The Restory Retreat Centre

Years ago, while still living in Gauteng, I told Matilda that my big wish is to live in a place where, when you switch off your bedroom light at night, it must be pitch dark. I do not want to see lights of any kind. Least of all security and flood lights. I am definitely not striving to be anachronistic, singing the praises of the Stone Age, but electric light in all its forms symbolizes for me a type of infiltration and colonization. In our human advances, we no longer plant flags when arriving on  terra nova , we switch on a light. On moving to Barrowfield my dream came true. The stars are bright and near, the Milky Way arching majestically overhead, everything wrapped in black velvet.  I felt spoilt, immensely privileged. The date my ideal world was shattered I cannot pinpoint exactly. But one night, on stepping out of the front door to check on the kiln in the pottery studio, a pinprick of light in the far-off distance, maybe 30 km away...

Photograph by George Angus “God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.”                                                                                          Meister Eckhart This past week we’ve started renovating the kitchen. It has been very hard work, ironically not so much renovating but taking down, breaking open, stripping. This morning I stand in the empty shell and look at all the patched cracks, the open rafters, all the wiring and pipes exposed and I ask Matilda: “Will it ever look better aga...

Notes from a different drummer Learning the unforced rhythms of grace I will give you treasures from dark, secret places;  then you will know that I am the LORD  and that the God of Israel has called you by name.                                                             Isaiah 45:3 (Good News Bible) The practical How . The notes from the drummer have reached your inner ear. You are waking up and gradually you realise something is being born. There is no reason for panic. But it can still be a very confusing experience. And it can be made all the more difficult if you are not introduced to some strange companions that will accompany you on the journey. You are sure to encounter them and should you not be told that they are to be expected, their presence can indeed lead to anxiety and fu...

Barrowfield night sky Photograph by Frans Marais On settling here at Barrowfield, there were quite a few boxes that were on our initial wish list that we could mark off: silence –check; nature –check; workshops – check; beauty – check; gardening – check; definite change of seasons - check. These were all elements that we regarded as important when we started searching for a place to establish The Restory. Often based more on instinct than knowledge, we knew these things to be important factors in helping people to get in touch with God, themselves and life in general. Nothing mind-blowing or extreme. Actually very simple, but also very basic to being human living on this earth. In the years preceding our eventual scouting and exploring I often talked to Matilda about another element on the wish list as well – darkness. I often said to her: “Wouldn’t it be nice to live somewhere that is absolutely dark when you switch off your light at night.” Once, on travelling at night fro...

It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you....                                                                                      Ps 139:12 (The Message) At this stage so many things happen all at once that I deliberately choose to only look right in front of me – there’s the sale of the farm, preparing my dad for the move to a retirement village, packing up the workshops at Rietfontein, getting the workshops up and running at our place in Wakkerstroom and moving everything down there, get everything in place to put Matilda’s house in Pretoria up for rent, the packing and moving of all our personal stuff, attend to the health of Matilda’s dad and determine whether we should find him other care facilities, get our house in Wakkerstroom to our liking and do some alt...

Photograph by Hanna Jacobs In the session I had with my spiritual director today, we touched on how unfathomably delicate God is weaving the tapestry of our lives. Being human it comes natural to assign huge value to our talents, abilities and our achievements. For the focus to be first and foremost on those aspects. And I want to say: “Thank you so much for all that.” But I am also deeply, deeply grateful for my darkness, my shadow as constant companion, my flawed self. To keep me in check? To prevent me from hubris ? No, it is not about shaming, or taming. It is not even about perspective. It is about what I find in the dark. To discover how God works with dark. My darkness. Somehow, in the darkness, I am getting a clearer image of His being.There, even my sin becomes grace. All that I know is that it takes a God to do that. If my devils are to leave me, I’m afraid my angels will take flight as well. Rainer Maria Rilke ~ o ~ Today (11/03/2013) I came acro...