Dailies: What is a Saint?

Richard Whincop - Finest Hour (Oil on Panel)

What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the existence of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.

Leonard Cohen: Beautiful Losers

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Whistle while you work

Drawing by Ron Leishman When last did you whistle while working? When last did you hear someone else whistle while working? Somehow it bothers me that whistling has become an almost absent element in our work. The sound of a person whistling a tune while busy somewhere in the house or out in the workshop conveys something of an underlying happiness, satisfaction and contentment. An enjoyment of the work itself. The tune need not be flawless. Applying more air than sound won’t lead to disqualification, as long as the intention is there. Whistling can even be replaced by singing in all that I’ve said up to now. The same principles apply. The absence of any of these two activities bothers me because it says something about us doing the work and the type of work that we do. Can it be that our type of labour in this 21 st century is not conducive to either whistling or singing? What type of work is that then – draining, stressful, pressured? Or are our conclusions ...

Lessons in Sunbirdish (1)

I have no way of proving that God exists. For a long, long time I believed because I didn't think I had a choice. If it is a choice between heaven and hell, you do what it takes to secure your celestial seat. Somehow I never stopped to consider why I so strongly believed in a heaven and hell, but wasn't nearly as sure that there's a God holding the keys to them. Then the sunbirds came. Slowly but surely I am being taught the dialect I need to converse with God. Or rather, to follow on what seems to be a trail that God leaves me. Being just up ahead and beckoning me all the while, it's not a chase after or a search for God, but rather a joint venture with God scouting and reporting back when my spirit runs low on this journey through life. In A Rare Find and Bird on my window sill I touched on synchronicity. I have come to believe that consciously living our moments, awakens us to the fact that there are more things in this life than meet the eyeball. Things t...

A likely Hero: Jara Cimrman

As Matilda has already indicated, one of the most difficult things to do after you’ve visited a country is to return and convey something of what you’ve experienced. How do you show a city’s many faces, introduce its inhabitants? How do you tell of the effects a history has on people and of a stance towards life that can actually not be translated into words? In the case of Prague, it is very helpful to have someone like Jara Cimrman. ~ ~ v ~ ~ Petrin Hill, on the left bank of the river Vltava running through Prague, is in many ways a site worth visiting. Climbing the 299 steps of the Petrin Tower, inspired by the Eiffel Tower, gives you one of the most beautiful views of the city. But by going down into its basement, you enter into the psyche of the Czech people. Here, quite unobtrusively, is the museum for the “ Genius, who has not become famous ”. Matilda and I almost stumbled onto it by chance and as we went through the exhibition, our amazement over this brilliant ...

The Restory Retreat Centre

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