Perspectives
The quarterly journal of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK.
The latest edition and back issues may be viewed on the Perspectives website.
The latest edition and back issues may be viewed on the Perspectives website.
List of editions reviewed
- • Perspectives - a review - December 2020 - February 2021
- • Perspectives - a review - September - November 2020
- • Perspectives - a review - June - August 2020
- • Perspectives - a review - December 2019 - February 2020
- • Perspectives - a review - September - November 2019
- • Perspectives - a review - June - August 2019
- • Perspectives - a review - March - May 2019
- • Perspectives - a review - December 2018 - February 2019
- • Perspectives - a review - September 2018
- • Perspectives - a review - April 2018
Most recent and back issues of Perspectives
These issues have not been reviewed.
To subscribe to Perspective to receive either a digital copy or a booklet, click here.
To subscribe to Perspective to receive either a digital copy or a booklet, click here.
Perspectives December 2020 - February 2021 – What is a sacrament?
reviewed by John-Peter Gernaat
The December 2020 - February 2021 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, is available now as a digital subscription in Southern Africa. The distribution and printing of Perspectives for Southern Africa will in future be done from Johannesburg. See the article in the September newsletter about subscription costs, in particular a digital subscription that will be free for a year. Contact your resident priest for more information. This edition will also be available for download at a small fee in a few months at http://thechristiancommunity.co.uk/PVS-test/previous-editions-test/. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his introduction to this edition Rev. Tom Ravetz shines a revealing light on the changes that have accompanied humanity in the 20th and into the 21st centuries. Cause and effect were thought to be absolute, but reality has proven that humanity co-creates the reality we experience. The crucifixion seemed an inevitable and finite end, but it was not. Our sacraments witness the “another order” breaking through into the natural world order. This issue of Perspectives “celebrates a new life that want to break through”.
Rev. Ioanna Panagiotopoulos, priest in Canberra, Australia, asks: “Where is the Christ to be born?” The echo of the question Herod asks of the magi still resounds today and must be answered by each of us.
Rev. Patrick Kennedy, priest in the Greater Washington-Baltimore Area, USA, writing a book on the Anointing, provides an excerpt titled “Revealing Christ’s presence”. “Because Christ has been initiated into the human experience, into the mysteries of death, he has become the guide who can lead us through death.” No one dies alone anymore. “The essential purposes of the Sacrament of Anointing (is) to make Christ’s presence visible at the threshold of our deaths.” The purpose of sacraments is to make what is not visible, visible. What then does the priest represent during the Sacrament of Anointing? This is revealed in this article.
Louise Madsen, priest emeritus in Stourbridge, asks “Why Sacraments?” She begins by pointing out the words of Paul to the Corinthians that resurrection was already a possibility in the world otherwise Christ could not have been resurrected. Sacrament was already in the world before the Christian celebration thereof. She draws on the latest scientific research that reveals a completely new understanding of relationships within organisms. Bearing this new understanding in mind she turns to sacraments where a physical substance is united with its spiritual counterpart through the words that are spoken. We know that an acorn becomes a huge oak tree. We can see in the deeds of Christ how “future conditions arise though the agency of forces from above”. Science points to processes it describes as working upwards and downwards. We want the causes to be in the past working forward, but science is pointing to a new way of thinking about processes that point our thinking towards sacramental processes. Louise concludes in describing how the sacraments at the altar form a unity that is a building stone of the New Jerusalem.
Cheryl Prigg, priest in Auckland, New Zealand, writes a poignant article of her experiences as a newly ordained priest. These experiences were heightened by the global experiences of 2020. She explains how our sacraments that occur at the threshold, where we can experience the spiritual world leaning in towards us, sustain our unfolding life between birth and death, especially where we find ourselves at a threshold that is either uncertainty or a doorway at which we can stand consciously and experience the support from the other side.
Louise Mary Sofair, a member of the congregation in London, provides a full and wonderful description of the Mary in Luke’s Gospel and the conception of the child using the image provided by Raphael in the Sistine Madonna. This article complements the talks given by Rev. Michaël Merle in Johannesburg in the most extraordinary way.
Brigitte Marking, a member of the congregation in Forest Row, looks into what “the principle of emergence states that a multitude of any number of living things … can exhibit properties way beyond the capability of any individual’… (from a review of the book Apeirogon by Colum McCann in the Guardian Review of Books 15/02/20)” represents when, for example we look at a murmuration of starlings. It is like being able to watch the invisible flow of life energy. The book Apeirogon is about the conflict in Israel and Palestine but shows how two men on opposite sides change through their pain to work together towards peace. This requires conscious engagement which is how the flow of life energy is possible between humans.
Richard Heys, an artist living in Forest Row, describes painting during lockdown in an article titled “Stolen Time”. Several of his paintings illustrate this edition of Perspectives. To quote a short passage: “One paints by necessity alone; it is a private activity. One works toward one’s centre, developing a singular focus. But I soon found I did not feel alone …. it seemed everything we had taken for granted was no longer there for us. …. An unusual sense of accompaniment and confidence in finding answers to the questions of each new painting, the works developing seemingly independently of my feelings.”
In an astonishingly clear article Rev. Lars-Åke Karlsson, priest emeritus in Finland, first places very clearly before our minds how we see ourselves in this materialistic society and then pricks us to realise that we have an inner existence that is at odds with the materialistic view. Then he takes us through the festivals of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany and paints them as imaginations for our own life opening up to what happens before birth, how we take hold of our physical existence and then our lives, to shape our lifetime in the world. The article is appropriately titled Christmas – et incarnatus est.
Rev. Paul Corman, priest in Lima Peru, and no stranger to us in Johannesburg, writes the final article titled “A perfect season to travel”. He analyses the process of preparation for travel and relates it to our travel in life, and before and after life. He reminds us that we are not strangers to the world of the Spirit and that we can travel there as adventurers, not tourists. He then describes how the festivals of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany can be used to help us prepare for our adventurous travels through life and the spirit simultaneously, in life. He uses the Spanish language to share new insights into the adventures of this travelling.
Two new books published by Floris Books are briefly described. “The Act of Consecration of Man” by Tom Ravetz and “Uncovering the Secrets of Time and Number” by Wolfgang Held.
The December 2020 - February 2021 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, is available now as a digital subscription in Southern Africa. The distribution and printing of Perspectives for Southern Africa will in future be done from Johannesburg. See the article in the September newsletter about subscription costs, in particular a digital subscription that will be free for a year. Contact your resident priest for more information. This edition will also be available for download at a small fee in a few months at http://thechristiancommunity.co.uk/PVS-test/previous-editions-test/. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his introduction to this edition Rev. Tom Ravetz shines a revealing light on the changes that have accompanied humanity in the 20th and into the 21st centuries. Cause and effect were thought to be absolute, but reality has proven that humanity co-creates the reality we experience. The crucifixion seemed an inevitable and finite end, but it was not. Our sacraments witness the “another order” breaking through into the natural world order. This issue of Perspectives “celebrates a new life that want to break through”.
Rev. Ioanna Panagiotopoulos, priest in Canberra, Australia, asks: “Where is the Christ to be born?” The echo of the question Herod asks of the magi still resounds today and must be answered by each of us.
Rev. Patrick Kennedy, priest in the Greater Washington-Baltimore Area, USA, writing a book on the Anointing, provides an excerpt titled “Revealing Christ’s presence”. “Because Christ has been initiated into the human experience, into the mysteries of death, he has become the guide who can lead us through death.” No one dies alone anymore. “The essential purposes of the Sacrament of Anointing (is) to make Christ’s presence visible at the threshold of our deaths.” The purpose of sacraments is to make what is not visible, visible. What then does the priest represent during the Sacrament of Anointing? This is revealed in this article.
Louise Madsen, priest emeritus in Stourbridge, asks “Why Sacraments?” She begins by pointing out the words of Paul to the Corinthians that resurrection was already a possibility in the world otherwise Christ could not have been resurrected. Sacrament was already in the world before the Christian celebration thereof. She draws on the latest scientific research that reveals a completely new understanding of relationships within organisms. Bearing this new understanding in mind she turns to sacraments where a physical substance is united with its spiritual counterpart through the words that are spoken. We know that an acorn becomes a huge oak tree. We can see in the deeds of Christ how “future conditions arise though the agency of forces from above”. Science points to processes it describes as working upwards and downwards. We want the causes to be in the past working forward, but science is pointing to a new way of thinking about processes that point our thinking towards sacramental processes. Louise concludes in describing how the sacraments at the altar form a unity that is a building stone of the New Jerusalem.
Cheryl Prigg, priest in Auckland, New Zealand, writes a poignant article of her experiences as a newly ordained priest. These experiences were heightened by the global experiences of 2020. She explains how our sacraments that occur at the threshold, where we can experience the spiritual world leaning in towards us, sustain our unfolding life between birth and death, especially where we find ourselves at a threshold that is either uncertainty or a doorway at which we can stand consciously and experience the support from the other side.
Louise Mary Sofair, a member of the congregation in London, provides a full and wonderful description of the Mary in Luke’s Gospel and the conception of the child using the image provided by Raphael in the Sistine Madonna. This article complements the talks given by Rev. Michaël Merle in Johannesburg in the most extraordinary way.
Brigitte Marking, a member of the congregation in Forest Row, looks into what “the principle of emergence states that a multitude of any number of living things … can exhibit properties way beyond the capability of any individual’… (from a review of the book Apeirogon by Colum McCann in the Guardian Review of Books 15/02/20)” represents when, for example we look at a murmuration of starlings. It is like being able to watch the invisible flow of life energy. The book Apeirogon is about the conflict in Israel and Palestine but shows how two men on opposite sides change through their pain to work together towards peace. This requires conscious engagement which is how the flow of life energy is possible between humans.
Richard Heys, an artist living in Forest Row, describes painting during lockdown in an article titled “Stolen Time”. Several of his paintings illustrate this edition of Perspectives. To quote a short passage: “One paints by necessity alone; it is a private activity. One works toward one’s centre, developing a singular focus. But I soon found I did not feel alone …. it seemed everything we had taken for granted was no longer there for us. …. An unusual sense of accompaniment and confidence in finding answers to the questions of each new painting, the works developing seemingly independently of my feelings.”
In an astonishingly clear article Rev. Lars-Åke Karlsson, priest emeritus in Finland, first places very clearly before our minds how we see ourselves in this materialistic society and then pricks us to realise that we have an inner existence that is at odds with the materialistic view. Then he takes us through the festivals of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany and paints them as imaginations for our own life opening up to what happens before birth, how we take hold of our physical existence and then our lives, to shape our lifetime in the world. The article is appropriately titled Christmas – et incarnatus est.
Rev. Paul Corman, priest in Lima Peru, and no stranger to us in Johannesburg, writes the final article titled “A perfect season to travel”. He analyses the process of preparation for travel and relates it to our travel in life, and before and after life. He reminds us that we are not strangers to the world of the Spirit and that we can travel there as adventurers, not tourists. He then describes how the festivals of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany can be used to help us prepare for our adventurous travels through life and the spirit simultaneously, in life. He uses the Spanish language to share new insights into the adventures of this travelling.
Two new books published by Floris Books are briefly described. “The Act of Consecration of Man” by Tom Ravetz and “Uncovering the Secrets of Time and Number” by Wolfgang Held.
Perspectives September – November 2020 – Confronting Evil – a review
reviewed by John-Peter Gernaat
This edition is particularly important for anyone who has experienced a sense of crisis in the time of the recent pandemic as it contains thoughts that will shine a light on how to confront what is happening.
The September - November 2020 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, is available as a digital subscription in Southern Africa. This edition will also be available for download at a small fee in a few months at http://thechristiancommunity.co.uk/PVS-test/previous-editions-test/. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his introduction to this edition Rev. Tom Ravetz refers to the current crisis. He looks at the effects that power can have for good and for evil. He begins with the creative power of God, reflects on the misuse of power and the fear that it engenders and finally gives an analysis of both the power of the virus and the power of governments in their attempt to deal with the crisis. He sounds a warning worth contemplating.
Rev. Bastiaan Baan, priest in Driebergen, Netherlands, in an article he titles “Transforming evil, Understanding — Confrontation — Redemption”, begins: “Redemption of evil is a far-reaching goal that seems to be unattainable, especially in our time, where evil is omnipresent. In this article, I will try nevertheless to illustrate how we can make little steps to prepare for a future where eventually evil might be redeemed.” He discussed the omnipresence of evil, even within ourselves and concludes that insight, consciousness, wisdom, self-reflection, humour and patience are the faculties that will help us face evil.
Deborah Ravetz, a member of The Christian Community in Forest Row and part of the editorial team of Perspectives, looks at “Overcoming evil” through the lives of two artists, one British and one German, who experienced World War I and suffered complete mental breakdowns as a result the horrors of the mechanisation of our lives, which made the war so brutal, and how they strove for the recognition of the integrity of the individual in their art and their teaching till their deaths. Several paintings of these artists are scattered throughout this edition.
An article written in 2002 for the Czech magazine of The Christian Community by Rev. Milan Horák, priest in Prague, edited from a German translation addresses the “Evil in the human being”. All evil in the world can, on careful investigation be attributed to humans. We enact evil in three ways: actively by othering someone else or a group of people; ignorantly though the support of institutions that commit evil; arrogantly through distancing ourselves from the evil committed beyond our periphery. There are three virtues with which we can “work against the promptings of evil in our souls”. These virtues are strengthened in the religious life as we strive to draw the divine and the human closer together.
A thought-provoking article by Rev. Lars-Åke Karlsson, priest emeritus in Finland, translated by Brigitte Marking about “closeness and distance” evaluates the true nature of the human being and the phenomenon of alienation experienced by Western cultures. Through the experience of growing up, fairy tales, languages and philosophy, he explores our connection in closeness and in distance with our world. He concludes with the omnipresence of nature and the effects of a tiny virus and how it can make us more aware of the reality of separation and closeness.
Rev. Luke Barr, priest in Forest Row, speaks of his personal understanding of “Evil and Death”. He begins by expressing surprise that evil is mentioned in the Act of Consecration of Man. It is clearly very much a part of our life. Rudolf Steiner speaks of evil as something that is not quite aligned with itself. He also informed us that the key cultural problem of our epoch is the mystery of evil, as the mystery of birth and death was the problem of the previous epoch that ended at the beginning of the Renaissance. Luke believes that a fear of death will prevent an understanding of evil and we have seen this in relation to the world reaction to the current pandemic. In this he raises an important consideration for each of us and for society.
Rev. Lucienne van Bergenhenegouwen, priest in Aberdeen, takes a look at the origins of evil. Once, when we were still conscious of the spiritual worlds, evil existed in the world and fairy tales speak of it. Good existed within us and life was about overcoming the evil in the world. As we lost consciousness of the spiritual worlds our I became separated from our ego and in this separation evil could enter into us. Now evil is less easy to distinguish. The recent lockdown has created separation between us and the rest of our lives. This created an emptiness. Into this emptiness the light of the I could shine. If we allow this light to shine into the ego, we can begin to illuminate evil and thereby deal with it. She uses the fairy tale of Rudolf Steiner, the tree and the axe, to help explain her proposition. She titles her article: “Evil and the I – the I and evil - The revelation of evil through the light of the I”.
“A poem a day to know thy self and thy world in verses of sermons” by Jens-Peter Linde. Three of his verses for Michaelmas are included.
