Christianising of Ordinary Life
by Christoph Jensen (SOUTH AFRICA)
From the Women’s Court we declare that patents on life and patents on bio-piracy are immoral and illegal. They should not be protected, because they violate universal principals of reverence for life and the integrity of culture’s knowledge systems.
We will not live by rules that are robbing millions of their lives and medicines, their seeds, plants and knowledge, their sustenance and dignity and food. We will not allow greed and violence to be treated as the only values to shape our cultures and lives.
We will take back our lives, as we took back the night. We know that violence begets violence, fear begets fear, but also that peace begets peace and love begets love.
We will reweave the world as a place for sharing and caring, peace and justice, not a market place where sharing and caring and giving protection are crimes and peace and justice are unthinkable. We will shape new universals through solidarity, not hegemony.
Women’s worlds are worlds based on protection – of our dignity and self-respect, the well-being of our children, of the earth, of our diverse beings, of those who are hungry and those who are ill. To protect is for us the best expression of humanity. The people who run the global corporations or the WTO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and G-7 governments have tried to transform ‘protection’ into a dirty word, the worst crime of the global market-place. Protecting health, nutrition, livelihoods, all call for trade sanctions and ‘punishment’ by the WTO and the World Bank.
To those who have tried to make protection of life a crime we say, echoing Archbishop Tutu: ‘ You have already lost. You need to get out of the way so that we can protect each other, our children and life on this planet.’
(Vananda Shiva: The Violence of Globalisation)
‘ … A CHRISTIANISING OF ORDINARY LIFE.’
( R. Steiner, September 25th 1916)
(a contemplation)
History
If we want to ‘understand’ history we will have to take into account a spiritual dimension. Much of what appears as historical ‘fact’ (treaties, declarations etc.) is merely the ‘ash’ preceded by inspiration, intuition and the grasping of opportunities. Undoubtedly the ‘zeitgeist’ plays a crucial role in what confronts us as history. Rudolf Steiner was sure that much of history would have to be re-written when viewed in this light. Of course history is also the outcome of ‘spiritual battles’ whose victories and defeats are not recorded in books and documents. The winning ‘upper hand’ might only be a temporary occurrence, with the ‘looser’ trying to explore ways and means to make its presence felt again some time later. R. Steiner describes one such occasion when looking at the defeat of the Roman ‘state-machinery’. It was not a foregone conclusion that humanity would not succumb to the thorough ‘organisation’ of the Roman state. He maintains it was the ‘egotism and selfishness’ of the ‘civic’ that rendered the machinations of the state-sector useless. It was this unpredictable factor, an emerging selfishness and egotism that ultimately made the Roman Empire ‘fizzle out’ (R. Steiner, Sept. 24th 1916). A mood, not an organised battle brought this highly organised empire to its knees. In our 21st century it is another unpredictable factor that makes it difficult for any accurate prognosis to come about: empathy. It is the acquired faculty of feeling oneself into the other person, just the opposite of selfishness. In many people this develops into a determination to work with or show solidarity with the marginalised, handicapped, downtrodden or vulnerable. This has given rise to a new culture of ‘dealing’ with one another. The ‘other’ becomes the determining factor of ones actions. The question we are confronted with now: how can we ‘surround’ this unfolding, new-found faculty with the required economic-financial parameters. Today more than ever our ’ordinary’ earthly life is subject to economic-financial considerations that seem to stifle empathy. The following essay tries to shed some light on this important issue.
