Living with regrets.
A movie which I highly recommend,
but which is also quite disturbing, is Winchester starring Helen Mirren.
The Winchester House is an
architectural wonder and historic landmark in San Jose, CA that was once the
personal residence of Sarah Lockwood Pardee Winchester, the widow of William
Wirt Winchester and heiress to a large portion of the Winchester Repeating Arms
fortune.
Tragedy befell Sarah – her infant
daughter died of a childhood illness and a few years later her husband was
taken from her by tuberculosis.
Shortly after her husband’s
death, Sarah left their home in New Haven, CT and moved out west to San Jose,
CA. There, she bought an eight-room farmhouse and began what could only be
described as the world’s longest home renovation, stopping only when Sarah
passed on September 5, 1922. Haunted with regrets about the lives taken by the
weapon her husband had made, she began construction to “house” the spirits of
these deceased people.
From 1886 to 1922 construction
seemingly never ceased as the original eight-room farmhouse grew into the
world’s most unusual and sprawling mansion, featuring:
24,000 square feet
10,000 windows
2,000 doors
160 rooms
52 skylights
47 stairways and fireplaces
17 chimneys
13 bathrooms
6 kitchens
 |
| Winchester House |
Built at a price tag of the $5
million dollars in 1923 or $71 million today.
But what remained is indeed a
mystery. Even before her passing, rumors of a “mystery house” being built by
an eccentric and wealthy woman swirled. Was she instructed to build this home
by a psychic? Was she haunted by the ghosts of those felled by the “Gun that
Won the West”? What motivated a well-educated socialite to cut herself off from
the rest of the world and focus almost solely on building the world’s most
beautiful, yet bizarre mansion?
Sarah Winchester was a woman of
independence, drive, and courage who lives on in legend. And the mansion she
built is world renowned as much for the many design curiosities and innovations
(many ahead of their time) as it is for the reported paranormal activity that
resides within these walls.
Living with regrets.
Danie lives with loads of regrets. Regrets about his radical religious past; regrets about decisions he made which affected us as a family; regrets about putting religion (God) above everything else in his life; regrets about the things we gave up to pursue our missions; regrets that haunt him in his dreams; regrets about not having done more for his own children instead of other people’s children. Regrets. Nothing can change the past, or give us a second chance. I wish we could go back and do a few things differently, but we can’t. Moving forward with determination and pushing away the negative thoughts is the only way to achieve anything. But it’s easier said than done.
Speaking of regrets, when Danie was a boy living on their
farm, his father farmed with strawberries and citrus but also had a huge
vegetable garden filled with potatoes, pumpkins and melons. There was a very
poor family living a short distance from them on a small holding. They were not
only poor, they were scruffy and unkept, lazy and pretty damn useless,
especially the father. His surname was Verster, but he wrote so poorly, that
all one could make out was Vepstep. It became a joke in our family, that whenever
someone wasn’t looking neat, they would be called Vepstep, or Vepstep’s wife,
or even Vepstep’s dog (referring to Murphy 😊).
Anyway, getting back to the story. One day Vepstep sent his
two (useless) sons to collect some vegetables, which my father-in-law
generously gave to them every week. Danie’s father told him and his younger
brother Douw to go pick the vegetables and put it in the two grain sacks supplied by the older, scruffy boys. Danie and Douw, being the mischievous little rascals
that they were, and feeling peeved at having to pick the vegetables for them,
decided to prank these two older boys, and loaded some rocks into the bottom of
each sack and then proceeded to fill them to the brim with vegetables.
Well, it took the older boys’ hours to get home with the
heavy sacks, but no sooner had they unloaded their burdens, than they discovered
their misfortune and source of their exhaustion. Their father, angered by the
humiliation of his two sons, stormed down the road to lodge his complaint with
Danie’s father. The poor boys got such a walloping, but regret came too late.
A friend of ours invited us to his house one Friday night some years ago, to watch a documentary that he had recorded called ‘The Experiment’ by Derren Brown. The documentary is about luck and it was mind-blowing, to say the least. To see these impossibilities performed by a man made me think, and that is what we all should do if we are to move beyond our regrets - reset (where required), think, reason, ask, question, ponder, and explore with your own mind.
In his first book, A Man and his God, Danie wrote a chapter
about a dream that he had had, but at that time of his life he was very
religious and interpreted the dream accordingly. Let me quickly relate the
dream to you followed by my interpretation:
“I dreamed that I was in a big steel cage that was as big
as a normal room. It was barred in on all sides and on top. This cage was in
the middle of the lush veld of Africa but I felt safe and secure inside.
Although there were fierce, wild animals outside, nothing could get in through
the thick bars of my comfort zone. From time to time a lion or elephant or some
beast would venture close by but it did not bother me at all. Then one day
something opened the gate and it swung wide open on its hinges. I jumped up,
ran to the gate and slammed it closed shouting: “Are you crazy? There are wild
animals out there!”
As I lived in my comfort zone, cleaning and shining the
interior I suddenly realized that the thing that I thought was protecting me
was my guard and I was its prisoner. So, I gathered my courage, opened the gate
and proceeded fearfully through the tall, dense grass not knowing what to
expect. Then, unexpectedly, beautiful, breathtaking plains as far as the eye
could see. For the first time in my life, I was out in the open. Free - freedom
- liberty.”
The cage is where you were born. It is the mindset of your
parents. It is your brainwash place where you were taught what to fear and what
to adore. It is a place where every human that is born is taught about who and
what they are. It is where your character and your destiny are formed and
programmed. Every steel bar is a mentor - a parent, a grandparent, a
teacher, a boss, a pastor or priest, a friend. The tall grass are the ideas
in your mind that keep you from seeing past your programming. The wild animals
are the things you fear – be it a god, the devil, the boogey man, abuse,
rejection, even freedom.
The thing that opens the gate is your soul, longing to reach
its full potential - the ultimate you. Your inbred fear of the unknown will
shut it immediately and label it as evil. But, once curiosity is born
one of two things will happen:
- You will deprive yourself of freedom, suppress your soul from achieving liberty and remain a captive forever; or
- You will venture from your prison with caution, but courage will grow as you take your next step, enhanced by the driving force of curiosity.
Once you have taken your first step toward liberty and freedom from your past, life will guide you to your full potential. You just need to catch a glimpse of the beautiful plain and switch off those haunting voices that you were taught to acknowledge. Don’t look back, there’s nothing there. Stop building a Winchester house. Trust your instincts, trust your gut. This should be your life!
Reaching my full potential is something which I strive for
daily and it will come, because I am open to receive it.
Free - Freedom - Liberty.
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