Trust | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Grab Christ’s Hand When You Are Sinking

By Anita Mathias

Hi friends, I’ve recorded a podcast meditation, which I hope you’ll enjoy. Feedback welcome 🙂

Sometimes, the little boat of your life is tossed in

the darkness, in a storm-swept lake, far from shore,

It’s buffeted by waves, with the wind against it. And a dark

figure looms, walking on water, and you cannot see his face,

and you do not know his name, and you are terrified.

And in the encircling gloom, Christ always speaks the same

magnificent words, “Take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.”

He comes to us in the darkness, a future that looks bleak,

with unsolvable relational difficulties or financial difficulties, or

when intellect, energy, and organisation feel puny, matched with

our dreams and calling. But it is Christ. Do not be afraid.

And Peter, the risk-taker, from an overabundance of love and

impulsivity, says, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on

the water.” And Jesus speaks another of his great words, “Come.”

Jesus, the merciful, did not ask Peter to do something that

transcended the humanly possible and Peter’s faith, but

since Peter wanted to get to Jesus as quickly as possible, and to

do whatever Jesus did, he gives him permission to walk on water.

We sometimes yearn to do things for which we know we don’t

have the money, time, abundant gifting, or even the character.

Never begin them before you’ve prayed, “Lord, tell me to do it.”

If he says, “Come,” start tackling the impossibility, immediately.

And Peter walks on water, until he sees the almost visible wind,

is afraid, and begins to sink. Fear paralyses, sinks, and destroys.

And Peter prays a powerful prayer, “Lord, save me.” And

immediately, Jesus reaches out his hand and catches him,

scolding, “Oligopistos. You of little faith. Why did you doubt?”

And the wind dies down, and Peter learns to keep his eyes

on Jesus and his power when he attempts the impossible,

and to cry out for Jesus’s help when he begins to sink.

Help us, Jesus, you who control the wind and waves,

and all things, when we are sinking in the darkness,

and all seems impossible. Tell the wind to be quiet.

Take my hand, precious Lord. Lead me on. Let me stand. Amen.

Jesus Knows the Best Way to Do What You Are Best At

By Anita Mathias

So Matthew records: Then Jesus got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!” Matthew 8: 23-27.

So Jesus, a charismatic carpenter, keeps teaching Peter, a fisherman,

a man of the sea, the same lesson, again and again. That he, Jesus,

knew the absolute best way to do everything. Including–fishing.

When Peter had laboured all night and caught nothing, Jesus

tells him to cast his nets on the right side and they were

unable to haul in the bountiful catch. Jesus walked on the

waters of a lake, and calmed sea-storms which raged while

he slept in the boat. He showed off his mastery over their

profession, showing that the very cleverest thing they could do,

always, was to check in with him for his guidance and direction.

When we feel hard-pressed and incompetent, we desperately ask Jesus

for help. And he can graciously add a one before our zeroes.

However, when we feel competent, educated, experienced, or gifted,

it’s even more crucial to not rely on these limited gifts, but to ask Jesus

to take the wheel, to show us the best way to do things and to bless

them. Then he can add zeroes after our one talent, transforming it

into something with exponential blessing for us and for the world.

Avoid the folly of doing anything without checking in

with Jesus. Keep asking: “Jesus, do I need to be doing this

at all?” And: “Please, show me the best way to do it.”

In the most successful thing I’ve ever done, co-founding

a small business which has wholly supported our family

for the last thirteen years, I’ve had to rely on God’s guidance

because I had lacked the training, education, skills, or temperament

for it. And God added a 1 before my zeroes, and blessed it.

Conversely, I have been relatively unsuccessful in the one thing

I had the education, training, some talent and a deep love for–

that is, writing–because I have done it in my own strength, often without

even thinking of asking God for guidance or direction. And without

surrender. But since God is still writing the story of my life, it’s not too

late to train myself to ask God for guidance, and blessing on my writing.

God gives us gifts of good genes, education, opportunity or resources.

But everything we have is God’s, and things can change in a moment.

So the safest thing we can do is to surrender everything we have to God, and

to continually ask him how to do things his way, so He can supernaturally,

exponentially touch, bless and multiply the work of our hands.

If you’d like to read my previous recorded meditations, they are here.

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 very grateful for reviews and ratings!!

A Mind of Life and Peace in the Middle of a Global Pandemic

By Anita Mathias

From a walk by the River Thames.

I have been thinking about this sentence in the Book of Romans, “The mind controlled by the sinful nature is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”

That’s what I am consciously seeking to maintain in these unusual days… a mind of life and peace.

