◄ by Chris Jorgensen – Gladstone, MO ►
As Joseph Antell wrote about a few weeks ago, Joe Antell, Sr. passed away on July 5, 2013 following an illness and two weeks in the hospital. He was almost 90 years old. On August 11th in Kansas City we celebrated “a life well lived” with people from the local Attunement Community. And on Saturday, August 24th, Joe’s family and friends joined in a ceremony of thanksgiving as we buried Joe’s ashes at a cemetery in Epping, New Hampshire.
I wrote the following words conveying an essence of the beautiful, vibrant man Joe was and his life of service, for the IAAP Newsletter a few years ago. It seems appropriate to reprint the article at this time.
Joe was born in Lynn, MA on August 26, 1923. He experienced a number of adventures in his early years including the depression of the 1920s, and the separation of his parents resulting in a sobering time in a Catholic orphanage with his older brother, Jim. Joe recalled one day going to confession and temerariously telling the priest that he didn’t commit any sins that week. The priest did not believe him and gave him punishment and repentance anyway. This experience changed Joe’s view of spirituality forever.
Joe fought in World War II, serving in the Army Air Force in Australia and the Philippines on the island of Leyte. He drove heavy equipment including cranes and trucks and loaded bombs onto airplanes. He experienced some harrowing times when Japanese airplanes strafed and bombed his airbase. It brought him closer to his “Maker” and to the realization to not take life so seriously.
After the war Joe became a tool and dye maker, working many years as a foreman in a shoe machinery manufacturing plant in Lynn, MA. He married Ruth in 1947 and fathered three children–Donna, Joseph and Bob. He heard about Attunement in 1965 and following his first Attunement experience, knew that this was something he would share for the rest of his life. Over the next 36 years Joe lived at Green Pastures, an intentional spiritual community in Epping, New Hampshire, where he gladly handled many jobs from planting and maintaining a two hundred fruit-tree orchard to coordinating the building of a new kitchen and dining room facility. Through it all he shared Attunement with anyone who was interested. People from near and far came to Green Pastures to share Attunement and spend time with him.
I first met Joe when I married his daughter, Donna, in February 1977. I recall him as being quiet with a steady, powerful presence and a light-hearted man with considerable depth to him. It was my great fortune, but as yet unknown to me, that I had married into Attunement via the Antell family. As my experience and understanding in Attunement grew, so did the stories that I heard about Joe and his Attunement work. My Attunement mentor, Roger de Winton, often mentioned his appreciation for Joe’s steady, faithful Attunement service.
Joe moved from New Hampshire to his own home in Gladstone, MO in October, 2003 to live near Donna and me. Joe hit the ground running, enthusiastically participating in various Attunement activities from Attunement classes and groups in the greater Kansas City area, to being an anchor for the local radiation team that shares long-distance Attunement with all who request assistance. His steady presence and years of wisdom are obvious to everyone when he speaks. He continued to share Attunement in his home where he had a room set aside for sharing Energy work (Attunement and Reiki). He also participated in an Energy Healing group at the local Unity Church.
For me Joe was an outstanding example of how a man might grow older with grace and understanding while at the same time continuing to serve, by first serving Being and then serving the larger world. I think of him as one of my spiritual and Attunement mentors as well as my father-in-law. I know that I am the lucky one to have such a fine example of real manhood in my life. His radiation was gentle and strong, extra fine like a vintage wine, always available, safe, caring and true to Being and the spirit of Love.
Thank you, Joe.
Yes. Pure and simple “Yes” to Joe’s life.
Simply a beautiful eulogy Chris … absolutely beautiful, empowered by the TRUTH of the man many of us had opportunity to interact with in some capacity or another… and to come to know in some small way or another. Joe’s great contributions to the varying cycles of Spiritual Restoration during our respective lifetimes this time around, will never be forgotten. So thank you Chris for such a wonderful coverage of such a wonderful Being we knew simply as ‘Joe’… Leon
Thank you, Chris, for sharing your piece in the celebration of a life well-lived.
One can only hope to leave a legacy of friends, family and community in ones wake after passing. I always marveled at the term ‘wake’ as a ritual after death, as I think it refers to sitting with the individual who has passed throughout the night as a comfort to their spirit. Having never met Joe Sr, but enjoying immensely his wise words in the teleconferences he participated in over the years, I perceive his “wake’ as the awareness he created in the world he leaves behind. Both of the children I’ve had the pleasure of knowing, Donna and Joe, intersperse their lives and speech with their father’s sage advice and down to earth spirituality. ” My father always said “…is a phrase one hears often from both of them. What a wonderful inheritance that is; words of wisdom, humor, aliveness and peace valued enough to be used and cherished over and over.