Part 4 of Personal Experiences
Even though I had been made aware that I was loved by and in the keeping of the Creator, in my human life I felt that I was surrounded by people who knew more and were worth more than me. Despite this fear, as my career developed, I was entrusted with responsibilities and presented with opportunities that most of my peers did not share. As a result, I encountered important and influential people. However, I continued to lack trust in the value of my personal contribution. This was probably due to early experiences, especially being told, regularly, about my perceived human inadequacies. However, when I was forty-five, a significant work-related event occurred, the spiritual significance of which has revealed itself over time.
In early 1991 a coalition of armed forces, including a contingent from the UK, were preparing to attack Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait in an operation that became known as ‘Desert Storm’. I was in my office, which was then in Manchester apparently far removed from these preparations, when the most senior Civil Servant in the North West Region came through the door. This was very unusual because, although he was a very pleasant and approachable person, I would have expected to have been summoned to his office if he wanted to talk to me. He told me to finish my work for the day and go home because I was to attend a meeting in London the following morning. He gave me an envelope containing a first-class rail ticket and a seat reservation but no indication of what the event was about and why I had been chosen to go.
When I left the platform at London Euston station, I saw a uniformed driver holding up a card with my name on it. I was taken to an unmarked building where I was clearly expected because my name was checked against a list of attendees and I was escorted to a reserved seat in the body of a lecture theatre. I looked around expecting to see someone I recognised, as most of the seats in front of me were already occupied, but without success. A voice came over the public address system asking everyone to be silent, as the meeting was about to commence. Two men, dressed in grey suits, whose name and position were never mentioned, came on to the speaking platform and gave us all a briefing on the intelligence surrounding the forthcoming military operation and potential reaction in other parts of the world, including the possibility that long-range nuclear weapons might be fired on Britain. They concluded by telling us to return to our places of work and await further instructions.
I was left to find my own way back to Manchester (fortunately I had a return ticket). When I arrived, I was asked to go up to the Regional Director’s office and he handed me another, much larger, sealed envelope and told me lock my office door and read the contents carefully. The first thing I noticed as I stepped into my room was that it had acquired a high-security cabinet while I had been gone. The principal items amongst the papers I laid on my desk was a letter signed by the Secretary of State and the Sovereign, which was addressed to all members of the armed services, police or other civil authorities and required them to assist me in restoring power to economy after a nuclear strike. What I also realised was that I was to be taken to a secret bunker, in the event of the warning of an attack, so that I could await conditions outside becoming habitable enough for me to carry out my role. I was deeply shocked, not the least by the thought that, if this plan was to be carried out, I would be separated from my family and especially my wife and son. I prayed very earnestly and repeatedly that none of this would happen and, as we now know, it did not. It was only later that I began to recognise that what had happened suggested that my knowledge was considered important, not only in the narrow context of my specific work, but for the nation at that time. As time elapsed and I received further spiritual insight, I realised that no one should believe that any part of our human life is without purpose. I was just lucky enough to have it made clear to me in such a dramatic way.
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