On my home page I said that I had always thought that my John and I would share our wonderful story with others, as believing that together we had found how to live in a state of Heaven on Earth but…………… I don’t think my John was ready.
As on the day I presented this website proposition to him, we had the biggest robust discussion we had had for some years. I know that in the big scheme of things, these honest discussions take place for each of us to get to know ourselves deeper, and to understand even more clearly, the drama that is currently taking place. And this time, on that day, this bit of the drama happened, for me to ‘shift’ and stop procrastinating, I had to do this to fulfil my souls purpose – and in that moment this Website was born……..however not as www.gnjsheavenonearth but as www.georgiespeaceofheaven and it’s been literally flowing ever since. TYG
I have always been the pioneer in our relationship, passing on to John all that I had learnt. Once again I knew my story and we had many discussions attempting to understand his complex journey. Sufficient to say that he was born out of wedlock and named David John Reeves, father unknown! Until 3 years later when his mother met and married Harry, who offered to adopt David, however on the condition that she had to change his name to John as there was already a David in Harry’s family!! Harry was never known to kick a football or play cricket with his adopted son, now John Harry, his mother never gave him the time to read him a book. I think she was so grateful to Harry for just giving her a married name. He was in the air force and his new family were billeted and moved around the country, never settling long enough for this sensitive, lonely lad, alias David to have any roots, education and certainly no experience of friends. The only person little John could ever trust and rely on was himself, even his body was to let him down later.
Marrying at age 22 in February 1957 and then having a traumatic 6 months of poor health which resulted in John having to have a kidney removed in September that same year. This very sensitive, young man, yet very responsible went on to provide for his wife and eventual family of four children. Managing to share and enjoy each of their individual childhood experiences, to make up for the one he never really had, him still believing that Harry was his father. Never ever managing to find any real peace in his limited version of life with a breakdown aged 35 and finally leaving the family home when he was in his early 50’s. Resulting in another harrowing period and quite lost in a bleak wilderness, with both mental and physical pain – and often visiting many churches without any joy, trying to make sense of his life and find friends.
His salvation came one summer in the form of a weeks’ voluntary work suggested by his ex-wife, and then found himself invited back that Christmas 1997 at Netley Waterside and meeting me !!!!.
The Universe knew that John was ripe for a fast track spiritual learning course, with me sharing all that I had learnt to date. The beauty of this was that John’s eventual career had been that of a Technical Author producing manuals for aircraft equipment. Which meant everything needed to be explained and reduced down to its smallest detail – which is what John did as I shared with him what I had discovered – he questioned, analysed, broke it down to its simplest form before he felt comfortable with these new & strange facts. I had to answer, defending what I had learnt, which at the same time validated what I knew and strengthened my inner core. I loved him even more for the effort he made to improve his spiritual understanding.
We had amazing conversations together – looking at life from a spiritual perspective and looking for the meaning within the bigger picture. John had always had his own relationship with nature and had often found solace in it, however he had not realised how often the Universe had been with him especially directing his extremely varied working life. Providing work opportunities that, at the time, felt like luck but now he could see how protected and guided he had actually been, bringing him through what had felt like hell at times.
Between us we managed to put the pieces of John’s life together, with the co-operation of his older half-sister (same mother) who could remember as a teenager, seeing an adoption certificate hidden away in a drawer. This also solved an old memory of Johns, when he had to produce a birth certificate when he went away for his first decent chance at education in the RAF Boys Service aged 16. His mother had reluctantly produced one for him which showed very limited facts with no place of birth or name of father.
His mother, now riddled with the results of a lifetime of bad health, lived across the road from us and when we had discovered these facts, he actually felt the need to confront her gently. He was completely unprepared for her to agree with his findings, and when we attempted to refer to the conversation another day, she totally blanked and denied the whole scenario.
However it helped to explain a lot of those unanswered questions. Helping John to understand his difficulty in making friends; his lack of social skills; his slowness in reading and why he didn’t have any friends,
No wonder there were these incredible, very noticeable differences between John and I. Me, who had been loved by both her parents; me, who had a high school education; me, who had a family home to still go to where John was always welcomed by my parents; me, who had no difficulty in making friends; me, who had shocked John that Christmas time counting up the number of boyfriends I had had since my first husband; me, who still had friends from school days: me, who was out visiting friends many afternoon each week; me, who has a strong, healthy body with lots of stamina; me,who is 14 years younger than him.
Reading the above now, makes me realise how difficult a challenge it would have been for John to fully acknowledge gnj’sheavenonearth. Yes, we had it between us, but it didn’t reflect enough for him to endorse a joint website, to fully accept it – he couldn’t – him still having the residue of pain of this inbalance..
For me to write this is not easy, as I know it will make uncomfortable reading for him.
So I will let you know what an amazing friend he has turned out to be. In the visualisation which I wrote as an exercise from Gill Edwards book in November 1995 I requested:-
That I can find a special friend to love and spoil who will want to do the same with me.
I would like a little house, a job where I was able to have a circle of love & sufficient money not to have to worry.
This wasn’t just wishful thinking – this was Instruction to the Universe who obviously heard every word.!!! TYG
John has made me feel really cherished. He is an honest, open, truthful person, full of integrity. He makes me laugh. I trust him. I admire his focus & consistency. When I arrived in Bournemouth instead of insisting we get married, we visited his solicitor and made back-to-back wills – John by now owning his own little bungalow, however I didn’t have anything to contribute having left the family home with next to nothing. This selfless action of his had quite an impact on me. Being with John has allowed me to learn so much more about myself. He has selflessly let me grow and explore and be more than I ever thought I could be. He is unpretentious. I love him very much and that we share our prayer time together every morning.
We have learnt how to generously compromise without any resentment; seen how a relationship has to be worked on with respect, all explained so beautifully by Erich Fromm, a German psychologist in his words; – Love implies responsibility, care, respect & knowledge and the wish for the other person to grow, develop. It is the expression of intimacy between two human beings under the condition of the preservation of each other’s integrity; You can see why I love my quotations so much.
We used to go for many years to Vanda’s home in Poole for a Brahma Kumaris Yoga meeting. Matthew, who used to live in Bournemouth had started a BK group many years ago before he moved to their retreat centre in Nuneham Courtney, would drive down one Thursday every month. We learnt a lot more about ourselves from Matthew, who exuded the peace and rationality that only someone who meditates frequently and who had the full understanding of ‘why we are here‘ could do.
Our group were invited occasionally for a weekend to the BK retreat centre www.globalretreatcentre.org , each time feeling so blessed to be able to share time with such knowing souls. https://youtu.be/xy_9Wmafmto The BK’s who live at the centre are committed to a lifestyle conducive to deepening their own spiritual awareness and experience. All BK’s consider themselves on-going students of Raja Yoga, and the brothers and sisters who give the talks help to explain the subtle difference between body consciousness and soul consciousness. They do this by brilliant workshops on meditation, self esteem, overcoming anger, stress free living etc.,
The words of William Shakespeare’s “All the world is a stage, And all men and women merely players, They have their exits & entrances, And one man plays many parts” sum up beautifully the basis of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University and their message of Who Am I ? with the BK‘s answer that ‘you do not have a Soul’ – they say ‘YOU ARE A SOUL’.
It made total sense of this frequently heard quote. “We are not humans having a spiritual experience but spirit having a human experience” taking its meaning to another level of awareness.
For me Mike George, one of BK’s most popular & inspirational speakers, says ‘Meditation is the Cultivation of Self Awareness’, hearing and churning this statement helped me to clarify and deepened, both the meaning of Meditation and Self Awareness.