The Templers - Three Steps
The context in which the quote of ‘the christianising of ordinary life …’ is found in a lecture where Rudolf Steiner talks about the Order of the Knights Templar. This is not the place to give a comprehensive picture of their history. But rather it is an attempt to relate what lived through them to conditions we are confronted with now. It has often been said that today we do not have to enter a monastic order or consult a guru to create conditions for ‘enlightenment’. Rather the conditions for enlightenment, also known as initiation process, are to be found by consciously saying ‘yes’ to the conditions we are born into – by ‘dying’ into this our world. At one time these conditions had to be created ‘artificially’ for the pupil who was seeking enlightenment – now they are to be found in the pursuit of ‘ordinary life’. For the Knights Templar however this initiation consisted of three steps:
1. The denial of the Cross, in memory of its founder who as Hugo of Tours directed a pilgrimage to the grave of St. Peter, not to Christ’s. When Hugo of Tours lived in the spiritual world he resolved to redirect this pilgrimage from Rome to Jerusalem, to the grave of Christ, when on earth again. This is the source of intent to implement the crusades. Thus the first degree of the Templar’s initiation is that of St. Peter.
2. The second degree is that of St. James. He is the patron saint of St. Jago di Compostella playing a prominent role in the battles of the Arab-Mores against the Christians in Spain. Arabs as well as Portuguese saw in him a spiritual leader who appeared as a knight on a white horse with a fire-spewing lance.
Before the founding of the Order of St. Jago di Compostella fifty-four members of the Templars as well as their Grandmaster had to die. The knights of this order erected a little temple on the grave of St. James. The custom was to form a ring around this miniature temple before the knights set out for their Journeys of Discovery. These journeys were financed by the gold of the Templars. This second degree will come to fruition when this gold will have made its way back to its ‘rightful owners’ under similar catastrophic conditions.
3. The third degree is the one of St. John’s. This degree is coming about in the
events so evident in the harmful practises of a world-economy unable to unfold in
a rightly understood christian love.
In these degrees we witness an expression of three stages of human consciousness:
First the pilgrimage to the grave of St. Peter as an expression of Faith, the denial of the cross. (Mark 8, 27-38) Peter, the disciple, time and again was made aware by the Christ that he was unwilling to bear his own cross. We find a reflection of this gesture in the ‘administration of faith’ in the Catholic Church, its prime-symbol being the crucifix. The church being the one that absolves the ‘sinner’ by ‘taking off the cross’. A ‘free’ person however takes the ‘cross of earth-existence upon him/herself.
Secondly, St. James as the instigator of Hope in whose sign (the shell) the journeys of discovery were carried out. It is no coincidence that the Cape of Storms (Cap tormentoso) changed into the Cape of Good Hope when the passage to India was discovered (see Walter J. Stein’s account of St. James’s influence on the Journeys of Discovery in: ‘The British – Their Psychology and Destiny’ pages 27 to 31 , New Knowledge Books, East Grinstead 1958).
Thirdly, the degree of St. John as an expression of rightly understood christian Love. Here we have the third Cape, the Cape of Catastrophes, if we fail to succeed to practise a christian love, which will give us the means to navigate around this Cape of Catastrophes. That is the map of our present-day journey.
That these degrees as spiritual-angelic intents are manifesting here on earth not as abstract thoughts or theories is described in the source before me when the question is asked and answered: who was Hugo of Tours? Hugo of Tours lived in the 9th century for some time in Alsace. At the behest of Charles Magne he went to Bysance to acquire very important relics related to St. Peter. These were then brought to Rome to the place where St. Peter was put to death. A little temple adorns the place where St. Peter was crucified, the first circular church in Christian history, and a ‘model’ for what became St. Peter’s Dome. In a later incarnation this Hugo of Tours became Franciscus d’Almeida, vice-roy of India who lived from c. 1450 to 1510.
Who was Franciscus d’Almeida? Apart from being the appointed vice-roy of India he obtained from an Arab source the esoteric writings of Aristotle, which were until then concealed from the occident. Up to then they had been in possession of the Arabs, but are meant to unite with Plato’s teachings in the occident.
