Why Won't My Church Attendance Get Me to Heaven?

This month, I'll be examining two questions. The first one is which requirements will let us enter heaven. The second question concerns our eternal destiny in general. After all, everybody has differing opinions on the answers to these matters but we still must make the right choice before death.

In most Christian denominations, congregants have the notion that attending church regularly will please God. When I was a child, I received an award for the best church attendance in 1965. Of course I had no choice back then. Every girl and boy in Jericho Hill School had to attend their parents 'denomination's church each Sunday except when they were ill.

So what does the Bible say about regular attendance? Hebrews 10:23-25 (BBE) reads, "Let us keep the witness of our hope strong and unshaking, for he is true who has given his word: And let us be moving one another at all times to love and good works; Not giving up our meetings, as is the way of some, but keeping one another strong in faith; and all the more because you see the day coming near."

From this and other passages, we can deduce that the purpose of church attendance is to build up our trust in Christ and to encourage others. No mention is made in Scripture regarding attendance being counted toward earning one's place in heaven. In fact, there is only one way to be saved that Scripture mentions and that's trusting in Christ's atoning work.

Perhaps the most-often quoted Bible passage on this matter is Romans 10:9-10 (BBE). "Because, if you say with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and have faith in your heart that God has made him come back from the dead, you will have salvation: For with the heart man has faith to get righteousness, and with the mouth he says that Jesus is Lord to get salvation."

This is obvious but some churches insist that works must be added to gain eternal life. According to James, works are a proof of salvation, not an aid to being saved from hell. Look at what he wrote in the second chapter of his epistle, verses fourteen to eighteen (BBE).

What use is it, my brothers, for a man to say that he has faith, if he does nothing? will such a faith give him salvation? If a brother or a sister is without clothing and in need of the day's food, And one of you says to them, "go in peace, be warm and full of food;" but you do not give them the things of which their bodies have need, what profit is there in this? Even so faith without works is dead.

But a man may say, "you have faith and I have works;" let me see your faith without your works, and I will make my faith clear to you by my works.

These, and many other verses, show that it's faith in Christ which produces good works in a person. Doing nice things to save yourself is extremely displeasing to the Father since it's rejection of Christ's atonement on the cross.

I'll be writing in depth on this subject in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? I want nobody to go to hell because supposedly-knowledgeable and self-righteous teachers lied to them about God's entrance requirements. Once I get the debt monkey off my back, I hope to self-publish my next book. Until then, keep following these posts.

PIRATES OF THE IONOSPHERE

Pirates: the name evokes images of peg-legged men in strange clothing and wearing eye patches. To computer aficionados, it means the people who illegally copy software and sell it. To radio listeners, pirates are altogether different.

To one extent or another, there have been radio pirates for more than a hundred years. In the beginning, there were no regulations. You could just build a transmitter and find a free frequency to broadcast on.

Then the government decided to step in and end the confusion. It wasn't long before frequency bands were set up for specific types of broadcasts or point-to-point transmissions.

As with any rule, there are those individuals willing to break it. The most famous of the pirates set up stations on ships in international waters off the coasts of Britain during the 1960s. Because the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) refused to broadcast rock music, enterprising disk jockeys filled the void. Most of these pirates ended their transmissions when the BBC relented and started playing what teens wanted to hear in 1967.

Even so, people still liked to buck the system in the UK as well as the rest of the world. Even in supposedly regulated countries such as China, pirate stations pop up on the FM dial. It appears to be the most popular band for these illegal stations due to the quality of the FM signal and the ease of hiding antennas.

The only problem with FM is that its coverage is limited. That's why some pirates broadcast on shortwave. The sound quality is not as good but a single station can blanket a continent with its signal. Since they seek to evade the government radio spectrum enforcers, they never turn up on the same frequency or have regular broadcasts. Peak times for these broadcasters are during holiday evenings and Saturday night.

Last Halloween, I spent the evening finding and taping pirates with my shortwave radio. I was able to identify half a dozen of these pirates, plus there were many more which I never found out their names. If all goes well, I hope to tape even more of these broadcasters. After all, I find it exciting to hear these pirates of the Ionosphere.

Radio has played a large part in my life. It was my lifeline to the outside world when I was at Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind. I wrote about how special it was to me in Deliverance from Jericho: Six Years in a Blind School. I also mentioned my citizens band and amateur radio hobby in How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Read more about this compelling testimony of God's providential care at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell's Books.

GETTING A BANG OUT OF CAPS

What a pity our society has become so jittery when it comes to guns. I understand about the horrific mass-shootings which have happened during the past few decades. Even so, almost all gun owners are responsible citizens who wouldn't even think of pointing a gun at anybody.

