Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires
Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art
And how, and how
Could that prickly caterpillar
–All bristles and danger–
Feeding on the stinging nettle in my garden
Become a peacock butterfly,
Four shimmering iridescent eyes?
My God, my God, redeemer,
Even today, take my life,
The years lost to self-pity, anger and sadness,
False starts, wrong directions, promising trails abandoned
The sin, the exhaustion, the folly, the folly,
Take the stinging nettles of my life, my Lord,
And make of them butterfly wings.
To the one who is victorious, I will also give a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it. Revelation 2:17
And so, we heave up our cross,
And follow him,
Oh, not spectacularly at all.
Dropping it,
Meandering off course,
Sometimes forgetting we had resolved
To take up our cross,
And follow him.
But each time we remember,
We apologize,
And pick up that old rugged cross,
And follow after Jesus again.
And Jesus sees.
For that is one of his names,
El Roi, the God who sees.
Where others see our failures
Jesus sees also,
How much further we would have slipped
Had we not clung to him
* * *
And somehow through the decades,
We change.
We are different.
Though still so acutely aware of,
So sad about our failures.
* * *
And then one day,
We meet him,
And he gently opens our palms
And places in them a stone
With our new names.
And I read, tearfully:
The prudent one
The discreet one
The wise one
The self-controlled one
The kind one
The diligent one
The consistent and persevering one
The financially gifted one
And I say, “Jesus!
I think you’ve given me someone else’s stone.”
And he says,
“Though decades of following me,
Though you did not notice it,
You’ve changed.”
“But I always saw what you would become.
Welcome home!”
A mosaic in Ravenna, made of millions of broken tessarae of glass and enamel
The principle runs through all life from top to bottom.
Give up yourself, and you will find your real self.
Lose your life and you will save it.
Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life.
Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours.
Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).
* * *
“Christianity can only be caught, not taught,” they say. I caught a lot while I was discipled from 1997 to 2002 by a spiritually deep Christian writer and leader.
He said that as he found himself becoming intense–a sign that self was on the throne, not Christ–he’d say, “Take that too. I surrender that to you, Jesus,” and so on, until it became a habit to surrender everything precious to him, everything he worried about, to Jesus.
We swapped my editing of his first book for spiritual guidance. He was a naturally gifted writer, and I think I helped him find his natural speaking voice and rhythms in writing. He thanked me in the acknowledgements for teaching him how to write!
Interestingly, he said that he did not own his writing. He had given it to God. And whereas I wasted a lot of time on false starts, he wrote to just three publishers, one of whom took his first book. Several reviewers have said his next book was one of the best books on prayer of all time, and that’s because it sprung from the heart, spirit and experience, not from study, reading or thinking.
What impressed me was that someone who did not seem naturally gifted as a writer could so rapidly write two good books. Was not “owning” his writing a factor? He said he wrote as God provided time, whereas I was then always trying to grab, steal, wrangle and fight for time, which caused me a lot of stress.
Interestingly, he said once that he owned the Christian organisation he founded far more than his writing. And that, 16 years on, has never really taken off, perhaps for this reason.
* * *
I was thinking this morning of the similarity to things in my own life. Things which I do not own, which I have turned over to God, and do reliant on his strength are blessed—things like our family business, my blog or even little things like my Twitter presence where after two years I chosen as a runner-up for the Tweeter of the Year by the Christian New Media awards in 2014, (and was a Finalist for Blogger of the Year in 2015).
The things which I do by worry and self-effort are not so blessed. My attempt to finish my memoir, say.
I am reading a book by Duncan Smith called Consumed by Love. It is about our oneness with Christ, how we are safe in Christ–as an astronaut in his spacesuit is safe from being bumped in a zero gravity spaceship–and how Christ is in us.
And in that lies the power to overcome long-standing battles: Christ in us, the hope of glory. Relying on the guidance and power of Christ, step by step.
Kim Walker Smith of Jesus Culture puts it well:
Where you go I go
What you say I say
What you pray I pray.
Jesus only did, what he saw you do.
He would only say what he heard you speak.
He would only move when he felt you lead.
Following your heart following your spirit.
How could I expect to walk without you
When every move that Jesus made was in surrender?
Two verses are speaking to me: “You will not have to fight this battle. Stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you.” 2 Chron. 20:17. And, “The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still” Exodus 14:14.
So that’s where I am spiritually at present. A disciple, a learner. Turning over these areas of my weakness to him, relying on him for strength and guidance. Letting Christ in me, my hope of glory, act in me, guide me, change my tastes, my habits, my mind and spirit.
