The great American philosopher Henry David Thoreau in his essay Civil Disobedience wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.” It took me a long time to understand this quote as I almost always thought life was this great adventure led by Jesus Christ. And it is, but without Jesus life is quiet desperation, which I got to know too.
I became a Christian at about seven years of age. Looking back it seems clear God conspired events early in my life to bring me into His believer family. My parents were not Christian, in fact my mother liked to say she was an atheist, but I doubt she even knew what that meant. To her it was simply this God and Jesus Christ stuff was a bunch of nonsense. They did provide well for me and I am sure they loved me but being a Christian child of non-believing parents had many challenges. In the 1950’s kids were all “free range,” parents were parents of every kid and kids obeyed every adult. I am a baby-boomer.
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It was in this environment I found myself at the Vacation Bible School of a local small Wesleyan Church. The place was packed with kids. In the chaos, the young teenager leader of our group of seven and eight year old boys, ( a brave girl,) took us into the janitor’s closet, the only semi-quiet place in the church. I can still remember the smell of the cleaning supplies mixed with the musty old rolled up rug she had us sit on. It was there she explained the gospel to us. I can’t remember what she said but it was not a shallow message of “repent and believe.” I remember putting up my hand, some others didn’t. She asked if I was sure, yes! She left me with a strong desire, a commitment, to find out who Jesus was and to make Him the person I would look up to. I look forward to seeing this leader person in heaven some day. God continued His conspiracy for me.
Early that fall, shortly after my commitment, I was with my parents at a local mall when they bumped into an elder from a new Presbyterian church in the new subdivision we lived in. He had met my parents five years earlier through a “helps” evangelism outreach. From that outreach my parents had gone to some church events during which they were convinced to have me baptized as a two and a half year old. I still remember my baptism, a great peace came over me. In the mall conversation the elder said they were starting a new boys group at the church and asked me if I wanted to go, of course only with permission of my parents. I said yes, they said OK. I was excited.
This boys group had been founded during the World Wars so it had a military basis with an emphasis on both yourself and working together as a group discipline. The basis was being Christian first, so a condition of being able to attend the group mid-week was that you also had to attend Sunday School, any church’s Sunday School. Plus, you had to prove your attendance by getting the teacher to initial a card. Miss too many Sundays and you could not attend mid-week. This created a problem for me.
The church was just over a mile away from where we lived, including crossing a major road. My father drove me to the meetings and church for a few months. Since my parents were not Christian their only incentive to get up on Sunday was to take me to the church. As they didn’t believe anything that might go on in church driving me was an intrusion for them and for only my fun. My father stopped driving me but they allowed me to walk. I walked. In the brutal Canadian winter it took discipline for an under ten year old to walk twice a week a mile each way, but I loved learning about Jesus.
I led a comparatively trouble free youth, getting good marks and also becoming a leader among my friends and schoolmates. My parents also placed the family’s outings above those of my church and boys group and questioned my motives by reminding me I did not have to go to church and “it” was all nonsense anyway. I was able to encourage some friends to join me in the church group but having no Christian parents for guidance, entering high school, aging out of the group and the religious liberalism taking hold in the church at the time left me adrift.
The thing with God’s grace is it is like money in the bank. I had been measuring all my actions by what I learned of Jesus. I had been visiting the sick and lonely, helping others in acts of charity and gave of my funds. I never hesitated to tell in gentleness the truth about Jesus Christ and how meaning and joy in life could be had through Him. With no one to guide me and seeing the world’s lustre I started to draw God’s grace out of my account, He gave me the freedom to do so. It was a large amount I had to work with.
God’s grace withdrawal began with organizing a dance at a church for a fundraiser. Not a bad thing but bad for me. I progressed down this road, eventually becoming the dance committee chairman at my high school. This was a time when high school dances would get a thousand people out to them. I was a product of the time, movie age restriction rules were strict but crumbling. For a “United Way” fund raiser I was able to rent a film, Psycho, at the time borderline age restricted, and fly under the wire enough to show it in the school auditorium. A parent of a friend worked at a film distribution company. Teachers wanted to cancel it but by then I had sold tickets to half the school of 2,000. Also, gambling was not legal at the time, but work employment hockey pools were common. You guessed the time in seconds of the winning goal (3600 chances.) With the same student friend we ran a school “hockey pool” for an NHL game. We ended up making more money for the United Way than almost everyone else combined. My slide down continued, being a bit of an entrepreneur I recruited some adults to provide alcohol to me for resale for the dances.
Most of my High School years I had a part-time and summer job working in the production department of the Toronto Star newspaper. I was a strike breaker and earned a strike breaker’s pay in a highly paid job. The production of the newspapers was also being computerized at the time. I was one of only a few out of a hundred men who could operate the computers, and I was faster than all others, so I was the first management went to for extra hours. I had all the work I wanted. I made more part-time than the national average full-time income. Graduating High School I then attended Ryerson University in business.
My heart was not in studying though. I was supplementing my income considerably by playing poker one night a week. My “bootlegging” had grown to dealing marijuana, to a significant amount. I quit school as I was making more than some of my professors. I opened a store in the Toronto downtown on the main street, Yonge St, to sell marijuana paraphernalia and other underground culture items, thumbing my nose at the police. I had also started to be hired as a stage hand, then as a stage director and finally on my own as a promoter for major Pop and Rock bands like; Deep Purple, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Steppenwolf, Johnny Winter, Melanie and Rita Coolidge at major venues. I worked on the Festival Express train with bands like the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin. I was in the habit of buying rounds for the whole bar where I frequented. It all came to a sudden end.
