reading | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India. My new memoir

Anita Mathias — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 19:10:27 +0000

Friends, I have written a new memoir. I would be so grateful for your support. It is available wherever Amazon sells books, Amazon.com, of course, as well as Amazon.co.uk. Here are some reviews from distinguished writers A beautifully written account of a childhood. The textures, colours and, above all, the tastes of a particular […]

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Burn-Out Vanishes When We Rediscover Purpose

Anita Mathias — Mon, 19 Dec 2016 22:25:52 +0000

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: […]

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

Anita Mathias — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 12:03:08 +0000

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. […]

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The Best Way to Develop Shiny New Habits

Anita Mathias — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 20:34:21 +0000

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 […]

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

Anita Mathias — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 09:18:29 +0000

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 […]

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

Anita Mathias — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:00:42 +0000

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 […]

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Stephen King’s Immensely Helpful Book “On Writing”

Anita Mathias — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 21:02:34 +0000

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 […]

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

Anita Mathias — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 22:14:04 +0000

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 […]

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How to Get into the Zone of Writing or Prayer

Anita Mathias — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:02:00 +0000

Mixed Flock of birds flying in a V Formation- Put together- ©Creative Commons 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 […]

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