Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Happy Are the Merciful for They Shall Be Shown Mercy

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Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy,

Jesus says, articulating a law which underlies the physical universe

—and human life. What you sow you reap.

 

I know some gentle merciful ones, and indeed, they are blessed,

beloved, in demand. The kindness they sow, the thoughtfulness

comes back to them with compound interest.

Their lives are relatively free from the interpersonal conflicts

and enmities which mar so many lives.

 

The natural law of sowing and reaping: What you plant in

the soil of your life, after a brief or lengthy period of dormancy,

inevitably flows back to you,  thorns and nettles, or apples

and cherries. Life returns sunshine for goodness sown

and darkness and trouble for darkness and trouble sown.

 

(Of course, the merciful are not immune from suffering,

in this fallen, cracked world–human greed polluting our

environment, and our very cells, and greedy people swindling us.

Besides, there are demonic “principalities and powers,

spiritual forces of evil” contending for the soul and shalom

of good people such as Job, or many faithful Christians today.)

 

But, in the main, those who go through life lightly,

making allowances for human weakness, being kind

in reviews, in tipping, in how they secretly judge others,

and what they say to or about them, meet with somewhat

the same gentleness as they go through life. And mercy

is what we need, we frazzled, frail, forgetful creatures,

whose spirit is willing, but whose flesh is weak, who

can so easily give way to unkindness and impulsively say

and do things we regret. We need mercy as we pilgrim

through life, and so we must rigorously train ourselves

to dish it out: Mercy, mercy, mercy.

 

Blessed are the merciful, Jesus says, using the word makarios,

Or happy. What is the opposite of being happy or blessed?

It is to be unhappy, to live with the hatred or curses of others

because of one’s dishonest or cruel actions. Being unmerciful, and

misusing power is an addictive dark pleasure which corrupts

the heart, soul, mind, and body, creating molecules of cortisol

and adrenaline in our brains and body, changing their very chemistry.

Those who step out of God’s protection with cruelty

and unmercifulness inevitably find thorns, thistles

and stumbling blocks on their path through life.

 

However, sowing and reaping, the merciful finding mercy,

while the unmerciful find misery is a terrifying message

for us who have not always been merciful, I among them.

So we, who have been unmerciful in speech, in writing,

in our actions, must repent and ask God for forgiveness.

And He will forgive. For in the Supreme Court of God,

who is the righteous judge of all the world, Jesus Christ,

who is love, voluntarily bore the punishment, the sentence,

that the just laws of the universe, of sowing and reaping,

demand that we suffer. He bore the penalty for our

eviscerating words, our meanness, our stinginess.

And in what theologians call the divine exchange, because

he bore the punishment, streams of mercy can flow to us,

streams of good ideas, comfort, the certainty of God’s love,

the certainty of being his beloved child. And the more we cling

to Jesus by faith, reading, meditating on, and almost eating

his life-changing words, the more we experience change

in the deep structure of our characters, not just in what we do,

but in who we are, in the secret places of the heart.

 

So go through life with as much kindness as you can

while being as wise as a serpent and as blameless as a dove.

Repent of past unmercifulness, and decide once again to follow

Jesus, to dwell in Jesus, hide yourself in Jesus, and to be merciful.

And the love of God, and the abundance of his household

Will flow into you and through you to the world that God so loves.

 

Becoming merciful will mean a massive change in the deep structure

Of our hearts and our characters. It is partly a decision.

However, changing who we are needs the Spirit of Jesus in us,

changing us. It needs Jesus himself within us, changing us. So come,

Lord Jesus. We welcome you in. Change us.

Holy Spirit, please come. Change us.

Veni Sancte Spiritus.

Amen.

 

This is a meditation on Matthew, Chapter 5

I would love you to read my memoir, fruit of much “blood, sweat, toil and tears.”

Rosaries, Reading, Secrets: A Catholic Childhood in India in the UK, and in the US, here, well, and widely available, online, worldwide 🙂

If you’d like to follow these meditations the moment they appear, please subscribe to Christian Meditation with Anita Mathias at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or  

Amazon Music

or Audible.

And I would be grateful for reviews and ratings!!

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations,

7 The Power of Christ’s Resurrection. For Us. Today

6 Each Individual’s Unique and Transforming Call and Vocation

5 Change Your Life by Changing Your Thoughts

4 Do not be Afraid–But be as Wise as a Serpent

3 Our Failures are the Cracks Through Which God’s Power Enters our Lives

2 The World is full of the Glory of God

1 Mindfulness is Remembering the Presence of Christ with us.

Thank you 🙂

 

 

Why I want to go to Tonle Batie, Cambodia with Tearfund

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I am applying to travel with Tearfund to Cambodia, to the village of Tonle Batie, near Pnomh Penh.tonle batie cropped

Cambodia endured extreme economic and social devastation during the years of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, which has left a legacy of widows and orphans; of people who find it difficult to trust each other enough to work together; and a generation without the education to swiftly escape poverty.

