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| Photo by Matilda Angus |
An update is long due on where we are on Adventure: Living School. (See The Living School and The road to Gaza).
We left off in The road to Gaza where we applied for
financial assistance for tuition at the Living School and were awaiting their
decision. We have made it out for ourselves that should we be awarded less than
100% it would be impossible for us to accept the invitation to be part of the
2016 intake.
Then the email arrived.
Matilda and George,
The scholarship committee met and
congratulations you have been awarded $3600 each in tuition assistance for the
Living School...Welcome to the
Living School.
All the Best,
Tom
100% Tuition assistance. For the both of us. We couldn't be more surprised. Then elated. Then scared. But we knew without a doubt that there was no turning back from this huge door that has swung open for us.
So here we are, filling in the online application forms for our American
visas and scouring airline websites for affordable air tickets to Albuquerque,
New Mexico.
We still feel as if we’re dreaming. It still feels rather
insane. But the marching orders remain.
A devoted friend lent us the money for this first trip. How
to repay the loan is still a mystery, but the retreats are picking up and slowly but surely we see that the small signal we are
sending out on the radar screen of Christian Spirituality is getting picked up
by people searching for something more.
We ask that you keep us and this venture in your prayers and
thoughts. Please also share our events and blog posts on social media as this
is a sure and free way to get publicity for The Restory and what we do here.
This is a rather scary place to be: this liminal space of
not knowing how and yet being so sure that we are on course. When I become quiet
during contemplation, I feel a great calm. But mostly I’m all over the
place, scattered and struggling to set priorities and not let any of the balls
we are juggling fall.
We need to hang on to what brought us here, and how we were brought here and especially WHY we were brought here. Time and
again I bring myself back to the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. The Spirit inside of Philip was urging him on into an adventure that seemed ridiculous. But the magnitude of the message of love he had to offer, was greater than his ego's idea of what made common sense.
In August 2013, in the process of moving to Barrowfield to start The Restory, George wrote the following in the post Taking a chance?
But there is something else. I don’t want to call it faith for it somehow places the focus too much on us. It is something much bigger than us. It is not so much a driving force as a calling force. That same living, loving force that infuses all of life. The Force who loves to see us taking chances living. Sometimes we are scared, but we are alive scared, shouting at the top of our voices as we swing far and wide over the water.
We would so love, in the steps of the loving Force, to see people being fully alive, discovering what has always been inside them, exploring their endless possibilities and gifts. We would love to see that in our fathers, our family members and friends, in the people who cross our path in wonderful ways. We want to create a most beautiful space to help them in whatever way we can to come alive.
More than ever we believe the key to be the living of a contemplative life. More and more this belief is confirmed as the road is being cleared for us one step at a time. The Living School will give us a solid grounding like no other to lead people into this adventure of becoming fully alive.
How can we not take this unbelievable chance?
Matilda
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