Boys like me had tremendous fun with cap guns and their ammunition. We never grew up to be assassins and mass-murdering sociopath's like many child psychologists suggested. We knew the difference between pretending and reality.

I fondly remember the fun my friends and I had with caps. One afternoon in Jericho Hill School's intermediate dorm, I let Michael fire my cap pistol. As he did so, it jammed. Then the paper tape protruding from the gun caught fire. I couldn't help laughing at Michael standing there with a flaming pistol in his hand. Talk about a heater, eh?

My friend Brian gave me a wonderful suggestion one afternoon when I was still in the junior dorm. "If you scratch those black dots, they'll fizzle," he confided. Then he showed me by scratching the tape with his thumb nail. Sure enough, a tiny pink flame flared up from it. To my delight, I was able to do the same thing as him.

Another time, Brian suggested we bang the paper tape with rocks to make them explode. We both rushed to the parking lot, picked up a pebble each, and proceeded to hit each dot on our cap rolls against the curb. The small explosions amused us greatly.

But banging and scratching caps didn't look as brilliant during the day. While having been volunteered by our supervisor to carry the dorm's laundry to the laundry room in another building, I noticed an empty, windowless room. It was nice and dark, just perfect for what I planned to do. Before heading back to our nasty supervisor, I knelt down and began scratching those spots of gunpowder. Right in the middle of my fun, a deaf boy noticed me. He ran to Sachi, the woman in charge of the laundry, and informed on me. In her best broken English, she ordered me out of the building. Though I liked her, I resented the fact that she thought I could set the building on fire with my caps.

Children can't have that kind of fun today, unless their parents, guardians, caregivers, or supervisors let them. I've heard so many ridiculous stories of school officials expelling little children for even pointing a finger like a gun. What they don't understand is that it isn't the weapon that's at fault. Overwhelming empirical evidence proves that mentally-disturbed people are the ones who go on shooting rampages. Those are the folks who should be dealt with appropriately, not little boys being little boys.

You can read more boyish mischief stories in my Deliverance from Jericho memoir. I'm astonished at all the harmless trouble I caused. Additionally, you'll enjoy the little victories we had against the system which held us captive in that residential facility.

FLYING HIGH BUT ONLY IN MY DREAMS

Isn't it just the way it goes? The folks who love flying don't get as many opportunities as those who dread boarding a plane. If I had good vision, I'd love to have my own aircraft.

This isn't a new desire of mine. As a child, I dreamt of piloting my own plane. In fact, there was a period in the autumn of 1968 when I kept dreaming night after night about soaring high above the land.

The plane I piloted was like the one in the above photo, though it had a yellow body. In each dream, I felt great affection for my aircraft. I also felt a sense of freedom which I lacked in my waking hours at Jericho Hill School.

I've heard that dreams of flight are a subconscious manifestation of a wish to be free. In view of the dreams I've had, I can well understand that theory. Jericho was oppressive to me. For the first seven years of my life, I was a free person. Mom let me and my sister play wherever we felt like. As long as we came home for lunch or dinner, she was happy. Even when I went to public school, I still felt free.

Then came that dreadful shock in 1964 when I found myself five-hundred miles from home and no possibility to return until Christmas. I also lived with a dozen blind boys in a sterile dorm ruled by a supervisor. We were marched down to a rickety dining hall three times a day like prisoners and the food there was terrible. I couldn't even play wherever I felt like since the supervisor made us stay in a group.

For that reason, and a few others, I treasure my independence. Only on God do I want to rely. Never again do I want to be in a highly structured environment like Jericho. The ability to eat what I want and go wherever I can is a precious treasure. So is eating whatever I feel like and going to bed when I want to. Even wearing whatever clothes catch my fancy in the closet is a thrill.

To better understand how suddenly being plunged into the alien world of an institution at a young age is like, purchase Deliverance from Jericho: Six Years in a Blind School. Not only do I describe life there in a matter-of-fact way but I relate the mischief we got into. It was harmless foolery but the authorities didn't think so. Sometimes, we even got away with things when temporary supervisors were there.

BUT I ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT I'D SEE HER AGAIN

My sister Diane was a huge part of my childhood. In fact, she was the only one who really liked me back then. Neighbourhood kids threw stones and called me names so I didn't have any boys as pals.

I remember how we were free to walk all over our neighbourhood and even to stores in Fort Saskatchewan. We had no worries about perverts snatching children off the street. Neither did Mom need to constantly supervise us. We explored the creek, the golf course, and we even played by the water tower.