He was a knight of the Order of St. Jago di Compostella. Thus he took part in the battles against the Mores. Near Granada he was wounded and fell into the hands of the Mores. He was meant to be executed, but an influential Arab count saw the wounded knight and was so impressed that he had him transferred into his own camp. There the count with the help of one of his wives cares for Franciscus until he fully recovers. Between the three, the count, the knight and the woman develops a warm and loving relationship. This leads eventually to Fransciscus being initiated into the esoteric writings of Aristotle by the Arab count. This count was also in possession of a valuable alchemist relic, a pearl. After having recovered fully from his wounds d’Almeida flees from the camp taking the book with Aristotle’s writings, the ‘Sierra Nevada’, and the relic with him. By rights he should have handed the two items over to his order because of his oath of allegiance, however he makes sure both items, the pearl and the book are taken to its rightful owner the alchemist Stefan Rauter, a.k.a. Basilius Valentinus. This personality is deeply connected to the circle of people who later appear openly under the name ‘Bohemian Brethren’. They were known as a ‘Fraternity of Voluntary Poverty’.
An important centre of their activities was Cologne where Albertus Magnus, Thomas A Kempis and Scotus Erigena were working.
(The impulse of the Bohemian Brethren eventually resulted in the coming about of the ‘Moravian Movement’ and ultimately the Moravian Church. The movement stretched the whole of the then known globe (in the 17th century) under the guidance and inspiration of Count Zinzendorf, also South Africa. As a token of appreciation towards the work of the Moravian missionaries Nelson Mandela renamed his official residence ‘Genadendal’ after the first of their settlements at the Cape of Good Hope.)
The relic, the pearl, d’Almeida carries with him hidden in a cross around his neck. This cross was crafted by another important personality: Rabbi Loew of Prague.
It was this relic, hidden in the cross, that d’Almeida was wearing when on his journey to India. On his return from one of his journeys he has the book and the relic transferred to a lady who brings them to Alsace in order to have them handed over to Stefan Rauter. The Order of St. Jago di Compostella had the lady killed in the church of Andlau (Odilienberg). During that time Franciscus d’Almeida was on another journey to India. That is why his execution was only carried out on his return journey on a beach not far from present day Cape Town (Woodstock). The blade of the sword had a wavy shape.
Another incarnation of Franciscus d’Almaida was Nearch, commander of the fleet of Alexander the Great. (In our time this personality appears again as Walter Johannes Stein; author’s insert)
A brother of Hugo of Tours incarnated as Godfrey of Bouillon. He fought as a knight on the side of Henry the Fourth against the Pope. When wounded he swore to partake in a crusade should he recover. It was on the grave of Godfrey of Bouillon that nine knights clasped each other’s hands and founded the Order of the Knights Templar, the statutes of which were composed by Bernard of Clairveaux.
The above information has been attributed to Rudolf Steiner. I received a manuscript of it from the late Rachel Shepherd more than 15 years ago. It is entitled: ‘Notizen einer esoterischen Betrachtung geschichtlicher Zusammenhaenge aus dem Jahre 1905 (Januar, Hannover) von Frl. Wandrey. (Dr. Rudolf Steiner vor Mitgliedern der F.M.)
To my knowledge it is the only time that Steiner mentions the Cape of Good Hope. Geographically the Cape of Good Hope (the present-day South Africa) is a world within a world, an area within which eleven official languages are spoken and as many religions practised – a country whose events are ‘everybody’s business’ according to Yehuda Tagar, the Australian psych-therapist.
When contemplating Wegener’s continental-drift-theory, the Cape of Good Hope would constitute the ancient centre of all continents, a centre that never shifted. This geographical centre is indicated by the largest altar in the world: Table Mountain.
I have lived with these informations since and ordered and translated some of the sketchy notes to make them somewhat coherent. I also added where I found it to be relevant. Having lived at the Cape of Good Hope for the last 21 years I feel compelled to share these with my fellowmen.