Many of the social supports of our lives have been stripped away. In my case, gradually then suddenly, culminating on March 23^rd, my German classes, Book group, Writers in Oxford meetings, church small groups, supper clubs, yoga classes, personal training, Ramblers walks, parties, lunches with friends, travel, cultural activities, church itself, all stopped. Of course, we can still talk to our friends and family on the phone, or on video calls, and I do, but it’s not the same…

However, reviewing my list, I see many fun, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally nourishing activities, just too many of them. Lockdown made Roy and me realise that our lives had become too full, too rich, too busy, too fun, too fast-paced. And so I have decided not to clutter up this God-given season of quietness with the many Zoom activities I have been invited to—Bible studies, group catch-ups, writing retreats, yoga classes, prayer meetings… but to have just a few meaningful one-on-one conversations instead. I have decided to embrace this season of quietness, and time, time, all the time I have ever yearned for.

Of course, this free time is complicated. Following the news and this real-life tragedy unfolding around us is distracting, infuriating and distressing. We read of the suffering of the poor; fulminate at inept leaders, and manipulative ones who squeeze this for political advantage. We feel powerless to stop coronavirus, and powerless over the length of lockdowns. Some of us might wistfully think of the hopey days when Britain decided to go for herd immunity and life continued as normal… but then, who wanted to be in the herd infected by Covid-19, a particularly gruesome infection if you are not fit?

* * *

Britain’s six-week severe lockdown is disorienting for human beings who are social animals, shaped, defined, refined by social interactions.

And in this time, it is important to guard our minds and spirits. To have minds of life and peace.

Many of us embarked on this enforced retreat with enthusiasm. Britain went on a shopping spree…buying fitness, gardening, and DIY stuff and lots of books. Writers hoped to write their best work, their personal King Lear. Everyone hoped to emerge from quarantine with decluttered homes, pretty gardens, fitter bodies, and finished work.

And, of course, with God’s help, we can achieve these goals, dreams and ambitions, partly or wholly. There is no reason we cannot sleep early and wake very early without the interruptions of social, cultural, intellectual, creative or gym activities on other people’s schedules. Or get stronger as we lift weights. Or declutter. Or write.

In this period of “world enough and time,” it’s the mental game that’s crucially important, as I tell my daughter Irene, who is preparing for her Oxford University finals, in Medicine, taken online.

These are three practices I am finding helpful.

1 Be Mindful of the Mind. Maintain a mind of life and peace. I am using the brilliant Headspace app, which has brief meditations, targeted interventions, when I am aware that I am stressed, distracted, or down-spirited. Meditation can change one’s mood and mental state as effectively as chocolate or sugary treats can while improving one’s health. Phew!

Since I formally learned meditation at first at a beginners and then at an advanced meditation course at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, a ten minute meditation almost always suffices to calm, still, and focus my mind.

2 Be Mindful of the Body. Keep your body well-stretched, well-exercised, full of energy. A happy body, a happy mind, and a happy creative spirit are inextricably connected; I wish I’d learned that decades earlier. Scripture interestingly calls our bodies, “The temple of the Holy Spirit.” We experience the shalom, the love and blessing and goodness of the Father not only in our minds, and spirits, but in our well worked-out vibrantly alive bodies.

I walk every day, often 4 to 4.5 miles, either with my husband Roy or alone, praying, and then listening to the Bible or an audiobook. And because I have so much extra time now, in lockdown, I am alternating periods of sitting (reading, writing, meditating, praying) with physical activity (decluttering, gardening, Yoga with Adriene on YouTube, and Alisa Keeton’s Revelation Wellness workouts, which aim at movement as worship and has dance, weights, HIIT, cardio and flexibility workouts).

And in a life-changing intervention…I started housewalking last autumn, introduced to it by American blogger, Jean Wise, who used it to lose 100 pounds. Though I walk outside whenever possible, in England, in grumpy seasons, it can rain for hours, it gets dark early. And when it does, I download an audiobook onto my phone, and just walk through my house, which is, fortunately, large and rambling, until I have my goal steps (10,000 to 13500)! If I get bored or tired, I say, “Keep walking. You are actually reading.” Which I am! (I’m currently listening to Hemingway’s memoir A Moveable Feast), not his best work, but I am charmed and engrossed by it.)

3 Be Mindful of Your Emotions.

I am trying to train my thoughts and emotions not to give way to negativity or annoyance or restlessness or down-heartedness or impatience at this lockdown.

Beyond the jokers and movers and shakers and doomsters and gloomsters who make the decisions which govern our lives is God. God who has a purpose for this primitive, medieval quarantine, even if it was imposed by mass hysteria. God who can bring good from the mistakes of governments, as he can from our mistakes.

God who can create good from all things, including a virus–both for our own lives and for the world.

Our lives are not entirely our own, and we do not control the plot. God does. And lockdown and coronavirus is what God has permitted for this time of our lives. It takes faith to accept it from his hands, and thank him. Counting blessings on my fingers helps, even the blessing of the longest stretch of free, quiet, uncommitted time that I have had since I was a schoolgirl, and since Puritan ideas of using time well and making each hour golden entered my life.