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis on Amazon.com and on Amazon.co.uk
To change, really change, is magical.
And to be a Christ-follower is to change, because he is in constant motion, a strong walker, blowing like the wind, and sometimes we need to walk briskly to keep up with him on the winding roads of holiness.
Change can happen dramatically, or slowly. God can speak to us directly in an emotion-packed worship meeting. He can progressively heal our emotions. He can set us free by teaching us to forgive. He can use counselling and prayer ministry.
* * *
I have had an intense couple of months. At Cwmbran, I asked God’s help for my weight problem, and I felt him forcibly say, “Take up your pallet and walk.” Stop eating sugar, and white flour. Stop eating between meals. Stop eating when you are not hungry.
And reader, I did. I felt an intense yearning for sugar and chocolate for 3-4 days, and then sugar cravings faded. Similarly, I fiercely battled the urge to eat when bored, sad, stressed, whatever, for 3-4 days, and gradually the urge shrivelled. And I am 22 pounds lighter–through lifestyle change, rather than dieting.
* * *
I had an experience last month in which God hijacked me into further healing. I realized I was tired. It was taking me longer and longer to settle down to write, and longer to produce work.
We usually go away every six weeks during the school holidays, to Europe mostly, and completely recharge—sleep in, walk, taste local food, explore gardens, museums, beaches and impossibly winding cobbled streets, and come back re-invigorated–new people, really. I hadn’t done that as a daughter had had exams, and now I was flagging.
So I decided to go away on my own, and googled Christian retreat centres. All I wanted was to sleep, eat and walk, a sort of Elijah cure.
There was a vacancy at the Harnhill Centre for Christian Healing, and so I went, wanting to rest, hear from God, and just enjoy Him. And found I had got myself into a full-fledged conference, very regimented: elderly volunteer ladies coming to your room and waking you up if you napped when they had planned fluffy activities; bells rung outside your room at meal times, etc. Breakfast was served in bed at 8 a.m., which meant you had to be up at 8. Trays to be left outside by 8.45 a.m. “This is gulag healing,” I said to Roy.
So I was in a very grumpy mood indeed, and certainly not in a conducive frame of mind for life-changing anything.
But the prayer-ministry—3 hours of it!!– was life-changing.
* * *
I knew the way for me to lose weight was eating mainly vegetables and fruit. Severely limiting carbs because they pack in too many calories for the nutrients. Eliminating meat and eggs, and limiting cheese, because again the calories are high for the nutrition, and besides, I am not keen on ingesting the hormones and medicines fed to the animals, or the animal’s toxins stored in their fat. But I felt rebellious about dramatically reducing my bread, carbs, cheese, eggs and meat. I would say to myself, “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,” (I Tim 4: 4-5).
So I went to prayer ministry. “I know a fruit and vegetable based diet is the way forward, and I do lose weight on it,” I say plaintively, “but I like something nice at every meal.”
“Everything God made is good,” the South African counsellor says bluntly. I stare. My verse. That I had been using to justify all sort of delicious meals which took time to prepare and were not optimal for my body.
But if everything God made is good, then I could savour the taste of simple fruits and vegetables and still lose weight. While eating things which are a blessing to my body, rather than a curse to it.
Why, I could even eat like a billionaire.
Mona Simpson describes her brother Steve Jobs’ eating habits, “Dinner was served on the grass, and sometimes consisted of just one vegetable. Lots of that one vegetable. But one. Broccoli. In season. Simply prepared. With just the right, recently snipped, herb.”
So that’s what I have been doing. Eating simply. Tasting and savouring the broccoli or asparagus or watermelon. Losing a pound a week, more or less effortlessly.
The word of God, wielded prophetically—wow! Just a sentence can set you free.
The view from my bedroom window: The fields and hills covered with hoar frost.
The snow fell over our Oxford garden and transformed it. I sometimes look at my garden, and think it’s getting rather scruffy, and resolve to get out with shears and secateurs come spring.
But then snow falls, and the garden, a little bit overgrown, much in need of a prune, is transformed. White, magical, still and quiet. Cobwebs, laced in frost, glisten.
Nothing is as it seemed yesterday.
Nothing is as it seems. That’s a great lessons my garden teaches me as it changes from season to season—bulbs burst from the barren ground come spring; there was rich life beneath the frozen year. The bare branches sing with blossom; where had that been hiding?
