WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART OF LIFE

One of the most maddening sights on a person's PC or smart device is the buffering image. Round and round it goes and when it stops, no one knows. We end up doing a lot of waiting in life too. Sometimes it's worth it and sometimes it isn't.

As a child, I hated shopping with Mom. She'd be looking at all sorts of adult stuff as my siblings and I fidgeted. All we wanted was to get out of the store and go home but Mom was too preoccupied with dishes and vases to care.

Dad made me wait a lot as well. Being an alcoholic, he left me in the Volkswagen behind the hotel while he sat in the bar with his friends. Time hung heavily since I had nothing to play with. It seemed like hours to me as Dad enjoyed himself while I felt so bored. I also knew what would happen if I left the car. I did that once when it was after curfew and the police drove me and my siblings home. My parents had to go to court as a result.

Then I had to wait three agonizing months before I could leave the school for the blind for the Christmas holidays. There was no mainstreaming of students back then so I had to go to that horrid institution. Worse yet, I was making progress in the first grade of public school before some bureaucrat coerced my parents into exiling me five-hundred miles from home.

When I was mainstreamed into the public school for grade eight, I had to board at various homes in Edmonton, about twenty miles from where my parents lived. I could go home on weekends but it still meant I had to wait to go home.

Once I became an adult, I found that I had to wait for all sorts of things. Waiting for a bus when the temperature was minus thirty was no fun at all, especially when that route was on hourly service only. Waiting to get my first pay cheque was equally painful as I was practically out of money. Then there were those dental and doctor appointments which I had to endure. I'd come on time or early, yet I'd have to wait.

I remember how long it used to take for radios and TVs with vacuum tubes to warm up. When transistor radios became popular, the big boast was that they would turn on instantly. Manufacturers also used to brag about their "instant on" TVs but they really just kept the tube filaments lit.

Now we have computers that take a few minutes to get their acts together. Though I've removed many programs from the start menu with the MSCONFIG tool, my PC still takes time to set everything up for my use.

I'm also doing my best to wait for a special event. All my life, people told me about how Christ would return. Some said he'd whisk us off to heaven while the world went to hell. When that kept not happening, I became frustrated with the delay. Now I know that the Bible teaches that Christ will appear again in the same way he left our world. He wants as many people as will repent to surrender to him. I now content myself with that knowledge. I no longer watch for signs and events as I once did.

I wrote about my struggle with what errant elders taught me in How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Check out my story of God's wondrous providence at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Powell's Books.

WHY I NEVER GIVE CHANGE TO STREET PEOPLE.

It might sound mean-spirited to some readers but I never give my spare coins to panhandlers. I learned my lesson thirty-five years ago about the harm it does to these folks. Here is a story that tells the reason for my apparent stinginess.

In August of 1977 I was transferred by my CNIB supervisor to work at a smoke stand in the Beaver House liquor store. The Corona Hotel stand had been closed because of poor sales and people also stole merchandise from that shop. They seemed heedless of the fact that they were literally robbing the blind blind. This stand had everything behind the counter and I fetched whatever the customers wanted. The room was quite small, about the size of the average broom closet.

Once again, I struggled with my conscience. The pop and mixers we sold were used in people's drinks. Was I indirectly contributing to alcoholism and drunkenness? I prayed and pondered earnestly on this for a few days. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that people were ultimately responsible for their own actions.

I regret not thinking through a related moral matter that autumn. Shabbily-dressed men frequently came to the store counter and asked me for dollar bills for their change. I dutifully helped them until the manager of the liquor store came to the window. "Are you giving these bums paper money for their change?" When I replied that I had, he continued, "I Don't want you to do that anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because these men are alcoholics. When you give them bills, they just buy booze with them and it worsens their problems."

"I was only trying to be helpful."

"Well, don't do that anymore. You're just keeping these men addicted. "We don't sell alcohol to anyone with lots of change because we know that they just panhandled it. These people need food and a place to live, not booze."

I apologized and agreed not to make change for those street people anymore. This mature gentleman's criticism hurt but I also realized that he cared for these derelicts of society. Had he been greedy, he could have accepted their money without caring what they did with his product. I thought I was helping when I was actually hindering people. I accepted the liquor store manager's admonition since it came with a noble explanation.

I wrote about other moral dilemmas I faced in How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. I hope to have this memoir in print and e-book form by the end of the year. As for my two previous memoirs, please click on my books link at the top left side of this page to learn more about them.

FATHER'S LITTLE BOY NO LONGER.

Unlike some children, I wasn't blessed with a happy childhood. Dad was an alcoholic and Mom nagged each family member about our supposed shortcomings. Because of this, unconditional love and affection were rarely displayed in our home.

I described in Deliverance From Jericho (Six Years in a Blind School) how I felt torn between wanting to be a big boy and longing to stay home from Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind. This is how one of those rare father-son moments happened.

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Dad and I set out one January afternoon for the airport. Because I had a slight cough, he bought me a roll of liquorice-flavoured lozenges at the terminal. My father bent to give me his usual good-bye kiss on my cheek when I said, "Can't I shake your hand instead?" When Dad asked why, I said, "I'm a big boy now and I don't like that little kid stuff."

I recently informed the family that I wanted to be called Bruce instead of Brucey. Now that I was ten, I felt old enough to dispense with childish sentimentality and I certainly deserved some respect by that age. Dad chuckled and shook my hand. I felt very mature as I turned to follow the stewardess into the plane.

Even though I had left home for Vancouver five times before, deep depression still engulfed my heart. I was bound for the place I hated most and I could do nothing.

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Deliverance from Jericho contains 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. Click here to read more about this book and to order it. You may also e-mail me directly if the comment form doesn't work.