Living with gratitude in each season for its goodness is perhaps the most important ingredient for a happy life…that, and living with love. I sometimes remind myself, “If you cannot live with appreciation and gratitude, why are you even living?”

** *

And, if you have time to read my story of a really inspiring life, perhaps check out

The Story of Dirk Willems: The Man who Died to Save his Enemy on Amazon.com

and on Amazon.co.uk

Images of some walks in Oxford https://www.instagram.com/p/B_w1URkJ8Vy/

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-nIQybJStb/

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_w1URkJ8Vy/

Deep peace in times of political turmoil

By Anita Mathias

The Deep Peace of Wild Places (Iceland, August, 2019)

I consciously (though sometimes unsuccessfully) try not to invest emotional energy in politics, just as I try to invest no emotional energy in sports, including the Olympics or the World Cup. Why waste energy on things whose outcome I am unable to influence? (Of course, an individual CAN influence politics, but it takes a calling, and a massive amount of energy, and the time to build a politically-oriented platform… none of which I have.)

British politics is going through a particularly interesting and turbulent week… one of the many particularly interesting and turbulent weeks we’ve had over the last three years.

For all my desire to not be emotionally invested in politics, I had very strong emotions and opinions at the time of the EU Referendum in 2016. I was one of the polarised in this currently polarised country. But over time, I, like many other British citizens, I suspect, found myself mellowing. Many of us began to see the other point of view.

And now, what I now truly believe is best for me, for my family and for the country is the exact opposite of what I thought was the best for the country, and what I really, really wanted to happen three years ago.

And so, I am watching the political circus with a detached interest and, I admit, some amusement. What will happen? You know, I don’t hugely care. I have left it in God’s hands. I own a small business, we export, and for all exporters, Brexit, deal or no-deal, and the consequent weak pound, in the short run, is financially beneficial. However, I travel frequently, and for frequent travellers, EU membership is great… health insurance when we travel, seamless borders, cheap mobile coverage, cheap airfares, the ability to easily take our Golden Retriever, Pippi, and Labradoodle, Merry, their pet passports with us to Europe… So I am going to wait and see, without any emotional intensity.

And I wonder, is this what living with trust in God looks like?

Jack Miller of World Harvest Mission, now Serge, used to tell his story

Tom walks down the street and meets Dick, who is smiling delightedly.

Tom, “What are you so happy about?”
Dick, “Well, I’ve met a man who promised to do all my worrying for me for $60,000 a year.”
Tom, “60,000 dollars a year! How are you going to get that?”
Dick, grinning, “That’s HIS worry

None of us learn this level of care-freeness naturally– the carefreeness of the lilies whom Jesus commends, who are relaxed in the natural beauty of creations of God, and so fret not about clothes or whether they are blossoming, flourishing or withering; the carefreeness of the birds who live songfully day by day, and the Father keeps them alive as long as he wants them to sing… To live carefree, trusting God, takes a constant effort of trust and surrender.

What does living like a lily mean? Jesus said it in the context of clothes. Do not worry about clothes, he says, because you are a child of God, made by him, and who you are, the beauty of your smile and personality, is more important than what you wear. So sally forth as a beloved and unique creation of God, and don’t worry about clothes or how your appearance compares to the other lilies of the field.

What would praying like a lily or like a bird look like? Prayers like this, perhaps…

“I leave Brexit in your hands, and I trust you with it. If it happens and turns out to be financially beneficial for my family and the country, thank you. And if it isn’t, I trust you to lead us to new levels of creativity, ingenuity or simplicity.”

“I place my latent and unused talents in your hands. I will trust you for the time and energy and wisdom to use them well. To have finished the work you have given me to do before I die.”

“I place my body and my health in your hands. Please help me make wise choices so I may be full of energy to serve you and fulfil your call on my life.”

“I place my children, my finances, my creativity, and my future into your hands, and that is a very good place for them to be.”

Difficult prayers need to be re-prayed daily. I try to remember to surrender myself and my day to God every day… and repeat that surrender through the day. When I am stressed, I want to live empty-handed, with all I hold dear in God’s hands. I sometimes take these things back and worry about them myself, instead of letting God do the worrying. Instead of letting go and letting God. But God knows that. He is a Father after all. And then, I just need to take my niggles and worries and put them back in God’s hands… and just keep trusting my Lord.

(P.S. There are times when Christians cannot be passive in politics, but I see Brexit as a political rather than as a moral or Christian issue. I believe, for instance, that American citizens should add the weight of the snowflake of their voices to a snowball of opinion against the inhumane treatment of migrants from the Americas to the US, just as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the White Rose group, and Otto and Elise Hampel did the little things they could to oppose the inhumanity of the National Socialist regime during the Second World War.)