The earth suddenly turns rich green and bursts with flower and birdsong in summer. Then it morphs again, gold-vermilion, followed by winter, austere and stark.
‘You thought you knew me; think again. You thought you had me pegged; think again.” We can only understand a fraction of reality.
And we too shall be changed, just as our earth is. “Our bodies sown in dishonour, shall be raised in glory; sown in weakness, shall be raised in power. We will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and we will be changed.” (1 Cor. 15)
Beads of ice transform a spider’s web
Change, metamorphosis, metanoia, or changing one’s mind. Repentance. For me, these are magical words, full of hope and possibility.
Day by day, we can change the seeds we put into the soil of our lives, resisting negativity, and judgement and meanness, sowing instead mercy, and kindness. And what we sow we reap. And gradually, the very substance of our hearts changes. Because of the mercy of the gardener.
Nothing is as it seems. I wrote a harsh email earlier this week to an old frenemy I kind of like whom I first met 18 years, and who has been making a nuisance of himself on my Facebook page, and sometimes blog, leaving several negative, hostile, almost slanderous comments daily. Replying or deleting; replying or deleting: How time-consuming it all became.
Was it just envy, hostility, insecurity, sadness over his own failures? Relative success reveals whom your true friends are, just as relative failure or poverty. I blocked him, unblocked him at his request, and then when he was back with his undermining, hostile comments, reblocked him.
I wrote a harsh email explaining why (after being patient for months and months), sent it, and then a minute later, as many writers do, saw how I could have said the same thing in a dignified, restrained way in just two or three sentences. And without judgement.
His put-downs and contentious comments sure looked like envy and hostility and malice, but they may not have been. Some people are just nuts, high-functioning nuts perhaps, but nuts, not evil. “Do not judge,” Jesus said, for nothing is as it seems. As adults we can decide whom we want in our lives, and whom we’d rather block, but without withering character judgements as to whether they are mad, bad or merely sad.
I feel too ashamed to re-read that email. How will my friend, or frenemy feel? I felt dreadful.
Frost on a rose
Oh, there is only one place for such as I to retreat. To the fountain of forgiveness that falls, falls like blood, magic blood that turns its recipients as snow.
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
And so I return again to the cleansing fountains, to the love of Jesus at Calvary when he, inexplicably, heart-rendingly, offered his beautiful life as a payment in full for every sin of mine.
And the mercy from the Great Heart, the life-blood of that Great Heart pours over me, and I feel the sweetness of that great love, and I feel his love and acceptance, and I snuggle into the recesses of the Most High, and there am I safe.
Such forgiveness, for a cranky woman who blew it. Incredible. I am made new, forgiven, washed white as snow.
Ice fingers on the twigs of a contorted willow.
* * *
And I forgive the man whose been trolling my Facebook page so insistently.
And become Facebook friends again? Oh no! He was consistently judging my theology, my reading of the Bible (he has a mercilessly inerrantist reading) and my politics. The continuous contemptuous putdowns were very annoying. And being exposed to people’s judgements is bad, dangerous and harmful. Judgments can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, and being judged in a heavy weight to bear!! As we are not to judge, we are also not to expose ourselves, our ears, hearts or spirits to other people’s judgements. For nothing is as it seems. They too only see in part.
Envy is dangerous, and the leading, hostile questions he was asking me on my FB page were almost slanderous–“Do you support abortion for any and every reason,” (in response to my posting, without comment, a Guardian article on the medically unnecessary death of Savita Halappanavar)
Anyone who experiences increasing business success or career success will face putdowns and envy and snideness from old friends, acquaintances or frenemies whose own life has been disappointing. It’s a sad fact of life.
How do we deal with this? Do not boast. Certainly. Disguise your relative success? Perhaps. Drop them? In some instances, where is not much fondness in my heart for them, or vice-versa, and we still meet up out of old habit, this might be the best solution.
Iced rosehips
I love being a Christian adult. I do not have to act reflexively. I can act with wisdom, after consultation with my Lord. My forgiver.
“When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.”
William Butler Yeats
Frosted fennel in seed
Relentless pressure
Turns mud, clay, coal, rock,
And the bones of dead creatures
Into diamonds and rubies,
Jewels of this earth.
Ah, and when we invite him in,
The inexorable one,
The tireless pursuer,
There is the steady pressure,
Of the weight of his glory
Bearing down on our laziness,
Our smallness, our comfort zones
Relentlessly,
Until we are changed,
And our weaknesses,
Repented of, forsaken,
Become strengths,
Like shards in stained glass
Through which his glory shines.
