The Restory Retreat Centre

How Does Trust Develop? “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life .....” ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭23‬:‭6‬ ‭NIV                      The Conversation Elements From The Conversation Music Often, the first step is the most important and the most difficult. With our love.  How often is the love we experience from each other the love we experience from God? Human love is quite important, it seems. George & Matilda

  Control   The Conversation Elements From The Conversation Music In our attempts to control everything, including God, and place it in predictable boxes and compartments, we lose far more than we gain. Our lives do not become as safe as we had hoped. It becomes sterile. A blessing originally written by Ruth Fox for students receiving degrees at Dickinson State University in America.  May God bless you with Discontent with easy answers, half-truths, superficial relationships, so that you will live from deep within your heart. May God bless you with Anger at injustice, oppression, abuse, and exploitation of people, so that you will work for justice, equality, and peace. May God bless you with Tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you will reach out your hand to comfort them and to change their pain to joy. May God bless you with the Foolishness to think you can make a difference in this world, so that you will do the things wh...

    To Let Go The Conversation  Elements From The Conversation  Music Often, when we loosen our grip and let go, we fall into something much bigger than our own making. You lose your grip, and then you slip Into the masterpiece                                                                         From:   "A Thousand Kisses Deep" "Everybody eventually comes to the conclusion that things are not unfolding exactly the way they wanted, and that the whole enterprise has a basis that you can’t penetrate. Nevertheless, you live your life as if it’s real. But with the understanding: it’s only a thousand kisses deep, that is, with that deep intuitive understanding that this is unfolding according to a pattern that you simply cannot discern.”            ...

"Sometimes your life comes into focus one frame at a time."                                                                                         From the movie The Majestic Acts 8 has always fascinated me. That part that tells of the turn of events immediately following the death of Stephen, with a young Saul standing and watching to the side, holding the coats of those busy throwing stones. After that tragic event the young church scatters all over the Roman Empire and one of the late Stephen’s companions, Philip ends up in a Samaritan city. The Samaritans, despised by the Jews and low down on the social ladder, are very receptive to Philip’s message. To such an extent that the church leaders in Jerusalem come down to witness this success story ...

Falling Bird by Rose Bleckner "This is what the things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness.  Even a bird has to do that before he can fly."                                                                                                      - Rainer Maria Rilke

My soul has expensive taste, sometimes. This confuses me as I strongly believe, in trying to live consciously, that simplicity is an important principle to steer by. This goes hand in hand with incorporating periods of silence, living creatively and being nourished by what Nature offers us. We all know, of course, that if simplicity in food implies that it be fresh, organic and not chemically tampered with, it is not come by cheaply or easily. Quite the contrary! And that might explain things. Living with simplicity does not mean living a deprived or lowly life.      I once bought a book because it was beautiful. What made the purchase extraordinary is that it was newly published and I paid the full price for it in a book store that is generally overpriced. I hardly ever allow myself such luxuries, always veering towards second-hand book stores or at best the tables beneath the  SPECIAL OFFER!   poster. I'll convince myself that the plain skirt at the wint...