God in all things

I’m musing over something that just gently happened. To the extent that it seems as if it only waited to happen. It relates very closely with my thoughts in “A life integrated” and “Gateway to heaven” that I wrote earlier.

When we started with our newsletter last year, we did it mainly to write about The Restory at Rietfontein, life on the farm, quiet days and the influence of ordinary life on our spirituality. Those matters remain the basic elements for most of the entries on our blog, the latter flowing gradually out of the newsletters. Hence the name Restory News.

But we also write about more than Rietfontein and The Restory as such. We wrote on our experiences in Prague. There are pieces on sculptures, a striking quote and curios. From time to time we have poems and prayers. Our photos cover a variety of subjects. Yet, although our contributions do not always relate directly to The Restory, we do not feel in the slightest that we are disloyal to our initial intentions. On the contrary, it seems like a very natural development that was bound to happen if we are to take this journey seriously.

The Restory is our basis that underlines the centrality of quiet and attentive conscious living in our spirituality. From this hub we venture out in all directions and experience life in all its dimensions. We discover the meaning, the nuts and bolts of Ignatian spirituality’s “God in all things”. That involvement of God in all facets of live can be so subtle, gentle, mysterious, subversive and even unorthodox that the words used in describing something of that involvement may even sound “worldly” or “unreligious” at times. In the tradition of the book Esther in the Bible, it may be that we write an entire piece about God, his influence and involvement, without naming him once. But being totally aware of his all encompassing presence.

In similar vein, we may discover that in certain instances the only way to reach the depth and magnitude of something that is beyond mere words is to tell its story. Or a story. Jara Cimrman and A start are cases in point.

As in nature with its constant outward and inward movements, its ebb and flow, we return constantly to the silence, The Restory, to meditate and integrate the experiences of life. To listen to the often still, small voice of God on the matters experienced.

Our spirituality reflects God’s love for the created world in all its dimensions and the fact that there is no division between the sacred and the secular. In essence everything is holy.

In his foreword to Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat’s beautiful book Spiritual Literacy, Thomas Moore formulates it so well: “It’s odd that after thousands of years of great spiritual example and literature we have to remind ourselves that spirituality is to be found in everyday life….. I would go so far as to say that a spirituality that doesn’t touch every single aspect of daily, personal and commercial life is bogus.”

So, in The Restory News we write on all possible things. We write about God. There are things waiting on us to do just that.

Everything is Waiting for You

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

 David Whyte

George