Learning to Rest in His Love

Looking Back: A Page from my Rasa Diary

My heart says of you, "Seek his face!"
Your face, LORD, I will seek.

- Psalm 27:8

It was in the late 1970's that I first heard of Hans Burki and the Life Revision Seminars that he conducts yearly in southern Switzerland. Since then I had dreamed of sitting at the feet of this Spirit-filled man for a whole month, to learn what there is to learn about deeper things of God.

In May 1994 Hans himself came to Bacolod City, and I had the opportunity to attend his 4-day seminar on Solitude and Contemplation. This gave me an idea of what the real seminar would be like. Even then, that short seminar became a spiritual landmark for me, one of the major turning points of my life.

In mid 1996, I mailed Hans the "inner biographical experience" required as part of the application letter to get into the seminar. I was surprised when Hans wrote back three weeks later informing me that I had been accepted into next year's seminar.

God surely must have had a purpose for me. Step by step many obstacles were overcome even though my faith was beginning to waver towards the end. A friend encouraged me in early May of 1997 saying that God wanted to simply stretch my faith.

No other description of the process could have been more adequate. The finances needed, my illness just a few days before the departure date, my foot injury. To top it all, on the day I was due to fly to Manila, May 26, an unexpected storm paralyzed all air travel to Manila. All flights for that day were cancelled.

By God's intervention, Ernie was able to book me on a special flight to Manila early the following day, May 27.

At 11 o'clock p.m. of that same day, my plane bound for Zurich took off. I suddenly remembered what I had told my dear friends in church who had prayed with me all through those months: "I will know that God wants me to have my dream realized only when I am on board the plane bound for Switzerland."

The plane landed at the Zurich International Airport at 12 noon of the next day, May 28. My Swiss host Siegfried Schurch, at whose home in Winterthur I was to stay before and after the retreat, met me at the airport.

I reached Rasa on May 31, at 4:45 p.m.

"Rasa" by Nick Yoon

Rasa is a small village on a mountain terrace 900 meters high in the southern part of the Swiss Alps. From the train station in Verdasio, one takes a small cable car to reach it. Funivia is the local term for the cable car, which seats only up to six persons at a time.

"Funivia Verdasio-Rasa" by Neil Pulling

That afternoon about 15 of us met at that cable car station. Though strangers to one another, we were bound for a common destination, and united by a common desire - to experience God in a life-changing way.

Hans was on the other side, standing by the railing, ready to meet each one of us personally. After I introduced myself to him, he shook my hand and said quietly, "You made it."


For 28 days, twenty-three of us met daily for large group sessions, once in the morning, and once in the evening.There was also time for small groups, as well as personal reflection.
The afternoons were given as unstructured time for us to do with as we wished.

In late spring the mountains were so beautiful, the trails so inviting, and the weather so cool. Nature beckoned to us all. The bird songs were endless. Some of us would often find ourselves sitting beside mountain streams, or on top of a hill, enjoying the serenity of the surroundings.

I discovered that what Hans said about Rasa is true: "There are two things that Rasa has plenty of - fresh air and the Holy Spirit."

I thought that had come to Rasa not as a deeply-wounded person. Whatever benefit there was to be gained was to simply add on to what I already knew.

How ignorant I was of God's ways! What I thought was going to be a learning experience turned out to be an "unlearning process," a letting go of misconceptions and faulty foundations of my spiritual life. This, despite the fact that our mentor, Hans, was an interesting study in understatement! He never spoke more than 15 minutes at a time, wanting to make sure that it was God's words, and not his own, that we heard.

I left Rasa a humbled person. (Read: Jacob's New Name)


What did I learn? Maybe the question should be, What did I not learn?

At Rasa I did not learn to fill my days with frenetic activity and restless struggle.

I did not learn how to stuff my mind with more information, but rather, to unload it.


It was a new experience to learn to turn my face toward God, as a flower naturally follows the sun and basks in its warmth.

I learned what it means to rest, to wait, to say yes.

Yes to the person that I am, and yes to the person that I have not yet become.

Yes to the other person as he is, and yes to the person that he has not yet become.

Above all, I learned the most important thing for me to learn: that at the heart of God is silence, a silence that heals, a silence that understands, a silence that doesn't demand, but only loves.

For me, it will be a life-long learning process of entering into this loving, healing silence of God.

Related post: Rasa Revisited