In many ways we are all mathematists, e.g. when we strive to understand and search for meaning; when we try to find consensus in a meeting or look for a common denominator in a complex of questions; or even hope to find the one formula that can apply to every aspect of the world. In conversations and debates we look out for the one point where our reasoning can attach itself to shed light on a topic.
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The studies that Plato specified as most effective in preparing the mind for understanding are the so-called mathematical subjects, consisting of number itself, music, geometry, and astronomy. Geometry being the purest visible expression of number. The effect of its study is to lead the mind upward onto levels of Reason, where its premises are rooted. It then provides the bridge or ladder by which the mind can achieve its highest level in the realm of pure intelligence, or pure thinking. In geometry it is easy to experience the bridge between the One and the Many. The circle, for example, as the abstract model of the perfect form, the unchanging, unmanifest One. From this drives the Many: the expressions in nature where roundness manifests (berries, nests, dandelions, eyeballs, planet orbits), in art, design, architecture.

No wonder that there is hope that mathematics will find the answer for the great ‘riddle of the universe’ and distil from within the complexity of the Many the abstract simplicity of Oneness. This can also be turned around: to see in the One the hidden potential which appears as the active creative principle at work in the cosmos and human being, creating a world of wonder and beauty, synchronicity and harmony in every detail.

Among the disciples of Jesus, the tax collector Matthew suggests that he is a true mathematist. The ingenious composition of the Gospel of Matthew shows the ability of someone able to grasp the essential while integrating finest detail into a whole meaningful complex. It will not go unnoticed by the attentive reader of this Gospel how it effects a very deep sense of order. In studying the precision in observation and the artistic weaving of detail into an overarching wholeness a masterly composition is revealed, built on a matrix of mathematical principles, opening up new vistas of understanding. One can well imagine why in Christian art an angel is attributed to Matthew as the inspiring genius, a being able to ‘look from above’, with the power of pure selfless thinking. 

Evan and Jean McGillivray were married on Friday, the 8th of July 1960 in the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg. Jean in a beautiful short dress made by her sister that raised a few eyebrows at the time. They met at a ‘Hamburger joint’ in Hillbrow where Evan was playing the double bass in a dance band. Jean was one of the top hairdressers in Johannesburg at the time and was planning a move to London to further her career.

For Evan it was love at first sight. Two weeks later he proposed and eight months later they were married.

Evan believes it was destiny that brought them together. And despite the normal up’s and down’s he simply refused to let the marriage fall apart. In Jean he found a real person with endearing qualities that completed him. Their partnership has grown and deepened over the years. From each other they’ve learned patience, compassion, trust and perseverance. Jean can’t think of a moment when they were not together and they are still inseparable. Evan is the first person Jean calls if she is in trouble. Without him she would not have found her Self.

The union produced three beautiful children in Greig, Paul and Kerry and as Evan now reflects: “We are not in this marriage for ourselves; we are here for our children and our grandchildren.”

Paul’s tragic death thirty years ago drew them closer. The fact that they were already members of The Christian Community and familiar with Anthroposophy helped them to deal with the loss.

“See you at six!” This is their family’s clarion call. At six ‘o clock every morning, Jean and Evan light a candle and invite Paul who would have been 54 this year, Greig (55), Kerry (45) and all their grandchildren in spirit to a circle for prayer and contemplation. This is the picture of a marriage that is special. Now Jean and Evan wait for something special in their grandchildren to unfold.

With lockdown, they’re not planning a big celebration and they’re not making much fuss about their achievement either. For them, sixty years is nothing. It is a way of Being. It is Life. And they would do it all over again.

On Wednesday 17th June 2020, Alfred Bernhard Dörflinger, aka Freddy, died at 7:30 am at home in Basel, Switzerland.

He was born in Badisch-Rheinfelden, Germany on 18th February 1935, but spent a lot of his early childhood on the Swiss side until the war started.

As an only child he lost his father at the age of four and his Mother raised him on her own during WWII. They had moved to the German part of Rheinfelden and experienced the war there.

