Meetings with Remarkable People

September 13, 2023

Everyone is a brilliant star in their own right. After all, we are each an expression of the Divine. Yet there are specific people in each of our lives who are very remarkable to us. I reflect on this topic because of my recent readings of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff whose book, Meetings with Remarkable Men, is one of his most celebrated works. Though his work should have been about Remarkable Women and Men, Gurdjieff describes, in detail, the hearts of those people he considers remarkable.

I will begin with a remarkable person who I have not seen or spoken with since 1974. Justice Akrofi was a classmate of mine. From Ghana, Africa, he was studying theology while my studies were in psychology and religion. We met in the refectory of Yale Divinity School where students eat together at round tables.

Justice’s outstanding characteristic was humility. He was talkative but not at all egoic. This stood out to me because most young students, including myself, were at the height of ego. He was also very jovial and loved a great joke or story. But Justice was different. Beyond his years in spiritual maturity, he was unusually grounded in spirit.

I recall that one day someone at our lunch table was trying to make a joke and called him “boy.” I looked at Justice to see what he would do in the face of a joke gone terribly bad. He looked squarely in the face of the person who in jest called him “boy” and quietly said to them, “Don’t.”

There was a power in his voice that I have carried with me for fifty years. Often I have thought about him and the fact that I could not have him visit my home at Christmas because of my father’s prejudices. But as I recall the incident in the refectory, in my gut I still feel his humble and palpable power to this day. Justice Akrofi went on to become an Anglican priest in Ghana. He is now retired from having been the Archbishop of West Africa.

Inquiry: What feelings does this remarkable man bring up in you?

Dear God,

Thank you.

Amen.

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