And here’s a song I really like

And what, what if I believed in Your power
And I really lived it
What, what if I believed Christ in me…
I would lay my worries down
See these hills as level ground…

On Cancer, Declining Chemotherapy, Healing, and Future Plans

By Anita Mathias

B0006844 Colon cancer cells Credit: Lorna McInroy. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Cultured colon cancer cells showing the nuclei stained with DAPI in blue, the actin cytoskeleton in red and plectin (isoform 1k) in green. Plectin interacts with cytoskeletal actin, affecting its behaviour. This subtype of plectin promotes the migration of cells and may affect metastasis. Confocal micrograph 2005 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html

Human colon cancer cells

So hi there, I am back…back to regular blogging, back to health– physically, emotionally, spiritually and creatively.

So, news of my world: I had surgery for colon cancer on November 25^th, 2014, which now feels very long ago—like a bad, surreal dream.

I was offered chemotherapy, which would increase my odds of being alive in five years by 10%. The side effects as explained by my oncologist: Anaemia, progressive tiredness which persists for some weeks after the treatment ends. Depressed immune system and risk of infection: the treatment reduces white blood cell count. Bruising of nerves, peripheral neuropathy, numb hands or feet, which may make typing hard, and which sometimes is permanent. Nausea, diarrhoea, mouth ulcers. Temporary hair loss. Eye problems. Headaches. Muscles, joint and stomach pain. Abdominal pain. Changes in liver function. 1 in 200 die.

The adjuvant chemotherapy recommended supports surgery by killing any cancer cells which may (or may not!) remain. It’s like an insurance policy, and is potentially over-treating, the oncologist explained. Colon cancer does return for 40 to 50% of patients—i.e. hey, cancer is not a joke (or, at least, a very bad one!). Adjuvant chemotherapy reduces recurrences by 10%.

As I prayed, I became convinced that toxic chemotherapy which often causes permanent physical, emotional and intellectual damage was not the path for me. Not the path through the dark woods on which I would meet the Father, Son and Spirit whistling as they stroll.

Might anything besides chemotherapy give me a 10% survival benefit? My oncologist said that research shows that exercise increases survival after colon cancer. As does Vitamin D and aspirin. People know what they know and don’t know what they don’t know. Could there be evidence-based research that my oncologist had not yet looked at, did not know of?

“Oh God!” I prayed. “There are 298,000 species of plants. Surely, surely, some of them would zap any remaining cancer cells without the havoc wrought by toxic chemicals. Is it possible that God who placed dock leaves near stinging nettles did not create even one plant which would bless the body while neutralising cancer cells? Even one plant which would strengthen the immune system to “fight” cancer so that it would not spread? Surely God will lead me to such plants.”

In the Parable of Weeds in Matthew, Jesus recommends leaving enemy-sown weeds in the field lest, in uprooting them, good plants are uprooted as well. When I thought about chemo, there was no light in it. I felt sure chemo, for me, was not the way of the Spirit, that the Spirit would guide me to non-toxic therapies that might strengthen the immune system, rather than weaken me body, mind and soul in the process of zapping renegade demon cells.

* * *

As I called out to the Lord in my distress, the title of a book a friend had recommended popped into my mind: God’s Way to Ultimate Health by George Malkmus, who watched his mother rapidly grow ill and die from toxic cancer treatments rather than the disease. (A common experience, apparently!) Declining chemotherapy, he cured his colon cancer by aggressive doses of nutrients through juicing. A raw food diet. Supplements. Exercise. My friend recommended Chrisbeatcancer.com, who inspired by Malkmus used these strategies to heal his own Stage III colon cancer without chemotherapy.

Diet and exercise had been my Achilles’ heel, and so I had some of the lifestyle risk factors for colon cancer. So while I have not changed as drastically as I would have liked, over the last eight months I have changed what I eat, and I intend to continue, respecting my body as a gift God gave me, which I need to keep healthy for my intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical life to flourish.

Malkmus recommends a discipline which he says will change your life, and might possibly save it. Walk a mile as fast as you can, write down the speed; then, each day continue walking as fast as you can until you can do a mile in 15 minutes. Then walk two miles as fast as you can, until you can do 2 miles in 30 minutes; then 3 miles in 45 minutes, then 4 miles in an hour. I was walking a mile in 30-33 minutes after surgery, and am now down to a 21 minute mile (and walking 3.5 miles, over 10,000 steps) and am loving the increased fitness—especially because I can now be on my feet, exploring all day on holiday. I still need major improvements in fitness, but am optimistic, since I have been steadily improving my pace.

