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Kitchen Chat and more…
Kitchen Chat and more…
At this time of the year the waterlily, the queen of the water plants, is blooming in many places in our country [Holland]—in ponds, in ditches, even in the drab canals in our big cities.
Waterlilies have a long way to go before out of the mud and water something so beautiful as its snow-white flower is born. Nymphea alba it is called, the white nymph. For just like the water beings, just like the nymphs, the flowers strive to come to the surface somewhere and play with water, air, and light. Rarely is there such a world of difference in the realm of plants between darkness and light, between root and flower.
Looking at the plant you may recognize–what the waterlily does by nature shows us something of the long road that still lies ahead of us.
In every human being inconceivable forces are slumbering that are waiting to be awakened and come to blossom. In antiquity these were called lotus flowers: invisible flowers that can be awakened to life. Every human being is all too familiar with the dark bottom in which these forces are rooted—buried under murky thoughts, passions, and desires. The first step on the path from this murkiness to light is: saying yes to yourself—also to the characteristic that most strongly resists change from temptation to strength. In every human being lives a hidden longing for light, even when we are trapped in darkness and temptation.
We would not seek the way to the altar if we were not led by the longing for light that guides us upward, step by step. One day to be reborn from above. One day to awake and to blossom in a world of light.
–Rev. Bastiaan Baan, Summer 2022
“I did not seek Christ, but the truth. He, who is the truth, then bestowed on me the grace to find me.”
With these words, Simone Weil, the French atheist, testified of her search and roundabout way to Christ, almost a century ago.
In our time it is beginning to look as if every person has his own truth, and that THE truth doesn’t matter anymore. Denials and distortions of the truth are happening all the time in our world. We are living in what is sometimes called “the post-truth world.”
How would it be if with everything we proclaim we would at least in all modesty say: This is MY truth? No more and no less, in the awareness that I, as a single individual, am not capable of comprehending THE truth. In times past this awareness was called docta ignorantia, “learned ignorance.” That is no false modesty, but modest realism. For no matter how much I have seen, learned, and thought, as an individual I am not capable of knowing the truth. What I see and recognize is a riddle picture in a mirror. What I seek remains hidden from me my whole life long, until I suddenly stand face to face, eye to eye, with Him who is the only one who can say of Himself: I AM the truth.
Perhaps, at the end of our life, we can then say: “I have sought the truth. He, who is the truth, then bestowed on me the grace to find me.”
–Rev. Bastiaan Baan, Summer 2022
Here are ways to donate:
The Christian Community in Hillsdale, NY has offered to receive checks and PayPal donations which they will wire to The Christian Community in Germany. These donations will go to support refugee and humanitarian aid in connection with the war. If sending a check via mail:
The Christian Community
c/o Treasurer
10 Green River Ln.
Hillsdale, NY 12529
Memo: Ukraine
You may also use their PayPal donation button, but be sure to add Ukraine as a note/instruction.
Those wishing to help Waldorf schools and their families in Ukraine can make donations directly to the Friends of Waldorf Education (Freunde der Erziehungskunst), which has already mobilized a worldwide network of financial and logistic support via its secure website by clicking here.
Non-profit Relief Fund: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/ukraine-crisis-relief-fund/