The final article by Rev. Lars-Åke Karlsson, priest emeritus in Finland, is about Michaelmas and the importance, as indicated by Rudolf Steiner, of this festival to us in this age of knowledge and technology. He asks the question: what is the Michaelic human? Beginning with an understanding of the worldview held in the Middle Ages, he interprets the scientific, artistic and religious understanding of the world today. Science answers the what, art the how and religion the why. A Michaelic human seeks to marry the what, how and why. He concludes with an exquisite definition of Michaelic Christianity.
Three books are disclosed: The Act of Consecration of Man by Tom Ravetz; Uncovering the Secrets of Time and Numbers by Wolfgang Held and Stories, Poems and Meditations by Karl König as the latest release from the Karl König Archive. In a review of The Act of Consecration of Man by Tom Ravetz, the reviewer, Peter Howe, says: “Personally, I have never before encountered a book which felt so much like a companion, a wise and knowledgeable voice by my side”.
This edition is particularly important for anyone who has experienced a sense of crisis in the time of the recent pandemic as it contains thoughts that will shine a light on how to confront what is happening.
The September - November 2020 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, is available as a digital subscription in Southern Africa. This edition will also be available for download at a small fee in a few months at http://thechristiancommunity.co.uk/PVS-test/previous-editions-test/. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his introduction to this edition Rev. Tom Ravetz refers to the current crisis. He looks at the effects that power can have for good and for evil. He begins with the creative power of God, reflects on the misuse of power and the fear that it engenders and finally gives an analysis of both the power of the virus and the power of governments in their attempt to deal with the crisis. He sounds a warning worth contemplating.
Rev. Bastiaan Baan, priest in Driebergen, Netherlands, in an article he titles “Transforming evil, Understanding — Confrontation — Redemption”, begins: “Redemption of evil is a far-reaching goal that seems to be unattainable, especially in our time, where evil is omnipresent. In this article, I will try nevertheless to illustrate how we can make little steps to prepare for a future where eventually evil might be redeemed.” He discussed the omnipresence of evil, even within ourselves and concludes that insight, consciousness, wisdom, self-reflection, humour and patience are the faculties that will help us face evil.
Deborah Ravetz, a member of The Christian Community in Forest Row and part of the editorial team of Perspectives, looks at “Overcoming evil” through the lives of two artists, one British and one German, who experienced World War I and suffered complete mental breakdowns as a result the horrors of the mechanisation of our lives, which made the war so brutal, and how they strove for the recognition of the integrity of the individual in their art and their teaching till their deaths. Several paintings of these artists are scattered throughout this edition.
An article written in 2002 for the Czech magazine of The Christian Community by Rev. Milan Horák, priest in Prague, edited from a German translation addresses the “Evil in the human being”. All evil in the world can, on careful investigation be attributed to humans. We enact evil in three ways: actively by othering someone else or a group of people; ignorantly though the support of institutions that commit evil; arrogantly through distancing ourselves from the evil committed beyond our periphery. There are three virtues with which we can “work against the promptings of evil in our souls”. These virtues are strengthened in the religious life as we strive to draw the divine and the human closer together.
A thought-provoking article by Rev. Lars-Åke Karlsson, priest emeritus in Finland, translated by Brigitte Marking about “closeness and distance” evaluates the true nature of the human being and the phenomenon of alienation experienced by Western cultures. Through the experience of growing up, fairy tales, languages and philosophy, he explores our connection in closeness and in distance with our world. He concludes with the omnipresence of nature and the effects of a tiny virus and how it can make us more aware of the reality of separation and closeness.
Rev. Luke Barr, priest in Forest Row, speaks of his personal understanding of “Evil and Death”. He begins by expressing surprise that evil is mentioned in the Act of Consecration of Man. It is clearly very much a part of our life. Rudolf Steiner speaks of evil as something that is not quite aligned with itself. He also informed us that the key cultural problem of our epoch is the mystery of evil, as the mystery of birth and death was the problem of the previous epoch that ended at the beginning of the Renaissance. Luke believes that a fear of death will prevent an understanding of evil and we have seen this in relation to the world reaction to the current pandemic. In this he raises an important consideration for each of us and for society.
Rev. Lucienne van Bergenhenegouwen, priest in Aberdeen, takes a look at the origins of evil. Once, when we were still conscious of the spiritual worlds, evil existed in the world and fairy tales speak of it. Good existed within us and life was about overcoming the evil in the world. As we lost consciousness of the spiritual worlds our I became separated from our ego and in this separation evil could enter into us. Now evil is less easy to distinguish. The recent lockdown has created separation between us and the rest of our lives. This created an emptiness. Into this emptiness the light of the I could shine. If we allow this light to shine into the ego, we can begin to illuminate evil and thereby deal with it. She uses the fairy tale of Rudolf Steiner, the tree and the axe, to help explain her proposition. She titles her article: “Evil and the I – the I and evil - The revelation of evil through the light of the I”.
“A poem a day to know thy self and thy world in verses of sermons” by Jens-Peter Linde. Three of his verses for Michaelmas are included.
The final article by Rev. Lars-Åke Karlsson, priest emeritus in Finland, is about Michaelmas and the importance, as indicated by Rudolf Steiner, of this festival to us in this age of knowledge and technology. He asks the question: what is the Michaelic human? Beginning with an understanding of the worldview held in the Middle Ages, he interprets the scientific, artistic and religious understanding of the world today. Science answers the what, art the how and religion the why. A Michaelic human seeks to marry the what, how and why. He concludes with an exquisite definition of Michaelic Christianity.
Three books are disclosed: The Act of Consecration of Man by Tom Ravetz; Uncovering the Secrets of Time and Numbers by Wolfgang Held and Stories, Poems and Meditations by Karl König as the latest release from the Karl König Archive. In a review of The Act of Consecration of Man by Tom Ravetz, the reviewer, Peter Howe, says: “Personally, I have never before encountered a book which felt so much like a companion, a wise and knowledgeable voice by my side”.
Perspectives – June - August 2020 – a review
reviewed by John-Peter Gernaat
The June - August 2020 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, is being made available in Southern Africa. This edition will be available for download at a small fee in a few months at http://thechristiancommunity.co.uk/PVS-test/previous-editions-test/. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his introduction to this edition Rev. Tom Ravetz speaks to the difficulty in understanding the current times. He points to the Spirit of our age and suggests the listening in prayer can open a way to behold world events.
Rev. Ioanna Panagiotopoulos, priest in Canberra, also addresses the changing times in her “Opening”. She perceives us as bird within its shell waiting to be born and the winds of change as the force that can unfurl and strengthen our wings so that we not only can fly on the winds of the change but also be “its vessel for flight”.
Rev. Bastiaan Baan, priest in Driebergen, Netherlands, reflects on the disquiet with which we are faced today and provides some concrete exercises to create “the sources of inner quiet” that can be wrapped around one like a cloak.
Rev. James Hines, priest in Denver, USA, considers a thought that is given a lot of time now: concerning death and the timing of our death. He provides a picture of the difference of time as experienced on earth and in the realm of eternity. He gives an indication of how an incident on earth, in our sense of time is approached by the Father and the Hierarchies to become part of the tapestry of eternal time. These incidents in our earthly life can include an unexpected death.
There is a rendering of a part of Psalm 23 by Peter Howe.
Rev. Georg Dreisig, priest emeritus, shares his insight into prayer using images that a young person experiences during the preparation for Confirmation, images of the seed that bears the flower and the concepts of the Lord’s Prayer. He creates a powerful picture of what real praying is.
Rev. Peter Holman, priest in Edinburgh, asks what prayer is. He offers several answers: prayer in action in the way we live life; what to hold in prayer when we think of someone in need; how to create a prayerful space and what to bring into this space in thought; and the prayer that is the Act of Consecration of Man, what we bring in offering that can stream back into the world.
Rev. Roger Druitt, priest emeritus, gives a detailed understanding of meditation and prayer and their practice. He brings these two practices together for their importance to the world for in “meditation is at home in the realm of thinking; prayer lives in the will for good; but because the working of human will is below consciousness, it is only ‘felt’ in our feeling”. He concludes sagely that “our world’s catastrophes could be far worse without these so very human activities.”
Rev. Peter van Breda, priest in London, contemplates the “fate of the earth”. Besides the effect we have on the earth, it too has a destiny that will end in death. Through a sacrificial offering, something within dies to be resurrected on a higher level. We transform the earth in love.
Rev. Lars Åke Karlsson, priest emeritus, links the work of John the Baptist to that of the Archangel Michael in an article translated by Sheila Iveson through a description of the season of summer that is foreign to African understanding and lives experientially for people in very high latitudes.
Rev. Douglas Thackray, priest emeritus, opens up the meaning of what Christ says “I am the Light of the World” through very a real present-day example that shocked the world. Through the story of the woman places in the middle and Paul’s experience of taking responsibility for our own wrongdoing he reveals how we can become the lights of Christ shining in the world.
The June - August 2020 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, is being made available in Southern Africa. This edition will be available for download at a small fee in a few months at http://thechristiancommunity.co.uk/PVS-test/previous-editions-test/. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his introduction to this edition Rev. Tom Ravetz speaks to the difficulty in understanding the current times. He points to the Spirit of our age and suggests the listening in prayer can open a way to behold world events.
Rev. Ioanna Panagiotopoulos, priest in Canberra, also addresses the changing times in her “Opening”. She perceives us as bird within its shell waiting to be born and the winds of change as the force that can unfurl and strengthen our wings so that we not only can fly on the winds of the change but also be “its vessel for flight”.
Rev. Bastiaan Baan, priest in Driebergen, Netherlands, reflects on the disquiet with which we are faced today and provides some concrete exercises to create “the sources of inner quiet” that can be wrapped around one like a cloak.
Rev. James Hines, priest in Denver, USA, considers a thought that is given a lot of time now: concerning death and the timing of our death. He provides a picture of the difference of time as experienced on earth and in the realm of eternity. He gives an indication of how an incident on earth, in our sense of time is approached by the Father and the Hierarchies to become part of the tapestry of eternal time. These incidents in our earthly life can include an unexpected death.
There is a rendering of a part of Psalm 23 by Peter Howe.
Rev. Georg Dreisig, priest emeritus, shares his insight into prayer using images that a young person experiences during the preparation for Confirmation, images of the seed that bears the flower and the concepts of the Lord’s Prayer. He creates a powerful picture of what real praying is.
Rev. Peter Holman, priest in Edinburgh, asks what prayer is. He offers several answers: prayer in action in the way we live life; what to hold in prayer when we think of someone in need; how to create a prayerful space and what to bring into this space in thought; and the prayer that is the Act of Consecration of Man, what we bring in offering that can stream back into the world.
Rev. Roger Druitt, priest emeritus, gives a detailed understanding of meditation and prayer and their practice. He brings these two practices together for their importance to the world for in “meditation is at home in the realm of thinking; prayer lives in the will for good; but because the working of human will is below consciousness, it is only ‘felt’ in our feeling”. He concludes sagely that “our world’s catastrophes could be far worse without these so very human activities.”
Rev. Peter van Breda, priest in London, contemplates the “fate of the earth”. Besides the effect we have on the earth, it too has a destiny that will end in death. Through a sacrificial offering, something within dies to be resurrected on a higher level. We transform the earth in love.
Rev. Lars Åke Karlsson, priest emeritus, links the work of John the Baptist to that of the Archangel Michael in an article translated by Sheila Iveson through a description of the season of summer that is foreign to African understanding and lives experientially for people in very high latitudes.
Rev. Douglas Thackray, priest emeritus, opens up the meaning of what Christ says “I am the Light of the World” through very a real present-day example that shocked the world. Through the story of the woman places in the middle and Paul’s experience of taking responsibility for our own wrongdoing he reveals how we can become the lights of Christ shining in the world.
Rev. Bastiaan Baan offers insight into an etching by Rembrandt van Rijn often referred to as the Hundred Guilder Print in a contemplation of what it means that Christ is often referred to as ‘in the middle’.
Finally, Rev. Luke Barr, priest in Forest Row, reviews the existential novel The Plague by Albert Camus. He reflects on the characters, Camus own life, he touches on other existential novels and finally reveals that we need to answer the question of our relationship to death, especially in our times. Perspectives: Costs and Optionsby Rev. Michaël Merle
The reality of small numbers of printed material makes for a costly project. Just over a year ago the printing and postage of around 45 copies per edition were covered by the current subscription.. This reality shifted towards the end of last year and now the cost of printing and postage for 45 copies is 150% of the subscription. We are exploring several possibilities. Subscribing to the electronic version is one. However, increasing the number of subscribers would bring down the cost per unit for printing. We are therefore also looking for competitive quotes on the printing of the magazine. Perspectives is truly something to be valued and it would be wonderful to see more of it being distributed within the communities in the Region. |
Perspectives – December 2019 - February 2020 – a review
reviewed by John-Peter Gernaat
The December 2019 - February 2020 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, is available in Southern Africa. You can subscribe to Perspectives at R240 per annum through The Christian Community in KZN or try to purchase the current edition from your local congregation. This edition will be available for download at a small fee in a few months. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his editorial Rev. Tom Ravetz shares potent thoughts on ‘salvation’ and our sense that we are not whole or complete. The word salvation has its roots in the ancient Indo-European language in a word that means to make whole. He provides a beautiful image of ‘salvation’ in the Act of Consecration of Man.
Rev. Ioanna Panagiotopoulos, priest in Canberra Australia, reflects on the words from Luke 21 Heaven and earth shall pass away, my words shall not pass away in the festival season contemplation. Reflecting on a quote by Rabindranath Tagore: “Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark”, Ioanna provides a certainty for us how the Word lives already in our praying and forms the foundation on which we can stand because it also comes to us from the future where it will become and remain the only certainty.
Rev. Matthias Giles, priest in Denver USA, writes about The Individual and the Community: Sin and the sacrament of confession. In setting the stage, Matthias describes the process by which human beings have become individual and how this process is the aim of the spiritual world, but that at some point this process had to find a turning point to prevent the individual becoming completely isolated and humanity destroying itself. The impulse that turned separation back to unification is the Christ force. The impulse of unification is not only a reconnection with the divine but also a reconnection with other individual human beings. The treasure that we have gained through the separation is the treasure of freedom. He describes the nature of the sickness of sin (Original Sin) and its value in the process of separation and conjectures that the unification must be accompanied by the overcoming of the sickness of sin.
Matthias looks closely at the nature of sin: how our misdeeds weaken us, but these can be righted in future meetings and opportunities. This is subjective sin. However, our misdeeds also cause harm that is “objectively written into the world” – he terms this objective sin. These deeds cannot be undone, and we cannot redeem them through our actions. We can redeem ourselves but not the earth. Only the creating Word can redeem the sin that is written into the earth. There are three aspects of sin: the sickness of sin written into the constitution of our body, subjective sin which comes through our misdeeds and can be redeemed through future meetings and objective sin that can be redeemed only by the Christ.
