creativity, protection from our enemies, answered prayer.

We will pray with power for the greatest block to answered prayer will be removed. We will have fulfilled Jesus’ condition for the cleansing of the heart even before we pray, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them.” (Mark 11:25)

* * *

As Malcolm Gladwell famously noted in Outliers: The Story of Success, it takes 10,000 hours to be a world class expert—in anything.

Prayer takes practice. I pray most effectively (seeing changes in myself, and my life and circumstances) after reading books on prayer and making lists and praying through them. In this respect, the most life-changing books on prayer I’ve read are The Circle Maker and I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes.

Forgiveness too is a learned art. While ultimately, it is a miracle like falling in love, it is also a mental and emotional discipline, which goes through stages, and which we can partly learn from others.

The best books on forgiveness I’ve read are—John and Carol Arnott’s Grace and Forgiveness, and R. T. Kendall’s Total Forgiveness.

* * *

Some things in the spiritual life have disproportionate power; they are the atomic bombs of the spiritual life! Prayer, so quiet, so invisible, makes things happen, in our spirits and in the external world around us. Forgiveness too has disproportionate power.

I have heard Heidi Baker talk about forgiving her daughter’s rapist (an drug addict she had sheltered) and how this forgiveness freed her daughter from nightmares and post-traumatic stress syndrome. If Heidi had not brought herself to do so, she might have continued in ministry, but it would have been a mediocre one, not characterized by miracles and joy as hers is.

For myself, I love it when I come to the point of forgiveness. I love the spiritual power, and the sense of joy and love. And freedom. And best of all, there is a new unleashing of creative power, ideas, stories and blogs!