wisdom | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

How Jesus Dealt With Hostility and Enemies

Anita Mathias — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 16:11:43 +0000

Christ Driving the Moneychangers from the Temple, 1626, Rembrandt It’s the Tuesday of the last week of Jesus’s life. He rampages through the commercialised temple, overturning the tables of moneychangers. He heals, he teaches; he’s hailed as […]

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Do Not Be Afraid–But Be as Wise as a Serpent

Anita Mathias — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 17:58:17 +0000

Today’s meditation is on not being afraid, but rather, acting with wisdom. Do not be afraid, the angel in the dream tells Joseph: Marry your fiancée, Mary, who is showing, despite your chaste restraint, for in our magical world, in which angels speak to humans, a virgin has conceived by the Spirit of God, as […]

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On being as wise as a serpent and as gentle as a dove

Anita Mathias — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 16:20:24 +0000

“I am sending you out as sheep among wolves,” Jesus says. You would imagine that a sheep among wolves would stand no chance at all. Not for a second! And that’s how Jesus sees us Christ-followers. As sheep among wolves. Yes, I have sometimes been a sheep among wolves…in toxic situations where I sense pretty […]

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Forgive, but Remember Graciously. With the Wisdom of a Serpent & Gentleness of a Dove

Anita Mathias — Mon, 26 May 2014 08:42:10 +0000

Woodcut by Gustave Dore I am reading through The Book of Genesis. Joseph’s ten older brothers hated him. Of course, they did. The favourite son with the ornamented robe, who told tales on them, to whom they bowed in their dreams–dreams they uneasily sensed were prescient. Eight brothers wanted to kill him. Reuben suggested throwing […]

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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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How to Evade a Trap. A Short Guide to Wisdom

Anita Mathias — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 21:32:45 +0000

Jesus was a truly extraordinary human being. I keep learning from him as I read through the Gospel of Matthew. Sometimes I am put on the spot, and asked a question, with hostile intent, by people who do not wish me well, and who, I sense, will use my words against me–people who are wolves […]

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To Be Wise on Social Media

Anita Mathias — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:54:56 +0000

We saw, yesterday, the surreal spectacle of the entire might of Boston Police Dept., hundreds of officers, hunting down Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a lone 19 year old teenager, whose murders and maimings at the Marathon and later were unquestionably evil. But I found myself thinking of a terrified fox, its heart bursting with […]

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