We’ve just completed the first
unit of our Living School program. Not the easiest of entries I might say. It’s
like learning a new language while reading St Bonaventure (1259), The Cloud of
Unknowing (late 1300’s) and Teresa of Avila (1577).
“It sounds quite boring” you
might think. “Being busy with all that old stuff of ancient dead people long
forgotten. Their thoughts and words are of no use for us living in the 21st
century; merely the eccentric interest of a few nerds busy naval gazing. There
are such a large number of recent exciting authors and books. Why not stick to
them? ”
I am totally with you on the
exciting recent authors and publications. But we are only now discovering the
value of the long dead and buried for our survival and for daily living. I
experienced it in a very concrete manner again this past week.
My brother-in-law William, a
budding bee keeper, earlier this year, placed two bee hives close to our
vegetable patch. The bees’ presence and constant activity have given us much
joy, but recently we realised that the hives have to be moved. They are located in a spot where we want to start our little orchard and African bees
tend to be unpredictable and dangerous especially when disturbed.
So, last weekend William brought
two protective suits and head gear and Saturday night we moved the hives a few
hundred metres away and harvested the spring honey. On Sunday morning we awoke
to a yard in mayhem. Some of the bees were totally disoriented and had returned to
their previous location behind the milk shed. Not finding
anything there they got more confused and upset. The cows got stung and fled in
all directions and a horse about to be mounted by an early morning herdsman
panicked, broke loose and thundered off with the stirrups flying at his sides.
William was quite concerned and thought it wise to leave the one suit here,
just to be on the safe side.
Gradually everything quieted
down, but the whole week we’ve kept an eye open for any suspicious activities
on the bees’ side. It was only on Thursday that we felt it safe for
Skhumbuzo to cut the lawn close to their new location. He started very early,
just before I left for deliveries at the neighbours. On my return I arrived on
the scene of “The Martians have landed”. The bees got more active just after
I’ve left and Sebastien thought it wise to don the nervous Skhumbuzo in the
full beekeeper’s outfit William has left. So here we had this strange figure
pushing the lawnmower up and down our front lawn with not much of a bee in
sight.
He was just about finished when
he came to call me in the workshop. A mountain adder was making his way across
the freshly cut lawn towards the flower bed next to the front door. I fetched
my catching stick and a bucket in the workshop and with Skhumbuzo maintaining a
very safe distance in his white suit, caught the snake. I carried it quite a
distance into the veldt and released it among some rocks.
Now what on earth do these two
incidents on a Thursday morning have to do with the Living School and ancient
authors? Everything.
I may not always realise it but every
decision I make and action I execute is influenced by my spirituality, my view
of God and my perception of my place in it all.
The easiest option on Thursday
would have been to quickly kill the snake. Mountain adders aren’t lethal but
they can cause a lot of discomfort. A little bit of culling can just be to our
advantage.
We could have asked William to
remove the bees totally. Now we have to make adjustments with them in mind and
it can be quite bothersome.
Right from the start we wanted to
live here at Barrowfield being considerate to nature and all the living creatures
and organisms we share this space with. (See Edms. Bpk.) We’ve always felt uncomfortable
with a stance where we are the centre around which everything else revolves, us
as the main frame of reference, our comfort as the highest goal especially if
it is to the detriment of other life forms and positive personal short term
results which actually means exploitation and harm of nature in the long run.
We won’t blame people if they
were to think that it all has a very New Age or Green Peace sound to it.
Unfortunately those are the groups that have become associated with care of the
environment and our planet. We Christians rather focused on our own salvation
and getting to heaven. Often our theologies and dogma even displayed an
animosity at its worst or a disregard and apathy at its best for the created
world we live in.
Matilda and I always found that
to be very sad as it displays in essence a misunderstanding of God’s
incarnation and love for the created world.
One of the corner stones in the
Living School program is non-dual consciousness. It is not a matter of us
against them, where “they” can be anything from other religions, race groups, people
with different sexual orientations, other denominations, natural phenomena and
creatures. The list is endless. And were these merely hypothetical examples it
would have been so much better, but now they are very sadly the very real objects
of so many Christian’s fear, intolerance, bigotry, prejudice, hate, animosity
and rejection. Often in the name of the gospel.
Non-dual
consciousness wants to awaken in us a deep appreciation for the “other” gospel
where we can be safe in the knowledge that we are held in the big Unity that is
God. In the words of Col 3:11, “As
a result, there is no longer any distinction between Gentiles and Jews,
circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarians, savages, slaves, and free, but
Christ is all, Christ is in all.”
We are not saying that because it
is the new flavour of the month, or zeitgeist.
We are saying that because it lies at the heart of the gospel and our Christian
tradition and we have unfortunately, through many historical factors, forgotten
and neglected it. For that reason we are taken back
to our roots in the Living School.
We need to once again hear
Bonaventure saying in the 1200’s, “Christ has something in common with all creatures. With the stone he shares
existence, with the plants he shares life, with the animals he shares
sensation, and with the angels he shares intelligence. Thus all things are
transformed in Christ since in the fullness of his nature he embraces some part
of every creature.”
So, Skhumbuzo
pushes the lawnmower in a bee-suit and I have a snake catcher because I read
old Christian books and believe in its new message.
George
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