George and Matilda Angus, your retreat hosts, with Tafelkop as backdrop
George Angus
When people ask me what it is that I do, I have difficulty answering them.
By profession I’m a minister of religion, by occupation a farmer, carpenter, translator, restorer, toolmaker, machine designer and developer, pastor, fitter and turner, writer, spiritual director, counsellor, motor mechanic, cook, research assistant. With all these things that I can remember I’ve earned a living and kept body and soul together.
I can relate very strongly with Thoreau who described himself as “an inspector of rain storms and snow storms”. It would have been the easiest for me to say that I am a great admirer and observer of the world we live in and I have this longing to share my discoveries and passion with others. That confuses people though, because they are usually looking for an occupation with a definite name or title. So I tell them that I have an engineering workshop where I manufacture crimping wheels for companies that weave metal screens. That puts them at ease. If they wanted to remain that peaceful in their image of me, the ideal would be for us to end the conversation then and there, because by carrying on we somehow get to the other stuff that I’ve done or are currently doing. Then we are back to square one.
On forms, under Occupation, I usually fill in “Manufacturer”. Somehow, I never find that satisfactory. I like the term “Maker” more, because it is broad and wide enough to cover all my occupational bases. It is at this point however, that the confusion usually sets in and besides, to most people “Maker” doesn’t sound like a real job.
Maybe it would be better to ask: “Who is George?”
I am the eldest of three children. I have a brother and a sister. I stumbled onto the words best describing the impact that live has on me and how I relate to the world, relatively late in life. In my discovery of Ignatian spirituality I also heard the phrase “God in all things” and how one lives your life out of that knowing. I found the key that brought a great peace over me amidst all my loves and interests. I live with Matilda on the farm Tafelkop near Wakkerstroom, Mpumalanga. I love walking with the dogs, is passionate about reading, movies, history, winter, the Karoo and travelling, manufacture all kinds of things in my wood and metal workshop, see people for spiritual direction and facilitate retreats. My soft spot is Matilda with whom I share my love for all these things and especially my love for writing and books. Amid all of this the conviction grows by the day that silence is of utmost importance to get to know ourselves better and to listen to God.
This is an answer that I can live with.
Matilda Angus
My life journey shows a lot of similarities to the one George has travelled.
As the eldest of four children, I have an exaggerated sense of responsibility and right and wrong. With a variety of occupations which provided me – each in its own time – with some degree of identity. An answer to the question: “What do you do?” I am the mother of three children, was a programmer, accountant, motivational speaker at camps held for women, in the forefront of a big women’s organisation and at church.
I rarely gave my soul a chance to speak when I had to make important life choices. My head ruled the roost, especially after my heart had been broken the first time!
But ever since I was little, I have been aware of an overpowering urge to create. To create out of basic raw material, like clay or cotton, wool or flour, something that is beautiful or tasty or useful.
I was born an artist, but it took me the best part of half a century to live it. My formal training in mathematics comes in very handy when I try to pretend that I understand matric maths!
Along with my creative awakening, on a deep level I became aware of a void — the yearning for more.
The past ten years took me on a quest where life, through people and books and experiences, convinced me of one thing – and ironically, this may sound like an algebraic equation: We are created with senses to experience the world and life to the fullest. And we are created to be in a relationship with God. My deduction is that I must and can get to know God in this world with this body and these senses.
The phrase that George quoted from Ignatian spirituality is my greatest hope and comfort as well. God is to be found everywhere and in everything.
It is increasingly becoming an adventure where I learn to let the deeper voice within me be heard through my art and writing. I agree more and more with Julia Cameron who says that we are mere channels. Or as Richard Rohr puts it: We are always and forever the conduits, the instruments, the tuning forks, the receiver stations. Keeping this in mind, relaxes me because I do not have to try so hard to be good.
I feel life has equipped me to walk alongside women on a path where we reclaim our inherent feminine potential. In all probability while also restoring and healing Mother Earth in the process!
My loves are the things in which I can revel with my senses: colour and fragrance and texture, sounds and tastes. I love to take pictures, to read, to walk, to travel. To work in my studio on a sculpture or to throw a pot on the wheel. To write.
I find my inspiration in nature and poetry, especially that of Emily Dickinson, Mary Oliver, Gerard Manley Hopkins. My muse and my mirror is George.
I grow increasingly fonder of what I see.