reading Archives - Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Burn-Out Vanishes When We Rediscover Purpose

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.

On “Defining Decisions” Rather Than New Year’s Resolutions

By Anita Mathias

Image Credit

Mark Batterson, in The Circle-Maker, a fascinating book on a prayer, praises “defining decisions,” that set the course of your life, sort of like choosing whether you drive to Slovenia (which our family did last summer), or to Scotland (which we might do this summer).

I made three defining decisions in my twenties. Chronologically: I decided to become a writer. I decided to follow Jesus. And I decided to take a marriage vow to love.

Yeah, well…

I have failed in all of these, continually. There have been days, weeks, months, and years, in which I have not written at all. I sometimes think of my beloved Jesus sadly: how imperfectly I imitate him. And marriage, well.

Yet, oddly, I’ve not failed in any of these, because I am still on the road. I am writing, albeit less than I would like to. I am still following after Jesus, albeit imperfectly. I am still married, more or less happily.

* * *

Oh, it is this season again, this season of resolutions. And I will probably make some.

But what I am more interested in are defining decisions, North Stars, compass points, things I will continue to do even if I sometimes go off course. Things that I will continue doing, even if I fall. Not resolutions I make year after year like Yom Kippur sacrifices, but a once-and-for-all decision I will follow, though I may wobble, and fail some days, some weeks…

Here are a few of my defining decisions, which I return to again and again. These are to do with health

1 I will walk 10,000 steps a day.

2 I will avoid sugar

3 I will avoid white flour (using bread, pasta and noodles as a treat, rather than as food).

4 I will begin reading myself to sleep at 10 p.m.

5 I will do some yoga every day (a habit I am struggling to adopt).

These are habits which are not yet second nature. There are other habits which are second nature, though again I fail some days, some weeks, some months….

I will spend time with God

I will read or listen to my Bible.

I will read.

I will write at least a little.

I will keep the rooms in which I work and sleep tidy.

I will garden.

* * *

How about you? Instead of a resolution, different every year, why not try a defining decision which you will return to, despite falls and wobbles, as we continue trying to follow Jesus, though like Peter, we might forget him, deny him, and yearn to go on a break.

The Best Way to Develop Shiny New Habits

By Anita Mathias

Blogging almost daily for three and a half years has led to self-awareness. I have grown bored of boasting of my weaknesses.

There is a time for self-analysis, and a time for acting on that analysis, and that time came!

And so I am in the process of developing shiny new habits. These are not yet jelled, but the trajectory is looking good.

* * *

The best way I know to form new habits is the most boring, but the most certain.

Start where you are. [Read more…]

Re-opening the Ancient Wells which will Save our Lives Right Now

By Anita Mathias

In arid ancient Israel, access to artesian wells made all the difference between prosperity, survival, or famine.

And so when God blessed Isaac so that his crops reaped a hundred-fold return (Gen. 26:12) and he became very wealthy, out of envy, his enemies, the Philistines “stopped up all the wells that Abraham had built, filling them with earth.”

Today, there are almost weekly accounts of the Israeli occupation forces destroying Palestinian wells, farms and orchards. Destroying wells, sources of life, is always a very effective enemy action, leaving aridity and poverty.

* * *

Barbara Brown Taylor popularised this question: What is saving your life, right now?

Prayer and scripture and communal worship is certainly part of it.

But other things are keeping me alive too: long, slow, contemplative walks out of doors with my beloved collie Jake, my body getting into a rhythm of movement, my mind relaxing, still as a pool, until I am no longer thinking, but just being, and then suddenly a golden carp of thought pops up, unexpected and welcome.

And travel, which is complete relaxation. My mind rests from conscious thought, planning, strategizing, worrying. I shrug off my to-do list, and my uneasy Puritan imperative of ambition and must-achieve. I am just am, and am purely happy and relaxed, wandering the streets of a beautifully preserved medieval town like Troyes, France, which we visited last week, just looking, or wandering aimlessly on the alpine meadows of Switzerland, to which we drove earlier this month.

