Monday 27 February 2017

Meditation: TAKE COURAGE by John de Gruchy

TAKE COURAGE

I Corinthians 16:13-14 John 16:32-33

Be courageous, be strong

But take courage, I have conquered the world


In many respects, last year, 2016, was a very good year for Volmoed. It was the year in which we celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of our community in 1986 when Bernhard and Jane Turkstra came to live here, and the present day history of Volmoed began. It was the year in which we began looking towards the future with new vigour, the year in which the first Volmoed Youth Leadership Training Programme course was held, and we had an injection of youthful enthusiasm and commitment into our daily life. It was also a year in which an increasing number of people came to visit or stay on Volmoed, and in which Alyson Guy's art programme gathered fresh momentum.

Last week I gave a talk at the Hermanus History Society on the " Volmoed Journey." In preparing to give it, I was struck again by the fact that the story did not simply begin thirty years ago in 1986, it goes far back to the earliest beginnings of human habitation. After all, the story of humanity, so we are told, probably began in the caves at Blombos further along the coast, and in all likelihood we can surmise that people migrated from there to here in those prehistoric times. But even if that is something of a flight of my imagination, we do know for sure that in the fourteenth century there were Khoi hunter gatherers living here alongside the Onrus river that runs through Volmoed. We know this because this place we know as Volmoed, waspreviously called Atta's Kloof, and Atta was the well-known name of a Khoi chief of that period. But what attracted Atta's clan to this place?

Probably the same thing that attracts most people to Volmoed still today. Its beauty and tranquillity, and the sense of well-being that people find here. Even the rocks geologists tell us have a special magnetism that has healing properties. Maybe that was the reason why lepers also came to live here during the eighteenth century. They came not just because they were forced to live far away and apart from others, but presumably because they had found a place where their spirits and bodies could be sustained at a time when there was no cure for their horrible disease.

But then, in 1817, the story of Volmoed took a new turn. That year, the governor of the Cape, Lord Charles Somerset, sent his medical superintendent, Dr. James Barrie, from Cape Town to find out how the lepers could be helped by the colonial government. Those who know her story, yes she was a woman who had to masquerade as a man in order to practice as a doctor, will know what a remarkable person she was. After all, she rode all the way here on horseback! And she is key figure in the story of Volmoed for it was at her request that a Moravian missionary from Genadendal, Peter Leitner, was appointed the resident missionary to the lepers in 1825. Leitner had been here before then. In fact, in 1817 on his first visit he evidently gave the name Hemel en Aarde to the Valley, and called this part of the Valley, Volmoed. If that is so, then Volmoed -- the place full of courage and hope known by this name is two-hundred years old this year! So, what began here in 1986 when Bernhard and Jane arrived, was the continuation of a story that goes back over many centuries. Volmoed, a place where God has renewed and healed people, restoring hope and giving them courage for the journey, is at least two hundred years old, if not much, much older. It is not we who have made Volmoed what it is, but rather, as we often say, Volmoed is a place God has set apart from the beginning for his ministry of healing and wholeness.


Volmoed is, in fact, a sacred space that over time has meant a great deal to many people, and continues to do so. And that is why part the fundamental mission of the Volmoed Community is to ensure that this place called Volmoed remains a place set aside by God for God's ministry of healing and wholeness. We are caretakers not owners of God's place of hospitality for all in need of God's grace and renewal. That is what Volmoed is all about, its core business. It is not in the first instance, a conference centre, a place of retreat, a youth centre, a place for sabbatical reflection and writing, a wedding venue that we have built-- it is all of these -- but it is only these because it is foremost a place God has set aside for God's ministry of healing and wholeness.

For two hundred years then, the name Volmoed has become linked to this sacred space and is now inseparable from it. Volmoed is a place where people, where we ourselves, discover the truth of Jesus' words to his disciples: "Take courage, I have conquered the world." This courage is not the courage of Stoics who bravely face death without faith, nor is it the bravery of soldiers on the battle field who risk their lives without always knowing why, but the courage which comes through faith in the God of grace whose peace is present and at work in this place. It is the courage to believe that God is at work in the world overcoming evil, bringing love where there is hatred, hope where there is despair, and reconciliation where there is division and brokenness. It is the courage to believe that God is with us in Christ whether in life or death. Such faith is itself an act of courage, some would even say it is an act of folly. It is certainly not an intellectual exercise, the clinging to a set of propositions come hell or high-water, but the courage to live life as an adventure in trust, to live as those who accept that God's has accepted and forgiven us. Such faith gives us the courage to reach out to the stranger and the alien and invite them to share with us in God's hospitality. Such courage enables us to stand in solidarity with the oppressed and speak truth to power. It is the courage to be truly human and become the people God wants us to be.

