The Restory Retreat Centre

Ceramic V-bowl with leaves by Matilda Angus Coffee table converted from old dining room table by George Angus "When you buy from an independent artist, you are buying more than just a painting [or vase, or chair]. You are buying hundreds of hours of experimentation and thousands of failures. You are buying days, weeks, months, years of frustration and moments of pure joy. You are buying nights of worry about paying the rent, having enough money to eat, having enough money to feed the children, the birds, the dog. You aren’t just buying a thing, you are buying a piece of heart, part of soul, a private moment in someone’s life. Most importantly, you are buying that artist more time to do something they are fully passionate about; something that makes all the above worth the fear and the doubt; something that puts the life into living.”                             ...

"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 ...

Photograph by George Angus “I am not saying that we should love death, but rather that we should love life so generously, without picking and choosing, that we automatically include it (life’s other half) in our love.”                                                                                    Rainer Maria Rilke I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God's people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ's love.  Yes, may you come to know his love - although it can never be fully known - and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.                                   ...

Matilda and I discovered contemplative spirituality, as an element of the age-old Christian mystical tradition, in our middle ages. “Discover” is probably not the right word. We grew into it, it grew on and in us, through our reading we were gently and graciously guided and called into it, our religious disillusionments and disappointments and the longing for the more led us to it, very difficult periods in our lives and emotional crisis prepared us for it and almost made it inevitable. As is the case with so much in this type of spirituality it is shrouded in mystery and paradox. To such an extent that you find that the phrase No one catches the wild ass by running,  and yet only those who run ever catch the wild ass. exactly expresses what has happened, without clarifying it at all. I probably use the word “discover” to describe the process, because it says something of the fact that this was not a tradition we were familiar with or were exposed to in our...

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...

The Red Wheelbarrow so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. -           William Carlos Williams Mily - Photograph by George Angus Warm night Women writes Man reads Cat chases moths Music from portable radio Outside, the sweltering day leans against open windows, watching listening resting -           George Angus

Photograph by Liz Burroughs taken at a Restory Contemplative Photography retreat On a recent visit to the island Lamu off the coast of Kenya, our friend Lizzie bought herself a beautiful ethnic bracelet. She constantly wears it. It is her reminder of an approach to life she often came across while being on Lamu that is captured in the word “polepole”. In Swahili it means " slowly, gently, softly, quietly; be calm, take it quietly, don't excite yourself, never mind ". For instance, on stepping off the pier into a dau, one of the traditional wooden sailing boats, the guide would say, “polepole” – “slowly, gently, don’t excite yourself”. Now, whenever she has a hectic day  at the office, or she’s in a stressful meeting she would look down on her bracelet, gently reminding her, “polepole”. I don’t know whether Pablo Neruda was familiar with Lizzie’s Swahili word, but he would have loved the idea behind her bracelet: KEEPING QUIET Now we will count to twelve and ...