At the age of 14 (1949) he and his mother moved to Basel when she re-married.

Freddy completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter/joiner, and in the late 1950’s he went to the Sheiling Schools Ringwood, and then to Newton Dee in Aberdeen, to become a curative educator.

In 1962 he and Susanne married and were asked by Karl König to help with the unfolding Camphill work in South Africa, initially at Lake Farm Camphill Community in Port Elizabeth.

Their first son, Christoph was born there and was christened by Rev. Evelyn Capel-Derry.

In 1964 the family moved to the Dawn Farm Camphill School, Hermanus, where Piet, Markus and Andreas were born, and Freddy became a service holder, and in 1970 to Cresset House where Francis was born in 1971. In 1973 the family started work at Amethyst, nearby, which later, after further moves, and growing to a community of over 20 people, including children and young adults with special needs, became Novalis House, which is still there today, in Blue Hills, Kyalami.

In the mid-1990 Susanne & Freddy began to withdraw from the running of the place to concentrate on living with the elderly people in the newly added senior unit, but they still ran the workshops with the villagers and selling its products at the Bryanston Organic Market.

Susanne and Freddy were active members of all the anthroposophical initiatives in the area, as well as being Class Members. During the apartheid era they were actively supportive of the Waldorf Initiatives such as Inkanyezi Waldorf School and the Baobab Teachers Training (Klaartje Wijnberg, Truus Geraets, Carol and David Lignitzsky), which often made use of the Novalis House premises.

In 2004, while on holidays visiting family in Switzerland, Freddy suffered a heart attack. He recovered, but they never returned to Africa.

by Anne Gillham

The communities of Morgan Bay continue to be active during the Lockdown to support the needy. Michael Gillham offered technical support and helped to keep an event running that was planned for Youth Day, 16th June. He filmed the event and held interviews that will appear on the Facebook Page @Beat2Eat. A video of the event was posted on YouTube at https://bit.ly/Beat2Eat.​

The description accompanying the video describes it as:

“The Morgan Bay/ Ingxarha village talking drums beat out on Tuesday 16th June in a passionate call for help.

“Whilst speeches were made across the land to commemorate the day, children from Ferndale school put words into action when they took part in a dawn to dusk drum marathon.

“The event took place beside the ocean in front of the Morgan Bay Hotel in a bid to raise funds for urgent food relief in a community that relies heavily on the tourist trade for its survival.

“The lockdown has had a devastating effect on the livelihood of all employment in the leisure industry as well as the many families who depend on tourism and whose income has dropped to zero.

“With  support from the Morgan Bay Ratepayers Association Committee and elders from the community, the children took turns to sing, dance and beat drums in a colourful call for help - all the time observing the protocols of social distancing, hygiene, and the wearing of masks.

“As their teacher, Coleen Tshijila said: “The children are literally singing for their supper. They are the heartbeat of our community.”

“Co-ordinator of the project, Thembi Tshijila added: ‘Whilst our Youth Day celebration paid tribute to those who lost their lives 44 years ago, and our prayers went out to those whose lives have been lost in the troubles of the present, the children wanted to do more. They wanted to draw attention to the desperate situation much closer to home. They did not want to depend on the arrival of promised food parcels, but to go out and do something for themselves.’”

by Eva Knausenberger

I have tried for a long time to get a sense or an insight into the meaning of the words: "the new confession, the new faith", and also: "with these words godhead is given again to Man". Why in the Offering?

Last Sunday during the Service it was as if I heard a father speak to his son, whom he sends into the world: "Sick is the dwelling into which you, my own son enter...but through your word, your bearing, the human soul and all life will be healed". And I thought then, that God - in the words of the Act of Consecration- actually confesses anew His love for His creation, the human life and being, and I thought further that "the new faith" is, therefore, our only adequate answer to Him, who offered His substance, His Son to us.

The thoughts are comforting to me in today's world, where nothing much makes sense anymore, and we are verily all in this together.