Another information in this document relevant for our present day dilemma relating to our world-economy is indicated thus: ‘In significant fashion we are witnessing a repeat of what happened when Pope Alexander the Fourth drew a line across the globe dividing the world into East and West. It will repeat itself if we will not succeed in redirecting the emotional ballast of the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire that works through certain personalities there. These emotive forces are as destructive and powerful as the elemental forces in nature and have their origin in bygone eras of earth’s evolution but shape our emotional life more than we dare to admit. They have to be redirected into nature where they belong. This is possible by consciously cultivating the idea of Atlantis and its nature-forces as the origin of history. Here we find the sources of new conflicts or the sources for Healing for our immediate present-day civilisation.’
Bearing in mind that this was said in 1905, i.e. before the First World War these comments can only be described as prophetic. However in hindsight one can also say that Rudolf Steiner was a more astute observer than his fellowmen. ‘Balkanisation’ was a term used already in those days, meaning a ‘restless’ area always on the brink ‘falling apart’. The First World War which ‘started’ in Sarajevo unleashed forces so destructive that they are being felt right into the present. If ‘war’ is hailed by some as ‘the mother of inventions’ one only has to think of the rapid developments in the chemical and technological industries that were put on a war-footing with the onset of that war. Hasty decisions were implemented without contemplating long-term consequences but which shape our lives in no small measure. I only have to remind ourselves of the onset of the ‘chemicalisation’ of agriculture (which was developed in tandem with the armaments-industry) and the advances in information-technologies. The horrendous statistics in terms of ‘fallen’ soldiers and the toll it had on the civilian populations has meant that ‘life’ itself became ‘cheap’ and dispensable.
Those who ‘romanticise’ the wars in literature or films can not distinguish between ‘natural disasters’ and those where men are instrumental in unleashing these disasters. The moral-ethical ‘advance’ is out of step with the technological.
It gives rise in me to a picture: if we can imagine the Earth as a cross and for a moment assume that the Cape of Good Hope constitutes the foot of the Cross we can also picture St. John and Mary, the mother of Jesus, standing on either side of this cross. The line that Pope Alexander the Fourth drew constitutes the vertical line. We are in danger of or have already drawn the horizontal one (North-South conflict). It is no coincidence that the outer era of colonisation and its related activities more or less ended with the demise of apartheid at the Cape of Good Hope. If we contemplate Johannesburg (St. John’s-burg), the creation of the only metropolis on earth coming about through the discovery of gold, which in turn resulted in the exploitation and displacement of millions of innocent human beings – then we arrive at a picture of ‘heartless’ intelligence in the pursuit of worldly gain, riding roughshod over ‘humanity’. The suffering this has caused touches everyone’s heart (except for a few die-hearts). The gold ‘unearthed’ from the depth of these mines eventually made its way into the vaults of Fort Knox giving rise to the prosperity of the West.
If we imagine the earth to be an organism crossing ‘itself’ we start in the North (Scandinavia) going towards the South (Cape of Good Hope), moving over to the West (California), crossing to the East (Vladivostok). Rudolf Steiner characterised our epoch as the one ‘preparing’ for the next, the slavic – the aquarian. In that sense we are the preparers of the preparers (Johannites). It is not at all certain that his prediction will come to pass – it depends on human ‘carriers’ to make it come to pass. Up to the fall of the Berlin-wall Africa served as the substitute battlefield of the major powers. Africa became the ‘bleeding’ heart of the world-organism. None of present-day humanity has been spared to at least ‘witness’ the suffering this has caused (‘there is no excuse for our sins any longer’ – at least not for having been witness to them): be it through television, the news-papers, magazines, graphic descriptions by eyewitnesses or the portrayals of these events in novels and films. How we digest or process this information is up to each individuals conscience – suffice it to say: we have been touched. Provided we do not ‘block out’, deny the touch, the events will cause an after-image. It will ‘sink in’. Letting this image arise in the warmth of our humanity will pave the way for a new intelligence.