Other changes: Carrot juice. Green juice. Salads. A lot of vegetables, steamed or roasted. No meat. Less diary. Fish and salmon every day, since Seventh Day Adventist studies show that eating oily fish protects against colon cancer. A handful of supplements, some recommended by my younger sister, Dr. Shalini Cornelio who has worked in cancer research at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York City: Resveratrol (grape seed extract). Sulforaphane (broccoli sprout extract). Turmeric. Aged garlic. Probiotic supplements. Fish oil. Vitamin D. Aspirin. Calcium. Multivits.

So rather than a path of passivity, submitting to a toxic regimen, I took a path of positivity and challenge—exercise, and mega-doses of nutrients through juices, salads, and supplements to strengthen the immune system against errant cells. In eight months, it has left me stronger than I have been for years, perhaps decades, rather than significantly weaker.

* * *

I put out of my mind the fear of death. And any irrational fear of cancer. I told God I was making the best decision I could with the light given to me and if I had mis-read his will, and the days ordained for me were up before I had done my life’s work, well then, okay. He is the Lord of my cells. I will trust him with cancer and my life and death as with everything else. As I said, “Okay, Lord, I’ll leave the date of my death up to you. You choose,” fear and anxiety drained out of me and I could think clearly.

Chemo? No way.

And, oh me of little faith, after researching natural ways to strengthen my immune system to neutralize cancer cells, I also—repeatedly– asked Jesus to reach out his mighty hands and zap any remaining cancer cells in my blood stream.

Do I believe in the efficacy of prayer for physical healing? That’s one of the frequent questions I’ve been asked as a blogger over the last five years. Of course, I do…just as I believe in the efficacy of any prayer. Physical healing is not a special subset of prayer; miracles occur here, as in any realm we pray for with faith.

I like to read the Gospels taking Jesus at his word. I like to read the Gospels as if Jesus is alive today, and can reach out his hand and heal me as he healed so many two thousand years ago.

I prayed as Jesus commanded with a mighty mustard seed of faith. So why act as if Jesus hadn’t heard me, couldn’t hear me, would meanly not hear me, and take toxic drugs too? What’s the point of praying, and then acting as if God surely has not heard your prayers?

* * *

At my check-up on June 19^th, the colonoscopy, blood tests and chest/abdomen/pelvis scan showed no evidence of disease.

In her documentary, “Crazy, Sexy Cancer,” cute presenter Kris Carr says, “I would not call cancer a gift because I would not give it to you, but for me, it has been a gift.”

I would echo that.

I feel like one who has crossed over from death to life.

And I have, physically.

The Apostle John gives us a spiritual sign that we have crossed over from death to life…and it is not the absence of cancer cells. We know that have crossed over from death to life because we love one another, he says

Love, the spiritual gift before which eloquence or tongues, prophecy or scriptural insight, faith or generosity, count for nothing. For too a long a time in my Christian life, I have privileged these–effective prayer, faith, scriptural insight, prophetic gifting. I considered them my spiritual gifts.

I am coming like Christina Rossetti to believe that “all is small save love, for love is all in all.”

* * *

Oh, all sort of gifts came with crabby old cancer.

Living in the moment, free and bird-like. A remarkable diminution of worry. If I cannot control errant cells in my body but have to trust God with them, with the days of my life and the date of my death, why not trust him for everything else?

A freedom, a lightness came as I left my life, finances, career and death in God’s hands. I am practising not worrying about anything at all.

A wry coolness and lightness with whether I achieve my dreams or not.

A greater desire to write beautiful things that might last, things with some significance, that might actually bless people.

Momento Mori. Remembrance of Death. In the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the thoughtful placed a skull upon their desk as a reminder to focus because life was short and death was certain.

* * *

So here I am, back again. I spent some time deciding whether I wanted to be just a writer of books, or a blogger as well. In the end, I decided that blogging was a calling—yes, a ministry, my ministry–and that I should be faithful to it, so here I am. Back.

* * *

What sort of blogging will I do?

Honest blogging. Life is too short to be anything but honest, in one’s speech, one’s writing, and one’s relationships.

So I will blog honestly about where I am in my Pilgrim’s Progress.

Bunyan’s Pilgrim eventually reaches the Heavenly City. But while he staggers on his pilgrimage through the Slough of Despond, the Hill of Difficulty, Doubting Castle, and Vanity Fair, though he was such a very flawed character, he still had much to teach less-experienced pilgrims who had not yet encountered Giant Despair or Beelezub’s Castle, simply because he had transcended so many obstacles.

And so, though I would like my Christian story to be purely sheerly inspiring, I will tell it honestly to help such as I who struggle with the same temptations, the same spells in Doubting Castle, the same stumbles into the Slough of Despond, the same meanders into Vanity Fair.

Come and read?