Yes, Volmoed is a place that God has set aside for God's ministry of healing and wholeness, but it is, to add a necessary footnote, more than a place, it is a people that stretches back to Atta's clan and the Lepers of old and their Moravian carers, to the Volmoed Community of today. Without this community of people of courage and hope, without all of us who gather here week by week, without our many prayers partners around the world, without the wider Community of the Cross of Nails, there would be no Volmoed, only a farm, a beautiful flower farm no doubt, or a developer's dream, but not the place of courage in which God is at work. And that defines our mission of hospitality and who we strive to be as the present day Volmoed community. Helping each other to discover not only God's healing and peace, but also God's gift of hope and courage for our lives in a world that is broken, despairing and seeking a way to wholeness. Courage for living even if we are often buffeted by disappointment, pain and grief. "But take courage," Jesus says, "I have conquered the world." That is the word of the Lord for all who come and belong to Volmoed.


John de Gruchy

Volmoed 
23 February 2017 

Thursday 23 February 2017

Meditation: TAKE COURAGE by John de Gruchy

TAKE COURAGE


I Corinthians 16:13-14
John 16:32-33

Be courageous, be strong
But take courage, I have conquered the world

In many respects, last year, 2016, was a very good year for Volmoed.   It was the year in which we celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of our community in 1986 when Bernhard and Jane Turkstra came to live here, and the present day history of Volmoed began.  It was the year in which we began looking towards the future with new vigour, the year in which the first Volmoed Youth Leadership Training Programme course was held, and we had an injection of youthful enthusiasm and commitment into our daily life.  It was also a year in which an increasing number of people came to visit or stay on Volmoed, and in which Alyson Guy's art programme gathered fresh momentum.

 Last week I gave a talk at the Hermanus History Society on the " Volmoed Journey."  In preparing to give it, I was struck again by the fact that the story did not simply begin thirty years ago in 1986, it goes far back to the earliest beginnings of human habitation.   After all, the story of humanity, so we are told, probably began in the caves at Blombos further along the coast, and in all likelihood we can surmise that people migrated from there to here in those prehistoric times.  But even if that is something of a flight of my imagination,  we do know for sure that in the fourteenth century there were Khoi hunter gatherers living here alongside the Onrus river that runs through Volmoed.  We know this because this place was known as Volmoed, it was called Atta's Kloof, and Atta was the well-known name of a Khoi chief of that period.  But what attracted Atta's clan to this place? 

Probably the same thing that attracts most people to Volmoed still today.  Its beauty and tranquillity, and the sense of well-being that people find here.  Even the rocks geologists tell us have a special magnetism that has healing properties. Maybe that was the reason why lepers also came to live here during the eighteenth century.  They came not just  because they were forced to live far away and apart from others, but presumably because they had found a place where their spirits and bodies could be sustained at a time when there was no cure for their horrible disease.

But then, in 1817, the story of Volmoed took a new turn.  That year, the governor of the Cape, Lord Charles Somerset, sent his medical superintendent, Dr. James Barrie, from Cape Town to find out how the lepers could be helped by the colonial government.  Those who know her story, yes she was a woman who had to masquerade as a man in order to practice as a doctor, will know what a remarkable person she was.  After all, she rode all the way here on horseback!  And she is key figure in the story of Volmoed for it was at her request that a Moravian missionary from Genadendal, Peter Leitner, was appointed the resident missionary to the lepers in 1825.  Leitner had been here before then.  In fact, in 1817 on his first visit  he evidently gave the name Hemel en Aarde to the Valley, and called this part of the Valley, Volmoed.  If that is so, then Volmoed -- the place  full of courage and hope  known by this name is two-hundred years old this year!  So, what began here in 1986 when Bernhard and Jane arrived, was the continuation of a story that goes back over many centuries.  Volmoed, a place where God has renewed and healed people, restoring hope and giving them courage for the journey, is at least two hundred years old,  if not much, much older.  It is not we who have made Volmoed what it is, but rather, as we often say, Volmoed is a place God has set apart from the beginning for his ministry of healing and wholeness.