I have watched interviews with Yiv Toch, a hardworking mum, and with Gneam, 65, who had lost her husband to malnutrition under the Khymer Rouge, and, then, her second husband (given her in one of Pol Pot’s forced marriages). Both have no margin against hunger or sickness,  save borrowing at 120%.

However, the local church, largely composed of recent converts, (and their energetic volunteer Pastor Ke Pich, a Tearfund worker Navy, and a Youth worker Thany) is catalysing the community, infusing it with new hope, enthusiasm, and energy to pull itself out of crushing poverty.

Gneam
  

 The little miracles Jesus describes in his Gospel stories are a reality here. Yiv Toch who was given 8 chicks describes, joyfully, how she now has 50, which she can sell for extra income. The two community pigs are pregnant.  Landless families who dream of a bit of land can grow vegetables in the church’s communal garden.

Yiv Toch chickens

feeding_the_pigs

 The pump donated by a well-meaning church, was dug so deep that the water poisoned crops and then it broke; there was no money to repair it. The community brainstormed and decided to cooperate to dig a pond to store rainwater so that—in this village without running water–they can grow vegetables, even out of the rainy season.

Gneam inspecting the eggplants.

I love these real-life stories of using creativity, ingenuity and hardwork to escape poverty. It would be a privilege to tell them!

* * *

The roots of my Christian faith are entwined with the poor. When I first committed to follow Christ, aged 17, Christ’s command “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me,” leaped out at me from the Gospels, and I decided to work with Mother Teresa.

I worked with Mother Teresa for 14 months, and truly enjoyed hanging out with the poor, with the “scheduled tribes” in Orissa, whom India’s development hasn’t benefited, and at Kalighat, Mother Teresa’s Home for The Dying Destitute.

However, after I came to England, studying English at  Somerville College, Oxford, I have worked as a writer, and in publishing. But each time, I listen to Heidi Baker mention God’s directive to her to sit at the feet of the poor, I uneasily feel as if I am missing out on a vital aspect of the Christian life. The Gospel is good news to the poor, and perhaps the Gospel alive in our lives must, in some way, bring good news to the poor.

* * *

I would particularly enjoy observing and telling the story of the village of Tonle Batie, Cambodia, since I am an entrepreneur. I have founded two businesses with minimal capital, and the second, a small publishing company, now solely supports our family.  So I am impressed by the village’s income generation schemes, which will gradually create self-sufficiency through creativity and ingenuity.

* * *

Another reason I am eager to visit Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in the world, is that the primary theme of my blog, Dreaming Beneath the Spires, is the intersection of faith and theology with everyday life.  Hanging out with the poor—close to stark reality—you encounter the great theological questions (and perhaps answers): Whether God is indeed just if we contend with him; why God permits suffering, and whether there is anything redemptive about it; whether the Gospel and the power of prayer work anywhere in the world; whether God’s love and care is an ever-present reality for people in Tonle Batie, Cambodia as for those in Oxford, England, where I live.

* * *

I love travelling: visiting new countries; understanding, soaking in, and photographing new cultures; and writing about them on my blog, sensitively and affectionately. Writing about travel is a secondary strand in my blog, and interests my readers. I would love to tell the story of how Tearfund’s partner International Cooperation for Cambodia, and the local church are helping people heal after the traumatic years of the Khmer Rouge; and to learn to trust one another, and work together for the future with hope.

* * *

I have been blogging for three and a half years, and have begun developing a “platform”– about 15,000 page views a month; about 1700 Facebook fans and friends; and about 34,000 followers on Twitter where I am active (and have been a finalist for the Christian New Media “Tweeter of the Year Award.”)

I would be delighted to leverage my story-telling gifts and social media friendships to help raise money for Tonle Batie by telling its story. I regularly exchange guest posts with other established bloggers, and would love to to guest-post about my experiences in Cambodia.

Tearfund would like each blogger to inspire 20 people to contribute £3 a month so that 23 new families could go through the Church and Community Mobilisation process, being  able to send their children to school, learn new farming techniques, and put food on the table. I feel certain my amazing warm-hearted audience of committed Christians readers as well as my personal and church friends and family would enjoy supporting this interesting unfolding story. I look forward to doing so myself.

* * *

Personally speaking, the practice of gratitude has been transforming my spiritual life and is an important strand in my blog. I was struck by people’s shining eyes as they described chickens multiplying, vegetables growing, not having to worry about having enough food, or having to withdraw their children from school. Oh I would love to  learn and relearn gratitude for the goodness of God, which I can take for granted!

The Gospel is good news to the poor, and is the world’s greatest force for poverty reduction, I believe. Where it roots, people pray, which gives them new hope and precipitates divine assistance. People work with new enthusiasm, for the Gospel catalyses creativity. People act honestly, which breeds the trust on which co-operative entrepreneurship depends.

And since the Gospel is indeed the power of God, it will work anywhere in the world. It will be exciting to observe the Gospel at work, and Aslan on the move, in the community of Tonle Batie, Cambodia–and to tell the story of this new chapter in The Greatest Story Ever Told!