Blogging is saving my life, in that it pushes me to think, to observe, to express, to strive for beauty.

* * *

But life has blocked up several life-giving wells for me, as for all of us.

And I am opening up these wells.

Before I married, I was a voracious reader. Reading was my escape from the world, and my greatest source of joy, and I felt I needed to be alone to really disappear into a book leaving the world behind me, and I found that hard while living with other people.

I have been steadily reading less through the 23 years of our marriage, though I have recently re-launched a reading recovery programme—reading 1 page more each day than I did the day before, aiming to hit 45 pages a day, or a book a week. Concurrently, as a back-up plan since I have many books on the go, I aim to finish each book in 1 day less–30 days for book 1; 29 days for book 2, etc. This plan gets anyone to reading a book a week in 23 months.

And with reading, I have lost other sources of joy. As a child, I loved myth and legend and fairy tales and children’s stories. Sadly, I have not read much in these genres as an adult, because, well, I was an adult and thought I should be reading serious, grown-up stuff.

It’s strange that I didn’t realize that children’s stories and fairy tales and myths and legends were invented by adults, who were putting themselves back in touch with the sources of joy and delight. And we can step there with them, if we give ourselves permission to.

On holiday earlier this month in Switzerland, Italy and France, it was as if God switched a switch on in my brain, and children’s stories poured out of me, two and three a day. And writing children fiction–ah bliss, gives me “permission” to read it.

* * *

Poetry was something else I loved to read as a child, and the first genre I wrote in as an adult. My masters in creative writing was in poetry.

But then, making the correct or incorrect assessment that I probably would not have a career as a poet, I gave it up in my late twenties. It is something else I would love to resume, first reading it exhaustively, then writing it.

* * *

Our large garden was a huge source of joy as a child. I have a large garden now, even larger than my childhood garden, but in fact, though I write looking at it, it is hard to recover the habit of working in it consistently.

I would like an extraordinary garden, and would love to make time to work in it every day, for an hour, like I used to. But I have made peace with the fact that when it comes to it, I prefer writing to gardening. So, since it is better to take just a few steps in the direction of one’s dreams than none at all—I am gardening just once every few days for now.

* * *

What will re-open the wells of life and joy for us?

Examine your life. See what you are doing out of duty and habit which is not life-giving for you. (Too much internet usage? On too many rotas at church? Staying up too late doing nothing much?)

Then begin to shoehorn joy into your life, starting small—in the smallest measurable increments, steadily rebuilding

What is saving your life now? Are there wells of joy which have closed for you? Tell us in the comments.

Pareto’s Law, The 80/20 Rule (and My Progress in New Year’s Goals)

By Anita Mathias

AFTER My book shelf, Jan 7, after housework.

BEFORE My bookshelf, Jan 1.

I am reading Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Work Week with absolute fascination, partly because Roy and I have independently stumbled upon and are practicing many of Ferriss’s ideas and principles. (I plan to review the book later.)

Ferris discusses Pareto’s Law or the 80/20 principle.

Pareto, an Italian economist (1848 to 1923), realized that, in virtually every area of life: business, investing, creative work, social life, gardening, 80 % of benefits will come from 20 % of one’s time and efforts.

And conversely, 80% of one’s unhappiness or unproductive activity or self-thwarting will come from 20% of one’s actions.

Some applications of 80/20 or “The Vital Few and The Trivial Many.” [Read more…]

Stephen King’s Immensely Helpful Book “On Writing”

By Anita Mathias

Stephen King (2007) credit

King’s short book, On Writing, figures in many writers’ lists of the best books on writing. And deservedly so. It has motivated me to get my writing shoes on, and get writing.

I listened to it read by King himself on my iPod, while running—on pedestrian country footpaths, and, so far, with more luck than King whose lower leg broke in nine places, spine chipped in eight places, right knee split, right hip fractured, ribs broke, and scalp lacerated during a dreadful car accident while on a muse-wooing walk.