Another way of ‘knowing’ of how to remedy a social-economic organism that has become sick would be to consult, to connect with the dead, those that have ‘gone before us’. R. Steiner on April 30th, 1918 formulated it like this:
‘We dream in feeling, so do not know that the dead walk with us. In the culture now preparing we shall have to ask when making a decision: what do the dead think of it? In the future we shall know that the dead are the wisest of counsellors whom we may consult when we wish to do something on earth. The Spirit-self develops through the fact that the dead are the counsellors of the living.’ I know of instances where this has happened with consequences that can only be described as astounding (i.e. Amy Biehl).
I want to believe we are on the way to an ‘intelligent’ economy that had to reach the depth of human suffering (literally: the deepest gold-mines in the world are found in South Africa). The ‘old’ masculine economic order has to go through de-capitation and replaced by a ‘feminine’ economic order.
If I ‘read’ the picture under the cross ‘rightly’, as presented by the Gospel of St. John (19: 25-27) then in the light of the third degree of initiation of the Knights Templar we can say:
On the one side we witness three Mary’s (the ultimate feminine), on the ‘other side’ the disciple whom Jesus loved, John-the-Baptist – Lazarus-John, the ultimate ‘transformed’ intelligence – uniting and harmonising under the crucifix. We hear Jesus say to Mary: ‘Mother, there is your son’; and to the disciple, ‘There is your mother’; … and from this moment on the disciple took her into his home.
I am not the only one who ‘believes’ that a turn-around (re-pent) in economic practise is bound to happen here at the foot of the world-cross – or it will not happen at all. Another remark attributed to R. Steiner is that ‘every excarnating human soul when looking back to our planet first beholds the African continent.’ One could interpret this as a question being taken into the spiritual world by each departing soul: what have you done towards the ‘heart-development’ of the world as much as your own? This is in line with letting go of our head and not a plea to an implementation of ‘Christian principles’. And it can be described as a beckoning towards the males of this world to provide a Home for the Feminine in order to heal our economy. It is a prerequisite for giving birth to ‘christian life’, a life that has little to do with churches or confessions but with a ‘christianising of ordinary life’, which is a life where we are allowed to order our karma and destiny. A life for economy’s sake is no life at all; however an economic life that deprives anyone of a basic livelihood is immoral because it does not even provide a chance to order our karma and destiny. I do not know of another place in the universe where I can encounter another human being in a physical body – and I have to believe that this earth has been created by wisdom to meet that portion of humanity that I was destined to meet.
At this point ‘the pearl hidden in the cross’ of Franciscus d’Almeida stands before my soul; the relic he had to die for in view of Table Mountain. It is a pointer towards hope and awaited accomplishment. It resembles the rose born out of suffering, beauty born out of pain, the man-child welcomed after hard ‘labour’.
It is no secret that the cerebral theories of ‘economic science’ have reached a dead end. This is expressed in phrases like ‘end of history’ or more vulgar in ‘no-future’:
Roward Gibson, avowed capitalist, who has been described as ‘the gurus of gurus’ in the field of economic trend analysis writes in his introduction to ‘Rethinking the Future’ (sic):
‘… and what about capitalism itself? That great road to progress and prosperity –
or so we thought back then. These are uncomfortable questions. These are uncomfortable times. Today, as we look into the future, there is no certainty at all about where we are going or how to get there. We no longer see a long, straight freeway stretching into the horizon. Instead we find ourselves staring at the end of the road! For the close of the twentieth century might be said to represent the end of a whole order of things. The end of the industrial paradigm. The end of the post-war world. The end of management. The end of the welfare state. The end of communism and of post-war capitalism. Perhaps, even the end of history. … In place of certainty there is a sense that our industrial societies are in deep trouble, as we drive towards what scientists call the edge of chaos – a period of violent transition
when the old order of things finally gives way to the new. Yet, at the same time, there is also a tremendous sense of adventure and of opportunity for all.’
