The Restory Retreat Centre

Spirituality In Conversation With Stories The Conversation Reading John Cheever's short story Reunion . Elements From The Conversation ~ ❖ ~ A Jewish story: When the founder of Hasidic Judaism, the great Rabbi Israel Shem Tov, saw misfortune threatening the Jews, it was his custom to go to a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted. Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Maggid of Mezritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: “Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I’m still able to say the prayer,” and again the miracle would be accomplished. Still later, Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: “I do not know how to light the fire. I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and it must be suff...

Photograph by Frans Marais In about two weeks time we are having a high school reunion. I’ve been told that  even class mates  now living  and working in the USA have indicated that they are coming. I, on this side of the Atlantic, am standing on a Sunday afternoon in the door of the bathroom. I’m about to take my dad back to the retirement village after a visit over the weekend here on Barrowfield. There is tension between us. He blames me for the farm in Gauteng being sold and him being in the retirement village. We just cannot agree on his frailty and the adjustments we have to make when we get older. As if totally oblivious to our struggles with Oupa Frans and the sleepless night we had while he visited, he is upset because we did not spend any time in the workshop. I’m tired of trying to explain and having the same conversations over and over. I am not proud of the manner  in which I often cope with his fears. I am constantly confronted with my own...