Diane also liked to teas me but in a friendly way. One of our play-fight arguments was our birthdays. For a few weeks, she was the same numerical age as I was. It was a running joke with us because I used to deny she was exactly the same age but she'd refute that. It was all in fun and nobody's feelings were hurt.

Diane also used to brag that she shared her birthday with John Lennon. Nobody famous that I knew of back then had the same birthday as me. Even so, I took vicarious pride in my sister and her birthday.

That idyllic state of affairs came to a sudden end when I was sent 500 miles from my home and family to Jericho Hill School. I was only allowed to visit home at Christmas and summer holidays. I was also allowed to visit my home for Easter three times. Diane was still fond of me, and I of her, but she found new kids to play with.

I still find it odd that Diane has been dead for more than ten years. I assumed we'd live far into our retirement years. God apparently had other plans when my beloved sister died of a rare liver disease. Paraphrasing the line in James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" song, I always thought that I'd see her one more time again.

Diane also was mentioned in all three of my memoirs. The first two are featured on the Bruce Atchison's books page. How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers until the end of October 2014.

IT WAS THE WORST SHOCK OF MY LIFE

What a shame that some folks minimize the suffering of others with sayings like, "There's people worse off than you." Though some folks whine about inconsequential matters, the suffering of many is a big deal to them. What I mean is that it's proportionally large. For instance, a broken toy can be traumatic to a child who highly valued it but the original cost of the item can easily be handled by an adult. I suffered a terrible psychological shock fifty years ago yesterday which might seem small to some, yet it devastated me.

It all began when my mom told me I was going to a new school in some place called Vancouver. Being only seven, I had no concept of distances. Consequentially, I felt that I could come home each day after school as I had always done.

The plane ride and staying at some place called a dorm seemed exciting to me. Having to march down to the dining hall seemed odd but I assumed I would be doing that just once. The school day didn't seem much different except that I was supposed to eat at that dining hall again. A teacher found me wandering the dorm's corridor as I wondered where everybody else was.

After school, I waited outside by the dorm as the other children played on the swings and teeter-totters. Surely I should be ready to go when the bus came to pick us up for our flight home.

A lady came out of the dorm and asked me if I would like to play on the playground equipment. I told her that I was all right waiting where I was. Little did I know what would happen next.

Growing impatient, I finally asked a boy when we'd be going home. "Christmas," was his astonishing reply. I thought he was joking but he assured me that we wouldn't see our families until the holidays.

The horror of what my parents did to me finally hit home. I was at Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind, a residential institution far from my beloved home. I didn't cry but I sure felt like it. The warm, sunny day and the picturesque mountains across English Bay didn't matter anymore. I was stranded with no way of returning to my family except to wait for those months to painfully pass.

Deliverance from Jericho: Six Years in a Blind School chronicles my experiences there. In a matter-of-fact way, I present what transpired as I struggled to cope with uncaring supervisors, bullies, and terrible food. Read more about this memoir at the Bruce Atchison's books page.

NEVER LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY KNOW

I'm sure this has happened to all of us at one time or another. Somebody we like or who we think knows about a subject tells us about something that later turns out to be false. We implement their advice, only to find that it didn't work. I had such an experience in 1968.

Randy, a friend at Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind, told me about how wonderful FM was. Not only was the sound clearer but, according to him, I could pick up distant stations just like I could on the shortwave bands. That summer, I lobbied hard to get an AM/FM portable radio.

My dad objected when I picked out a beautiful pocket-sized receiver with a chrome speaker grill and blue tuning dial. "Why do you want such an expensive radio?" he whined. This one is much cheaper. He held out a black radio with a tiny window for viewing the dial frequency.

"But, Dad, it doesn't have FM and I can't see the numbers in that tiny window," I objected.

Dad reluctantly paid for the radio which I coveted so much. I cradled the box in my lap as he drove me home and admired the picture on the box. I imagined pulling in stations from all over the world with my new acquisition.

When I installed the battery at home and tuned the FM dial, not a single station came in. I couldn't understand why. Randy was a few years older than I so he should know more about radio. My heart sank as I realized how wrong I was to take his uninformed advice.

I learned later that FM was just for local stations. The signals weren't reflected back down by the ionosphere as short wave signals were but could only be received directly. Some weather systems occasionally bent the waves back down but those only occur rarely.

All wasn't lost, however. I was able to pick up radio signals from Edmonton's local FM stations while on a shopping trip with my mom to that city. When I was sent back to Jericho Hill School in Vancouver that September, the variety of stations I tuned in amazed me. Even more surprising was that I could receive the sound of TV channel 6 from Victoria on my radio.

