Domestic Rest

Make yourself COMFORTABLE
for HALF an hour,
sitting down and doing NOTHING ELSE.


That is: Don't smoke, don't drink,
don't eat, don't read,
don't speak, etc.
What`s allowed is:
Closing your eyes. Daydreaming. Dreaming

You will be AMAZED,
how RELAXING
such a half hour can BE.

(= from a health booklet)

To LOVE a person, means:
to feel AT HOME
in his/her PRESENCE.

(RBB)

(Bishop Hemmerle, Aachen)

We ALL stand at boundary rivers
and want
to establish ourselves on THIS SIDE.
However we have to go BEYOND the boundary,
and BEYOND the rivers
to approach the OTHER side.

Yet, the other side only invites YOU,
if you find a HOUSE standing there,
larger and MORE AUGUST,
than merely My house,
and if AT THE SAME TIME this house
is MINE after all...

The HOUSE of SOMEONE else
-- and my HOUSE:
Yes, perhaps this is a picture
that stands for SALVATION:
A HOUSE stands above every boundary river
HIS house -- MY house !

And ACTUALLY
I can only LIVE
on THIS side of the boundary,
if I have a HOUSE on the OTHER side..
I cannot live,
if the VIEW only opens on
EMPTINESS and INSUBSTANTIALITY.

(Bishop Hemmerle, Aachen)

A lot of people say:
A house on the OTHER bank
is of NO use to me..
I have to live here and NOW
- and ISTANANEOUSLY.

But doesn't this very now show
ITSELF as a sinister BOUNDARY
-- on which I TRESPASS ?

Shouldn't a HOUSE be opened in THIS LIFE,
into which I can ESCAPE
-- from the compulsion to CONTINUE,
from the hectic CONFORMITY
but also from the panic HUNT for
self-fulfilment.

A HEREAFTER
situated in this wold,
something that EMANCIPATES me
and EVOLVES me.

But THIS respective hereafter
cannot be DIFFERENT
from the one
AWAITING me in DEATH
for EVER and EVER:
HIS house -- that is MY house.

(Bishop Hemmerle, Aachen)

Sometimes I meet another,
very DEEP boundary river,
that can HARDLY be crossed:
it is the MIRROR,
in which I see my OWN shape.

To ENDURE myself,
to DECIDE about accepting MYSELF,
how DIFFICULT this sometimes is !

But when I look beyond
this boundary river of the mirror
INTO - MYSELF,
Then this is true AGAIN:

In me HIS house is waiting for me
and I may LIVE in it,
ACCEPTED by HIM,
the big OTHERONE.

And then
I can also say YES to my own ego,
only then I can be MYSELF.

(Bishop Hemmerle, Aachen)

This is the way REDEEMING faith WORKS:
that God, who loves me,
on the other side
-- of the BOUNDARY RIVERS

in the herafter -- of this WORLD
and IN me -- HIMSELF
WAITS for me in his house:

HIS house -- that is also MINE
-- and YOURS !!

Translated by Christian Beck
and revised by Joachim Sanner