Tweetables

I feel like one who has crossed over from death to life. From @anitamathias1

What’s the point of praying, and then acting as if God surely has not heard your prayers? From @anitamathias1

I prayed as Jesus commanded, So why act as if Jesus hadn’t heard, and take toxic drugs too? From @anitamathias1

“All is small save love, for love is all in all” New post from @anitamathias1

“He is the Lord of my cells.” New post from @anitamathias1

In which the Afflicted are Comforted in Ways We Cannot Guess (In Memory of Kayla Mueller)

By Anita Mathias

Kayla Mueller, an idealistic young American aid worker, was captured by the brutal soldiers of ISIS in 2013. She died 2 years later, images of her bruised face and white-shrouded body released to her parents.

Her fate would echo most people’s categories of the worst thing in the world, as in Orwell’s 1984. There are news reports that she was given as a bride to an ISIS fighter.

* * *

The horror, the horror!–one might say with Conrad’s Kurtz in the Heart of Darkness

But that is not how Kayla experienced it.

Here is what she wrote to her family

“I have felt tenderly cradled in freefall. I have been shown in darkness, light. I learned that even in prison, one can be free. In every sense of the word, I have surrendered myself to our Creator.”
* * *

My heart, my spirit, my vivid imagination feels oppressed when I read of starvation, thirst, imprisonment, slavery, torture, Christian Ethiopians imprisoned for their faith in shipping containers, oh Jesus…the substance of nightmares.

But here was Kayla, comforted, tenderly cradled in freefall; shown in darkness, light; learning that even in prison, one can be free, surrendering herself to God in every sense of the word.

“What is essential is invisible to the eye:” Antoine St-Exupery wrote.

* * *

C. S. Lewis’s Aslan says that we are only told our own story, not anyone else’s.

Because happiness and peace or misery and torment are internal things, and no one can judge another’s joy or grief.

I am thinking of the slave Hagar in Genesis who ran away from her bullying mistress, Sarah.

In the desert Hagar saw God. And God saw her. He spoke to her, comforted her, and made her a secret promise. She goes back, apparently defeated. But only apparently. She has had secret spiritual experience Sarah could never have guessed at. She has seen God; He has comforted her; He has promised her descendants a future and a hope. The way Christ looked at Hagar was obviously so monumental an experience that that became her name for God—“ Lahai Roi. You are the one who sees me.” She is content to return to slavery and abuse because “I have now seen the One who sees me.”

This world!! Americans are so oppressed by their stuff that blogs telling them to buy fewer things are hugely popular. Meanwhile, in Africa, people have so little, and get almost nothing for free, that they make multiple uses of free mosquito nets soaked in toxic chemicals to the detriment of their own health and the environment. They suffer the effects of poverty—hunger, disease, early death, lack of access to opportunity.

And yet everyone who returns from Africa or Asia comments on the big smiles of everyone they met.

* * *

What can be done must be done for the wretched of the earth, in Camus’s phrase.

However, as we trust God’s love in our afflictions, we must trust God’s love in the afflictions of others.

We do not know their stories as Aslan says; we do not know their secret encounters with God; the way he comforts him; the tenderness with which he looks at them; what he promises them in this life, or beyond.

We do not have as many hands as a peacock has eyes. None of us cannot solve all this cracked world’s problems. However, as I type, perhaps the Lord is revealing himself to someone in the misery of solitary confinement. Perhaps he is changing their hearts, changing their perspective. Perhaps he is teaching them that even in prison one can be free, as he taught the former Prime Minster of Ethiopia Tamirat Layne, as he taught Starr Daily, as he taught Kayla Mueller.

Perhaps God comforts them as he comforts me in my darkest moments. Perhaps he is to them as he was to Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Father and fondler of heart Thou has wrung

Hast thy dark descending and most are merciful then,

On Cancer, Suffering, and the Cloud of Unknowing

By Anita Mathias

My father once read me a terrifying Greek myth about the giant Procrustes. Everyone who visited Procrustes fit perfectly into his bed.

When a guest was too tall, he cut their legs off. When they were too short, he “stretched” them till they fit.

It was a one-size-fits-all bed.

* * *

Procrustean theology adjusts reality, stretches or shrinks it, until it matches one’s preconceptions.

It is particularly applied to suffering. “Everything works out for good,” Romans 8.28, people sometimes glibly say to those who are suffering.

Voltaire satirises this belief in Candide, which I read in my twenties. Candide endures an improbable series of terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad adventures with his tutor Dr. Pangloss who believes that “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds” Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes. (Blithe optimism is finally battered out of them. Their eventual resolution would have pleased the author of Ecclesiastes. “We must cultivate our garden.”)

In a world in which Christians are reportedly beheaded by ISIS if they do not convert, and believers die from starvation or persecution, I cannot blithely say, “Everything works out for good.”

I would say instead, “God can make anything work out for good, because God is infinitely creative.”