Though that mistake worked out fine in the end, I've been the victim of erroneous advice many times in my life. The worst misinformation I received was from a minister at a house church. I wrote about how God marvelously led me back to the truth in How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Find out more about this wonderful testimony at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers.

THE SCHOOL GRADE THAT MATTERED MOST TO ME

Which grade was the most important for you to receive a passing mark in? Most people would say high school. Of course passing university courses is also important for students. In my case, it was grade eight.

When I returned to the public school system after six miserable years in a school for the blind, I felt afraid of failing. It would be justification enough for the administration of the Alberta education system to ship me back to British Columbia for another year of loneliness and frustration.

I certainly had my work cut out for me. Jericho Hill School's curriculum was a year behind Alberta's public school system. Consequently, I had to cram two years of school into one. Most of my grades were mediocre but at least I managed to get a passing grade.

Some people might wonder why I was worried since schools adopted the practice of passing even students with failing grades. I worried that some bureaucrat would look at my failing grades and decide I couldn't make it in a school with sighted children. I never wanted to go back to that terrible blind school ever again.

Summer holidays felt especially joyful to me in 1971. Though I still had to prove myself in the next few years, at least I managed to get through grade eight. I also knew what to expect in September. The previous year, I hadn't a clue how to ride a bus to school or even how to catch one. Nobody taught me about bus routes and that I could phone the bus company to get the proper information. Everything was done for us blind and partially-sighted students at Jericho. Additionally, we weren't taught any skills for getting around in the city.

I wrote about the difficulties I faced when I was reintegrated into public school in Deliverance from Jericho: Six Years in a Blind School. More information about it is on the Bruce Atchison's books page.

I also wrote about the difficulties my poor vision caused me in How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Check out this amazing story of God's gracious providence at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers.

CANADIAN PORRIDGE FOR THE BLIND

Have you heard of a BBC TV show called Porridge? Ronnie Barker stars in this comedy about a thief sentenced to five years at an isolated facility called Slade Prison. Airing between 1974 and 1977, this show deals with the changing beliefs of how prisoners should be treated. The deficiencies of discipline and leniency are humorously pointed out as well in this eighteen-part series.

I can identify well with Porridge. Being at Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind had many similarities to being in prison. One of which was the terrible food.

We had a dietician named Mrs. Anderson who figured she knew what we would enjoy to eat. She was also rather stingy regarding the money spent on our food. Breakfast was often porridge with cocoa and toast. To break up the monotony, we sometimes had Kellogg's Corn Flakes. Any requests for tasty cereals such as Honey Comb or Alpha-Bits was summarily dismissed by Mrs. Anderson.

I hated the Spanish rice and omelets we were served at lunch. There also was some sort of melted cheese goop which the dining hall staff served. To make matters worse, we were given coleslaw. That was the worst I ever tasted. We used to call it "cold slop." Though we liked Jell-O, the staff often mixed celery and other vegetables in it. Rarely did we get anything tasty like corn fritters and vanilla ice cream.

Life was highly regimented as well. Our supervisors woke us up promptly at seven o'clock. After dressing,  brushing our teeth, and washing our faces, we marched down to the dining hall in a line by twos. Though we didn't have to line up for lunch, our supervisors ordered us to do that for supper. We were never allowed to wander far from the school building during recess and after school. Neither did we go anywhere unescorted after dinner or on the weekends. We had to stay on the grounds at all times like prisoners in a minimum security facility.

Our parcels were regularly opened and searched. Some supervisors confiscated any treats we received and doled them out to everybody, all in the name of fairness. One woman even ate our treats. I suspect she took our money as well for "safe keeping," meaning her keeping.

Little victories meant a lot in Jericho. When a mean supervisor was on holiday or was sick, we knew we could stay up later or eat our treats. This happened once on Halloween. When the greedy woman returned and found out what we did, she became furious.

Then there was the incident of the midnight tea party. The school arbitrarily banned coffee and tea so my friend Geoffrey bought and shared his tea with us. For no apparent reason, coffee and tea were served again in the dining hall.

Our letters home were read and commented upon by teachers, just as prisoner's letters are scanned for coded information. Most of us had families in distant places so even if we had access to a phone, it cost a lot to speak to our folks. Because we had only fifty cents a week for our allowance, we couldn't afford to call  our loved ones, even on the pay phone in the intermediate kids dorm.

I wrote much more about the "porridge" I did in Deliverance from Jericho: Six years in a Blind School. It, and my debut paperback, can be purchased through the Bruce Atchison's books page. My latest e-book and paperback is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers.