Volmoed is, in fact, a sacred space that over time has meant a great deal to many people, and continues to do so.  And that is why part the fundamental mission of the Volmoed Community is to ensure that this place called Volmoed remains a place set aside by God for God's ministry of healing and wholeness.  We are caretakers not owners of God's place of hospitality for all in need of God's grace and renewal.  That is what Volmoed is all about, its core business.  It is not in the first instance, a conference centre, a place of retreat, a youth centre, a place for sabbatical reflection and writing, a wedding venue that we have built-- it is all of these -- but it is only these because it is foremost a place God has set aside for God's ministry of healing and wholeness.

For two hundred years then, the name Volmoed has become linked to this sacred space and is now inseparable from it.  Volmoed is a place where people, where we ourselves, discover the truth of Jesus' words to his disciples: "Take courage, I have conquered the world." This courage is not the courage of Stoics who bravely face death without faith, nor is it the bravery of soldiers on the battle field who risk their lives without always knowing why, but the courage which comes through faith in the God of grace whose peace is present and at work in this place.  It is the courage to believe that God is at work in the world overcoming evil, bringing love where there is hatred, hope where there is despair, and reconciliation where there is division and brokenness.  It is the courage to believe that God is with us in Christ whether in life or death.  Such faith is itself an act of courage,  some would even say it is an act of folly.  It is certainly not an intellectual exercise, the clinging to a set of propositions come hell or high-water,  but the courage to live life as an adventure in trust, to live as those who accept that God's has accepted and forgiven us.  Such faith gives us the courage to reach out to the stranger and the alien and invite them to share with us in God's hospitality.  Such courage enables us to stand in solidarity with the oppressed and speak truth to power.  It is the courage to be truly human and become the people God wants us to be.

Yes, Volmoed is a place that God has set aside for God's ministry of healing and wholeness, but it is, to add a necessary footnote, more than a place, it is a people that stretches back to Atta's clan and the Lepers of old and their Moravian carers, to the Volmoed Community of today.  Without this community of people of courage and hope, without all of us who gather here week by week, without our many prayers partners around the world, without the wider Community of the Cross of Nails, there would be no Volmoed, only a farm, a beautiful flower farm no doubt, or a developer's dream,  but not the place of courage in which God is at work.  And that defines our mission of hospitality and who we strive to be as the present day Volmoed community.  Helping each other to discover not only God's healing and peace, but also God's gift of hope and courage for our lives in a world that is broken, despairing and seeking a way to wholeness.  Courage for living even if we are often buffeted by disappointment, pain and grief.  "But take courage," Jesus says, "I have conquered the world." That is the word of the Lord for all who come and belong to Volmoed.


John de Gruchy

Volmoed  
23 February 2017

Friday 17 February 2017

Meditation: ON LISTENING AND SPEAKING by John de Gruchy

ON LISTENING AND SPEAKING


Mark 7:31-37
"He even makes the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak."

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, recently said that the best thing that had happened to him in his life was meeting Jesus.  I am sure many, many others down the years and still today, would say the same, though I suspect that on St. Valentine's Day this week the rhetoric might have been different.  I am not sure exactly why the Archbishop said what he did, but for many of us meeting Jesus was a life changing experience.  This was certainly true for the mute man we read about in the gospel today.

Meeting Jesus must surely have been the best thing that happened to him. It was the day he began to hear for the first time, and began to speak without the impediment with which he had been born.  When Jesus put his fingers in the man's ears and touched his tongue, so the story tells us, the man's  "eyes were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly."

Jesus was undoubtedly a healer who, time and again, brought physical healing to people.  The gospel stories are full of such stories.  But this story, like many others, can be understood in an allegorical as well as a literal way.  In meeting Jesus many people who had normal hearing and speaking ability often began to hear in a new way and speak with a new voice, and to speak plainly.  The physical healing, as it so often does, points us to a deeper meaning that is relevant for all of us, not just for those who are literally deaf and dumb.  When we meet Jesus we begin to hear differently, and speak in a new way.