Confession addresses subjective sin and Matthias describes the purpose of baptism for early Christians and the role of confession and how it changed through time. He concludes that absolution today would deny us the treasure of our own future growth that comes through the encounters of destiny to redeem our sins. Rudolf Steiner, in a lecture to the founding priests of The Christian Community, says that the cultivation of a love for Christ can heal the sickness of sin. The Creed gives us insight into the redemption of objective sin: through Christ human beings can ‘attain the re-enlivening of the dying earth existence’. Our activity is required for Christ to redeem objective sin. This is because Christ holds our freedom in highest sanctity. It requires us to actively give over our sins to Christ. A human being who is conscious of their misdeeds and united with Christ may be absolved of the objective portion of their misdeeds, or rather, the words of the Confession speak “aloud something that has come to pass through the individual’s relationship to Christ and their own deeds”. This understanding provides a new way of looking at the sacrament of confession and Matthias describes this very clearly.
Rev. Willem Boonstoppel, priest in Aberdeen, considers the path From Michaelmas to Advent, A new way to Salvation. The Protestant ideal of salvation no longer works in the age where the Archangel Michael is the time spirit. Michael overthrew the dragon in the spiritual world and the dragon has made his home on earth. The most ideal space for the dragon to make his home is that space within us that is designated for the Christ. Salvation in this age is no longer a gift to be awaited, we must become inwardly active. He describes how we may clothe ourselves in the armour as we hear in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. We need to school ourselves in the knowledge of the higher worlds. He describes the challenges that are presented us in the Gospel readings in the time from Michaelmas to Advent where we need to be wakeful in spirit all the time for the coming events and also find a peace within us to receive the proclamation of great joy to all humankind. He refers to the final sentence of the Creed to show us the relationship between past, present and future and how we need to school ourselves to join Christ in a new way to salvation.
Added into the Perspectives is the image by William Blake of Albion contemplating Jesus Christ from Jerusalem.
The December 2019 - February 2020 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, is available in Southern Africa. You can subscribe to Perspectives at R240 per annum through The Christian Community in KZN or try to purchase the current edition from your local congregation. This edition will be available for download at a small fee in a few months. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his editorial Rev. Tom Ravetz shares potent thoughts on ‘salvation’ and our sense that we are not whole or complete. The word salvation has its roots in the ancient Indo-European language in a word that means to make whole. He provides a beautiful image of ‘salvation’ in the Act of Consecration of Man.
Rev. Ioanna Panagiotopoulos, priest in Canberra Australia, reflects on the words from Luke 21 Heaven and earth shall pass away, my words shall not pass away in the festival season contemplation. Reflecting on a quote by Rabindranath Tagore: “Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark”, Ioanna provides a certainty for us how the Word lives already in our praying and forms the foundation on which we can stand because it also comes to us from the future where it will become and remain the only certainty.
Rev. Matthias Giles, priest in Denver USA, writes about The Individual and the Community: Sin and the sacrament of confession. In setting the stage, Matthias describes the process by which human beings have become individual and how this process is the aim of the spiritual world, but that at some point this process had to find a turning point to prevent the individual becoming completely isolated and humanity destroying itself. The impulse that turned separation back to unification is the Christ force. The impulse of unification is not only a reconnection with the divine but also a reconnection with other individual human beings. The treasure that we have gained through the separation is the treasure of freedom. He describes the nature of the sickness of sin (Original Sin) and its value in the process of separation and conjectures that the unification must be accompanied by the overcoming of the sickness of sin.
Matthias looks closely at the nature of sin: how our misdeeds weaken us, but these can be righted in future meetings and opportunities. This is subjective sin. However, our misdeeds also cause harm that is “objectively written into the world” – he terms this objective sin. These deeds cannot be undone, and we cannot redeem them through our actions. We can redeem ourselves but not the earth. Only the creating Word can redeem the sin that is written into the earth. There are three aspects of sin: the sickness of sin written into the constitution of our body, subjective sin which comes through our misdeeds and can be redeemed through future meetings and objective sin that can be redeemed only by the Christ.
Confession addresses subjective sin and Matthias describes the purpose of baptism for early Christians and the role of confession and how it changed through time. He concludes that absolution today would deny us the treasure of our own future growth that comes through the encounters of destiny to redeem our sins. Rudolf Steiner, in a lecture to the founding priests of The Christian Community, says that the cultivation of a love for Christ can heal the sickness of sin. The Creed gives us insight into the redemption of objective sin: through Christ human beings can ‘attain the re-enlivening of the dying earth existence’. Our activity is required for Christ to redeem objective sin. This is because Christ holds our freedom in highest sanctity. It requires us to actively give over our sins to Christ. A human being who is conscious of their misdeeds and united with Christ may be absolved of the objective portion of their misdeeds, or rather, the words of the Confession speak “aloud something that has come to pass through the individual’s relationship to Christ and their own deeds”. This understanding provides a new way of looking at the sacrament of confession and Matthias describes this very clearly.
Rev. Willem Boonstoppel, priest in Aberdeen, considers the path From Michaelmas to Advent, A new way to Salvation. The Protestant ideal of salvation no longer works in the age where the Archangel Michael is the time spirit. Michael overthrew the dragon in the spiritual world and the dragon has made his home on earth. The most ideal space for the dragon to make his home is that space within us that is designated for the Christ. Salvation in this age is no longer a gift to be awaited, we must become inwardly active. He describes how we may clothe ourselves in the armour as we hear in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. We need to school ourselves in the knowledge of the higher worlds. He describes the challenges that are presented us in the Gospel readings in the time from Michaelmas to Advent where we need to be wakeful in spirit all the time for the coming events and also find a peace within us to receive the proclamation of great joy to all humankind. He refers to the final sentence of the Creed to show us the relationship between past, present and future and how we need to school ourselves to join Christ in a new way to salvation.
Added into the Perspectives is the image by William Blake of Albion contemplating Jesus Christ from Jerusalem.
Rev. Douglas Thackray, priest emeritus living in Cornwall, provides Some aspects of salvation. He begins with the conundrum of salvation as being a Christian understanding, but in rephrasing it as ‘the way to freedom’ it becomes applicable to everyone. He shows how the human understanding of the afterlife is quite consistent in all cultures and religions by referring to the weighing of the heart of the deceased by the divine worlds in Egyptian culture. Looking for the way to freedom is quite individual and Douglas demonstrates this with three examples: the story of Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at Jacob’s well at midday and Job. In each case these individuals were outsiders, alone with themselves in their seeking for the way to freedom. He also tells a very personal story of a fellow clergy who has found her way to freedom through the particular burden she has to bear every day of her life.
Rev. Cynthia Hindes, priest in Los Angeles, provides insight into Paul and Christ. Cynthia concludes with the words: “Paul’s relationship to Christ was both intimate and of world-historic significance. Without Paul there would have been neither an outer exoteric spread of Christianity nor any real understanding of the cosmic and esoteric significance of Christ’s deed.” The article explains the relationship and Paul’s significance to Christianity and world history. It creates a portrait of Paul that everyone should know. Through Paul’s Damascus experience we can also understand the role of Christ in our future evolution and that we too will have this experience from the last century and for the next three thousand years as our etheric souls become more sensitive.
This article is followed by a poem written following a workshop on a ‘Decent of the Christ Being’.
This edition concludes with as article by Regine Bruhn titled: “The Free School for Social Work in Eisenach 1932. The world situation poses the question—an anthroposophical doctor and a priest answer!”. The article describes the pastoral-medicinal work of Dr Karl Kõnig and Rev. Emil Bock in the early 1930s in answer to social question of the time. It also describes the forces at work that prevented the fruition of the initiatives.
The article poses a question for us in South Africa as to how the Anthroposophical Society and The Christian Community, or rather individual members of these groups, can respond to the burning social questions in our country.
Rev. Cynthia Hindes, priest in Los Angeles, provides insight into Paul and Christ. Cynthia concludes with the words: “Paul’s relationship to Christ was both intimate and of world-historic significance. Without Paul there would have been neither an outer exoteric spread of Christianity nor any real understanding of the cosmic and esoteric significance of Christ’s deed.” The article explains the relationship and Paul’s significance to Christianity and world history. It creates a portrait of Paul that everyone should know. Through Paul’s Damascus experience we can also understand the role of Christ in our future evolution and that we too will have this experience from the last century and for the next three thousand years as our etheric souls become more sensitive.
This article is followed by a poem written following a workshop on a ‘Decent of the Christ Being’.
This edition concludes with as article by Regine Bruhn titled: “The Free School for Social Work in Eisenach 1932. The world situation poses the question—an anthroposophical doctor and a priest answer!”. The article describes the pastoral-medicinal work of Dr Karl Kõnig and Rev. Emil Bock in the early 1930s in answer to social question of the time. It also describes the forces at work that prevented the fruition of the initiatives.
The article poses a question for us in South Africa as to how the Anthroposophical Society and The Christian Community, or rather individual members of these groups, can respond to the burning social questions in our country.
Perspectives – September - November 2019 – a review
reviewed by John-Peter Gernaat
The September - November 2019 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, will be available in Southern Africa in a few weeks. The Southern African Perspectives was not yet available at the time of this review. You can subscribe to Perspectives at R240 per annum through The Christian Community in KZN or try to purchase the current edition from your local congregation. This edition will be available for download at a small fee in a few months. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his editorial: ‘Danger fosters the rescuing power’ a quote from the poem Patmos by Friedrich Hölderlin, Rev. Tom Ravetz shares how the angelic worlds view times of crisis in individual lives or world events as opportunities for spiritual growth. Our current times call on us to act and this edition of Perspectives may provide some direction.
Rev. Luke Barr, priest in Forrest Row, leads with an article of the same name as the edition. He paints a bleak picture of the state of The Christian Community in Britain and Christianity as a path of religion or spirituality. In particular, the next generation is missing from most communities. He equated our current culture to a poem from Yeats and the picture by Hieronymous Bosch called ‘The Triumph of Death’. He feels that we have failed to ‘unite with the world’s evolving’ as we are asked to do in the communion prayer in the Act of Consecration of Man. But in all of this lies an “unparalleled spiritual opportunity”. Three generations have carried The Christian Community and are reflected in the church buildings, but the ways of the past must evolve. He also replaces ‘opportunity’ with “a favourable time”. The Christian Community must evolve to meet people where they are at. He returns to the poem by Yeats who speaks of the turbulent times as the time of the Second Coming. If The Christian Community is dying, Christ has overcome death; what new form can arise. Luke speaks of the opportunity that lies in the Sacrament of Consultation. He describes the form and says the Consultation takes place at the level of the meeting of the human ‘I’. He speaks of any sort of healing requiring three levels: physical, soul and spiritual. The Sacrament of Consultation has its place in the healing on a spiritual level. We speak and the Word listens. This creates opportunity (a word derived from Latin that meant ‘to approach a harbour’). When we find ourselves ‘at sea’ in daily life the Consultation is a safe harbour. What we receive from the process of the Consultation we can offer again as bread and wine in the Act of Consecration of Man. It is also important for the priest of the community to know the spiritual life of the human souls in the congregation in order to serve the angel of the congregation. This spiritual life will colour the Sunday sermons and ensure these remain real and accessible to the congregation as the living Word.
Rev. Ioanna Panagiotopoulos, priest in Canberra, Australia, writes a provocative article with title “Within our power”. She starts with a depiction of life in all its facets: destructive, self-absorbed, seeking. What is the opportunity that can be afforded by all of this? The answer is Freedom. In times past only a select few initiates were tasked with guiding human development. Today, the freedom we have gained, enables each person to be a steward of our destiny. There are many paths of seeking available and each has hinderances that are the means by which we will, in time, unfold meaning. What matters are the gifts we create and extract from our life that we carry with us to the gates of death.
Rev. Michael Kientzler, priest in Forest Row, writes an article on “St Michael’s relationship to space and time”. In The Christian Community Michael is described as the countenance of Christ. Michael Kientzler investigates this and points to the archangel being a bridge builder from the divine world towards humanity. He then connects the archangel to the time in which we now live and points to the similarities that exist now and in the previous time that the archangel was the time spirit, the time of Hellenism. Both are characterised by the emergence of the individual from the generic. Time is a stream from the past to the future where we occupy the present. But, as best understood from the German word for future, it is also a stream from the future coming towards us. Humanity is the vortex where these two streams of time meet. Into this, special moments can arise where something new can be initiated or a spiritual connection arises through an individual. The archangel encompasses all these elements of time with an emphasis on the present. Michael Kientzler then looks at all the time references in the Act of Consecration of Man in the Michaelmas time and how they relate to a present that is ongoing for some time into the future. The archangel will join and support our endeavours when we start working in inner freedom in the direction of the Christ-Impulse particularly towards inner self determination.
Rev Mathijs van Alstein, priest in Zeist, Netherlands, in an article titled “Exposed and unprotected – entering the void”, translated by Louise Madden, takes a very philosophical look at the freedom we as human beings experience and how that experience translates into existential experience. In the Hellenic period the gods lived among the Greeks as a real experience. The medieval soul experienced the angelic realm. Our common experience is one of profound anxiety. He equates this to a tsunami, which firstly draws the ocean into itself as it approaches land creating a void, before overwhelming with too much. “The spirit world steers us into nothingness, so that at the other end of that nothingness we find ourselves, free and self-aware, as building stones for a world to come. Anxiety is a necessary side effect.”
Deborah Ravetz, a member of the Forest Row congregation and part of the editorial team of Perspectives, writes a poignant and moving article with the title “Shaken awake”. Her article is about our relationship to anxiety and fear and how more and more people are refusing to numb their anxiety and rather to endure it in order to be their true selves. She begins with a very personal story of the fear and anxiety her mother had and how it played out in the family and in her life in particular. When her mother revealed the root of her anxiety it enabled Deborah to fulfil a dream to study art. This brought her her own creative anxiety. She investigates this further through a young female artist of the early 1900s who learned to embrace her vulnerability and discover in that her true self. The world today may make us fearful and anxious and yet we are seeing women and young people stand up in the face of fear and demand democracy as a lived experience. She elaborates on this. She concludes that the current world crises are shaking us awake and bringing us to our true selves where we can understand that freedom is self-mastery and self-leadership. As more people find their true self, more people will unite to help build a better world.
Kevin Street, member of the community in Stourbridge, editor of the UK newsletter and author on child related matters, wrote an article following a discussion with Erhard Keller, titled “Making the most of our time”. In the article he attempts to understand time, from the scientific notion, the mundane race to fit our lives into the time of day, to our experience of time. Most notable is the development of a child. This is not linear in time; there is a rapid development before birth that continues for a further three years. As we age we experience time differently, from the eternal now when we are doing something that absorbs our attention completely to the racing of the years. He hypothesises about the age of the earth and whether its development is similar to that of a child, rapid and first and slowing down. He explores the idea of Kairos, or the right time. And finally he looks at Jesus’ teachings where in Matt 6:34 Jesus says: “… do not be concerned about tomorrow …” and “seek first the Kingdom of God” which we learn is within (Lk 17:20). “It is from within us … that … we can move ever close to fulfilling our destinies in co-creating a glorious future.”
Two books are reviewed in this edition.
The September - November 2019 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, will be available in Southern Africa in a few weeks. The Southern African Perspectives was not yet available at the time of this review. You can subscribe to Perspectives at R240 per annum through The Christian Community in KZN or try to purchase the current edition from your local congregation. This edition will be available for download at a small fee in a few months. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his editorial: ‘Danger fosters the rescuing power’ a quote from the poem Patmos by Friedrich Hölderlin, Rev. Tom Ravetz shares how the angelic worlds view times of crisis in individual lives or world events as opportunities for spiritual growth. Our current times call on us to act and this edition of Perspectives may provide some direction.