* * *

Keats (once my favourite poet, now displaced by Gerald Manley Hopkins) praises “negative capability,” the capacity of tolerating “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

Negative capability does not come naturally to me. I prefer things clear and simple. Come on, I joined Mother Teresa to become a nun aged 17, having finished school early. At Mother Teresa’s, life was clear and simple. You were told what to think, what God’s will was (obeying your superiors, and the rule) and wasn’t; what was truth and what wasn’t.

Ah, freedom from the responsibility to think. Until one started questioning the rules, and discovered that if you agreed with their wisdom and necessity, you couldn’t keep them.

(That is always the problem with the law.)

* * *

When, three weeks ago, I walked in alone out of the sunshine to the shadowy sixth floor Day Surgery Unit at the Churchill Hospital, it was like walking into Hades. I knew I would be wheeled out, unconscious. I considered running away, but the only alternative to surgery was aggressive chemotherapy or death, and the surgeon said surgery was the best alternative.

And anyway, I didn’t have the strength to run which sort of settled the question.

* * *

And now I live in negative capability, dwell in “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”

“Behind a frowning providence/ He hides a smiling face.” Does he really? I have thought as I turned over in bed in extreme pain from the surgical incision, unable to concentrate on reading or writing.

I thought of Milton. All he wanted to do from his teens onward was write something beautiful. He went blind in his forties, unable to write unless his sullen daughters transcribed his words

And that one Talent which is death to hide,

Lodg’d with me, useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker

Why did God let me develop a malignant polyp? I don’t know.

Will good come out of all these days in hospitals and nights in pain? I don’t know, though, of course, such an intense, intense experience stretches and changes you. It has forced me to learn to think positively to keep my spirits and energy high, and to pray, pray, pray, particularly because I am often too weak to do anything else.

Will good come out of my cancer diagnosis? I don’t know, though I expect so.

Will I die? Eventually, yes, though probably not of cancer, and not just yet.

And so I remain in negative capability, an eagle on the cliff waiting for the storm to pass, with more questions than answers, lingering in uncertainties, difficulty, doubt without any irritable reaching after fact or reason.

* * *

I love the Hegelian dialectic of the Psalms, their movement from unhappiness to acceptance to peace.

Why are you sad, oh my soul? David asks (Ps 43).

My soul was sad because I have had a malignant tumour.

My soul was sad because my surgical wound is infected

My soul was sad because I am physically tired.

My soul was sad because even my intellectual energy is limited.

My soul was sad because I do not know if the cancer has gone for good, though the doctors say that, as far as they know, they have removed it all.

My soul was sad because of this great interruption.

My soul was sad because I put off going in for a digital rectal exam and now I have had fifty shades of pain—surgical incisions and their infections; canulas, catheter removal, drainage tube removal, injected rectal dye for CT scans, daily anti-DVT injections, blood work, wound dressings…

* * *

David had many more reasons to be sad—hunger, thirst, betrayal, a bloodthirsty king, an army hunting him, parents who did not esteem him.

He listed the reasons he was sad, and then by an act of intellect and character decided to snap out of it

Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Saviour and my God.

And so I will. And so I have.

I will no longer be sad because I am a different person now than I was.

I will no longer be sad because I have a 60% chance of being alive in 5 years (70% if I take preventative chemo) and, oh, will I use those years well!

I will no longer be sad because there is nothing like the presence of death on the horizon to make you feel fully alive and joyful.

I will no longer be sad because having to make five year plans will ensure I use my time well

I am no longer sad because…well, I am just not. I have experienced peace, and joy and the presence of God over this month of being very tired indeed. (Believe it or not!)

* * *

When I went to boarding school, aged nine, St. Mary’s Convent, Nainital in the Himalayas, then run by German and British missionary nuns, I was dismayed to find breakfast was buttered white bread and either fruit or egg.

The only way one could get hot buttered toast sprinkled with sugar was to be sick and sent to the infirmary. I shocked everyone by saying I wanted to get sick.

Well, I was sick just once in eight years, aged 12, and on that occasion I refused to go to the infirmary.

I kept chanting, “I am as fit as a fiddle. I am as fit as a fiddle,” until Sister Josephine, my Irish class teacher said, “If I hear you say that once again, I will smack you.”

When she calmed down, she realised I was refusing because she read us a chapter from The Hound of the Baskervilles on the last half hour of every Friday, and I did not want to miss it.

So she promised to come to the infirmary and read it to me and I went.

* * *

The middle of The Hound of the Baskervilles is very exciting. The phantom Hound of the Baskervilles, with menacing gleaming eyes haunts Dartmoor. It is the curse of the Baskervilles.

At the end, all is revealed, it was human greed, cunning and villainy, nothing spectral or supernatural.

Even if we are Sherlock, we cannot work out what’s going on when we are in the middle of the plot.