THANK-YOU FOR FOLLOWING MY BLOG

I deeply appreciate your kindness in reading my blog posts. In a world where so many people have blogs of their own, your following mine is quite an honour.

I began blogging in the summer of 2008 on a site called Ning. Those first posts weren't the most brilliant of prose but I did my best. Thanks to clip art and images that I scrounged from old CD-ROMs, I was able to dress up my posts and make them attractive to casual visitors.

A year later, Ning Networks decided to charge for hosting blogs. Since Wordpress and Blogspot offered, and still offer, free blog hosting, I set up accounts with each. My reason for having two blogs was so that I could decide which worked better for me. Since Blogspot was easier to use at the time, I discontinued posting to Wordpress for two years.

In 2012, I stepped up my efforts to promote my books by posting to Wordpress again as well as to Blogspot. At first, the work wasn't too hard. I posted excerpts of my books and only had to write a paragraph at the beginning to introduce the subject.

My folly was inadvertently pointed out to me by a visitor to my blogs who wanted information on Jericho Hill School, the institution where both he and I spent six years of our lives. Over the phone, he told me that he had formed a general idea of what my book was about but he wasn't interested in purchasing it in any format. Since then, I've either commented on topics covered in my three memoirs or wrote about other experiences in my life.

My blogging workload suddenly grew heavier as I needed to write much more than I had done previously. I noticed that I spent much of my writing time composing and editing blog posts. This fact bothered me since I wanted to contact reviewers and radio show hosts about my books.

Last November, I made the decision to publish the same post on both blogs. Having freed up extra time, I used it to find reviewers for my newly-published book, How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Though I did do an interview on December 14 with Marketing U Daily, most of my inquiries met with silence or polite refusals.

As for 2014, I plan on carrying on   with the same blogging schedule. I also hope to spend time writing short fiction stories and entering them into literary contests. This should be good practice for when I write a novel. As with any skill, practice perfects it.

If you haven't yet checked out my new memoir of going from error to truth, please visit Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Virtual Bookworm Publishers for details. Its story is inspiring as well as edifying.

And last but not least, I wish you a blessed and prosperous new year. May it be all you hoped for and more.

SAVOURING SUMMER'S DREGS

Though I haven't had to go to school since 1975, I still feel blue at the end of summer. Those back-to-school advertisements also bring me down. Why? They remind me of those six depressing years of being exiled from home for months at a stretch.

Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind began their fall semester a week later than public schools did. Even so, facing three months in an uncaring institution filled me with anguish. As August came to a close from 1965 to 1969, I felt the need to pack in as many experiences of my home town of Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta as I could. I didn't know how bad the school would be in 1964 so I didn't savour the last days of summer.

I remember walking to various places that I considered special to me, one of which was the neighbourhood playground. Memories of all the good times my sisters and I had there filled my mind as I looked at the playground equipment.

I also visited the downtown section and thought about the candy stores I loved. On the way back, I gazed at the public school I used to attend before a government case worker convinced my parents to send me to a blind school. How nice it was back them to go home for lunch and sleep in my own bed each night.

In 1970, my parents enrolled me in a school in Edmonton and found a place for me to board during the week. I liked this arrangement much better since I lived with a family in their home and went to my parent's place on weekends. The school I attended had counselors who helped me with reading assignments and taking tests. Being mainstreamed into the public school helped me overcome deficiencies caused by being isolated at Jericho.

I wrote about these deficiencies in Deliverance from Jericho: Six Years in a Blind School. More information on that memoir and my debut book are at the Bruce Atchison's books page.

I also wrote extensively about a house church in my newly-published memoir, How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Please check it out at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm.

STEPPING OUT OF JERICHO.

Have you ever had something good happen but you didn't realize it until later? That's what I experienced in 1970. It was a watershed event in my life, yet I didn't believe it was at the time. Adults had reneged on their promises often in the past so I dared not build up my hopes.

June 25th is a special date for me. That was the day I left Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind for the last time. As days went, it was like any final day at the institution. Our supervisor woke us at seven o'clock. We dressed and after our ablutions, hurried down the long hill to the dining hall for breakfast.

There were no classes that day so we trudged up the hill to the dorm. As we packed our suitcases, we chattered about the upcoming summer vacation. Everybody was in a celebratory mood.

When we heard our supervisor announce that the school bus had arrived, we lugged our luggage downstairs to the parking lot. Though it was lunch time, we felt eager to get away from that jail of a school. We knew we would get a meal on the plane that would taste much better than the dining hall's slop.