Rev. Luke Barr, priest in Forrest Row, leads with an article of the same name as the edition. He paints a bleak picture of the state of The Christian Community in Britain and Christianity as a path of religion or spirituality. In particular, the next generation is missing from most communities. He equated our current culture to a poem from Yeats and the picture by Hieronymous Bosch called ‘The Triumph of Death’. He feels that we have failed to ‘unite with the world’s evolving’ as we are asked to do in the communion prayer in the Act of Consecration of Man. But in all of this lies an “unparalleled spiritual opportunity”. Three generations have carried The Christian Community and are reflected in the church buildings, but the ways of the past must evolve. He also replaces ‘opportunity’ with “a favourable time”. The Christian Community must evolve to meet people where they are at. He returns to the poem by Yeats who speaks of the turbulent times as the time of the Second Coming. If The Christian Community is dying, Christ has overcome death; what new form can arise. Luke speaks of the opportunity that lies in the Sacrament of Consultation. He describes the form and says the Consultation takes place at the level of the meeting of the human ‘I’. He speaks of any sort of healing requiring three levels: physical, soul and spiritual. The Sacrament of Consultation has its place in the healing on a spiritual level. We speak and the Word listens. This creates opportunity (a word derived from Latin that meant ‘to approach a harbour’). When we find ourselves ‘at sea’ in daily life the Consultation is a safe harbour. What we receive from the process of the Consultation we can offer again as bread and wine in the Act of Consecration of Man. It is also important for the priest of the community to know the spiritual life of the human souls in the congregation in order to serve the angel of the congregation. This spiritual life will colour the Sunday sermons and ensure these remain real and accessible to the congregation as the living Word.
Rev. Ioanna Panagiotopoulos, priest in Canberra, Australia, writes a provocative article with title “Within our power”. She starts with a depiction of life in all its facets: destructive, self-absorbed, seeking. What is the opportunity that can be afforded by all of this? The answer is Freedom. In times past only a select few initiates were tasked with guiding human development. Today, the freedom we have gained, enables each person to be a steward of our destiny. There are many paths of seeking available and each has hinderances that are the means by which we will, in time, unfold meaning. What matters are the gifts we create and extract from our life that we carry with us to the gates of death.
Rev. Michael Kientzler, priest in Forest Row, writes an article on “St Michael’s relationship to space and time”. In The Christian Community Michael is described as the countenance of Christ. Michael Kientzler investigates this and points to the archangel being a bridge builder from the divine world towards humanity. He then connects the archangel to the time in which we now live and points to the similarities that exist now and in the previous time that the archangel was the time spirit, the time of Hellenism. Both are characterised by the emergence of the individual from the generic. Time is a stream from the past to the future where we occupy the present. But, as best understood from the German word for future, it is also a stream from the future coming towards us. Humanity is the vortex where these two streams of time meet. Into this, special moments can arise where something new can be initiated or a spiritual connection arises through an individual. The archangel encompasses all these elements of time with an emphasis on the present. Michael Kientzler then looks at all the time references in the Act of Consecration of Man in the Michaelmas time and how they relate to a present that is ongoing for some time into the future. The archangel will join and support our endeavours when we start working in inner freedom in the direction of the Christ-Impulse particularly towards inner self determination.
Rev Mathijs van Alstein, priest in Zeist, Netherlands, in an article titled “Exposed and unprotected – entering the void”, translated by Louise Madden, takes a very philosophical look at the freedom we as human beings experience and how that experience translates into existential experience. In the Hellenic period the gods lived among the Greeks as a real experience. The medieval soul experienced the angelic realm. Our common experience is one of profound anxiety. He equates this to a tsunami, which firstly draws the ocean into itself as it approaches land creating a void, before overwhelming with too much. “The spirit world steers us into nothingness, so that at the other end of that nothingness we find ourselves, free and self-aware, as building stones for a world to come. Anxiety is a necessary side effect.”
Deborah Ravetz, a member of the Forest Row congregation and part of the editorial team of Perspectives, writes a poignant and moving article with the title “Shaken awake”. Her article is about our relationship to anxiety and fear and how more and more people are refusing to numb their anxiety and rather to endure it in order to be their true selves. She begins with a very personal story of the fear and anxiety her mother had and how it played out in the family and in her life in particular. When her mother revealed the root of her anxiety it enabled Deborah to fulfil a dream to study art. This brought her her own creative anxiety. She investigates this further through a young female artist of the early 1900s who learned to embrace her vulnerability and discover in that her true self. The world today may make us fearful and anxious and yet we are seeing women and young people stand up in the face of fear and demand democracy as a lived experience. She elaborates on this. She concludes that the current world crises are shaking us awake and bringing us to our true selves where we can understand that freedom is self-mastery and self-leadership. As more people find their true self, more people will unite to help build a better world.
Kevin Street, member of the community in Stourbridge, editor of the UK newsletter and author on child related matters, wrote an article following a discussion with Erhard Keller, titled “Making the most of our time”. In the article he attempts to understand time, from the scientific notion, the mundane race to fit our lives into the time of day, to our experience of time. Most notable is the development of a child. This is not linear in time; there is a rapid development before birth that continues for a further three years. As we age we experience time differently, from the eternal now when we are doing something that absorbs our attention completely to the racing of the years. He hypothesises about the age of the earth and whether its development is similar to that of a child, rapid and first and slowing down. He explores the idea of Kairos, or the right time. And finally he looks at Jesus’ teachings where in Matt 6:34 Jesus says: “… do not be concerned about tomorrow …” and “seek first the Kingdom of God” which we learn is within (Lk 17:20). “It is from within us … that … we can move ever close to fulfilling our destinies in co-creating a glorious future.”
Two books are reviewed in this edition.
Unlocking Your Self-Healing Potential. A journey back to health through creativity, authenticity, and self-determination by Joseph Ulrich, review by Anna Phillips.
“Ulrich sets out to explain what is meant by self-healing, how it is activated and where it can lead us. He first addresses the meaning of the concept health, how it is perceived by health professionals, therapists and patients. Joseph Ulrich, a pupil of Bernhard Lievegoed, works professionally as an art therapist in Germany and in that capacity meets many people with life-threatening illnesses, particularly cancer. This book is based on a life observing and researching the link between creativity and the immune system. True life experiences round out the research.” He explores the healing power of our life forces. “What is untreatable (by medicine) is not necessarily incurable.” Creativity is connected to self-examination, particularly of our thoughts and feelings. Every person is different and therefore therapy must be individual. We have both health and illness within us and we can focus on making what is health, healthier. This book is both for patients and medical professionals. “Ulrich hopes his book will offer support and courage to all who seek to pursue their individual path towards health and their authentic selves.”
“Ulrich sets out to explain what is meant by self-healing, how it is activated and where it can lead us. He first addresses the meaning of the concept health, how it is perceived by health professionals, therapists and patients. Joseph Ulrich, a pupil of Bernhard Lievegoed, works professionally as an art therapist in Germany and in that capacity meets many people with life-threatening illnesses, particularly cancer. This book is based on a life observing and researching the link between creativity and the immune system. True life experiences round out the research.” He explores the healing power of our life forces. “What is untreatable (by medicine) is not necessarily incurable.” Creativity is connected to self-examination, particularly of our thoughts and feelings. Every person is different and therefore therapy must be individual. We have both health and illness within us and we can focus on making what is health, healthier. This book is both for patients and medical professionals. “Ulrich hopes his book will offer support and courage to all who seek to pursue their individual path towards health and their authentic selves.”
The Isenheim Altarpiece: History—Interpretation—Background by Michael Schubert, review by Kate Somerville.
We have had a report of a workshop by Michael Schubert based on his book. He posits the question: ‘Can the altar, which previously was said to heal St Anthony’s fire, also heal the illnesses of our century?’
We have had a report of a workshop by Michael Schubert based on his book. He posits the question: ‘Can the altar, which previously was said to heal St Anthony’s fire, also heal the illnesses of our century?’
Perspectives – June - August 2019 – a review
by John-Peter Gernaat
Rev. Tom Ravetz introduces the theme of this edition by reflecting on the change that has taken place in the journey of humanity from “old forms of community, bestowed by nature and blood, to new ones.” He warns that the shadow side of these old forms should deter us from wishes to return to them. The articles in this edition look at “what Christian community can be from a variety of viewpoints, from practical questions of how congregations grow and sustain themselves to the deepest question of how our community striving can serve higher beings.” The hope is that we feel the importance of what we are trying to do.
Christianity: a future community by Rev. Luke Barr – priest in Forest Row
Rev. Luke Barr describes in detail an evening meeting held in a Camphill school in Germany, where he previously worked as a teacher, to discuss a child with a crisis. The setting placed the soul of the child as the centre of focus and the participants seemed to converse as if from their future selves. Some days later in bright daylight the fermentation of that meeting brought suggestions that seemed right for that child.
Luke then provides a picture of what this conversation about the child looked like in a way that compares it with the fourfold form of the Act of Consecration of Man. This community served the destiny of the child. He contends that all communities are “organs of service” because “service … makes spiritual communion possible”. The activity of a community is to learn to listen for the needs of the world without imposing its own preconceptions. This in turn means that such a community will not easily be accepted by the world and needs to renew itself constantly. “The Act of Consecration is a perpetual Easter; the communities that arise from it are Whitsun-inspired.”
Like the community that placed the child’s higher being in its midst, so we can discern something greater in our midst. This that we experience in our midst is, like the child, not yet fully formed and relies on us to help it strengthen for the future world.
Luke makes a strong case that where there is community, there is Christ, but we experience Him only in moments of heightened earnestness or joy, such as the Act of Consecration. Then we realise that “we are living in Him, and He in us” and can build Christian Communities for the future.
Becoming an I makes us lonely…and free by Rev. Ilse Wellershoff Schuur – priest in Überlingen
The article starts with a quote from Philosophy of Freedom by Rudolf Steiner on becoming free human beings.
The challenges of our time are connected with every person becoming more themselves and feeling less connected to the patterns of communities of natural descent. “Individualisation means the transition from determination from outside to self-determination.” Rev. Ilse Wellershoff Schuur illustrates how sociology recognises this increasing individualisation and how, being left to our devices, we become confused and frightened. She also highlights that in different cultures this development has taken different courses and she share three experiences.
In western society it is difficult to determine who “belong” with whom or who takes care of whom. In middle eastern culture the extended family still exists as the core of society with everyone involved in the lives of everyone else in that family. The society of the west is less than a century old and the effects of individualisation are being felt in societies such as the Middle East. Individualisation also results in greater mixing of people, such as parents adopting from other countries and ethnically mixed relationships. We decide for ourselves where we find belonging, even in the face of authority.
Gender roles have dissolved, especially in the west and now we begin to see that gender identification is also becoming individual, as is the choice of partner. The lack of individual freedom in other parts of the world is leading to individual conflict and outer conflict.
Religious tradition is no longer being refreshed by initiates or taken hold of in the spiritual life of the individual, and have become mere form. They have become the crutches of the ego too weak to walk on its own two feet. This is true for religions across the world and for cult-like communities.
Rudolf Steiner in Philosophy of Freedom pointed out that the freedom of the individual would mean that concepts would have to change.
There is a trend away from established churches, but also a growing search for meaning, real help on the path to self-discovery and a longing for a place of genuine spirituality. The future is for people to bring alive the spirit in their own soul. This is the future for all religions and the only way through which the isolation of human beings becomes their true liberation.
‘I am there in their midst’ – Being a Christian Community by Rev. Peter Holman – priest in Edinburgh
Rev. Peter Holman speaks of a friend who criticises The Christian Community for not doing enough to help others and is therefore neither Christian nor a community. He reminds us from Matt 18:20 that ‘two or three are gathered together’, that is a community, and ‘… in my name’, Christ is in the midst of that community. He deduces from Acts that the first Christians “strengthened their community life … on the physical level (by) sharing daily objects, in their feeling life of warmth and caring, and in the spiritual and sacramental realm”.
Peter has experienced community life in Camphill and admits that this may be too intense for modern individuals. He briefly traces how tribal community life has become free, individual autonomy. But he warns that this focus on ‘me’ had a very negative side. He gives exquisite examples from a recent book by Johann Hari, Lost Connections, who has studied modern mental health problems and people’s attempts to create community. Hari concludes that the problems in modern society weren’t created by the individuals suffering from them and therefore cannot be solved by them; but only by society as a whole.
Peter then turns to The Christian Community where our focal point is the altar where we receive communion with Christ in community. From there we can engage in the greater community in our own way and within the congregation build community through any number of ways, and he enumerates several. But he acknowledges that being a Christian community is a continual striving.
What is the task of a Christian Community? by Rev. Jens-Peter Linde in Neustadt in Holstein, Germany
Rev. Jens-Peter Linde, in a very succinct article, sums up our purpose and how we can serve the world as a Christian Community and a Movement for Religious Renewal. He describes his role as priest to be a conduit for spiritual forces to flow into the vessel of the community and our concerns to flow to the spiritual realm. And also to be receptive to the work within the community and not hinder it. Christ became Man because Divine Love wanted to reach creation and conscious within that creation. How do we, as Christians who receive grace through the sacraments become a communal impulse in the world? When religion becomes renewed in us and can flow through us into the world, we have the possibility to impact the world.
How do congregations grow? by Rev. Aaron Mirkin – priest in Stroud
Rev. Aaron Mirkin does not know the answer but offers one possible approach. The community in Stroud has been involved in a decade long project to build a new church. This has come with challenges. As a result, Aaron proposes that constant self-reflection and self-renewal, i.e. cultivating congregational self-consciousness can grow a community. The congregational self is the angel of the congregation and therefore the process is one of drawing nearer to the angel of the congregation. Aaron describes beautifully what happens at the altar to create a karmic tapestry of the community that is a unique biography of the congregation. This picture tells us that a congregation has a past, present and future. “We can begin practising honouring and acknowledging all that has gone before in our rich congregational past, celebrating and bearing the joys and challenges of the unfolding present life of the congregation, and opening ourselves to all that wants to come towards us out of the future.” Aaron then goes into detail on a range of concrete self-reflecting activities to build community. He does not intend this as a recipe, rather as way of “helping congregational life unfold a healthy and authentic biography which may indeed grow and encourage new people to get and stay involved”.
Cultivating the garden of meaning by Rev. Carol Kelly – priest in Washington DC
Rev. Carol Kelly compares the life in a community – the comings and goings and participation in activities and groups – to the life around her bird feeder. She describes many of the activities in her congregation. Using the parable in Luke 8:4-18 she reminds us that the soul is soil; if the soil is cultivated something can grow. As a community we are a garden or farm and the cultivation of souls together can bring forth abundance. She mentions two groups in her congregation and stresses the value of their activities: the young people coming together to practice singing and sharing their singing with outside groups; the importance of retreats for adults in order to connect. Her message is that as Christians, taking the message of Christ seriously, we work in opposition to the established world and this requires super-human strength in unity with God. “We need to adopt an attitude of selflessness, even in our great personal struggles, so that we become a strong circle, a vessel for the spirit.”
Grey and white, or red, brown and blond(e) – A year in the life of a growing community by Rev. Siobhán Porter – priest in Stourbridge.