And in “the apocalyptic pain” after this, he continued writing, and writing proved a way back to life for him.

Here are Stephen King’s answers to universal writerly questions.

How much should a writer read?

King does not bother about being cool in this book on writing. So he will tell you prescriptive things that cool writers wouldn’t.

Read a lot. How much is a lot? I have kept lists of the books I’ve read each year since I was 12—and the most I’ve ever completed in a year was 62 (not counting academic books, which one reads rapidly, selectively). And probably another 25 or so on tape, on a good year for audiobooks. Of course, I am a promiscuous speed-reader, and buy many books (non-fiction or spiritual) with the intention of ripping the heart and marrow out of them, rather than reading every page.

Well, Stephen King reads or listens to 70-80 books a year, including about a dozen audiobooks.

King: “If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write. It’s as simple as that.”

“Reading is the creative centre of a writer’s life.”

“The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing. Constant reading will pull you into a place where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness.”

How much should a writer write?

How many words a day? Another uncool question. Well, King aims at 2000 words every morning, with revisions and reading in the evening. Some days he’s done by 11.30 a.m., some days by 1.30 p.m., and sometimes, rarely, it takes till tea.

“For me, not writing is the real work. When I’m writing, it’s all the playground, and the worst three hours I ever spent there were still pretty damned good.”

He keeps fit with long walks–well, until recently.

On Criticism

His teacher asks him about an early attempt at Sci-fi, “What I don’t understand, Stevie, is why you’d write junk like this? You are talented. Why do you want to waste your abilities?

“I had no answer to give. I have spent a good many years since—too many—being ashamed about what I write. I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his God-given talent. If you write (or paint or sculpt) someone will try to make you feel lousy about it.”

On Revision

“When you write, you’re telling yourself the story. When you re-write, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.”

“Stopping a piece of work just because it is hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes, you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feel like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”

He does three drafts, the first getting it all down fast; the last one closer to polishing.

He uses this rigorous and enormously difficult formula:

Second Draft= First Draft -10%.

Other Writing Tips

“The biggest aid to regular writing is working in a serene atmosphere. It’s difficult for even the most naturally productive writer to work in an environment where alarms and excursions are the rule rather than the exception.”

Write with a locked door, no TV, games or internet. “Eliminate every possible distraction.”

Secrets of his success: “I stayed physically healthy, and I stayed married. The converse is true: My writing and the pleasure I take in it have contributed to the stability of my health and home life.”

“Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”

“Skills in description, dialogue and character development all boil down to seeing or hearing clearly and then transcribing what you see or hear with equal clarity.”

Do you do it for the money, honey? he’s often asked. Answer, “No. Don’t now, and never did. I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”

And he discovers, after his debilitating accident, “Writing is not life, but sometimes, it can be a way back to life.”

Ah, and let me quote his beautiful last paragraphs,

“On some days, the writing is a pretty grim slog. On others, I feel that buzz of happiness, that sense of having found the right words and put them in a line. It’s like lifting off in an airplane: you are on the ground, on the ground, on the ground… and then you’re up, riding on a magical cushion and prince of all you survey. That makes me happy because it’s what I was made to do.

“After my accident, writing has continued to do what it has always doe: it makes my life a brighter and more pleasant place.”

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting laid or making friends. It’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over.”

“Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”

“This book is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you are brave enough to start, you will. Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink.”

Drink and be filled up.”

If you find yourself lacking enthusiasm, explore your childhood passions once again

By Anita Mathias

Children by the Sea, Arthur Rackham

Isaac, son of promise, whose name meant laughter, didn’t do very much. His main contribution: “Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham; for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham,” (Gen 26:18).

Redigging ancient wells which have been blocked by the enemy of one’s soul. Recovering old dreams and enthusiasms. Recovering whom one truly is. It resonates with me.

