Firstly, I want to say to all the fathers out there, both on the Earth plane and in the spirit world, just a shout out to them on Father’s Day.
What I was gonna talk about this evening was just a multiple of things really, during these strange times and it’s really observations on my behalf. Firstly, since the lockdown, I think it’s about 14 weeks now, I’ve never had that time off in my life. I’ve worked since I was 16, 31 years at the same firm. Then all of a sudden, 14 weeks off.
I know at the beginning, maybe the first six/seven weeks, a lot of you have done the jobs that we never had time to do. I certainly did. I got the front gardens and back gardens renovated and really got stuck in. But the last few weeks I’ve been relaxing a bit too much. I’ve put a few pounds on as many of us have. Looking forward to getting back to some sort of normality.
But really and truthfully this lockdown has shown us all so much. For me, one of the main things was how busy our lives are normally and in normal times certainly for me, where I’d regularly be doing 60, 70 hours a week at work. I think at the moment it is crazy. Re-evaluate your lives. When you’ve got this time to reflect and sit down and think, I really do believe many of us, including myself, spend far too long at work and not actually doing meaningful things.
I know that work is meaningful. We need to earn a living, but the meaningful things like spending time with your family, your friends, your partner, your wives, husbands and your animals. Certainly my animals now have been spoiled rotten over the last 14 weeks. They look at me wanting to know what’s going on. I’ve got two dogs and two parrots myself, and the amount of treats they’re going through is phenomenal.
In regard to this now, hopefully the end is in sight and we can start getting back to some sort of semi normality. It will be nice to get back into the churches, for churches to reopen so we can all join together as we normally do. Over the airwaves like this is fine, but there’s nothing like being together in person. So for me, hopefully, God willing, things will start to get back to normal.
Strangely when I look back at the beginning, and if you can all resonate in your own way, my fiance Victoria, I remember on the first real night of lockdown and as she does she really overthinks everything. And I remember her actually getting quite emotional around about bedtime and asking “how are we going to cope?” “How are we going to get through this? this is crazy!” At the time we were talking, talking six, eight weeks. This has gone on pretty longer than most originally thought. I just said to her it’s one day at a time.
I’m quite a laid back person and it’s just amazing, I don’t know if you all agree, how the time has passed. It really has flown by for me, keeping fairly busy at first. In an ideal world, it would start getting back to normal now. But we’ve got through God Willing, the worst of it and just observing all the crazy times in the world now. We can’t even go to the shops to just pop in and get something, you’ve got to queue up for half an hour and people are wearing masks.
It is certainly a challenging time. But for me, I always look at my personal relationship with the spirit world going back to a child. Many of you will have your own experiences with the spirit world, and all we can really do is to reflect on our experience of the spirit world, our faith and our trust, and know that none of us are ever alone and that there’s a purpose for everything. The windscreens are misted up at the moment, but all it takes is for the windscreen wipers to come on and we’ll be able to see clearer and things will get back to some sort of normality for us.
One thing I would like to add to this is that sometimes in life you encounter or witness things or people or animals. I’ve got to say a shoutout to Denzel the Rabbit, mentioned when you were going through the healing book. I do love it. I’m very connected to the animal world, and that did raise a smile to my face, Denzel the Rabbit. So I hope Denzel the Rabbit, wherever he is, is doing well.
One of the things that was really taking me back over the last 14 weeks was I witnessed a program on the TV. It was a few weeks ago now. And it was one of them programmes that’s the last thing on at night before going to bed. I just looked at the description of it, I’d never seen it before, although it dates back to 2004. And I never expected that the program to hit me like it did, but it was so powerful, I’ll never, ever forget it. We sat there watching it, myself and Victoria, it was a program called ‘The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off’.
It was about a young man called Jonny Kennedy, who was from the North-East of England and from start to finish, I was absolutely amazed by this young man. He was born with a really rare skin condition and many of you have probably seen it over the years, but if you haven’t, I highly recommend it. I sat there in awe. He was born with this really rare skin condition that effectively when he was born, I think it was a certain area of his leg that had no skin and it was just open wounds, open source. This young man had this condition throughout his whole life. He got to the age of 37 when eventually the skin condition turned into skin cancer, it deteriorated, and he passed to spirit. For me, watching this man, and he was only a small guy, he was in a wheelchair, but when he stands he is maybe just over 5 foot, a small stature. But what it left me realising is that it doesn’t matter if you’re a 20 stone man that goes to the gym every day, what really counts is what’s in you, what you have within yourself. This man absolutely emphasised to me the meaning of a real man.
He was one of the strongest characters I ever witnessed in my 47 years on the earth plane. Every single day of his life, this young man had to endure unbelievable pain, discomfort, whilst most of the time being so quick witted and had very high intelligence. One of the amazing things that really drew me to him as well is that he had immense faith and he had blown up around his local Spiritual Church, so he encountered that side of it as well which obviously strengthened his resolve in life as well. Without any doubt for me was his immense strength as an actual spirit, a phenomenal soul. To go through what he did every day, to go to bed having his mum undress him and his skin conditions were so bad that it would pull off the open wounds and the new skin forming. I just sat there in awe and had nothing but admiration for that man.
We all know people have gone through tremendous times and quite a few of late. But Jonny Kennedy had immense faith, he knows the Spirit World is there, as we all do this evening. No matter what life throws at us, we’ve just got to knuckle down and get on with it. If that man can, then hopefully we can take strength from characters like him and meet head-on whatever comes along in life, may God bless his soul. That hour documentary really hit home for me. I just couldn’t believe it.
So that was my side of it during lockdown, pretty much up and down being busy, as I imagine many of you have. Hopefully you’ve used it semi wisely and have got some of them long lasting jobs that you’ve never had the time to do like I’ve done. And relax yourselves and hopefully, God willing, in good time and, at the right time, things get back to normal. I’ll leave you with those thoughts, God bless.
- Spiritual Address given by Martin Quigley during Divine Service at Thundersley C. S. Church – 21st June 2020
- Watch the service on catch up here.