Rev. Siobhán Porter shares the work she is doing with the children in the Stourbridge congregation. There are two very distinct communities, one adult and older and the other very young. The two seldom meet. Siobhán describes how it started with one child and has grown to four religious lessons a week, festivals including festivals on the feast days of lesser known saints, plays, a family worship service with music and singing, families at the community Christmas dinner and even plans for a visit to Australia. The confirmands have started to actively contribute to the life of the community. Although the grey and white heads concern themselves with the future of the community, there is a healthy growth of young, brown, blond and read heads. This article reflects how a priest with an ear for what is needed and the time to bring it to life can re-enliven a community.
The healing of the man born blind, John 9 by Rev. Douglas Thackray – priest in Cornwall
Rev. Douglas Thackray looks at the story of the healing of the man born blind from the perspective of what the “the glory of God” could mean that would be revealed in the blind man. He shines a light on the words of the man born blind and his soul qualities that embolden him to speak as he does. He concludes with the final accusatory words of Christ the “those who see will become blind”. He continues to delve into our blindness. He does this through the story of Jonathan Aitkin, a former cabinet minister and well-educated, wealthy man who is sentenced to eighteen months in prison for perjury. In prison his eyes are opened to a different part of society and he is ordained as a prison chaplain to help the people who end up in jail, and who want a second chance. He questions our relationship to reality and what is asked of us as Christians. Finally, he points to the Act of Consecration of Man that can awaken ‘not I, but Christ in me’. “The glory of God” experienced by “the man born blind is the grace of redemption that is bestowed on us when we … bow down and worship Him”.
The great transition – Memorial Services in The Christian Community by Rev. Alfred Heidenreich
This article is a reprint to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Heidenriech’s death. In the article Dr. Heidenreich explains the Act of Consecration of Man that is held for a person who has died. It is usually held on the Saturday following a funeral and forms as integral part of the process that accompanies someone who dies. He describes in detail the form and the picture of this service. He explains the significance of the four stages of the Act of Consecration of Man as a reverse picture of the process of incarnation and how they are of particular significance in this memorial service. He dissects the special prayer at the end of the service and pays particular attention to the middle part which spells out the great transition. This describes how space, time and revelation are transformed to inward space, inward time and inward revelation for the person who has died. Finally, he reminds us that a ‘right’ funeral service presents a true picture of the human being. Only on the basis of a true picture of a human being can the laws that govern the lives of people be correctly legislated. The Christian Community is making an indispensable contribution to this for all the world.
Consecration of the new church in Stroud, October 18th–20th by Rev. Aaron Mirkin
In this article Aaron reminds us of the process that the congregation in Stroud has gone through in the past ten years to finance and build a new chapel. This has been described for us in Aarons letter to us and in previous articles in Perspectives. There is a photograph of the ceiling of the new chapel. The article is also a request for donations towards the shortfall in funds in the construction of this chapel.
Rev. Tom Ravetz introduces the theme of this edition by reflecting on the change that has taken place in the journey of humanity from “old forms of community, bestowed by nature and blood, to new ones.” He warns that the shadow side of these old forms should deter us from wishes to return to them. The articles in this edition look at “what Christian community can be from a variety of viewpoints, from practical questions of how congregations grow and sustain themselves to the deepest question of how our community striving can serve higher beings.” The hope is that we feel the importance of what we are trying to do.
Christianity: a future community by Rev. Luke Barr – priest in Forest Row
Rev. Luke Barr describes in detail an evening meeting held in a Camphill school in Germany, where he previously worked as a teacher, to discuss a child with a crisis. The setting placed the soul of the child as the centre of focus and the participants seemed to converse as if from their future selves. Some days later in bright daylight the fermentation of that meeting brought suggestions that seemed right for that child.
Luke then provides a picture of what this conversation about the child looked like in a way that compares it with the fourfold form of the Act of Consecration of Man. This community served the destiny of the child. He contends that all communities are “organs of service” because “service … makes spiritual communion possible”. The activity of a community is to learn to listen for the needs of the world without imposing its own preconceptions. This in turn means that such a community will not easily be accepted by the world and needs to renew itself constantly. “The Act of Consecration is a perpetual Easter; the communities that arise from it are Whitsun-inspired.”
Like the community that placed the child’s higher being in its midst, so we can discern something greater in our midst. This that we experience in our midst is, like the child, not yet fully formed and relies on us to help it strengthen for the future world.
Luke makes a strong case that where there is community, there is Christ, but we experience Him only in moments of heightened earnestness or joy, such as the Act of Consecration. Then we realise that “we are living in Him, and He in us” and can build Christian Communities for the future.
Becoming an I makes us lonely…and free by Rev. Ilse Wellershoff Schuur – priest in Überlingen
The article starts with a quote from Philosophy of Freedom by Rudolf Steiner on becoming free human beings.
The challenges of our time are connected with every person becoming more themselves and feeling less connected to the patterns of communities of natural descent. “Individualisation means the transition from determination from outside to self-determination.” Rev. Ilse Wellershoff Schuur illustrates how sociology recognises this increasing individualisation and how, being left to our devices, we become confused and frightened. She also highlights that in different cultures this development has taken different courses and she share three experiences.
In western society it is difficult to determine who “belong” with whom or who takes care of whom. In middle eastern culture the extended family still exists as the core of society with everyone involved in the lives of everyone else in that family. The society of the west is less than a century old and the effects of individualisation are being felt in societies such as the Middle East. Individualisation also results in greater mixing of people, such as parents adopting from other countries and ethnically mixed relationships. We decide for ourselves where we find belonging, even in the face of authority.
Gender roles have dissolved, especially in the west and now we begin to see that gender identification is also becoming individual, as is the choice of partner. The lack of individual freedom in other parts of the world is leading to individual conflict and outer conflict.
Religious tradition is no longer being refreshed by initiates or taken hold of in the spiritual life of the individual, and have become mere form. They have become the crutches of the ego too weak to walk on its own two feet. This is true for religions across the world and for cult-like communities.
Rudolf Steiner in Philosophy of Freedom pointed out that the freedom of the individual would mean that concepts would have to change.
There is a trend away from established churches, but also a growing search for meaning, real help on the path to self-discovery and a longing for a place of genuine spirituality. The future is for people to bring alive the spirit in their own soul. This is the future for all religions and the only way through which the isolation of human beings becomes their true liberation.
‘I am there in their midst’ – Being a Christian Community by Rev. Peter Holman – priest in Edinburgh
Rev. Peter Holman speaks of a friend who criticises The Christian Community for not doing enough to help others and is therefore neither Christian nor a community. He reminds us from Matt 18:20 that ‘two or three are gathered together’, that is a community, and ‘… in my name’, Christ is in the midst of that community. He deduces from Acts that the first Christians “strengthened their community life … on the physical level (by) sharing daily objects, in their feeling life of warmth and caring, and in the spiritual and sacramental realm”.
Peter has experienced community life in Camphill and admits that this may be too intense for modern individuals. He briefly traces how tribal community life has become free, individual autonomy. But he warns that this focus on ‘me’ had a very negative side. He gives exquisite examples from a recent book by Johann Hari, Lost Connections, who has studied modern mental health problems and people’s attempts to create community. Hari concludes that the problems in modern society weren’t created by the individuals suffering from them and therefore cannot be solved by them; but only by society as a whole.
Peter then turns to The Christian Community where our focal point is the altar where we receive communion with Christ in community. From there we can engage in the greater community in our own way and within the congregation build community through any number of ways, and he enumerates several. But he acknowledges that being a Christian community is a continual striving.
What is the task of a Christian Community? by Rev. Jens-Peter Linde in Neustadt in Holstein, Germany
Rev. Jens-Peter Linde, in a very succinct article, sums up our purpose and how we can serve the world as a Christian Community and a Movement for Religious Renewal. He describes his role as priest to be a conduit for spiritual forces to flow into the vessel of the community and our concerns to flow to the spiritual realm. And also to be receptive to the work within the community and not hinder it. Christ became Man because Divine Love wanted to reach creation and conscious within that creation. How do we, as Christians who receive grace through the sacraments become a communal impulse in the world? When religion becomes renewed in us and can flow through us into the world, we have the possibility to impact the world.
How do congregations grow? by Rev. Aaron Mirkin – priest in Stroud
Rev. Aaron Mirkin does not know the answer but offers one possible approach. The community in Stroud has been involved in a decade long project to build a new church. This has come with challenges. As a result, Aaron proposes that constant self-reflection and self-renewal, i.e. cultivating congregational self-consciousness can grow a community. The congregational self is the angel of the congregation and therefore the process is one of drawing nearer to the angel of the congregation. Aaron describes beautifully what happens at the altar to create a karmic tapestry of the community that is a unique biography of the congregation. This picture tells us that a congregation has a past, present and future. “We can begin practising honouring and acknowledging all that has gone before in our rich congregational past, celebrating and bearing the joys and challenges of the unfolding present life of the congregation, and opening ourselves to all that wants to come towards us out of the future.” Aaron then goes into detail on a range of concrete self-reflecting activities to build community. He does not intend this as a recipe, rather as way of “helping congregational life unfold a healthy and authentic biography which may indeed grow and encourage new people to get and stay involved”.
Cultivating the garden of meaning by Rev. Carol Kelly – priest in Washington DC
Rev. Carol Kelly compares the life in a community – the comings and goings and participation in activities and groups – to the life around her bird feeder. She describes many of the activities in her congregation. Using the parable in Luke 8:4-18 she reminds us that the soul is soil; if the soil is cultivated something can grow. As a community we are a garden or farm and the cultivation of souls together can bring forth abundance. She mentions two groups in her congregation and stresses the value of their activities: the young people coming together to practice singing and sharing their singing with outside groups; the importance of retreats for adults in order to connect. Her message is that as Christians, taking the message of Christ seriously, we work in opposition to the established world and this requires super-human strength in unity with God. “We need to adopt an attitude of selflessness, even in our great personal struggles, so that we become a strong circle, a vessel for the spirit.”
Grey and white, or red, brown and blond(e) – A year in the life of a growing community by Rev. Siobhán Porter – priest in Stourbridge.
Rev. Siobhán Porter shares the work she is doing with the children in the Stourbridge congregation. There are two very distinct communities, one adult and older and the other very young. The two seldom meet. Siobhán describes how it started with one child and has grown to four religious lessons a week, festivals including festivals on the feast days of lesser known saints, plays, a family worship service with music and singing, families at the community Christmas dinner and even plans for a visit to Australia. The confirmands have started to actively contribute to the life of the community. Although the grey and white heads concern themselves with the future of the community, there is a healthy growth of young, brown, blond and read heads. This article reflects how a priest with an ear for what is needed and the time to bring it to life can re-enliven a community.
The healing of the man born blind, John 9 by Rev. Douglas Thackray – priest in Cornwall
Rev. Douglas Thackray looks at the story of the healing of the man born blind from the perspective of what the “the glory of God” could mean that would be revealed in the blind man. He shines a light on the words of the man born blind and his soul qualities that embolden him to speak as he does. He concludes with the final accusatory words of Christ the “those who see will become blind”. He continues to delve into our blindness. He does this through the story of Jonathan Aitkin, a former cabinet minister and well-educated, wealthy man who is sentenced to eighteen months in prison for perjury. In prison his eyes are opened to a different part of society and he is ordained as a prison chaplain to help the people who end up in jail, and who want a second chance. He questions our relationship to reality and what is asked of us as Christians. Finally, he points to the Act of Consecration of Man that can awaken ‘not I, but Christ in me’. “The glory of God” experienced by “the man born blind is the grace of redemption that is bestowed on us when we … bow down and worship Him”.
The great transition – Memorial Services in The Christian Community by Rev. Alfred Heidenreich
This article is a reprint to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Heidenriech’s death. In the article Dr. Heidenreich explains the Act of Consecration of Man that is held for a person who has died. It is usually held on the Saturday following a funeral and forms as integral part of the process that accompanies someone who dies. He describes in detail the form and the picture of this service. He explains the significance of the four stages of the Act of Consecration of Man as a reverse picture of the process of incarnation and how they are of particular significance in this memorial service. He dissects the special prayer at the end of the service and pays particular attention to the middle part which spells out the great transition. This describes how space, time and revelation are transformed to inward space, inward time and inward revelation for the person who has died. Finally, he reminds us that a ‘right’ funeral service presents a true picture of the human being. Only on the basis of a true picture of a human being can the laws that govern the lives of people be correctly legislated. The Christian Community is making an indispensable contribution to this for all the world.
Consecration of the new church in Stroud, October 18th–20th by Rev. Aaron Mirkin
In this article Aaron reminds us of the process that the congregation in Stroud has gone through in the past ten years to finance and build a new chapel. This has been described for us in Aarons letter to us and in previous articles in Perspectives. There is a photograph of the ceiling of the new chapel. The article is also a request for donations towards the shortfall in funds in the construction of this chapel.
Book Review: Reincarnation – A Christian Perspective by Fredrich Rittelmeyer is reviewed by Anna Philips
In this book, written nearly ninety years ago, Rittelmeyer sets out to prove for himself that reincarnation, as revealed to him by Rudolf Steiner, and Christianity are not mutually exclusive. He approached the question from three angles: thinking, the Bible and ethics. In this review each of these approaches is fleshed out. Rittelmeyer is rigorous in his approach to the question. Some of the conclusions Rittlemeyer reached: “The Christian way of seeing reincarnation acknowledges karma as training: an active undertaking for improvement of the soul towards its purification where the justice residing in destiny leads to wisdom.” “Without an acknowledgement of destiny and reincarnation our inner urges for perfection may lead to a materialistic egoism such as the longing for wealth and comfort. New morality is reached through self-discipline.” He concludes with his thoughts on social issues and marriage. “We walk together for a while giving each other a chance to meet and grow towards a common humanity.”
In this book, written nearly ninety years ago, Rittelmeyer sets out to prove for himself that reincarnation, as revealed to him by Rudolf Steiner, and Christianity are not mutually exclusive. He approached the question from three angles: thinking, the Bible and ethics. In this review each of these approaches is fleshed out. Rittelmeyer is rigorous in his approach to the question. Some of the conclusions Rittlemeyer reached: “The Christian way of seeing reincarnation acknowledges karma as training: an active undertaking for improvement of the soul towards its purification where the justice residing in destiny leads to wisdom.” “Without an acknowledgement of destiny and reincarnation our inner urges for perfection may lead to a materialistic egoism such as the longing for wealth and comfort. New morality is reached through self-discipline.” He concludes with his thoughts on social issues and marriage. “We walk together for a while giving each other a chance to meet and grow towards a common humanity.”
Perspectives – March - May 2019 – a review
by John-Peter Gernaat
The March - May 2019 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly journal of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, will be available in Southern Africa in a few weeks. The Southern African Perspectives were not yet available at the time of this review. You can subscribe to Perspectives at R240 per annum through The Christian Community in KZN or try to purchase the current edition from your local congregation. This edition will be available for download at a small fee in a few months here. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his editorial: Christ has risen unto you as the meaning of the earth!, Rev. Tom Ravetz searches for meaning that would justify the suffering in the world. How can suffering be reconciled with a loving God? It is the meaning we find in Easter Sunday, in our own lives, that is our calling as Christians.
In an article rich with imagery, Rev. Ioanna Panagiotopoulos, priest in Canberra, using the image of the earth as the cosmic blue pearl, reveals how our pain on earth becomes a cosmic pearl. Ioanna links the value of the pearl with the divine through ancient traditions. She describes how the entry of a foreign particle into the pearl shell causes the animal to secrete the layers, at a thickness equivalent to the wavelength of visible light, that become the pearl. Creation is linked to sacrifice and sacrifice to pain. The sacrifice of the divine created the earth as a blue pearl that shines in the cosmos. Through Christ entering into the earth our pain is transformed through His warmth to love. This love, through our deeds, is a new substance for the future.
