Things Of The Spirit
True Wisdom Lies In Seeing The Bigger Picture
We are more than our bodies, and belong to more than just this earth.
A Personal Reflection On Things Of The Spirit
I am going to share something with you that is very personal and very private. I have always told myself that I will not tell this story in any of my articles on Zen Tools. But I feel strangely compelled to do this now, so here goes...
This is about the death of my father.
The phone rang at about 10.30pm on 12th February 2005. It was my Mother:
"Stephen, your Father has died."
He was only 74 and in reasonable health so this news came as a shock.
I drove down to my parents' home - which was about one and half hours away - in a state of numbness. I had no idea what I would find or how my Mother would be.
When I arrived my mother seemed OK and very together and there was a very palpable sense of lightness and calm in the house and not the tidal wave of emotional turbulence that I was expecting.
Then I looked at his corpse
I went upstairs to their bedroom where my father's corpse lay and I immediately had the sense of an overwhelming sense of peace in that bedroom.
I do not mean that I felt peaceful, I was neutral and still in a mild state of shock, I mean that there was an atmosphere and energy in that room that was overwhelmingly light, calm and peaceful.
I felt quite literally infused and absorbed into this powerful energy and presence that suffused the room.
Then I looked at his corpse and I knew that was not him, that what I was looking at was the empty shell.
In that moment of observing his corpse I was struck by the realisation that my father was dead physically and that all of his personality, his ego, his many eccentricities, our tragic differences of opinion, his depression and associated moods ALL of it was dead and had ceased the moment the blood stopped pumping round his brain.
Yet simultaneously I knew that he was alive, more alive and more whole than he had ever been this side of the grave.
In the Christian expression I knew that my father was resurrected in a new body and a new life and he was complete, glorious and magnificent in ways that he had never been in his earthly life.
My father was a deeply damaged man who went through the whole of his life with a deep sense of not being good enough, of never making the grade.
He was also a deeply spiritual man and a lay preacher for most of his adult life.
Through his darkest days in times of great family tragedy he maintained his spiritual life - you could say he kept the faith - and especially at times and in circumstances when he had no rational or sound reason to do so.
I recall him saying to me once how he had prayed to God from the depths of his despair, after experiencing yet another family tragedy, and said:
" .... You treat me worse than a dog, no loving human father would treat his child as you treat me."
Despite it all, he kept his faith. In his last letter to me he wrote:
“Dear Stephen… So pleased to be able to visit you yesterday.
I, like so many Christians, look back on our past with
bewilderment, and dismay at times…many…things have happened that I cannot
explain and we have made many mistakes too, but I know we got one thing right.
In the darkest times…with dreams again shattered I knew we must go on
worshiping and preaching…or perish spiritually. God bless - love Dad”
"Nothing in his life became him, like the leaving it"
As I stood there in that bedroom I was hit by the further realisation that nothing so became my father as the manner of his departure.
Not only was he alive and more alive now than he had ever been, but he had passed from this life to the next with an honour guard of angels.
Over the following days right up to and during his funeral both my mother and I had this continuing, overwhelming and palpable sense of a very powerful angelic presence.
It was as though in death my father experienced the recognition and praise that he never felt in life.
Next Article: Mind Games & How To Free Yourself From Them
Return from "Things Of The Spirit" to: Walking The Talk
Or to: What Is Spirituality?
LATEST ARTICLES
Like A Prayer - Life Is A Mystery
It Isn't The Process Of Prayer That’s The Problem, It’s The Way It’s Framed. Regardless of what we feel about Madonna or her song the topic of prayer often arouses strong reactions. Usually, it is som…How Things Really Are - The Inbuilt Design Flaws
Chaos, Disorder And Decay Is The Natural Order Of Things. Nobody has the perfect life. We all struggle and strive to attain health, wealth and personal happiness. Yet these three big areas: our health…Intuition Or Anxiety - Are There Angels Or Devils Crawling Here?
How To Tell The Difference Between Intuition and Anxiety. How do you know whether the voice of your intuition is real or just the product of your inner anxiety? Several months ago I was having a drink…What Is Truth - How To Tell A Partial Truth From The Whole Truth?
How the truth and nothing but the truth is often not the whole truth. My great aunty Flo broke her arm and died. It is true that she broke her arm in 1923. It is also true that she died in 1949. But t…Duality And Life Beyond Your Thinking Mind
Duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuses on the limitations of time, foreground and background, duality and "stuckness". The first aspect of duality and life beyond your thinking mind focuse…The Conscious Mind Is Limited - Be Aware And Be Prepared
Being aware is the first stage of being prepared. The conscious mind is limited in so many ways. There are some who would argue that there is no such thing as conscious thought and that it is represen…Your Inner Map Of Reality - Here's Why You Think The Way You Do
The big picture of how your inner map of reality creates your feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. Your inner map of reality is based on the filters of your own ethnic, national, social, family and rel…The Failure Of Cancel Culture - Suppression Not Engagement
Why we need to wear our beliefs lightly and develop negative capability. Throughout history people have campaigned to fight beliefs, ideologies, and injustices that they perceived to be oppressive, di…4 Big Reasons Why We Get Stuck In Our Attempts At Personal Change
Most People Spend Their Entire Life Imprisoned Within The Confines Of Their Own Thoughts. This first of the 4 big reasons why we get stuck is, in my view, the most important. The "self-help industry…How Do I Change And Why Is It So Hard?
