Travel | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

“An Autobiography in Five Chapters” and Avoiding Habitual Holes

Anita Mathias — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 21:18:39 +0000

(All images taken on this summer’s memorable trip to Iceland) Earlier this year, my husband Roy and I took a mindfulness course through the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, a truly mind-expanding experience (a wonderful thing in mid-life, when we can ossify in our thoughts and habits unless we make a conscious effort to change). The teacher read […]

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How Can a Christian Blogger keep Fresh and Green Without Burnout?

Anita Mathias — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 21:01:16 +0000

Image Credit Friends from America mentioned that they no longer attend the Williamsburg, Virginia Church that we’d met them at. The preacher had a knack of cutting to the heart of the matter, of looking at the things Jesus said in a new, startling way. “Oh, why did you leave,” I asked surprised. “Well, after […]

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On Extra Baggage, Making Peace with Mistakes and Cutting Emotional Losses

Anita Mathias — Tue, 06 May 2014 20:51:26 +0000

So I fly on EasyJet to the Costa Blanca on a retreat at El Palmeral –though a normal heritage airline like BA would have cost the same, the timings are more convenient. Though this may change as I grow older, I normally don’t put a high premium on great comfort for short flights. I am […]

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

Anita Mathias — Sun, 05 Jan 2014 13:41:17 +0000

I am applying to travel with Tearfund to Cambodia, to the village of Tonle Batie, near Pnomh Penh. 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 […]

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Wandering through a Deserted Garden in Sicily, I Pray to Build Things Which Last

Anita Mathias — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 11:11:47 +0000

I like wandering around the deserted gardens which sometimes surround palaces and stately homes. I wandered through the Baroque Villa Palagonia in Bagheria Sicily yesterday, whose grounds host massive grotesque gnomes, giants, gargoyles, mutants, and anthropomorphized monsters. The villa was the home of Ferdinand, Prince of Palagonia, a hunchback, who took revenge on his wife’s […]

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My Big, Fat, Frivolous Prayer Which Made Dreams Come True

Anita Mathias — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 11:28:36 +0000

Towers surrounding Piazza Cisterna, San Gimignano, Tuscany. “Dreaming is a form of praying, and praying is a form of dreaming,” Mark Batterson I was wandering around Tuscany last week, loving the tiny walled cities, the watch-towers (torre), bell-towers (campanile), the warm, funny […]

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On Long Walks, Spirituality and Creativity. And Images of Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

Anita Mathias — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 07:47:12 +0000

I discovered a new pleasure this year which has become vital to my spiritual life and my ability to hear and God; my emotional balance and shalom; my psychological well-being; my ability to deal with stress; my creativity, and my happiness. And no, it’s not prayer, though prayer, theoretically, offers all these benefits.But we are […]

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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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Dreaming in Laon Cathedral, Northern France.

Anita Mathias — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 20:40:21 +0000

I’ve long wanted to see Laon Cathedral in Northern France, which featured in the Cathedrals of Europe course I took at Oxford University’s Continuing Education. It was an enchanted sacred space, with Gregorian chant echoing through it. Funny, when I am in a Gothic cathedral, I think of it as my soul’s natural home. […]

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St. Albans Church, Odense, Funen, Denmark.

Anita Mathias — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:09:42 +0000

Well, Roy is working on the gargantuan task of organising 24 years of photographs of our lives together. Here are some images from a cool Church we visited last summer in Denmark. Irene broke her arm, and was shattered not be going to her Adventure camp in Lymington Rushmore, so, at a day’s notice, we […]

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