Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1953 to 1961, died in a plane crash while still in office. Widely praised and respected for the work he had done, h e is the only person to have been awarded a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize. After his death, a journal that he kept was found in his house. He referred to these entries “as a sort of a white book concerning my negotiations with myself – and with God.” The journal was published under the title Markings and in the years that followed became a spiritual classic. A remark by W.H. Auden in his foreword to Markings, haunts me lately. He said that Hammarskjöld’s journal is an account “of the attempt by a professional man of action to unite in one life the via activa and the via contemplativa .” For me, this phrase captures one of the central issues of the spiritual life. The attempt to unite in one life the way of action and the way of contemplation. Experience shows that we often tend to overemphasize one of ...
The Restory is a Retreat Centre nestled against Tafelkop, a singular mountain head near Wakkerstroom, South Africa. Here we live a simple life as contemplatives. It is a place of re-connection: with ourselves, people, Nature, Silence and Creativity. Our retreats are aimed at this. Our conversations, writing and art centre around the univocity of life. We need a place that reminds us that we are all one. The Restory hopes to be such a place and space.