Granted that the last sentence must have been written with a ‘stiff upper lip’ the above phrases could be interpreted as a new version of St. John utterances. And also Charles Handy, the editor of ‘Rethinking the Future’, whose books on business management have sold millions of copies around the world, when asked about the future of capitalism, replies:
‘Yes, I do worry. Capitalism depends on people working terribly hard to make other people rich, in the hope, often misplaced that they will get rich themselves. Under capitalism, growth depends on making people envious of other people so that they want what the others have. I find this a rather distasteful view of the world. On the other hand, if we don’t create wealth then everybody will be as uncomfortable as they were before the Industrial Revolution. … Success sometimes carries a high price. You wonder why we are doing this, because we seem to create a horrible society. Who would want to be rich in a social desert, or to grow old in a wasteland? We might eventually have to surround ourselves with high fences and armed guards, rather like the rich suburbs of northern Johannesburg, in order to survive in the land we have created. … Life is for living, and of course part of the living is working, but there is always more to it than that.’
A ‘Feminine Economy’?
Why then if ones very earth existence is at risk must anyone succumb to appeals by writers on the financial pages of the newspapers. Who determines the price of a bag of potatoes grown in ‘my backyard’, who the price of a bushel of grain. Who says for a deed of charity I have to charge a certain tariff? Who says that my sick cow has to be burned when I know it is suffering from a curable disease? The grain-exchange of Chicago is very far away from the women of KwaZulu-Natal who are growing their own maize. And the milk-lake in the EU is making a mockery of sensible policies regards agriculture. Economic wars are being fought with tariffs and sanctions in the name of ‘free’ trade. However it is being fought on the backs of the poor and marginilised. Why should Africa be a food-exporter if it seemingly cannot feed itself? Because it needs the foreign exchange to build up a manufacturing industry? Intuitively our feminine soul ‘knows’ what it has to do. Something prophetic is stirring that is unable to find verbal expression – and yet we know it is ‘true’. Immediately after the war it was the women in Germany who literally pulled up their sleeves and tidied up the rubble in the bombed out cities, they started growing vegetables in their backyards. The first farmer I met in my life was a widow whose husband died in the war. In the black townships of South Africa it is the women who inspire others to grow their own food, who are at the forefront of future-oriented enterprise. Not that I want to diminish the good that they have done, but the icons of femininity are for me not so much Princess Di or Mother Theresa but much more the characters of Berthold Brecht’s plays in ‘Mother Courage’ or ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’. I have met some of them in real life: gutsy, determined, warm, loving, no-nonsense-type persons. When they express their rightful anger and indignation you don’t think of guns and revenge: they have ‘entered your house’ and made their presence felt in no uncertain terms. The ‘sweet’ and gentle approach is not their hallmark; they enter like the ‘thief-in-the-night’. This is the ‘shock-treatment’ meted out to the male-psyche for getting ‘our’ house in order. There is no way we are able to turn the clock back. But those who have witnessed the degradation of landscapes, human habitats and social relations in Nigeria after the discovery of oil know that it needs more than a public-relations campaign by certain oil-companies to show a way out of the misery.
In our day and age the attributes ‘masculine-feminine’ are manifest not exclusively in the relevant sex but in states of consciousness and hence accessible to both male and female. The outer expression being the ‘ideal’ of the androgynous human being.
What has been presented in this essay is not to be understood as a ‘solution’ to a pressing problem. I do not claim to present a recipe. However by presenting the problem in the way I have attempted we might understand that we are living in a very important transitional period in terms of consciousness. Implied is the fact that we have to ‘bear’ to live a paradox, to co-habit with that which feels uncomfortable whilst at the same time birthing something ‘new’. That the ‘opposition’ to this emerging power is clad in fearful looking black uniforms like in Seattle, Gothenburg
or Genoa is more a sign of impotence than ‘stately’ power. The life-story of Carlo Giuliani, the demonstrator shot dead in Genoa, reads like any ‘normal’ life-story of a 23-year-old cosmopolitan (Der Spiegel 31/2001). And everyone knows that it was panic and fear that made Marco Placanica, a 20-year-old conscript in the Italian police force, pull the trigger.