But you know, I believe it will be a good story, because I truly believe that God loves me, and that he is a very good writer indeed.

God’s weaving, God’s weaving my suffering into something beautiful, but I am in the middle of the story, and I cannot understand what he is doing.

But, you know, I trust him anyway.

Oh, Let it All End in Worship

By Anita Mathias

Jacob’s Dream by William Blake

And Jacob worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff (Gen. 47:31).

And so it ends, Jacob’s long busy life of intrigue and wrestling.

Ever has he schemed, manipulated and deceived to get the blessings which God intended to give him even before he was born (Gen 25:23).

And his intrigues backfire–disastrously. Quite possibly, they slow down the destiny God had always intended for him. Again and again–as a consequence of his deceitfulness, and his attempts to look after himself–he’s on the road, in flight from Esau, from Laban, from Esau again.

Exploiting Esau’s desperate hunger, he demands his inheritance in exchange for a bowl of lentils. Esau now hates him. Exploiting his blind father, he pretends to be Esau, stealing his blessing. Now Esau’s resolved to murder him and Jacob’s on the road (Gen. 27:41). Never again will he see the mother who adored him.

He flees to a father-in-law fully as deceitful as he was himself. Works seven years to be given a near-sighted bride he never wanted. Has his wages changed seven times. Still, he attempts to look after himself, and does get the better of Laban with his selective breeding. And consequently has to flee again by night. His beloved Rebecca steals her father’s household Gods without Jacob’s knowledge, and dies, falling victim to his rashly invoked curse (Gen 31:32).

As he had deceived his old father, his sons deceive him, breaking his heart with their fabricated account of Joseph’s death. He lives twenty years without his favourite, gifted son. He deceived and was deceived by his three generations of his family. Deceit warps one’s character; the deceivers of the world then practice their evil arts on you without compunction.

On the night before his dreaded meeting with Esau, Jacob wrestles in the darkness with a man by the Jabbok River, who unable to overpower him, casually disables him. Sensing the divine, Jacob declares, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

He is blessed.

After that crippling encounter, after he learned his limits, after he sees God, Jacob becomes passive. He gives up his trickiness and scheming, and comes to the end of his life with no more intrigues, no more wrestling. He is now a jellyfish in the stream of God’s will, and God, in painful contorted ways, positions his family smack-dab in the stream of salvation history. Joseph’s son will save his family from famine, will help them become a multitudinous people, and they will return to Canaan with the wealth of the Egyptians.

* * *

And that long life of wrestling with God and man, all ends well after all. It all ends in worship.

“And Jacob worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff.”

It ended well because of the mercy of God.

Because what Jacob wanted more than anything was God’s blessing.

Because he had eyes to see the thin veil between the worlds, the ladder between heaven and earth with angels ascending and descending on it. The angels were there all along. It took quiet and spiritual eyes to see them.

Because he had eyes to see that man in the darkness was God. God was there in the darkness for anyone to see; Jacob had the holy night vision to see him.

Because realising that the most precious in life was God’s blessing, he refused to let God go unless he was blessed, even if the cost of that blessing was a limp, a somatic memory of that divine encounter.

God blessed him because Jacob asked him to, because Jacob demanded that he did so, because Jacob would settle for nothing less than God’s blessing, because he physically refused to let him go until he blessed him. As God would have blessed anyone who pursued him with the intensity that Jacob did.

And so it all ends in blessing. It all ends in worship.

* * *

The irony in Joseph’s story is that God had always intended to bless him. And if he had waited for God, not taking advantage of Esau, not deceiving Isaac, not seizing an advantage over Laban, God would have still blessed him. Almost certainly sooner.

Because God sovereignly chose Jacob seeing in him the toughness, the pertinacity, the God-hunger to be a father of our faith.

He had the character of a man of destiny, a man God could use. Eager, hard-working, imaginative, enterprising, thinking out of the box, with eyes to see the spiritual world, to see angels and God himself as only the seers do.

God honoured Jacob’s numinous sense of God’s sovereignty, his sense that what was really important in life was that one operate under God’s blessing.

* * *

Oh may it be so for me at the end, after all the excitement and all the grief; the things I succeeded at and the things I failed at; the things I am proud of and the things I cringe at; the relationships which have endured and the relationships which have crumbled; the times I refused to speak to God and the times I spoke to him all the time; when the evening comes and the sun goes down, may I like Jacob, lean on my staff and worship.

Yes, let it all end like this, in worship: I worship you. I worship you because you made me. I worship you because you are infinite, and I love to lose myself in you. I worship you because you are the sea into which I run and sink, tonight and every night, and there I shall find peace, a drop lost in your sea.

Oh at the day’s end, at my life’s end, let it all return to singing

Let it all return to worship.

Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

anita.mathias