The Restory Retreat Centre

What The Mystics Know 5) Heaven on earth For in him we live and move and have our being... ‭‭Acts‬ ‭17‬:‭28‬ ‭NRSV‬‬                               Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said,  “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it! ..... and this is the gate of heaven.” ‭‭Genesis‬ ‭28‬:‭16‬-‭17‬ ‭NRSV‬‬                    “.....because the Kingdom of God is within you.” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭17‬:‭21‬ ‭GNT‬‬                                The Conversation Elements From The Conversation "....die ganse dag is ene God." (....the whole day is all God) Jan Swanepoel                                               "...hy weet nie van afsondering nie sit nie skilderagtig geraa...

House of Parliament, Sunset (1900, 1901) - Claude Monet (Claude Monet, the French impressionist painter developed cataracts as he aged, but refused to have them surgically removed.) Monet Refuses the Operation Doctor, you say there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me all my life to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels, to soften and blur and finally banish the edges you regret I don’t see, to learn that the line I called the horizon does not exist and sky and water, so long apart, are the same state of being. Fifty-four years before I could see Rouen cathedral is built of parallel shafts of sun, and now you want to restore my youthful errors: fixed notions of top and bottom, the illusion of three-dimensional space, wisteria separate from the bridge it covers. What can I say to convince you the Houses of Parliament dissolve night after night to become the fluid dream of...

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."                   ...

My father on his 78th birthday A well kept body doesn't die easily. Even if its inhabitant wants to. My father turned 78 on the 7th of March. In all his life, he had never smoked, hardly took any alcohol, worked physically hard as an electrician and was morally a saint.      He has been suffering from a severe depression for the past ten years since my mother's death. Her fight against cancer lasted almost twelve years.In all probability, looking back, my father may have been suffering from depression since his father walked out on the family when he was only three years old. Back in 1939, divorce was the exception to the rule. My grandmother managed to raise three children by sheer will fuelled by bitterness that kept her going right up till her death at the age of 84.      All through our childhood years we suffered the consequences of my father's dysfunctional upbringing. He tried his best, I'm sure, but he wasn't equipped for fatherhood and lacked ...

Photograph by Kris Vanderveken To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.                                                                       ...

  Google ain’t good. Let me rephrase: Google is too good. For someone like me, it is like entering a candy store. So much to discover, to investigate, look at, listen to. I get so absorbed that time and part of life pass me by. I have to be very disciplined in using the good tool.      But think about it: you read a book. Something draws your attention. You Google it. Wholah! A totally new dimension opens up. That’s how I came across the beautiful website/blog of Lori Erickson, Spiritual Travels. Practical advice for soulful journeys. Where she writes:       In the middle of downtown Louisville, Kentucky, there stands a most unusual bronze plaque. Usually such markers commemorate a battle, political figure, or some natural or historical feature, but the one on the street corner in Louisville marks a mystical experience — one that happened to the monk Thomas Merton on March 18, 1958:      “In Louisville, at the corner...