Tim Stones, one of my former students whom some of you may remember from a visit he made to Volmoed some years ago with his wife and children, works with the deaf and dumb in Worcester.  He is exercising a great ministry there helping them excel at sport.  I am sure Tim would tells us that those who are deaf or who have difficulty speaking are often people who listen at a deeper level than some of us who have no hearing disability, and they may also communicate with others at a deeper level than we often do.  Because hearing is not just a matter of hearing, it is a matter of listening and discerning, of hearing more than the words that are spoken -- reading body language, listening to the tone in which the words are expressed, listening intently rather than with half our attention.  And speaking is not just about saying things, but communicating with people -- speaking plainly, not speaking down to people, but speaking appropriately, finding the right words whether of challenge or comfort..

The Old Testament prophets kept on telling us the people of Israel that they "hear, hear" but buty do not grasp what is being said to them.  Jesus said the same.  In a story that soon follows the one we read about the healing of the mute man, the disciples misunderstand something he tells them.  So Jesus says to them:

Do you still not perceive or understand?  Are your hearts hardened?  Do you have eyes and fail to see?  Do you have ears, and fail to hear?  (Mark 817-18)

The disciples had already been journeying with Jesus for some time, they had often listened to his teaching and observed his actions.  Yet they so often did not get the point of what he was saying and doing.  It was as though they were hearing but not listening, something Isobel tells meI do far too often.   But I suspect this is probably true for most of us.  How often we don't really hear, and too often we therefore fail to get what others are trying to tell us or misunderstand what they are saying!  And then when we speak we actually pass on what we think we heared rather than what was actually spoken to us.  It's much like that game we used to play when, sitting in a circle, someone whispered something to the person next to her, and he in turn passed it on.  And so the message went round the circle.  But when the last person reported it, it was significantly different from what was originally said.  Despite everyone having ears and the ability to hear, not everyone actually heard the message or communicated it accurately.  This is how gossip turns into slander, and how truth becomes half-true and eventually turns into lies.  And that in turn will affect attitudes and actions.  Listening to debates in Parliament, and often in conferences of one kind or another, I am certain that many members or participants simply do not listen to others most of the time, and when they speak, they don't always speak the truth about what they have heard.  They might as well be deaf and dumb, except that I think the deaf and dumb people are much better than they are.

The fact is, hearing is about more than just hearing, it is about listening in order to understand what is being spoken, and speaking is about more than uttering words, it is communicating what has actually been said and speaking truthfully and honestly.  Misunderstanding, whether wilful or not, not only distorts or subverts the truth, when passed on whether  through education or gossip, whether through the media or in passing conversation, breaks down communication and reinforces the lie.  That is why hearing rightly is so important, and therefore listening intently in order to hear rightly, is so important; and that is why communicating accurately and speaking the truth is so fundamental to human relations and well-being.  There is far too much fake news circulating today, far too many lies being spread.  But those of us who have met Jesus should know better.  We should have ears that truly hear and lips that speak the truth.

The only way to truly hear what Jesus is saying to us in the gospel and through other people is to develop the habit of listening carefully.  Let's not assume that because we may have been a Christian for a long time, and journeyed with him as a disciple, we have actually understood what he has been trying to tell us.    That is why ongoing meditation and reflection on the gospel is so important if we are going to truly follow Jesus.  Our ears have to be opened through the practice of listening.  That is why when we meet Jesus and begin to follow him he touches our ears and our lips so that we may truly listen and plainly speak.


John de Gruchy

Volmoed  16 February 2017

Monday 13 February 2017

Meditation: ON NOT BEING SUCKED INTO DESPAIR by John de Gruchy

ON NOT BEING SUCKED INTO DESPAIR

Jeremiah 17:7-9; II Corinthians 4:
The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse-- who can understand it?
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair.