Rev. Andreas Loos, priest in Cali, Columbia asks questions that are very relevant for us in Africa in his article subtitled Violence: one of the wounds of Christ as he reappears today? Columbia is a country wracked by war and violence; the city of Cali suffers from youth gang violence. Andreas askes what humanity wants from us as a Christian Community. He quotes a fellow colleague, Gwendolyn Fischer, who once said: “I need to be present where I am helpless; not leave these places to their own devices.” Andreas describes some of the work he and congregants from his community undertake. He tells stories of the patients in the male surgery ward of the large city hospital whom he has accompanied: the questions they hold and insights they have given. His question to us in Southern Africa (and all over the world) is very pressing: what can we, as The Christian Community, do in society so that what we stand for reaches beyond our circles. He reminds us that Christ visited the people on the fringes of society.
Deborah Ravetz, a member in Forest Row and part of the editorial team of Perspectives, connects us with our true task in life in her article The meaning of the earth – the meaning of suffering. In John 15:15 Christ tells his disciples that he calls them friends, not servants, because he has revealed to them everything he knows. The disciples, and we, become co-workers with Christ. What do we offer into this relationship with Christ? It is the work we do on ourselves. “Finding our true identity and our task demands a huge amount of work and commitment. Learning to live with our questions and to keep searching demands real endurance.” Deborah relates this process to practicing art and uses the life of Vincent van Gogh to illustrate her thinking. “Christ has taken up residence in the human heart and he becomes visible and powerful when we take ourselves and those around us seriously enough to engage with the art of becoming human.”
Florian Burfeind, a member in Vancouver and a psychotherapist, tries to find how the resurrection has meaning in life in an article titled Mark 16 and the meaning of the earth. In our materialistic and consumer-driven world where even among the relatively small percentage of people who profess to a religion very few make any effort to attend religious services. Florian uses the Gospel story of the resurrection to reflect on the process of healing. The new often enters our life as a crisis. The self-awakening aspect may take time to manifest and the images from the Gospel show how the appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene did not bring healing. When He appeared to two and then to the eleven a process could begin, and Christ could give them their mission. “In communion with Christ we enter into a right relationship to our capacities of thinking, feeling and willing.” In our time “living out of the reality of the resurrection becomes an exercise of our will.” Coming together as a community at the altar at a given time regularly, brings us into a space where we can bring to real consciousness the experience of the transubstantiation and thereby bring into our lives the experience of a communion with Christ.
Lucilla Marchado, a biographical counsellor, describes her work and how the technique finds patterns in one’s biography to assist in connecting to oneself and finding purpose and meaning in life. She provides two clear examples of how biography work benefits people. She describes how biography work can be a unifying process and help build community in a world that is becoming more fragmented.
Angela Harper studied theology and worked as a chaplain. A life-long health condition resulted in her writing a book. In an article titled The meaning of the earth Angela describes how we can look at period of our lives as living in a particular house. She describes the houses of childhood, psychological entrapment, illness and transformation, what we find living in each, the questions that arise and how they each provide us with knowledge and skills to “form the foundations of our eternal selves”.
Michael Bracewell is a scientist and member in Aberdeen and attempts to explain the resurrection body of Christ from a scientific perspective. The Gospels provide a picture of the resurrection body of Christ from His appearances to several individuals and groups of people. Michael goes into some detail to explain how this resurrection body of Christ appears to work. He then gives a very understandable explanation of quantum science. In essence matter has two natures: it’s physical or material nature and a wave nature. Something links these two natures that determines how the matter will appear. He indicates that living matter has raised the wave nature of its substance which we see in processes such as metabolism. He conjectures that the resurrection of Christ raised the wave nature of the resurrection body even more so that it behaves more like quantum matter than physical matter. He substantiates his theory with an understanding of the Greek words for the body soma and sarx and even kreas from unpublished lectures he has studied and contemplated.
Ernst Terpstra, priest in Amsterdam and Lenker for the Netherlands, writes a fascinating treatise on the caculation of the date for Easter. He provides the history within the Christian churches, the attempts to unify the method of calculation, the effect of the inaccuracies of the Julian calendar and the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. The reason for this article is the variability of the astronomical events from calculated events, e.g. the start of spring (northern hemisphere) varies between early morning on 19th March to the evening on 21st March. Rudolf Steiner gave indications on the calculation of Easter, which was the day of the birth of the I-consciousness, based on the relationship between the sun and the moon. This all becomes important in 2038 when spring starts on 20th March at 13h25 and the moon is full starting on 20th March at 13h33 and the mid-point of the full moon is on 21st March at 03h08. The Cosmic Easter falls on 28th March while the ecclesiastical Easter is set for 25th April. What date will The Christian Community select for Easter 2038?
Rev. Carmel Iveson, priest in Stroud, writes an obituary for Thammo von Freeden who was a farmer in various Camphill villages in the UK for twenty five years before entering the priesthood where he served for nineteen years. After retiring to care for his wife he continued to serve the community in the Camphill village where they were invited to live.
The March - May 2019 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly journal of The Christian Community in the English language published in the UK, will be available in Southern Africa in a few weeks. The Southern African Perspectives were not yet available at the time of this review. You can subscribe to Perspectives at R240 per annum through The Christian Community in KZN or try to purchase the current edition from your local congregation. This edition will be available for download at a small fee in a few months here. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
In his editorial: Christ has risen unto you as the meaning of the earth!, Rev. Tom Ravetz searches for meaning that would justify the suffering in the world. How can suffering be reconciled with a loving God? It is the meaning we find in Easter Sunday, in our own lives, that is our calling as Christians.
In an article rich with imagery, Rev. Ioanna Panagiotopoulos, priest in Canberra, using the image of the earth as the cosmic blue pearl, reveals how our pain on earth becomes a cosmic pearl. Ioanna links the value of the pearl with the divine through ancient traditions. She describes how the entry of a foreign particle into the pearl shell causes the animal to secrete the layers, at a thickness equivalent to the wavelength of visible light, that become the pearl. Creation is linked to sacrifice and sacrifice to pain. The sacrifice of the divine created the earth as a blue pearl that shines in the cosmos. Through Christ entering into the earth our pain is transformed through His warmth to love. This love, through our deeds, is a new substance for the future.
Rev. Andreas Loos, priest in Cali, Columbia asks questions that are very relevant for us in Africa in his article subtitled Violence: one of the wounds of Christ as he reappears today? Columbia is a country wracked by war and violence; the city of Cali suffers from youth gang violence. Andreas askes what humanity wants from us as a Christian Community. He quotes a fellow colleague, Gwendolyn Fischer, who once said: “I need to be present where I am helpless; not leave these places to their own devices.” Andreas describes some of the work he and congregants from his community undertake. He tells stories of the patients in the male surgery ward of the large city hospital whom he has accompanied: the questions they hold and insights they have given. His question to us in Southern Africa (and all over the world) is very pressing: what can we, as The Christian Community, do in society so that what we stand for reaches beyond our circles. He reminds us that Christ visited the people on the fringes of society.
Deborah Ravetz, a member in Forest Row and part of the editorial team of Perspectives, connects us with our true task in life in her article The meaning of the earth – the meaning of suffering. In John 15:15 Christ tells his disciples that he calls them friends, not servants, because he has revealed to them everything he knows. The disciples, and we, become co-workers with Christ. What do we offer into this relationship with Christ? It is the work we do on ourselves. “Finding our true identity and our task demands a huge amount of work and commitment. Learning to live with our questions and to keep searching demands real endurance.” Deborah relates this process to practicing art and uses the life of Vincent van Gogh to illustrate her thinking. “Christ has taken up residence in the human heart and he becomes visible and powerful when we take ourselves and those around us seriously enough to engage with the art of becoming human.”
Florian Burfeind, a member in Vancouver and a psychotherapist, tries to find how the resurrection has meaning in life in an article titled Mark 16 and the meaning of the earth. In our materialistic and consumer-driven world where even among the relatively small percentage of people who profess to a religion very few make any effort to attend religious services. Florian uses the Gospel story of the resurrection to reflect on the process of healing. The new often enters our life as a crisis. The self-awakening aspect may take time to manifest and the images from the Gospel show how the appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene did not bring healing. When He appeared to two and then to the eleven a process could begin, and Christ could give them their mission. “In communion with Christ we enter into a right relationship to our capacities of thinking, feeling and willing.” In our time “living out of the reality of the resurrection becomes an exercise of our will.” Coming together as a community at the altar at a given time regularly, brings us into a space where we can bring to real consciousness the experience of the transubstantiation and thereby bring into our lives the experience of a communion with Christ.
Lucilla Marchado, a biographical counsellor, describes her work and how the technique finds patterns in one’s biography to assist in connecting to oneself and finding purpose and meaning in life. She provides two clear examples of how biography work benefits people. She describes how biography work can be a unifying process and help build community in a world that is becoming more fragmented.
Angela Harper studied theology and worked as a chaplain. A life-long health condition resulted in her writing a book. In an article titled The meaning of the earth Angela describes how we can look at period of our lives as living in a particular house. She describes the houses of childhood, psychological entrapment, illness and transformation, what we find living in each, the questions that arise and how they each provide us with knowledge and skills to “form the foundations of our eternal selves”.
Michael Bracewell is a scientist and member in Aberdeen and attempts to explain the resurrection body of Christ from a scientific perspective. The Gospels provide a picture of the resurrection body of Christ from His appearances to several individuals and groups of people. Michael goes into some detail to explain how this resurrection body of Christ appears to work. He then gives a very understandable explanation of quantum science. In essence matter has two natures: it’s physical or material nature and a wave nature. Something links these two natures that determines how the matter will appear. He indicates that living matter has raised the wave nature of its substance which we see in processes such as metabolism. He conjectures that the resurrection of Christ raised the wave nature of the resurrection body even more so that it behaves more like quantum matter than physical matter. He substantiates his theory with an understanding of the Greek words for the body soma and sarx and even kreas from unpublished lectures he has studied and contemplated.
Ernst Terpstra, priest in Amsterdam and Lenker for the Netherlands, writes a fascinating treatise on the caculation of the date for Easter. He provides the history within the Christian churches, the attempts to unify the method of calculation, the effect of the inaccuracies of the Julian calendar and the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. The reason for this article is the variability of the astronomical events from calculated events, e.g. the start of spring (northern hemisphere) varies between early morning on 19th March to the evening on 21st March. Rudolf Steiner gave indications on the calculation of Easter, which was the day of the birth of the I-consciousness, based on the relationship between the sun and the moon. This all becomes important in 2038 when spring starts on 20th March at 13h25 and the moon is full starting on 20th March at 13h33 and the mid-point of the full moon is on 21st March at 03h08. The Cosmic Easter falls on 28th March while the ecclesiastical Easter is set for 25th April. What date will The Christian Community select for Easter 2038?
Rev. Carmel Iveson, priest in Stroud, writes an obituary for Thammo von Freeden who was a farmer in various Camphill villages in the UK for twenty five years before entering the priesthood where he served for nineteen years. After retiring to care for his wife he continued to serve the community in the Camphill village where they were invited to live.
Rev. Rolf Herzog, priest in Basel, writes an obituary for Ninetta Sombart who “made a great contribution to the renewal of Christian art: she started art on a new path that made the deep mysteries of the turning point of time, of Christ’s death and resurrection visible”. Her life took her from Europe to the USA and through illness back to Europe. There she reached senior levels in industry before retiring to full-time painting. Art was always a part of her life and her works sold well through the various stages of her life. She had a deep connection to Anthroposophy and The Christian Community.
In the second part of the conversation that Rev. Ulrich Meier, priest in Hamburg and a director of the Hamburg Seminary, has with the author Prof. Peter Seig and Rev. Vicke von Behr, Erzoberlenker of The Christian Community in looking at a hundred years of The Christian Community, asks about the future relationship between The Christian Community and anthroposophy. From the responses we learn how things have changed in the last one hundred years and what the challenges are for the future. Finally, Prof. Peter Seig is writing a book on the first three Erzoberlenkers and asks for any material in private hands that may shed light in how these men administered the organisation of the priesthood of The Christian Community.
In the second part of the conversation that Rev. Ulrich Meier, priest in Hamburg and a director of the Hamburg Seminary, has with the author Prof. Peter Seig and Rev. Vicke von Behr, Erzoberlenker of The Christian Community in looking at a hundred years of The Christian Community, asks about the future relationship between The Christian Community and anthroposophy. From the responses we learn how things have changed in the last one hundred years and what the challenges are for the future. Finally, Prof. Peter Seig is writing a book on the first three Erzoberlenkers and asks for any material in private hands that may shed light in how these men administered the organisation of the priesthood of The Christian Community.
Rev. Jon Madsen reviews the book Thinking outside the Brain Box - Why Humans Are Not Biological Computers by Arie Bos translated by Philip Mees. This book provides scientific experimental data for the presence of a super-sensible world. Some scientist would have us believe that our “soul” is simply hard-wired into our DNA and that we have no individual consciousness or free will. Arie provides proof for the power of free will and choice in our lives.
Simon Blaxland-de Lange reviews the book The Twelve Holy Nights: Meditations on The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson by Frans Lutters translated from Dutch. “Olaf Åsteson had his dream during the time of the Twelve Holy Nights between Christmas Eve and Epiphany.” “Lutters helps us to internalise our experience of Olaf’s dream, which sometimes seems remote to us,” by providing an exercise we can perform during the Holy Nights. There are some errors in the introductory essay in this book that this article corrects.
Perspectives – December 2018 - February 2019 – a review
by John-Peter Gernaat
The December 2018 – February 2019 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in Great Britain, has recently arrived in Johannesburg. These are printed in South Africa and contain an interesting article by Rev. Michaël Merle as the inserted Southern African Perspectives. You can subscribe to Perspectives at R240 per annum through The Christian Community in KZN or try to purchase the current edition from your local congregation. This edition will be available for download at a small fee in a few months at http://thechristiancommunity.co.uk/PVS-test/portfolio-items/december-2018-february-2019-glory/. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
Rev. Tom Ravetz writes an editorial on the two sides of glory: the glory of the Trinity and its fulfilment when perceived by human beings, and the glory we create through this gift. He creates a link to the Epiphany prayers.
Rev. Peter van Breda, priest in London, writes about the threshold world in his article “Grey – the colour of the threshold”. “There is always a transition before a particular colour can fully manifest itself and that is the in-between realm of grey”. Peter links to a poem on grey by Meghan Flaherty to consider the colour grey before he links grey to the threshold and persuades us that grey is indeed the colour of the threshold. He considers many of the thresholds we encounter in life and finally links to the Christ: “Christ lives in the interval, in the embryonic realm of all true becoming”. Through us recognising Christ we can begin to “paint the world again with new living true colour and promise”.
In a short article titled “True health”, Ute König, priest in the Republic of Ireland asks the real question: “what is healthy?” and explores this through the story of the Roman officer (Matthew 8:5-13). It is a human characteristic that we desire to help when someone is not healthy and Ute provides a revealing interpretation of the faith of the officer. In our time the healing we most need is to bring health to our ego – the youngest part of our constitution. Ute describes that healing is an individual path and yet healing comes through the love of others – love for the ego of the other.