As we left the bus at the airport, some of my things fell out of my shopping bag. My suitcases were full so I carried those extra items onto the plain. Several boys complained about the delay as I scrambled to grab my things.

possessions went well for me after that. The stewardess showed us to our seats and the flight took off on schedule. We experienced no turbulence during the flight and landed without incident at Edmonton's international airport.

Dad met me at the airport and drove me home safely too. As far as I could tell, he hadn't been drinking too much. The weather had been sunny in Vancouver as well as in Edmonton so we had no weather hazards to worry about.

I felt the usual euphoria I had always felt on arriving at home in Fort Saskatchewan. I greeted Mom and my sisters as I had done for the past six years. Then Mom cooked supper as we watched TV.

I lived with the fear of being sent back to Jericho for two years. Various administrators and Mom made it clear that if I didn't do well, back I would go. When I registered for high school in 1972, I suddenly realized that the officials couldn't send me back. Jericho taught only grades one to ten, with special tutoring for exceptional students in grades eleven and twelve. I had done reasonably well the past two years, passing both times. The joy of that realization overwhelmed me as I capered around my rented room.

I wrote about my years at that soul-crushing institution in Deliverance from Jericho: Six Years in a Blind School. Click on the "Bruce Atchison's books' link on the left side of this page for details.

Meanwhile, I have a brand new book out called How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Visit Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers.

SOMEBODY ALWAYS HAS TO RUIN THE FUN.

How sad that a small number of people inevitably spoil the enjoyment of the rest. In 1969, I learned how to ride a bicycle. I had fun until the bully spoiled my joy one afternoon.

From Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), here is what happened.

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The administrators delightfully surprised us again when they purchased bicycles that November. As I had never ridden one before, I felt skeptical that I could balance on only two wheels.

The entire intermediate dorm gathered in the parking lot one Saturday afternoon to take turns riding the bikes. For those who had never ridden before, Mr. Moiarty walked next to each rider as we coasted down the slope. I had trouble at first with my balance but eventually I found it became easier to remain upright once I gained speed.

We rode those bikes as often as we could after school and after supper, doubtless making pests of ourselves to drivers on Jericho's roads. In fact, several of us were reprimanded by our supervisors for riding down the hills at breakneck speed and worrying motorists.

Not all of my rides were enjoyable however. Mr. Thynne supervised one of our cycling activities after school. When I began peddling, the bike wobbled all over the place and was hard to steer. This baffled me but I stubbornly refused to surrender my turn. I doggedly circled the junior dorms and blind children's classrooms as our supervisor instructed.

Charlie was next and I, fearing I would be blamed for the problem, let him use it without saying anything. He turned around after a few yards and said to Mr. Thynne, "Bruce broke this bike. It won't steer right."

"It was that way when I got it," I protested. Charlie continued to insist it was my fault and that I should be punished.

Mr. Thynne squeezed the front tire and said, "Here's your problem. This tire is flat." After a few minutes with the tire pump, our supervisor had the bike's tire filled and we continued riding around the building.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains many vignettes of life in Canada's infamous institution. It was closed down in 1992 after 350 deaf students launched a sexual abuse class action suit.

I've recently published How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Use the search box at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm to learn more about this testimony of God's providence.

GETTING A BANG OUT OF FIRECRACKERS.

I suppose I should have written about this subject before Halloween but I didn't think of it in time. Firecrackers were one of the most memerable aspects of the holiday for me and my generation. We could easily find them for sale in corner grocery stores back then.

One of the incidents that I left out of my Deliverance from Jericho memoir was the evening one of the supervisors, who I referred to as Mr. Thynne, took us down to the school's playground to light the firecrackers we purchased. Since the totally blind kids couldn't see the end of the fuse, Mr. Thynne helped light it. Then he told the boy to throw it.

I asked Mr. Thynne if I could put mine inside of the pipe that the teatertotters rested on. When the firecracker exploded, it made a hollow sound. I expected that it would shoot out of the pipe but it didn't.

Another supervisor showed us how an exploding firecracker could make a can jump off the floor. He led us down the dorm's stairs and into the breezway. Then he lit a firecracker and placed the can over it. We all cheered when the can lept off the cement. Pleasing us even more, he let us each have a turn placing the can over our lit firecrackers.

We had fun with our firecrackers without the supervisor's help as well. The local store sold bundles of tiny firecrackers for a dime each. I felt that lighting the end of the fuse and having the whole bundle go off in rapid succession was a waste of my precious allowance money. We only received fifty cents a week. If we blew it, we couldn't beg or borrow any extra money until the next allowance payment. This taught us to be thrifty.

During one recess, I unwound the fusess from the main fuse. Lighting individual firecrackers made the experience last longer.

