The Restory Retreat Centre

Sometimes life asks the impossible of us: like packing up and moving from a place where you have lived for many decades of your life; emigrating; losing a life partner to an early death, a loved one to suicide. Sometimes, as in the case of a very dear friend of mine, it asks that you accompany your eighteen year old son through the dark valleys of chemotherapy and radiation in a fight against cancer; or it asks that you be that young man fighting this battle. It is hard to stand at the edge of such a situation and to not really know how to help. We always feel that we should somehow make it better. We somehow feel that the difficult things should be put behind us as soon as possible, or be avoided at all costs. We feel that the situations life puts us in and where we suffer pain or hardship = wrong or even evil. We pray for deliverance, for healing, for the miracle that will make everything better. But all around us life is happening and it is messy. It is mostly hard. We wer...

Red-headed weaver Photo by Matilda We spent the weekend with old and new friends at a game breeder's lodge between Brits and Thabazimbi. It  is in the North West Province of South Africa and slap bang in what we call the bushveld. As children of Africa it takes quite a lot to amaze us. Impala, buffalo, gnu (wildebeest) and sables are nothing new to us, even though we might not have seen them more than once or twice in our lives. Even a lion's roar at night might irritate more than awe us when we wake up to it deep in the night. But an Egoli Gnu and a Midnight Impala, now that is something to cause a stir among us. These are line crossings and much sought after because they are so rare: a caramel coloured gnu with a golden mane and an impala that seems to be in the shade even though it is running in the full glare of the early morning sun,  those are subjects to talk about, blog about, and to try and capture on film.  My attempts at that failed miserably. I d...

Matthew Fox's book, Original Blessing, is a primer in Creation Spirituality. I came across this piece of wisdom in the section of the book that explores Path III, Befriending creativity, Befriending our divinity: The Via Creativa. I know from my own experience that this is the simple truth. Somehow, when I have clay on my hands, I come alive and feel connected to God. I feel no fear or insecurities when I'm immersed in the process of creating something. Matthew Fox states it this way: What churches need to do now to renew self and society is to take spirituality seriously; this means taking art seriously. Not art for the sake of art; not art for the sake of making banners or teapots; not art for sale. But art as prayer, art as meditation. Only art as meditation allows one to let go of art as production a la capitalism and return to art as process, which is the spiritual experience that creativity is about. Only art as meditation reminds people so that they will never f...

When we started The Restory News as an e-mail newsletter in September 2011, we saw it as the taking root of a part of a dream we had. At that stage it was mainly the writing-about-it-part. The bigger dream that stimulated and still stimulates our writing, looks something like this: We want to promote conscious living, a life lived close to nature and the rhythms of the seasons, where you tap into your own creativity and apply it. It must be a quiet place where you get to know yourself, get in touch with that self and ultimately with God. “God in all things” must not be a mere concept but a guide to discovery, surprise and amazement – a way of life. Ultimately it is about tapping into the holy and the powerful that we believe is ever-present and waiting for us and not so much the creation of something new on our part. From experience we do not want to do something that requires over-complicated structures and ends up in a list of projects and activities that have to be main...

Liesbet Born: ?                   Arrived: 2 December 1999                Died: 5 January 2013 When I wrote about her on the blog in November 2011 in  Liesbet , I was already writing about this. But on the day, it remains difficult writing about this. She left the way she came – in a soft drizzle. Somehow it is a deep comfort to me. That was apparently her cue to enter and leave the stage of my life. For the last few days I knew the inevitable had to be done. With great difficulty she tried to follow me wherever I went, she ate her food lying down, she was just the image of frailty and age. By yesterday afternoon I realised it could no longer be postponed. The spot that I chose for her grave is under one of the big plane trees at the back of my house. It is cool and shady there. It also provided some...

Photo courtesy of Flickr Party van hulle steel. Ek is daarvan amper 100% seker. Tweemaal al, op 'n Woensdag, net mooi op die tyd as die vullislorrie verbykom, was daar al pogings om by my huis in te breek en het die alarm hulle verjaag. Ek was albei kere nie by die huis nie. Van toe af probeer ek wag tot die spulletjie verbygetrek het en ek my leë vullisdrom kan terugsleep agterplaas toe. Dan eers ry ek. Want hulle stuur verkenners, dink ek. Wat kyk wie is tuis en wie nie in 'n straat. Ek het die polisie ook van my vermoede gesê. Die konstabel het my met 'n belangelose "dit kan wees" getroos. Maar deesdae is die tye waarop hulle verbykom so random. Dan staak dit vir 'n week en bly die dromme tot oorlopens toe in gelid staan in die straat. En dan skielik hoor mens hulle elfuur in die nag in die straat afkom! Nou is dit net ‘n paar weke voor Kersfees. En stadigaan begin die straat stiller word. Ekstra versigtig wees, sê ek vir myself. Ons ...

Christ has no body now, but yours. No hands, no feet on earth, but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion into the world. Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which Christ blesses the world.                                  - St. Theresa of Avila