The beloved Christian writer, Catherine Marshall, in Beyond Oneself, goes back to childhood dreams as tries to discover God’s will for her life. One of her earliest dreams, she reads in her childhood diary was to be “a pretty lady with lots of perfume. And a writer.”

* * *

I am enjoying Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project. When Gretchen decides to have more fun, she realizes that because her work has been so absorbing, and because she has been so driven by ambition, productivity, and the ideas of what a serious, “legitimate” (her word) intellectual should do, she no longer even knows what she finds fun. Pure fun–something which cannot be leveraged, or double-dutied to serve one’s career or ambitions!!

A friend tells her, “What you enjoyed as a ten-year-old is probably something you’d enjoy now.” She starts reading children’s literature.

I too after decades have begun to both read and write fairy tales again, thank you, Jesus!

* * *

As I choose books to read, or future writing projects, I am reflecting on childhood enthusiasms.

I loved fairy tales, Grimm, Andersen and Perrault, which I must have read dozens of times.

And I loved mythology above all things. My grandfather had given me a book of Norse Mythology, and I loved Odin, Freya, Thor, Loki, Balder and the Ragnarok.

I read every scrap of Greek mythology I could find, putting mythology books on birthday wish lists. I kept a notebook when I was 11, with a page I’d dedicated to every character from Greek mythology. I devotedly recorded every scrap of information I discovered there. I guess I was constructing an encyclopaedia.

When I was even younger, I loved The Mahabharata and The Ramayana, which with their themes of honour, love and family devotion, betrayal and tragedy stir deep wells of anger, sadness, “if onlys,” and “what ifs”.

I loved Arthur, the decency, gallantry, the nobility–the brief golden age with darkness hovering at its edges; the Holy Grail floating above the table; the doomed triangle of Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere, all three of whom tragically love each other; noble Percival and Gareth; and the dark figures of Morgan Le Fay and Mordred, whose very name is ominous.

* * *

I started reading poetry young, because both my father and grandfather loved it, could easily recite poetry from memory, and gave me poetry books. I have always read it, with a desperate love, whether I understood it or not. I’d love to begin writing poetry again.

Shakespeare, I was introduced to through Lamb’s Tales, which my grandfather must have given me. When I went to boarding school at nine, to St. Mary’s Convent, Nainital, my classmates often asked me to tell them a story, and I would tell them Shakespeare stories, which I knew almost by heart from the beautifully written, lyrical Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare.

I began reading unabridged Shakespeare when I was 11 from my father’s massive Complete Works of William Shakespeare, which he brought back from England. I started with Julius Caesar, memorizing “Pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,” and Macbeth from which I memorized, “Is this a dagger I see before me.”

Reading, fiction in particular, imagined universes: that was the greatest delight of my childhood.

My other great joy and delight was losing myself in my garden. I basically spent the day there, reading in trees, or in a chair on the front lawn of our high-walled garden. And all these joys I am recovering in middle age!

And what a delight it is to re-dig ancient wells, and explore these ancient sources of pleasure again in this slower season of life.

How to Get into the Zone of Writing or Prayer

By Anita Mathias

I love writing and blogging: watching something shapely, and sometimes beautiful, emerge from a jumble of thoughts.

But there are many times when I just don’t feel like writing. My brain and spirit and fingers feel wooden. It is what Steven Pressfield calls “The Resistance.”

What helps then? Reading, reading a lot, ideally something like what I want to write, until the rhythm of words beats in my bloodstream, and ideas explode in my brain, and I yearn to get them out on the page.

* * *

And what when it comes to prayer, and I feel numb, a lifeless thing without joy, or love, or thought?

But I have made a commitment to pray, so pray I will.

I used to read scripture and read it until my heart said “Amen.”

I now practice eucharisteo–giving thanks for all the beautiful and lovely things in the world, and in my life.

I give thanks, and give thanks while the plane of my emotions slowly slides down the runway, and inches into the blue, sunny skies of praise and joy.