The ‘Women’s Court’, quoted above, knows full well that it has no judiciary power to enforce its laws but rather appeals to this emerging sense of empathy and to apply it to ‘one-self’ in all freedom. In that it is different from the ‘old’ Roman Law which applies still in most countries of the world. Hence the quotes from the ‘Women’s Court’ represent a new thinking that speaks from the intelligent heart, that ‘knows’. It is a language as comprehensive as it is determined, it speaks with purpose and authority, it is neither feminine nor masculine: it is human.
It allows us to say: Ecce homo.
Humanity
Now I will allow myself to accompany the ‘wandlung’ ( in German literally: walking, however implied is: ‘changing’), the metamorphosis of John of the Desert into the ‘beloved disciple’ and ultimately the one standing under the cross. It is at the same time ‘my turn-around’ piercing through the thin membrane of conventional theories of economy. And I have to confess that it is the result of my own impotence, my own walk in the desert. When I arrived in South Africa, now 21 years ago I had the audacity to ‘think’ that within three weeks I would be able to change ‘the system of apartheid’. After my arrival it took the country 10 years to free itself from the legislative shackles. Now that we are another ten years further and have arrived in the new millennium the economic bonds are still largely in place. So much for my part in the liberation-struggle, to speak with Spike Milligan. I know now that the Afrikaaners, or the Boers, the people the world loved to hate for the sins of discrimination are also part of my humanity. When Rudolf Steiner uses the term ‘humanity’ he actually created a new word in the German language. In the Act of Consecration, the church service of the Christian Community the term: ‘…grasping the spirit through our humanity’, and later ‘… aware of our humanity’ is used. In another context he created the term: ‘ .. feeling ones humanity in ones warmth.’ In the German language he uses the word ‘Menschheit’ not ‘Menschlichkeit’. ‘Menschlichkeit’ normally is used in the sense of being humanitarian, a philantropist. However ‘Menschheit’ is a concrete term, the portion of humanity that is ‘your own’, the people you have come or are in contact with. It constitutes ‘my province’, your, my portion of humanity – and that portion is as big or small as the number of my acquaintances. They are part of my ‘ordinary’ existence. In this context one is permitted to ask the question what it means to ‘loose ones humanity’, to cut oneself off ones humanity.
Those who have been in the desert will know that it is characterised by lack of water and hence by an exceptional botanic variety. So what does it mean ‘to live of honey and locusts’? For almost 600 years we were made to believe that it was indeed honey and locusts John filled his belly with. But only because Luther, the translator, has never been in a desert. Honeylocusts, or St. John’s Bread is a nutritious pulse growing on trees. It is incredibly drought-resistant, hence a desert-fruit. Most of the ‘chocolate’ from Israel is indeed made from St. John’s Bread. I personally use it as an ingredient in our yoghurt. What it tells me: St. John was very resourceful in that he ‘made do’ with what he found in his environment and did not yearn for bananas where they do not grow. Looking at the menus of most ‘rich’ countries, the more exotic, the better.
What does it mean to be clad in camel’s hair? What is a camel? The camel is known as the ‘ship of the desert’. The caravans trailblazers of commerce in a hostile environment. Commerce today is our way of ‘communicating’ with each other, to make connection. Is it by chance that we talk about ‘captain’s of industry’, when we mean the top-executives of giant corporations? The camel’s compass: a nose for the next water hole. St. John ‘was led to the water of the Jordan-valley’ where he encountered the Christ. His mode of baptising was to hold the person under water, almost to the point of drowning. That way the person would re-live his/her past, leading the life’s path back to the point of ‘coming in touch’ with his/her original intent, his/her pre-natal resolve. Fort most of us this would lead to a gradual ‘acceptance’ of our destiny – saying yes to our fellowman.
