by John-Peter Gernaat
The period of lockdown experienced in South Africa has induced the community to think of other ways of connecting around the experience of the contemplations that our priests in South Africa have provided to their respective congregation and have been shared with us all. There have been other gatherings that are of importance to our religious life that had to find a new way of taking place. The monthly Reading for Those Who Have Died being one. The lockdown started on the eve of the scheduled monthly Reading for Those Who Have Died in March. A decision was immediately taken to attempt to hold this important gathering on the online platform Zoom. The format of the gathering is to come together and with the ringing of a bell and the lighting of a candle clearly announce our intention. In the first Zoom gathering, a number of technicalities had to be ironed out before we could focus our attention and intention to our purpose. Each person lit their personal candle and express their own intention and a bell was improvised. The initial impetus came from Susan Goslett to arrange a Community Gathering on Zoom during Holy Week as a way to help land the experience of connecting at a distance with the Act of Consecration of Man. These gatherings were held an hour after the Act of Consecration of Man commenced and used a format that has been well established in our Community Gatherings when our priest has been absent on a Sunday. Each person lights their own candle and then one person reads the Gospel Reading of the day/week; someone else reads the contemplation provided by a priest; we open the time to share thoughts on the Reading and the Contemplation; someone reads the Creed and we all say the Lord's Prayer together and we then open to a general conversation. These Gatherings have accompanied the Services in Holy Week, Easter and the weeks following Easter into Ascension and will continue through Whitsun after which Sunday Services will resume. We have continued the Reading for Those Who Have Died online in April and May and Reingard shared the Ascension Epistle, which is seldom heard by the whole congregation because the festival is so short, in a Zoom gathering. We have been joined in these online gatherings by members of our community from as far afield as Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Morgan Bay. The older members of our community have found ways of engaging with this new technology through grandchildren or neighbours to join in the online meetings. A realisation is emerging that there is great value in connecting with our scattered community using technology and it has a way of uniting us around a common purpose and enables us to share thoughts that we would otherwise never hear when we limit ourselves to in-person gatherings. As lockdown is being eased in South Africa and in-person services resume the use of new technologies will continue to be used to connect our community and retain the sense of gathering as a community for the renewal of the religious life.
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When I received notification that one person in our community had achieved something worth sharing, I began to wonder what other people in our community had been up to during lockdown stages 5 and 4. In the following blog posts are the stories that have been shared. Editor
by Terri Gillham While everyone was in lockdown Terry Gillham decided to help his community of Morgan Bay. Eventually, the big day arrived and the training was put to the test. See the full GO! & Express article by clicking here. by Alexi Kirigin Alexi has mastered juggling a soccer ball and three tennis balls. by Eva Knausenberger
It doesn’t matter where I start to tell my thoughts of the past two months, because the experience has been quite multi-layered. Many are better wordsmiths also, but there you are… I start by naming the issue, which has occupied us all: The Corona virus; a ghostlike insubstantial entity without a life of its own, which seeks entrance into the immune system of the physical bodies in order to unfold a life of its own, at the cost of the host. I have some authority here because, having had the virus, I know that I was sicker than I have ever been. I know that the wounds it left behind are both physically and mentally debilitating and take a long time to heal. I am equally sure that the damage we caused nature over many decades, both to the life-forces and the physical body of the earth are equally slow to heal; has the earth ever been more in need of healing from the wounds human beings inflicted? Ascension is a ‘time in between’, between Easter and Whitsun, it takes place between the physical earth, continues into the breathing life-forces surrounding the earth and then Christ disappears ‘into the clouds, leaving the stunned disciples wondering: What just happened? They do not understand. It is perhaps ironic, for lack of a better word, perhaps also symbolic, that the virus also uses the path ‘between’ people to spread, endangering our physical breathing, digesting and absorbing but also our clear-thinking and will faculties. That is a medical fact. And there are no answers as to why, where from and how. How does one get rid of something as ghostlike and insubstantial as a virus? In the Samaritan Course Rudolf Steiner pointed out that the human being must be wounded for healing powers to engage, but, he said, the forces in opposition to healing come forth with the same strength. “It is only when we take into ourselves the enlightening, healing power of the Holy Spirit, that we can differentiate between healing forces and forces in opposition to healing and only then can we master both consciously.” In times when we were isolated from one another, one could have a strong sense that spiritually healing powers emerged strongly like never before, a spiritual, healing, helpful brotherhood of formed, both spiritual and spiritual in nature, but the opposing forces, often quite unobserved, used the time of isolation to polarise, accuse, blame, lie and obfuscate what was already sickening, became more so. When we consider Rudolf Steiner’s words again “when we take into ourselves the power of the healing Spirit” ... we can also understand that there is no better time than Whitsun to explore the meaning and truth of what healing “the sickness of sin on the bodily nature of mankind” means, than now. by Jan Lampen
On the first day of lockdown, I decided to keep a journal. This is what I wrote on Friday morning the 27th of March 2020: “So this is it. 21 days of enforced isolation, an opportunity to ”grow”, self-develop, reconnect; find your “core”, as they say. Me? I’ll probably be staring into the abyss and dance with dragons. After 21 days, I am either going to be a better person or a total nutcase. Either way, I am willing to give it a bash.” Those initial 21 days of lockdown have now extended to 60 days (and counting). So far, this is what I have learnt from keeping a journal:
by Karin von Schilling
When a second call for a contribution to the June newsletter went out, I thought I better respond! It has been a very unusual Easter and after Easter and now Ascension time for everybody and also for us who belong to The Christian Community, we all know that. However, we have had an amazing time being accompanied by the priests of the Region sending us such amazingly beautiful “sermons” for each Sunday, together with such extraordinarily beautiful pictures and photos. We were able to read them again and again, something we cannot do if we ‘only’ hear them once. This created an awareness of the other communities in Southern Africa, the region became more alive, all the time, through the wonderful interaction of our priests. We also experienced how different each one is, which became apparent in their different approach to the specific gospel readings, very interesting and very enriching. My impression is, that as a community we have become much more conscious of each other, bearing each other in mind as we sat down to accompany the Services. For me, it was quite special too, as it were, ‘see’ you, particularly, whenever we came to the ‘Christ in you’. Many of us seem to have their own place in the community, of course, but now I mean, the actual seats which seem to have become “Your seat” and some, who are usually on top in the back. And finally, I felt the Peace going out to each one of us. My inner eye looked into the congregation who received this blessing. There you were and I saw you more consciously then I would have done usually. So, I feel that there has been a kind of bonding during this time and it will be different when we meet again in person, then it had been previously. Also, the inner effort to sit and actively participate and contribute invisibly was strengthening, not only receiving but putting more individual will into action, in our thinking, than is needed to sit in the car and drive to church – at least, that is how it was for me. So I look forward to your response to the call and what you would like to share with us. Be well and keep warm, Karin. Cassia Holtz returning to traditional tie-dying to make a duvet cover, a quilted cover and a floor matWhere it all begins. The quilting is precision work. The finished products. Don't waste the off-cuts... When a coat does not fit properly, just make your own, by BenoitSourdough can be versatile as Sonnya keeps demonstratingScones with a differenc.
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