IS ALL CHURCH ATTENDANCE BENEFICIAL?

"How come I have to go to church?" That was the question I perennially asked the supervisors when I was young. In Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind, we were given no choice but to go to the worship Service that they assigned us to. Consequently, I felt no desire to spend Sunday mornings in the basement of Saint Helen's Anglican Church. Apart from the Bible stories and crafts, the whole affair seemed a waste of time.

A few years after giving my life to Christ in 1969, I joined a pseudo-Christian cult. Captivated by the minister's self-proclaimed gift of prophecy, I wanted to learn every secret he had to share with us. I now realize that those teachings were blatant lies and that I would have been better off staying away from that house church.

In my upcoming How I Was Razed memoir, I wrote of the time when one member's ambivalent attitude toward the Wednesday evening meetings offended me.

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Though I had temporarily stopped handing out tracts, I remained zealous about attending meetings. Because Jay and Linda's landlord sold the house so a developer could build a walk-up apartment building on the lot, we moved to a house located a few blocks from Thee Church. This was a wonderful boon since I could walk to Sister R's house instead of relying upon my minders for rides. Though I still slept on couch cushions on the floor of a basement bedroom, and the house was infested with bed bugs, being near the sole church with the "complete truth of God" made the sacrifice worthwhile to me.

Being convinced of this, the lack of enthusiasm for Brother H's teaching shown by certain members outraged me. "Aren't you coming to the meeting?" I asked Jay one sunlit Wednesday evening.

"No. You go with out me. I want to watch T.V."

I glared at him and thought, "We live only three blocks away, the weather is beautiful, Brother H is an anointed teacher, and all he can do is sit and watch his precious brand-new black-and-white T.V.?" I stormed out of the front door and strode toward Sister R's house, fuming all the way there. "Please do something about Jay, Lord," I prayed as I walked, "He told me how I should always attend church and now he's watching T.V. Please show him how it's so important to learn from Brother H."

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How I Was Razed is the testimony of the way I was mislead by a cult church, how I turned my back on God after I felt he perennially failed to heal my eyes, and how he graciously brought me to my senses.

My previous books are now available for purchase online by clicking here. You can also click here to e-mail me directly as well.

WHY BUY TOYS WHEN YOU CAN MAKE THEM?

When I was five years old, my dad made a remarkable little wind-up toy for me from odds and ends. I learned while doing research for an article that this gadget is called a spool tank. As environmentally-conscious people want to reuse and recycle materials, I provide these assembly instructions.

You will need the following materials to build the spool tank:

1 taper candle
1 empty thread spool
1 wooden match stick
1 tooth pick
1 elastic (about the same length as the thread spool)
scotch or masking tape

You will need the following tools:

1 knife
1 nail or awl

1. Push the elastic through the centre hole of the thread spool. if the rubber band is too long, fold it double and then push it through.

2. Cut the match stick in half.

3. Place the piece without the match head through the loop of the elastic at one end of the spool and tape it securely.

4. Cut off about a half inch piece from the bottom of the candle.

5. Take the nail or awl and carefully drill a hole in the centre of the slice of candle.

6. Stretch the elastic, at the other end of the spool, and pass it through the hole in the candle wax piece.

7. Slide the tooth pick through the loop of the elastic so that the pick is most of the way through. The rubber band should hold the pick and candle wax snugly against the spool but without being too tight.

Wind the tooth pick, either clockwise or anti-clockwise, until the tension feels sufficiently tight. Overwinding could break the elastic. Place the spool toy on a flat surface and watch it go. Some people carve notches in the rims of the spool to give it traction on carpet and other uneven surfaces.

In my Deliverance From Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School) memoir, I relate my experiences when I was sent five hundred miles from home for months at a stretch. Click here to read more about this story of my poignant and hilarious experiences.