My Mother’s Funeral

Chris: You told me that when you were at my mother’s funeral something happened to you that was very impressive. What was that?

Tony: In describing this I have to say first that I did not go to your mother’s funeral with any sense of seeking an experience or looking for some sort of insight into what was going on. I went to be with you as your friend. And, as you know, the service was far from inspiring. The priest was stumbling over what he was reading, didn’t remember your mother’s name, and so there was some level of irritation with most of us because of what was happening.

Chris: He couldn’t even get the right name. It certainly wasn’t a celebration of my mother’s life in any sensitive way.

Tony: So I wasn’t moved by the ceremony. I was there involved in what was going on around me. But suddenly it seemed that something opened in me and I could see or sense that all the people there, although they were not attempting to do what I was now sensing, were producing something by their very presence as a group. The funeral itself, the fact that everybody was there to be part of your mother’s funeral, acted as some sort of focus. It focussed their attention, their feelings and their thoughts as a lens might do. It focused all their mental and emotional energy on your mother’s spirit. I saw her lifted, buoyed up by it. I suppose it would be right to say it was almost like she was brought awake by it also. So she was energised and lifted up to be with her chosen spiritual love, who was Christ. And what I had thought to be a funeral became a wedding as she was united with her love. That was a very wonderful thing to see.