The next step in St. John’s life was ‘the beheading’. It was ‘him’ the disciples could turn to in the spiritual world, the one who had gone before them, and ‘feel’ him to be the ‘connecting link’ that held the ‘ring of the twelve together’.
His spirit was present with ‘them’ at the table of the Lord, in the upper room, as the ‘beloved disciple’ resting his head on the heart of the Christ.
In our day and age the Table of the Lord is the world of resources, where in a christian sense ‘everyone is invited’. Who owns the table, who owns the house?
Here I arrive at a very uncomfortable thought – one that makes me realise that we are at the very, very beginning of that fateful journey Steiner talks about attempting to ‘circumnavigate the Cape of Catastrophies’. It makes me shiver in my boots. It makes me realise that I have to ‘leave the house’, the house that I was so accustomed to. I have to take leave of a ‘community of security and comfort’, not necessarily physically but spiritually. It was the journey that was ‘lived’ by both John and Jesus. Both were born into the ‘house’, the community of the Essenes. That community that was so well described by Rudolf Steiner in the ‘Fifth Gospel’ and the content of which was later confirmed when the Dead Sea Scrolls came to light. Much was prophesied in that community, much was contemplated there, it created the arc, the home for a new epoch, it was host to world-changing events. This community also provided the upper room, the Coenaculum for the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday. It was the last and final ‘function’ held in that house and thereby the mission of the community was fulfilled, bearing in mind that the Last Supper was an all-male function. Later, under the cross the ‘beloved disciple was asked to take ‘the women into his home’. The food ‘provided at the Last Supper’ was so to speak the lunch-pack for the journey the disciples had to undertake on their own after Good Friday, the time when He was not any more among them in a physical body. After Good Friday ‘we’ were put into a position to ‘take up our own cross’, the sting of death was removed. The disciples had been prepared for this event and were given the ‘command’ to ‘go out into the world, to spread the good news’. They had to turn ‘their backs towards each other, taking with them only a stick and one coat’. I am sure many a missionary had this picture in mind when setting off on their journey, also many a settler when ‘conquering the New World’. The arc had arrived on dry land. It is not a matter of inviting the world into the arc any more but for the ‘passengers’ to disembark, two by two, male and female – to ‘spill the beans’.
When Dr. Karl Koenig the founder of the Camphill Communities visited the shores of South Africa for the first time in 1957 he contemplated which countries in the world had the potential to evolve into ‘christian’ states. And he arrived at a startling conclusion: the United States and South Africa. I think we have to abolish all ideas we might have of historic Christianity or for that matter all sectarian, even denominational concepts of Christianity if we want to get anywhere near of what he perceived then. We also can not apply today’s measure of ‘political correctness’ when revisiting some of Dr. Koenig’s writings. His observations were accompanied by a pure, in terms of ‘clean’ subjectivity. But then we can take comfort in the fact that over the last 150 years the terms ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ have reversed their respective meanings. This is what makes his writings so interesting to examine as we may well ask: how did he arrive at that?
No fundamentalist Christian need rejoice, he spoke of the future, of the potential. And I am convinced it has to do with the ‘mix’ of humanity found in both countries. In both countries the dividing line between the haves and the have-nots is still drawn along the ‘colour-line’. We may or may not find all sorts of sociological, political, historical reasons for this fact – but will the explanation make the difference?
Dr. Koenig seemed to be overwhelmed by the ‘sheer immensity’ of this question – and he had only one suggestion:
‘To keep the amber of spiritual life alight the white person has to resolve to built villages together with Africans: villages and small towns. In it one should practise and live a truly modern, non-denominational christianity. There one would work together out of mutual reverence and common devotion. And in this common effort one will re-cognise ones common humanity, the human being.
Such are the circumstances in this southern region of humanity. It is one of the places in the world where you will find pointers towards true human progress. The Gods show the ways – human beings have to walk them.’ Let us go hence …
Christoph, August 29th, Beheading of St. John’s
(with gratitude to Rachel Shepherd)