Since the can experiment worked so well, I put firecrackers inside bullet shells. A friend had given me a handful of them when we went to a rifle range one Saturday. The force of the explosions sent the shellsabout fifteen feet away. Not only was I pleased with the discovery but no teacher stopped me and confiscated my firecrackers.

Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School) describes what life was like in Canada's infamous institution, closed down in 1992 due to rampant sexual abuse of deaf students.

I've recently published How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Use the search box at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm to learn more about it.

I THANK GOD IT'S GONE.

Though Canadian Thanksgiving Day is over, I thank God every day for the wondrous freedoms I enjoy. One precious freedom is the lack of pain I now feel about being sent to a residential school for deaf and blind students in Vancouver, British Columbia. At the tender age of seven, my parents sent me five-hundred miles from my home for months at a stretch I'm so glad that school no longer exists. How was this miracle accomplished? June Hunt, the host of Hope in the Night, gave me the answer back in 2003. It all stems from a proper understanding of forgiveness. The word originally meant to write off a debt. Since vengeance is the Lord's and he'll repay, we can hand over our assumed right to revenge to him. June told me to make a list of all the hurtful situations and list the names of those who wounded me emotionally. Then she said to go down the list and hand each hurt or person over to Christ to deal with. She cautioned that the pain would keep coming back but I would eventually be free of it. I did as she said and it worked. The memories and bad dreams don't trouble me anymore. Though I still think it was wrong for the Alberta government to convince Mom and Dad to send me so far from home for such long periods, the poignancy of the memories is greatly diminished. I've forgiven the people who exiled me to Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind but that doesn't mean that I now approve of what they did. Had I been given a strong magnifying glass and monocular, to view the blackboard with, I could have gone all the way through public school. I'm thankful that today's disabled students are educated along with their sighted peers. Segregating them into distant institutions is rarely done these days. Sight-impaired students now have access to computers and visual aids barely dreamt of when I was in school. I wrote about the time I was sent to that institution in a book called Deliverance from Jericho. Check it out on the left side of this page.

TAKING THE MAGIC OUT OF MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING.

What was your first exposure to multi-level marketing? Mine happened when Wayne, a blind friend from Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind phoned me one afternoon in July of 1975.

After catching up on our post-Jericho experiences, Wayne piqued my interest with a question. "Would you like to make extra money?" When I said yes, he explained, "I represent a cosmetic company called Holiday Magic. We help people start their own businesses with products that customers need all the time."

After Wayne described how I could earn money from home and make as much as I wanted, he invited me to the Edmonton office of Holiday Magic where trained professionals would demonstrate their merchandise for free. Since Wayne was a friend and he assured me that the company sold products for men as well as women, I decided to accept his offer.

Outside the store front office, the Holiday Magic staff set up a few lawn chairs and outdoor tables. "Is Wayne here?" I addressed the woman who was applying a creamy lotion to another person's face.

"No, but you're welcome to sit down and try a free facial," she invited. Since I came all that way, taking two city busses and an hour of my time, I figured I had nothing to lose.

When my turn came, the sales representative tilted my head back and applied a cool refreshing cream on my face. "That smells like cucumbers," I remarked.

"It does have cucumbers in it since it's all organic. It's designed to open your pores and clean out dirt. That should help clear up this acne you have."

After the woman wiped my face with a damp cloth, she gave me a brochure. I started reading it at home but it failed to interest me.

While I listened to the news one day, a reporter exposed Holiday Magic as a pyramid scheme. I threw out the pamphlet, not wanting to have any connection with shady business deals.

I wrote about Wayne and other students in my Deliverance from Jericho: Six Years in a Blind School memoir. Though the institution we were kept in wasn't very kind to us, we did entertain ourselves and get into mischief like sighted children. Please visit the link on the left hand side of this page for details about this paperback.

THE CURSE OF PETTY BUREAUCRATS.

If I hadn't been there myself, I would scarcely believe that adults in charge of disabled children could be so feckless and corrupt. Yet it did happen and I'm not the only one who witnessed the climate of inbred mistrust at Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind. From a report by an anonymous supervisor at my dorm, here's his conclusion regarding the abuses of the public's trust which these individuals committed. ----------------------------------------------------------------- To conclude, these are the questions that we try to give an answer to, in order to console the Resident boys and girls who are so bewildered. The trampoline should not be used, as Mr. Freemantle was angry; the Bowling Alley has been closed because Mr. Armitage has said it must be closed; you must give 'your urine because Mr. Freemantle has said so, and it is wanted for some tests (one blind boy asked me whether this would mean that they were going to have an operation). What is the real reason for the snacks ending? Why has Mrs. Pearson got all the keys to the Tyler House Boys' lockers, when they should be in the hands of the appropriate Instructors? Why are the drawers of the boys gone through regularly when nobody is present or on duty? Why should the children be made to walk on the paths, though there are acres of available grass? WhY is there so much resistance in letting the kids go on regular camps? One of the reasons is that Mr. Bryce complains he's not the bus driver. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I wish I had this shocking report when I wrote my Deliverance from Jericho: Six Years in a Blind School memoir. It filled in many blanks and explained a large number of arbitrary decisions made by the administrators. Please check my book link for more information regarding my memoir of those times. You're welcome to e-mail me directly with your questions or comments.