Rev. Louise Madsen, priest emeritus in Stourbridge, explores “The glory of the revelation of God”. We cannot look into the sun without damaging our eyes, yet the sun is the source of life. The Bible makes it clear that we cannot look on the face of God and still live. Yet, we can imagine Christ because He became a part of our earthly world. At Christmas the altar is transformed with words in gold above and below the picture of Christ. These words link the glory of God to humans of good will. We need to do something ourselves in order to hope to experience the glory of God. These words appear in the time between, which are the twelve Holy Nights. In our inner darkness we may seek the spirit light and in this space between participate in the birth of each new Christian year.
Poem “InI, in Beatrice” by John Roy with an explanation of “InI” – click here. There is a second poem by John Roy in this edition.
Rev. Aaron Mirkin, priest in Stroud, considers “The glory in the heights of our Christmas altar”. Above these words that appear in gold letters above the altar at Christmas are three letters: C M B (or K M B). If these letters represent the names of the three kings, how are they connected to the birth on Christmas day, especially when the birth visited by the kings is not the same birth as the one on Christmas day (An explanation to this is provided.). Aaron studies these initials and their sound and relates them as qualities of soul to our thinking, feeling and willing. He provides an imagination of the human soul before the Fall and the indications given by Rudolf Steiner how the pre-Fall soul of humanity unites with the fallen soul of humanity through the Christmas birth. Through this Divine gift to humanity we can raise thinking, feeling and willing to the essential images of gold, frankincense and myrrh that are represented by the gifts of the kings. “The glory of God is on a journey to becoming the glory of mankind.”
Deborah Ravetz, a member in Forest Row and part of the editorial team of Perspectives, explores the glory of God in everyday life. She refers to and quotes philosophers, poets and authors to explore how our striving to make a difference in the world in the smallest way, in our immediate circles, starts with the work we do on ourselves and can be “irradiated with meaning and God’s revelation”.
Rev. Douglas Thackray, priest emeritus in Cornwall, explores “Our witness to the glory of God”. The shepherds and magi may have been special in that they were witness to the glory of God, so how can ordinary people experience God’s glory. Through a very personal story of someone he met Douglas concludes that in finding a way to accept God’s will in our lives we also experience God’s glory.
Rev. Luke Barr, priest in Forest Row, suggests three aspects to the glory of God and links these to our becoming as human beings. We can experience glory in our awe of the natural world. This is the first glory, the “glory of being”. The second glory is revealed in human creativity, whether that is artistic or social. This is the “glory of creativity”. The task of the human being to is to love. Love enlightens the world and therefore the third glory is the “the glory of enlightenment”. Luke connects these glories with words heard at the baptism of Christ and the Transfiguration and to the blessing in the Act of Consecration of Man and reveals how we are the Son of Man in our being, our creating and our loving when we bear and unify these three glories.
Peter Howe, a member in Glasgow and part of the editorial team of Perspectives, writes about creativity and how it is intimately linked to the spirit. We can find support for the challenges of life through gratitude, which is the beginning of love. When anxiety is dispersed we connect for moments with the greater self. Prayer, or the act of asking, is always answered when we are ready to act. Our engaged will brings help or answers from unexpected quarters. Peter draws extensively from a popular book by Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way. Our fears and that which hinders us achieving our desires in life have little basis in reality when we analyse them, while everything we can draw up to counter these fears is based in “facts, events and figures”. Fear and doubt let us know that we are in the right road. Constantly overcoming them leads to meaningful creativity. Following our creative ideas is not always comfortable, but unless we ‘change our ways’ as John the Baptist calls us to, we “fall out of our time”. Acting on a creative idea can pull us through the eye of the needle to a more authentic self. In our present time it is possible for everyone to begin to “express themselves in utterly personal, original ways” even if they have to invent the media through which to express themselves. “Through making our inner being visible and letting our unique voice sound in the world, we give birth to the divine spirit itself, which can only come into the world through us”.
Rev. Ulrich Meier, priest in Hamburg and a director of the Hamburg Seminary, has a conversation with the author Prof. Peter Seig and Rev. Vicke von Behr, Erzoberlenker of The Christian Community in looking at a hundred years of The Christian Community. He asks the question: “What can we gain for the future by looking back in time?” Part 2 of this conversation will appear in the next edition. The conversation revolves around the relationship of the Anthroposophical Society with The Christian Community and the existential struggles that existed for both between December 1922 and 1924. For anyone with a longer relationship to these movements some of the conflicts that have occurred over the past century begin to crystallise from this conversation.
Rev. Tom Ravets reviews two books that pose a challenge for our time. The first is In the Shaddow of the Machine by Jeremy Nayler (Temple Lodge Press 2018) that looks at the evolution of consciousness that led to the kind of logical thinking that made computers possible. Was it that ‘primitive’ humanity did not have the science to develop computers or is that they still recognised “that the forces at work in the world are embodiments of spiritual beings and their work?” Only once this insight had dimmed would humanity harness the forces of the ‘lower gods’. This review is substantiated with insight from other thinkers and flows seamlessly into a review of Humanity’s Last Stand: The Challenge of Artificial Intelligence – A Spiritual-Scientific Response by Nicanor Perlas (Temple Lodge Press 2018). The pioneers and proponents of Artificial Intelligence (AI) share a mindset that is utterly reductionist and asserts that “personality, the soul, is nothing more than data that is processed and stored in the brain”. “Perlas encourages those of us in the anthroposophical movement to take stock … of the resources given to us” that have as yet had very little impact in the world and to attend to developments in the world that are aligned with the aims of the Archangel Michael. Most actions can be replicated by AI, such as caring for the sick or those of a celebrant at the altar, but then we loose our connection with the heavenly hierarchies. These two books can help “strengthen our resolve to bring the realities that we experience at the altar into our daily lives.”
Hugh Salvesen reviews a book Observing Nature’s Secret: Practical Exercises for Perceiving Soul and Spirit by Roger Druitt (Rudolf Steiner Press). This is a book for anyone with some prior knowledge of concepts expressed in Anthroposophy. Roger takes his study of the natural world beyond ‘Goethean observation’ and he calls his method ‘anthroposophical phenomenology’. He also includes the rocks, colour and, as an apparent afterthought, bees. Hugh is critical of the lack of suitable images for some of the chapters and inadequate annotation of images that are presented. The value to be gained from the exercises of this book is that we can better appreciate how we become co-creators with the spiritual world, lofty and elemental, in recreating this world.
Rev. Michaël Merle writes an academic article in the Southern African Perspectives tracing the evolution of the Greek word 'doxa' from meaning a popular opinion to being used as a translation of glory. Doxa is the root word for doxology which is an expression of praise usually sung to the Holy Trinity. Michaël presents various doxologies from the Roman Catholic Church to our own Christian Community doxology and how it evolves through the Act of Consecration of Man from a descriptor of Christ, to an assurance, to a supplication and assured hope. We have encountered these doxologies and it is in interesting to understand this better.
The December 2018 – February 2019 edition of Perspectives, the quarterly publication of The Christian Community in Great Britain, has recently arrived in Johannesburg. These are printed in South Africa and contain an interesting article by Rev. Michaël Merle as the inserted Southern African Perspectives. You can subscribe to Perspectives at R240 per annum through The Christian Community in KZN or try to purchase the current edition from your local congregation. This edition will be available for download at a small fee in a few months at http://thechristiancommunity.co.uk/PVS-test/portfolio-items/december-2018-february-2019-glory/. This review hopes to highlight some pertinent points from each article with the hope of triggering sufficient curiosity in the reader to wish to read the full article.
Rev. Tom Ravetz writes an editorial on the two sides of glory: the glory of the Trinity and its fulfilment when perceived by human beings, and the glory we create through this gift. He creates a link to the Epiphany prayers.
Rev. Peter van Breda, priest in London, writes about the threshold world in his article “Grey – the colour of the threshold”. “There is always a transition before a particular colour can fully manifest itself and that is the in-between realm of grey”. Peter links to a poem on grey by Meghan Flaherty to consider the colour grey before he links grey to the threshold and persuades us that grey is indeed the colour of the threshold. He considers many of the thresholds we encounter in life and finally links to the Christ: “Christ lives in the interval, in the embryonic realm of all true becoming”. Through us recognising Christ we can begin to “paint the world again with new living true colour and promise”.
In a short article titled “True health”, Ute König, priest in the Republic of Ireland asks the real question: “what is healthy?” and explores this through the story of the Roman officer (Matthew 8:5-13). It is a human characteristic that we desire to help when someone is not healthy and Ute provides a revealing interpretation of the faith of the officer. In our time the healing we most need is to bring health to our ego – the youngest part of our constitution. Ute describes that healing is an individual path and yet healing comes through the love of others – love for the ego of the other.
Rev. Louise Madsen, priest emeritus in Stourbridge, explores “The glory of the revelation of God”. We cannot look into the sun without damaging our eyes, yet the sun is the source of life. The Bible makes it clear that we cannot look on the face of God and still live. Yet, we can imagine Christ because He became a part of our earthly world. At Christmas the altar is transformed with words in gold above and below the picture of Christ. These words link the glory of God to humans of good will. We need to do something ourselves in order to hope to experience the glory of God. These words appear in the time between, which are the twelve Holy Nights. In our inner darkness we may seek the spirit light and in this space between participate in the birth of each new Christian year.
Poem “InI, in Beatrice” by John Roy with an explanation of “InI” – click here. There is a second poem by John Roy in this edition.
Rev. Aaron Mirkin, priest in Stroud, considers “The glory in the heights of our Christmas altar”. Above these words that appear in gold letters above the altar at Christmas are three letters: C M B (or K M B). If these letters represent the names of the three kings, how are they connected to the birth on Christmas day, especially when the birth visited by the kings is not the same birth as the one on Christmas day (An explanation to this is provided.). Aaron studies these initials and their sound and relates them as qualities of soul to our thinking, feeling and willing. He provides an imagination of the human soul before the Fall and the indications given by Rudolf Steiner how the pre-Fall soul of humanity unites with the fallen soul of humanity through the Christmas birth. Through this Divine gift to humanity we can raise thinking, feeling and willing to the essential images of gold, frankincense and myrrh that are represented by the gifts of the kings. “The glory of God is on a journey to becoming the glory of mankind.”
Deborah Ravetz, a member in Forest Row and part of the editorial team of Perspectives, explores the glory of God in everyday life. She refers to and quotes philosophers, poets and authors to explore how our striving to make a difference in the world in the smallest way, in our immediate circles, starts with the work we do on ourselves and can be “irradiated with meaning and God’s revelation”.
Rev. Douglas Thackray, priest emeritus in Cornwall, explores “Our witness to the glory of God”. The shepherds and magi may have been special in that they were witness to the glory of God, so how can ordinary people experience God’s glory. Through a very personal story of someone he met Douglas concludes that in finding a way to accept God’s will in our lives we also experience God’s glory.
Rev. Luke Barr, priest in Forest Row, suggests three aspects to the glory of God and links these to our becoming as human beings. We can experience glory in our awe of the natural world. This is the first glory, the “glory of being”. The second glory is revealed in human creativity, whether that is artistic or social. This is the “glory of creativity”. The task of the human being to is to love. Love enlightens the world and therefore the third glory is the “the glory of enlightenment”. Luke connects these glories with words heard at the baptism of Christ and the Transfiguration and to the blessing in the Act of Consecration of Man and reveals how we are the Son of Man in our being, our creating and our loving when we bear and unify these three glories.
Peter Howe, a member in Glasgow and part of the editorial team of Perspectives, writes about creativity and how it is intimately linked to the spirit. We can find support for the challenges of life through gratitude, which is the beginning of love. When anxiety is dispersed we connect for moments with the greater self. Prayer, or the act of asking, is always answered when we are ready to act. Our engaged will brings help or answers from unexpected quarters. Peter draws extensively from a popular book by Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way. Our fears and that which hinders us achieving our desires in life have little basis in reality when we analyse them, while everything we can draw up to counter these fears is based in “facts, events and figures”. Fear and doubt let us know that we are in the right road. Constantly overcoming them leads to meaningful creativity. Following our creative ideas is not always comfortable, but unless we ‘change our ways’ as John the Baptist calls us to, we “fall out of our time”. Acting on a creative idea can pull us through the eye of the needle to a more authentic self. In our present time it is possible for everyone to begin to “express themselves in utterly personal, original ways” even if they have to invent the media through which to express themselves. “Through making our inner being visible and letting our unique voice sound in the world, we give birth to the divine spirit itself, which can only come into the world through us”.
Rev. Ulrich Meier, priest in Hamburg and a director of the Hamburg Seminary, has a conversation with the author Prof. Peter Seig and Rev. Vicke von Behr, Erzoberlenker of The Christian Community in looking at a hundred years of The Christian Community. He asks the question: “What can we gain for the future by looking back in time?” Part 2 of this conversation will appear in the next edition. The conversation revolves around the relationship of the Anthroposophical Society with The Christian Community and the existential struggles that existed for both between December 1922 and 1924. For anyone with a longer relationship to these movements some of the conflicts that have occurred over the past century begin to crystallise from this conversation.
Rev. Tom Ravets reviews two books that pose a challenge for our time. The first is In the Shaddow of the Machine by Jeremy Nayler (Temple Lodge Press 2018) that looks at the evolution of consciousness that led to the kind of logical thinking that made computers possible. Was it that ‘primitive’ humanity did not have the science to develop computers or is that they still recognised “that the forces at work in the world are embodiments of spiritual beings and their work?” Only once this insight had dimmed would humanity harness the forces of the ‘lower gods’. This review is substantiated with insight from other thinkers and flows seamlessly into a review of Humanity’s Last Stand: The Challenge of Artificial Intelligence – A Spiritual-Scientific Response by Nicanor Perlas (Temple Lodge Press 2018). The pioneers and proponents of Artificial Intelligence (AI) share a mindset that is utterly reductionist and asserts that “personality, the soul, is nothing more than data that is processed and stored in the brain”. “Perlas encourages those of us in the anthroposophical movement to take stock … of the resources given to us” that have as yet had very little impact in the world and to attend to developments in the world that are aligned with the aims of the Archangel Michael. Most actions can be replicated by AI, such as caring for the sick or those of a celebrant at the altar, but then we loose our connection with the heavenly hierarchies. These two books can help “strengthen our resolve to bring the realities that we experience at the altar into our daily lives.”
Hugh Salvesen reviews a book Observing Nature’s Secret: Practical Exercises for Perceiving Soul and Spirit by Roger Druitt (Rudolf Steiner Press). This is a book for anyone with some prior knowledge of concepts expressed in Anthroposophy. Roger takes his study of the natural world beyond ‘Goethean observation’ and he calls his method ‘anthroposophical phenomenology’. He also includes the rocks, colour and, as an apparent afterthought, bees. Hugh is critical of the lack of suitable images for some of the chapters and inadequate annotation of images that are presented. The value to be gained from the exercises of this book is that we can better appreciate how we become co-creators with the spiritual world, lofty and elemental, in recreating this world.