We Would Rather Die Than Change, And We Usually Do In my experience, the vast majority of people who say they want to change don’t change. Most people reading this won’t change because they don’t real…The Illusion Of A Separate Self - Windows 11 With Self Awareness!
Beyond the content of your mind you are so much more than you think you are. When we talk of "myself" this is the conventional way of referring to our self image which is in fact the ego's constructio…Finite And Infinite Games - Dazed, Confused & Ultimately Transcendent
This is not an instruction manual, it is a wake up call!
Over this past week I have read Professor James Carse's highly regarded "Finite And Infinite Games - A Vision Of Life As Play And Possibility"…The Gap And The Gain - How Your Brain Sabotages Your Happiness
How Your Lizard Brain Sabotages Your Happiness We are hardwired to measure our progress in any and all areas of life where we have goals and aspirations. We can't not do it. But what we measure and ho…How To Wake Up - 4 Simple Practices To Help You Wake Up Now
So What Exactly Does It Mean to Wake Up - What Is "Enlightenment"? There is nothing magical, mystical or mysterious about waking up we’re actually having glimpses of enlightenment all the time. Enligh…Situational Communication - Different Strokes For Different Folks
Situational communication is about taking account of 3 often ignored factors about the other person. You are a situational communicator when you recognise that effective communication is not an event…How To Influence Without Authority - 6 Key Tips
The secret to how to influence without authority is that you get what you really want by giving other people what they really want. We live in an interconnected world and knowing how to influence with…Change Questions To Change Your Outcomes
Asking The Right Questions Is Critical For A Successful Change. Every time we initiate a significant change - whether in our personal life or in an organisation - we will most likely over-estimate our…Group Culture - The Invisible Software That Rules Your Life
Group culture is: "How we do things round here". We like to see ourselves as free agents making our own choices and living authentically but the reality is that The Matrix has many layers and we are u…Why Getting From A to B Is Not Aways A Straight Line
In circumstances of significant change, the progress from A to B will not be in a straight line. We run our lives largely on auto-pilot. In most circumstances your experience of getting from A to B is…The Art Of Persuasion Planning For Success - Here's How To Do It!
To be successful in the art of persuasion you must ensure that certain things happen. To be successful in the art of persuasion you must establish a framework of what has to happen to get you to that…The Art Of Persuasion Advanced Communication Skills - Gaining Buyin
Create The Environment Where They Want To Buyin to Your Proposal In order to build the win-win you have to uncover what it is that the other person really wants or needs, and to do that you have to as…The Art Of Persuasion The One Fundamental Principle - Create A Win-Win
The art of persuasion is based on the simple idea that you get what you want by enabling the other party to get what they want. Being a nice friendly person with good inter-personal skills may be a go…Communication Persuasion And Change - Key Skills To Survive & Succeed
It's not the strongest that survive, nor the most intelligent, but those who are most responsive to change, the most persuasive, and the best communicators. We are living in an age of unprecedented ch…The Eisenhower Box - What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent
What Is Important Is Seldom Urgent And What Is Urgent Is Seldom Important. The Eisenhower Box is a time management and decision-making model devised by President Dwight Eisenhower to help him prioriti…Zen Enlightenment [Satori] - The Stink Of Zen
Lost In Our Delusions About Enlightenment. There is something in human nature - a desire to glamorise, sanctify, objectify and idolise – that elevates people who have offered deep insights to the huma…5 Zen Mindsets For Mastery - In Any Area Of Your Life
The Wisdom Of A Person Who Masters In Any Art Is Reflected In Their Every Attitude. The state and quality of your mind has a very large bearing on the quality of your performance in any area of life t…Dealing With The Toxicity Of Online Dating - 6 Key Tips From A Clinical Psychologist
Toxicity Is The Price Tag Of Accessibility. In the early days of online dating, users were vetted and had to go through a registration process and agree to comply with a code of conduct designed to en…Why Understanding Ergodicity Is Critical To Your Long Term Survival
How Not To Be Fooled By Randomness. Ergodicity is an ugly word from the world of mathematics. It is an umbrella term for two sets of conditions of probability and outcome. These two conditions form th…Dealing With Imposter Syndrome - Ego Is The Enemy
How You Frame A Situation Has A Profound Impact On How You Respond To It Emotionally. Imposter syndrome is a psycho-emotional experience of a fear of being found out as incompetent despite ongoing evi…The Challenges Of The Road Less Traveled
Issues You'll Face When Playing The Long Game. The challenges of the road less traveled is loosely based around the phrase popularised by M.Scott Peck with his book "The Road Less Traveled". This arti…