It is May 1943.  The Allies are bombing Berlin.  Bonhoeffer has been arrested by the Gestapo and is in prison awaiting trial. He takes up his pen and writes a letter to his parents, Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer:
It is of course difficult on the outside to imagine realistically what being in prison is like. The situation ... is in fact often not so different from being someplace else. I read, reflect, work, write, pace the room - and I really do so without rubbing myself sore on the wall like a polar bear.  What matters is being focused on what one still has |and what can be done ... and on restraining within oneself the rising thoughts about what one  cannot do,  and the inner restlessness and resentment about the entire situation.
Bonhoeffer then goes on to write about something that bothered him, something you often find in the writings of saints, people you would expect to be full of joy, without a doubt, never tempted to despair.  This is what he says to his parents:
I have never understood as clearly as I have here what the Bible and Luther mean by “temptation” [Anfechtung]. The peace and serenity by which one had been carried is suddenly shaken without any apparent physical or psychological reason, and the heart becomes, as Jeremiah very aptly put it, an obstinate and anxious thing that one is unable to fathom.  One experiences this as an attack from the outside, as evil powers that seek to rob one of what is most essential.
Jeremiah's words Bonhoeffer has in mind are those we read this morning: "The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse-- who can understand it?"  What was Bonhoeffer thinking about?  A clue comes l in another letter he wrote to his friend Eberhard Bethge:  
You are the only person who knows that “acedia” (resignation) -“tristitia” (despair) with its ominous consequences has often haunted me, and you perhaps worried about me in this respect – so I feared at the time.  .
Acedia is a sadness of the heart which makes us feel that life is no longer worth living, and tristitia refers to becoming depressed, even to the point that it led Bonhoeffer to contemplate suicide.  
There are times when most of us feel that life has lost its purpose.  All joy and meaning has departed.  It is a feeling many have as we grow older, hear about the death of close friends, or accidents and illness that have afflicted others.  It is the feeling we get when our children are far from us whether physically or in spirit.  It is the feeling of loneliness, of being confined in some claustrophobic prison, maybe even one of our own making.  It is the feeling we get as we read the news or watch it on TV and start despairing of the state of the world or the nation. 

For some people, this deep, dark mood is diagnosed as "clinical depression" needing medical help, but for most of us, even though it only afflicts us from time to time, it is still a disconcerting experience.  It is as though our heart, the seat of our affections, is deceiving us. You can no longer trust your feelings for they are tearing you apart.  Note how Bonhoeffer speaks of this as a "temptation,"  the temptation to let the joy of living and gratitude for our many blessings be sucked out of our lives, the temptation to lose hope and resign ourselves to fate.  Isobel has captured this mood in a poem:



Poured over us like a disfiguring acid,
Is the pain of the world,
To intermingle with our own pain.

How easy to fall into despair,
To think, God, that you have left us,
Left us because we will not listen.

Are you still present in everything you have made?
Still care about it?
Still direct it towards your purpose?

Julian saw that you do indeed,
But felt greatly tested by this insight,
and so do I.
for her world showed a different reality,,
It was god-forsaken, like ours.

In a leap of faith, she believed
And so do I, but....
Help me Lord!
Help me not to be sucked into darkness and despair,
Help me to see that you are indeed in everything;
That you will triumph in the end.




Unless our depression is diagnosed as clinical, we need to understand that it is a very normal, part of being human.  Jesus despaired of the world and his disciples, as does every saint worthy the name if you read their diaries, letters or meditations.  Like St. Paul they did not let these moods destroy them: "We are afflicted in every way," writes Paul, "but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair."
Or, as Bonhoeffer wrote in his letter to Bethge, we can regard  "even these experiences" as "good and necessary in order to learn to understand human life better."  We can also begin to learn again what it means to trust God and discover afresh that God's grace is sufficient for us in our hour of need.  For even when we descend into the depths of despair, says the Psalmist, "You are there!"

There are some practical ways to deal with our times of despair.  Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama provide many suggestions on how to do this in their Book of Joy.  No wonder it is high up on the best seller books list of the New York Times.  I commend it to you.  Spending some minutes each day in meditation, slowly reading a favourite Psalm, coming to Holy Communion, visiting a friend, sharing a cup of coffee, or doing something to help someone in need -- these become means of God's grace that help us negotiate our depression and prevent us from being sucked into darkness and despair.  But remember, you are not alone.  You are with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, you are with Job when his while world collapses around him, you are with Paul on his journeys, despairing of the churches he has helped to established, Mother Theresa as she is overwhelmed by the suffering around her, and with Dietrich Bonhoeffer in prison and many others like him, cut off from friends and loved ones, uncertain about the future.  You are with all for whom life has lost its purpose and joy.  And you are with the Psalmist many times over,

Why are you cast down, O My soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God. (Psalm 42:1-5)


John de Gruchy

Volmoed    9 February 2017