The Restory Retreat Centre

Notes from a different drummer Learning the unforced rhythms of grace Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.                                                               Henry David Thoreau Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."                   ...

Photograph by George Angus Isness is God.                                 Meister Eckhart ~ v ~ Our faith imposes on us a right and duty to throw ourselves into the things of the earth.                                                                 Teilhard de Chardin I am of the opinion that we do not take things seriously enough. Thing things – stoves, forks, pipe fittings, plugs, brushes, string, door handles, cloth – that type of thing. We use them, hoard them, discard them, forget them, ...

Sometimes life asks the impossible of us: like packing up and moving from a place where you have lived for many decades of your life; emigrating; losing a life partner to an early death, a loved one to suicide. Sometimes, as in the case of a very dear friend of mine, it asks that you accompany your eighteen year old son through the dark valleys of chemotherapy and radiation in a fight against cancer; or it asks that you be that young man fighting this battle. It is hard to stand at the edge of such a situation and to not really know how to help. We always feel that we should somehow make it better. We somehow feel that the difficult things should be put behind us as soon as possible, or be avoided at all costs. We feel that the situations life puts us in and where we suffer pain or hardship = wrong or even evil. We pray for deliverance, for healing, for the miracle that will make everything better. But all around us life is happening and it is messy. It is mostly hard. We wer...

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...