Rev. Michaël Merle writes an academic article in the Southern African Perspectives tracing the evolution of the Greek word 'doxa' from meaning a popular opinion to being used as a translation of glory. Doxa is the root word for doxology which is an expression of praise usually sung to the Holy Trinity. Michaël presents various doxologies from the Roman Catholic Church to our own Christian Community doxology and how it evolves through the Act of Consecration of Man from a descriptor of Christ, to an assurance, to a supplication and assured hope. We have encountered these doxologies and it is in interesting to understand this better.
Perspectives – September-November 2018 – a review
by John-Peter Gernaat
The most recent issue of The Christian Community Perspectives (published in the United Kingdom) is entitled Living with Death. The editor, Rev. Tom Ravitz, reminds us that our funeral services “asks us to remember that we are beholden to the spirit in all that we do on earth”. This issue looks at the thresholds of birth and death in the light of our technological age.
Rev. Pearl Goodwin, priest emeritus living in Forest Row, discusses two areas of research that are showing positive advancement. One area of research is studying how the brain forms memories, with the aim of modifying traumatic memories through the introduction of engineered genes. Our biography is made up of our memories and we take these memories across the threshold with us as part of “our path of growth”. The implications of manipulating our memories are investigated in this article. The second area of research is the use of stem cells to create a germ cell equivalent to a two-week embryo. This development takes place without the presence of a placenta. The article considers the spiritual importance of the placenta and potential effects of human incarnation. Finally, the article considers the kind of thinking required to take science to a point where life before and after earthly life are taken into consideration.
Rev. Luke Barr, priest in Forest Row, writes about the “dying process” in everyday life and the role of the priest in watching over this process. In this short insightful article he concludes that priests are “temporary servants of the spirit that accompany the processes of birth and death in all aspects and processes of life”.
Bart Maris, gynaecologist in Krefeld, writes about the powerlessness felt in the face of a cancer diagnosis and how to overcome this powerlessness, including mistletoe therapy. This article provides food for thought about one’s own life choices in the face of something as disruptive as a cancer diagnosis.
Jörg Ewertowski, the librarian of Rudolf Steiner House in Stutgart, asks the question whether there is such a thing as a natural death. Through three personal stories he explores the decisions that exist around death and concludes that we, as human beings, as individual beings, are not part of the natural world and therefore our death is a part of our biography and never natural.
Rev. Richard Goodall’s article on water as a messenger that was printed in the blue (Southern African) pages of a previous Perspectives is included in this issue for the UK readers see here.
Florian Davyn Burfeind, psychotherapist and congregant in Chicago, elucidates the experience of male and female. A “particular reading of the Judeo-Christian creation story” has created the view of a binary expression of gender: male and female. Materialistic thinking hardens this view, as experienced in Germany under Nazism. Reality is somewhat different, and we see it more and more in mainstream media and society that gender expression is much wider than this narrow view and also that gender expression is “lifted … out of its bondage to the physical body”. People who actively develop their consciousness and their connection to their spiritual nature bring a new intention for our human development, as described by Rudolf Steiner. As we experience the resurrection of the Christ in the etheric realm “we may experience an increased flexibility and widening of gender as a direct result – announcing … (a) new, spirit-lead Human Being”.
A translation of an article that appeared in Die Christengemeinshaft written by Edith Lutz, retired teacher with a doctorate in Jewish studies, investigates the verse in the Book of Exodus from which the ‘slogan’ of revenge ‘an eye for an eye’ originates. It is clear that the verse, and the law, is directed at the perpetrator and not the victim and is rather a directive of how reparation should be determined. Edith then looks at five other texts to try to understand why this verse is misrepresented as a measure of revenge.
Rev. Luke Barr reviews a book written by Christine Gruwez, a Waldorf teacher in Holland and student of Manichaeism, titled Walking with your time. We are confronted with so much horror in our information age. Evil has been camouflaged in our time. “In this sensitive and meditative book, the author explores the ways by which we can approach evil using modern faculties of soul.” The book “produces an authentic experience, it initiates a process in the reader”.
There is an empathetic and honest obituary of Rev. Joanna Jemmett who died in May, who struggled all her life with the confines of the physical world and sought refuge in the spiritual world and her work in this realm.
Consider subscribing to Perspectives to avoid missing out on the valuable articles or look to buy a copy at the church. Back issues can also be downloaded for a small donation by clicking here. (The link is also on our “links” page).
The most recent issue of The Christian Community Perspectives (published in the United Kingdom) is entitled Living with Death. The editor, Rev. Tom Ravitz, reminds us that our funeral services “asks us to remember that we are beholden to the spirit in all that we do on earth”. This issue looks at the thresholds of birth and death in the light of our technological age.
Rev. Pearl Goodwin, priest emeritus living in Forest Row, discusses two areas of research that are showing positive advancement. One area of research is studying how the brain forms memories, with the aim of modifying traumatic memories through the introduction of engineered genes. Our biography is made up of our memories and we take these memories across the threshold with us as part of “our path of growth”. The implications of manipulating our memories are investigated in this article. The second area of research is the use of stem cells to create a germ cell equivalent to a two-week embryo. This development takes place without the presence of a placenta. The article considers the spiritual importance of the placenta and potential effects of human incarnation. Finally, the article considers the kind of thinking required to take science to a point where life before and after earthly life are taken into consideration.
Rev. Luke Barr, priest in Forest Row, writes about the “dying process” in everyday life and the role of the priest in watching over this process. In this short insightful article he concludes that priests are “temporary servants of the spirit that accompany the processes of birth and death in all aspects and processes of life”.
Bart Maris, gynaecologist in Krefeld, writes about the powerlessness felt in the face of a cancer diagnosis and how to overcome this powerlessness, including mistletoe therapy. This article provides food for thought about one’s own life choices in the face of something as disruptive as a cancer diagnosis.
Jörg Ewertowski, the librarian of Rudolf Steiner House in Stutgart, asks the question whether there is such a thing as a natural death. Through three personal stories he explores the decisions that exist around death and concludes that we, as human beings, as individual beings, are not part of the natural world and therefore our death is a part of our biography and never natural.
Rev. Richard Goodall’s article on water as a messenger that was printed in the blue (Southern African) pages of a previous Perspectives is included in this issue for the UK readers see here.
Florian Davyn Burfeind, psychotherapist and congregant in Chicago, elucidates the experience of male and female. A “particular reading of the Judeo-Christian creation story” has created the view of a binary expression of gender: male and female. Materialistic thinking hardens this view, as experienced in Germany under Nazism. Reality is somewhat different, and we see it more and more in mainstream media and society that gender expression is much wider than this narrow view and also that gender expression is “lifted … out of its bondage to the physical body”. People who actively develop their consciousness and their connection to their spiritual nature bring a new intention for our human development, as described by Rudolf Steiner. As we experience the resurrection of the Christ in the etheric realm “we may experience an increased flexibility and widening of gender as a direct result – announcing … (a) new, spirit-lead Human Being”.
A translation of an article that appeared in Die Christengemeinshaft written by Edith Lutz, retired teacher with a doctorate in Jewish studies, investigates the verse in the Book of Exodus from which the ‘slogan’ of revenge ‘an eye for an eye’ originates. It is clear that the verse, and the law, is directed at the perpetrator and not the victim and is rather a directive of how reparation should be determined. Edith then looks at five other texts to try to understand why this verse is misrepresented as a measure of revenge.
Rev. Luke Barr reviews a book written by Christine Gruwez, a Waldorf teacher in Holland and student of Manichaeism, titled Walking with your time. We are confronted with so much horror in our information age. Evil has been camouflaged in our time. “In this sensitive and meditative book, the author explores the ways by which we can approach evil using modern faculties of soul.” The book “produces an authentic experience, it initiates a process in the reader”.
There is an empathetic and honest obituary of Rev. Joanna Jemmett who died in May, who struggled all her life with the confines of the physical world and sought refuge in the spiritual world and her work in this realm.
Consider subscribing to Perspectives to avoid missing out on the valuable articles or look to buy a copy at the church. Back issues can also be downloaded for a small donation by clicking here. (The link is also on our “links” page).
Perspectives - a review of the March-May 2018 edition
by John-Peter Gernaat
The latest edition (March - May 2018) of The Christian Community Perspectives is available. In it Rev. Peter Holman reminds us of the history of this publication, in its various guises, that has been published for the international English-speaking world almost as long as the Act of Consecration has been celebrated in English. Peter is passing on the baton of collating and printing the Southern African edition to Sharon Cox. Peter also bids farewell to the Southern African Region with a biographical article on his 21 years of work here, starting at Alpha in the Western Cape and finishing in Alverstone, near Hillcrest KZN. He recounts several interesting events and episodes from his life here in South Africa.
The recent Priest Synod in Cape Town is also described by Peter Holman and the discussions that the Synod held around water is pre-empted by a summary of an article of the presentation Rev. Richard Goodall gave. In it he tells us how the Khoi San people revered water and because it is the source of life also revered all living things. Our scientific view of water as H2O closes our eyes to much of the reality that is water. Richard describes some of the recent research that has been conducted to awaken our perspective on water and how we affect our bodies that are 70% and more water by our actions, thoughts and intentions. So also our actions, thoughts and intentions spill out of our body, in our water, into the water of the world and impacts even the weather we experience. The imbalance we see in the climate is a “direct reflection of the imbalance that exists in the human soul today”.
This edition of Perspectives bears the title: “What is truth?” – the important question posed by Pontius Pilate. We are reminded by Rev. Mathijs van Alstein, priest in the community in Zeist, Netherlands, that Dr Rudolf Steiner said: “The truth is not a fixed system of concepts that can manifest itself in one way only, but a living ocean in which the spirit of man lives, that can bring forth waves of the most different kind at its surface.” Mathijs continues to explore truth as something that is known to our spiritual nature, that part of us that is hidden from the world in our life on earth. We know truth before birth but, as described by the Ancient Greeks, as we cross the River Lethe into birth we forget everything we knew before birth. The way to rediscover the truth is to cross back over the Lethe into full knowledge (before we cross the River Styx at the end of life back into the knowledge of the spiritual worlds). He presents a very compelling article that takes us with Jonah into the belly of the whale and reveals the mystery of the altar and the repetition of coming to the altar.
Rev. Tom Ravetz reminds us how difficult it is to find the truth in this century of “fake news”. Believing that there is one objective truth leads to an elitism that can result in war and even ignorance. Seeking the truth leads to a “multiplicity of portals that lead to an ever greater fullness of understanding”.
Rev. Luke Barr, priest in the community in Aberdeen, Scotland, tells us that truth is related to our freedom, as told to Adam and Eve, that we shall be “like God, knowing Good and Evil”. As such finding truth is a personal task. But truth is not a personal opinion. Truth will become clear as we work to become transparent. In this we have the aid of the “Spirit of Truth”, another name of the Holy Spirit.
Jane Chase, counsellor in Stroud, England, shares how counselling can help us reconnect with parts of ourself that we push aside as a result of trauma or circumstance. The more integrated we are the more creatively we can live our lives. Finding what is true for us helps us accept what other people find as being true for them.
Rev. Douglas Thackray, priest emeritus, shares how the words of Jesus to his disciples in the days before Easter, that he would not be leaving them destitute but was sending them the “Comforter”, can be experienced for us in our life’s tribulations through the Sacramental Consultation and the Act of Consecration of Man.
Rev. J Michael Brewer, priest in the community In Detroit, reminds us that on the evening before Jesus is brought before Pilot he says: “I am the way and the truth and life”. So we may see truth as something for which we can strive, rather than something we can claim to possess.
In this edition of Perspectives we find out about the Founding of The Christian Community in Romania and among the letters and reviews read a review of the book by Karl König, “Plays for the Festivals of the Year”. Consider subscribing to Perspectives to avoid missing out on the valuable articles or look to buy a copy at the church. Back issues can also be downloaded for a small donation at (The link is also on our links page).
The latest edition (March - May 2018) of The Christian Community Perspectives is available. In it Rev. Peter Holman reminds us of the history of this publication, in its various guises, that has been published for the international English-speaking world almost as long as the Act of Consecration has been celebrated in English. Peter is passing on the baton of collating and printing the Southern African edition to Sharon Cox. Peter also bids farewell to the Southern African Region with a biographical article on his 21 years of work here, starting at Alpha in the Western Cape and finishing in Alverstone, near Hillcrest KZN. He recounts several interesting events and episodes from his life here in South Africa.
The recent Priest Synod in Cape Town is also described by Peter Holman and the discussions that the Synod held around water is pre-empted by a summary of an article of the presentation Rev. Richard Goodall gave. In it he tells us how the Khoi San people revered water and because it is the source of life also revered all living things. Our scientific view of water as H2O closes our eyes to much of the reality that is water. Richard describes some of the recent research that has been conducted to awaken our perspective on water and how we affect our bodies that are 70% and more water by our actions, thoughts and intentions. So also our actions, thoughts and intentions spill out of our body, in our water, into the water of the world and impacts even the weather we experience. The imbalance we see in the climate is a “direct reflection of the imbalance that exists in the human soul today”.
This edition of Perspectives bears the title: “What is truth?” – the important question posed by Pontius Pilate. We are reminded by Rev. Mathijs van Alstein, priest in the community in Zeist, Netherlands, that Dr Rudolf Steiner said: “The truth is not a fixed system of concepts that can manifest itself in one way only, but a living ocean in which the spirit of man lives, that can bring forth waves of the most different kind at its surface.” Mathijs continues to explore truth as something that is known to our spiritual nature, that part of us that is hidden from the world in our life on earth. We know truth before birth but, as described by the Ancient Greeks, as we cross the River Lethe into birth we forget everything we knew before birth. The way to rediscover the truth is to cross back over the Lethe into full knowledge (before we cross the River Styx at the end of life back into the knowledge of the spiritual worlds). He presents a very compelling article that takes us with Jonah into the belly of the whale and reveals the mystery of the altar and the repetition of coming to the altar.
Rev. Tom Ravetz reminds us how difficult it is to find the truth in this century of “fake news”. Believing that there is one objective truth leads to an elitism that can result in war and even ignorance. Seeking the truth leads to a “multiplicity of portals that lead to an ever greater fullness of understanding”.
Rev. Luke Barr, priest in the community in Aberdeen, Scotland, tells us that truth is related to our freedom, as told to Adam and Eve, that we shall be “like God, knowing Good and Evil”. As such finding truth is a personal task. But truth is not a personal opinion. Truth will become clear as we work to become transparent. In this we have the aid of the “Spirit of Truth”, another name of the Holy Spirit.
Jane Chase, counsellor in Stroud, England, shares how counselling can help us reconnect with parts of ourself that we push aside as a result of trauma or circumstance. The more integrated we are the more creatively we can live our lives. Finding what is true for us helps us accept what other people find as being true for them.
Rev. Douglas Thackray, priest emeritus, shares how the words of Jesus to his disciples in the days before Easter, that he would not be leaving them destitute but was sending them the “Comforter”, can be experienced for us in our life’s tribulations through the Sacramental Consultation and the Act of Consecration of Man.
Rev. J Michael Brewer, priest in the community In Detroit, reminds us that on the evening before Jesus is brought before Pilot he says: “I am the way and the truth and life”. So we may see truth as something for which we can strive, rather than something we can claim to possess.
In this edition of Perspectives we find out about the Founding of The Christian Community in Romania and among the letters and reviews read a review of the book by Karl König, “Plays for the Festivals of the Year”. Consider subscribing to Perspectives to avoid missing out on the valuable articles or look to buy a copy at the church. Back issues can also be downloaded for a small donation at (The link is also on our links page).