SEE FOOTBALL THROUGH MY EYES.

Imagine if you went to a football game but you couldn't see the field or hear a play-by-play announcer describing the action. Would you patiently sit there for a few hours or demand your money back?

This scenario isn't as far-fetched as you might think. My blind schoolmates and I endured hours of boredom at various sports events. We had no choice in the matter either. Supervisors and administrators decided we needed to attend games and that was that.

In my Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School) memoir, I wrote about one occasion when everybody at the game became unable to see the field. For a while, they experienced the same tedium we did at those outings.

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It was a rare occasion when the sighted public found themselves in the same situation as us visually impaired students. Our supervisors periodically took us to various UBC football and hockey games on weekday evenings and weekends. On one particular sunlit Saturday afternoon, Mr. Moiarty ordered everybody into the school bus. I sat in the bleachers and fumed as the game began. Football appeared to be a waste of a beautiful day. Since our supervisor seated us fairly high up, all I could see were tiny coloured blurs moving around the turf.

As I waited for the game to end, I noticed fog begin to obscure the field. It soon became so dense that play was stopped. I burst out laughing. For once, the sighted spectators and I were in the same position. Everyone needed to wait for the fog bank to roll through before play could resume.

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Deliverance from Jericho is filled with many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Read more about Deliverance from Jericho here. Please feel free to contact me directly as well.

A REMEMBRANCE OF A LIFE LESSON.

We certainly have it good here in North America, even with the economy stagnating for the past few years. The blessings of peaceful prosperity that we've enjoyed for decades came at the price of the blood, sweat, tears, and lives of our military.

Because of these perennial benefits, children tend to think that they're entitled to have whatever they desire. I know this because I once felt that way when i was young.

From Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School), here's a turning point in my life when I learned that there are no free snacks, let alone lunch.

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During that autumn, I learned the hard way that life did not owe me a living. The weekend supervisor, a loud-voiced, heavy set, middle-aged, authoritarian whom I shall call Mr. Moiarty, took us to the beach one November afternoon. We walked along a road, which ran parallel to the ocean, for a few hours. We finally stopped at a kiosk selling candy and chips.

"Could you buy me one of these?" I asked our supervisor and pointed at the chocolate bars.

"Use your own money; I'm not your dad. This isn't the little kids dorm. You're supposed to buy your own candy. You can't expect people to always buy everything for you, you know," he chided. Mr. Moiarty's rebuke stung. I foolishly hoped some measure of grace would be extended to us and we could have a few more treats than usual but I realized then that I must make do with my allowance and could not expect help from others.

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Deliverance from Jericho is filled with many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Read more about Deliverance from Jericho here. Please feel free to contact me directly as well.

VANDALS ALWAYS HAVE TO RUIN IT FOR THE REST.

We've all experienced this, haven't we? Authorities revoke a wonderful privilege or ban a device because of one unthinking individual's rash behaviour. Our sense of injustice is multiplied when the perpetrator of the mischief receives little or no punishment.

This excerpt from Deliverance from Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School) shows how an expensive machine was ruined by one boy's bone-headed stunt.

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This room also contained a primitive print enlarging machine. Light from an incandescent bulb illuminated the page and lenses in a box projected it to a white translucent screen. This made reading more enjoyable. Furthermore, I discovered I could see my drawings in greater detail. Volcanoes were what I passionately enjoyed sketching at the time. I created my own "television shows" based on what I drew. I loved that machine and used it often that autumn.

I felt devastated when Jimmy yielded to a destructive urge and jumped off the top of the bookshelf one Saturday. He deliberately put his foot through that remarkable print enlarger. I don't recall if Jimmy received punishment for his vandalism but the school removed the machine and they never replaced it.

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Deliverance from Jericho is filled with many more vignettes of what life was like in that government-run institution. These range from poignant experiences of homesickness to hilarious incidents of mischief. Read more about Deliverance from Jericho here. Please feel free to contact me directly as well.