Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

In Which Zoe Believes Money-Dollars Grows on Trees

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Our toddler Zoe occasionally heard us talk about money when we lived in America.

She would prick up her ears, and say, “Money? Money-dollars? You want money? Here take!” and give us a handful of imaginary dollar bills.

We’d laugh.

But there was a truth to it.

It would be just as easy for God to resolve our dilemmas beautifully and effortlessly
if we had faith…
if we asked….
if it were in our best interests….

for sometimes our character has to develop too.

But we do need to believe that he can, he will, if we are to retain as light-hearted an approach to money as two year old Zoe.

In Which Zoe Says Her Favourite Place in the Whole World is Her Own Home

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Zoe and I go to conversation classes at the Alliance Francaise once a week. We were asked to describe our favourite place in the world. Everyone else said places like Switzerland, New Zealand, Venice, Costa Rica.

Zoe said, “Mon Maison. I love my house. I love my new conservatory. I love my garden. I love my rabbits. I love my dog. I love the ponds. I love the walks in our paddock.”

The entire class was charmed, even our brilliant and intellectual teacher, who even forget to scold her for using simple, rather complex or compound sentences.

In which Zoe gives Irene a shirt declaring “I am always right,” and Irene almost believes it

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Irene uses her beloved Ipod touch to email people, listen to countless books on tape, play scrabble and boggle, and get a word a day sent to her, which she memorizes.

She announced today that she is now officially cleverer than me because I didn’t know 5 of these obscure words! And because her birthday present from Zoe was a T-shirt which said, “I am always right.”

I am, alas, too old to make that claim.

Like is like Chess. As long as you have your King, you haven’t yet lost.

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It’s like Chess.  If you lose everything and have your King, you haven’t lost. But if you have everything, but lose your King, you have lost.                                                                                                  Zoe Mathias, aged 8

In Which Zoe Defines a Visionary

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A friend called me “a visionary.”
I was rather pleased.
Zoe, “But Jesus wasn’t a visionary.”

Me, “He was all that is good.”
Zoe, “No, he wasn’t a visionary. He just figured out what God wanted and did it. He let God be the visionary.”
And stormed off to bed before I could come up with a come-back.
Okay, so a revised definition of a visionary: someone who can figure out God’s visions for one’s life and projects and family and …. (which are guaranteed to be larger than ours)

Zoe’s very long walk!

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A very tired and bedraggled Zoe has returned from a 48 km. hike with her friends in the Forest of Dean. Well, it was meant to 48 km, but longer as they got lost. The Duke of Edinburgh expedition!
At times, all 7 of them, 15 year old girls, sat in a circle and cried because they were so lost, so tired, and so fed up of almost everyone else.
In retrospect, these times are reckoned a bonding experience!
Amusing, Zoe skipped into my room singing, “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning,” but after a few minutes of animation, limped out, and crashed!

Hiding the Evidence of a Crime!

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 I finally got fed up of waiting for Roy to do it and painted two rooms myself, in an amateurish way, staining my clothes, spilling paint, very uneven! But it was so satisfying.

I was insufferably pleased with myself. Roy said, “Well, if THAT’S painting, why do people charge so much for it?” 

But there’s no one right way to paint–or do anything else!

“It’s as if we’re hiding the evidence of a crime!”– Zoe’s comment as we tidy our house before friends visit!

Family Dinner, Chez Mathias

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We made a duck roast. Even as Roy was carving it, we were picking up delectable tidbits. Irene, “Don’t gallop the roast.”

I,” Do you mean gobble?”

Irene, “No, I mean gallop”.

Zoe, who’s doing GCSE history coursework says, “In Germany, at the time of Hitler, if you didn’t like what was happening, you didn’t join in–but you kept quiet. Or the Gestapo would come and cut off your head.”

A gleam in my my eyes. Irene suspiciously, ” You are not going to put this on your blog? OR FACEBOOK?” I chuckled. Irene, “If so, you should pay me 50 p. 
Zoe, “And they couldn’t bargain with Hitler either.”