This is a true story about intentionality and spirituality at a heart level shaping material events. I am publishing several of these 36 unusual events that break the rules of space-time-material on my Substack, https://TriquetraLife.substack.com. This one I thought would be good here as well.
Names may change, but relational processes between people are the truth of life whatever names and substances are given to describe them. Larry, a friend of Marian and I, decided to take a year off to sail his Sadler 28 yacht down through the French canals into the Mediterranean. His girlfriend Ruth left a job to join him on this adventure. We met them on board for a farewell dinner, during which Marian and I talked enthusiastically about the miraculous timing of events that had led to our purchase of South Highlands and the start of our Celtic Christian healing community. Infrequent email contacts followed, as we were invited to join them for a two week holiday a few months later in the Med, wherever they were by then.
The first of many problems was a prolonged deterioration of weather that trapped them in the home port; and then grass cutting along the banks of the French canals blocking the air intake for the engine, and so on. With more delays than anticipated, we flew out to join them in Majorca, setting off to sail along the south coast, across to Formentera in a night passage, and finally after a couple of days back to Ibiza, from where we would fly back.
The weather that summer was highly changeable. It wasn’t long before we realised that Larry couldn’t sleep for worry about the anchor holding. Clearly the relationship between him and Ruth was under strain, with Larry distracted by his anxieties. But we had enjoyable times, and it wasn’t until the night passage to Formentera when Ruth and I were on watch together that she found the opportunity to tell me her story. The dream had shattered with Larry’s depressive turns and the overwhelming number of problems with the boat’s mechanics. Ruth had herself become depressed and suicidal. She decided to step off the back of the boat at sea one night, when a most astonishing thing happened. She remembered our conversation at the farewell dinner, and opened her mind in a heart-felt appeal asking if God were there to help her, when she suddenly started speaking out absolutely nonsensical rubbish-talk. Ruth had never heard of the spiritual language called ‘speaking in tongues’. I was able to explain that it may follow a movement of Holy Spirit heart-level connection deeper than the mind infusing a living grace of universal love.
Ruth had realised there was a deeper hope. She abandoned her desperate plan, no longer feeling so alone, but felt she couldn’t tell Larry because that would let on how unhappy she had been. She had been trying so hard to conceal that from him. But now Marian and I were here, she knew we would understand. Over the next days Marian and I took opportunities to talk alone with Ruth when we could, helping her to understand that she was living prayer as a relational connection that transforms life, far more than just as a mental thought or wish. Larry was annoyed that during our night watch we had drifted significantly off course, which he and Marian had had to correct in the dawn watch. And so it was that by the time we were relaxing in Ibiza, Ruth felt the time had come to tell him of her commitment now to a life of prayer, and the reason why. He didn’t know how to respond, other than to accept it in silence. We remained good friends, but this was one of those unspoken mysteries that Larry was unable to fathom. As a parting gift, Marian gave Ruth her Bible, which she received with a squeal of delight saying she had been praying for a way to get hold of one, and here it was!
That afternoon we had a taxi booked to take Marian and I from the harbour to the airport. It was significantly late. I berated the taxi driver, saying we might miss our flight and could he go as fast as possible to get us there. He did the opposite, of course. We pulled our canvas sailing bags into the departure lounge to be told that the gate had closed and the aeroplane was leaving without us. It would be an understatement to say that my displeasure found expression.
Marian, of course, has a wonderful way of soothing those moments into a more rational frame. We rebooked a flight for the next day, took a bus back into Ibiza town and planned to find a hotel for the night so that Ruth and Larry could make their adjustments together. Walking along a street, I wanted to head for the evening lights ahead, but Marian had a sudden impulse to say we should turn down a darkish side road. Walking towards us was a young woman with her head down who, as we came close, looked up at us rapidly developing a look of astonished horror, hand on mouth to cover the gasp with rapid breaths following. It was Ruth. Marian and I also were thrown into confusion for a moment until we called her name, and Ruth seemed then to realise that we were not ghosts. She said in tones of amazement, “I was walking along here praying that I would meet someone who could teach me how to read the Bible… What on earth are you doing here…?!”