My lifestyle not matching my visible means of support probably was very infuriating for law enforcement, the RCMP. Worse I openly mocked them. Not being able to catch me legally, I was snatched and kidnapped off the street by the police and taken to a deserted house. They held me there for three days, presumably while they searched for cash and drugs. They found nothing so they took their frustration out on me physically, beating me unconscious several times and tying me with piano wire to a basement staircase, left for days with no food or water. Several times as I was passing out I told Jesus I was coming to see Him. They wanted information. They got none. Finally, they released me in just a t-shirt and jeans on a busy street in the middle of a Canadian winter with no money or identification. The fragility of life was impressed on me though.
I decided I was not going to live the life of quiet desperation. I remembered the blessings, the happiness and the contentment I had growing up to the end of high school, even as a Christian child in a non-Christian family. My error was not my choice of Christ but my choice of the world. To me it was clear God was getting my attention. His grace had run out and if I wanted to be in charge He was going to let me decide my own consequences. The four years, while lost, was ultimately God’s blessing, showing me the emptiness and chaos of life without Him. I decided a new direction back to God was to only way to go.
I now needed a job or career that I would like and allow me the freedom I had got used to in God. I tried a few jobs; in government, for a non-profit (Big Brothers) and even collected welfare for a while. I finally found something I liked with a good financial upside, I became a taxi driver. At the time there was no Uber, no UPS, no Fedex and very limited limousine service. Taxi’s were restricted in being licensed giving a huge appreciation in value on being acquired. I was able to live in a luxury apartment. I started to downhill ski and play tennis on a regular basis, including with a Rush member who lived in my building’s 2112. Now, a taxi fleet was my goal. I started taking general arts courses at university. The biggest change happened when I remembered how God was faithful and is forever. I went to a large church, in prayer confessed my crummy attitude and promised God to be better as He had been faithful in my wandering.
Things changed rapidly after that confession. I soon dropped the idea of owning a taxi fleet and began thinking of renting out taxi licences to others and using the income to be a full time missionary. I changed from night school general arts to taking Bible School undergrad courses. My inquires of Christian Mission organizations all came back with the same answer: I must go back to school and get a Theology degree if I was to be a missionary. Even though I had dropped out of undergrad I found I could apply to a seminary graduate school as a mature student. The caveat was as a mature student there is no degree just a certificate. This didn’t matter to me anyway. I was accepted to Tyndale Seminary, formerly Ontario Theological Seminary, into the Master of Divinity program. Standards were very high. Three years of Greek or Hebrew were required to graduate, plus one year of the other. An undergraduate year Greek was also required as a pre-requisite.
God was leading in other ways during this time. Statistics showed an overseas missionary if not married would likely not marry and would be less likely successful than married missionaries with the same goals. This was a concern for me. A church group of those exploring missionary service met for prayer occasionally. My desire had become obvious to most of the young women I was seeking a mate and I was going to become a missionary. At one of the prayer meetings I met who I was to eventually marry, a woman in medical school, training to become a physician, desiring to be a missionary.
We waited to marry until she had finished medical school, then I entered Seminary. Three years later I graduated. On graduation I was given a full graduate Masters degree. A Seminary is allowed only a small number of students to be accepted as mature students, and a very small number of those over a multi-year period can be given a full degree. My contribution to the school, student life and generally above average marks helped the school to decide to use their one multi-year available degree upgrade to me!
The next four years were spent finding a compatible mission agency, a missionary assignment and raising financial support for a growing family. I joined Campus Crusade for Christ. My last year in seminary saw the birth of our first daughter. In our first year with the new missionary agency our second daughter was born. We left Canada with the third child, a son, due in only 2 months. A fourth child was also born in our mission assignment country, South Africa.
South Africa was in the midst of a civil war over apartheid when we arrived. Armoured vehicles roamed the streets, vehicle ambushes on major roads killing dozens were common, bombs were going off outside banks. In a rural area I travelled freely between Black and White communities, meeting both suspicion, friendship and trust. I was accepted as a teacher and friend to Black pastors and business people and with respect and friendship by Whites wanting a new South Africa. Many stories of God’s working come out of these early months. The Campus Crusade ministry was a new one with a new theory of spreading the gospel, using primary healthcare as a way of opening people to the gospel. Unfortunately, the personal did not come together for this project and I transferred to Johannesburg.
In Johannesburg, my ministry focus was to help church ministers and pastors, especially in working for an integrated South Africa. At the time none of the different racial groups, even churches, were integrated. Actually meeting with others not of your race was dangerous. I moved freely in all racial residential area’s meeting with ministers and pastors. At first I organized inter-racial meetings for pastors and ministers starting in my home. Eventually, I organized conferences with hundreds of church leaders from all races together. I was approached by several schools and Seminaries to consider a professorial job. I taught part time at the Baptist Seminary of South Africa. I took a job at a Bible College in Cape Town. I was Professor of Practical Theology there. The focus was on preaching, missions and evangelism. Through the students in their study requirements hundreds of people became Christian, including many Muslims.
Also, in Cape Town I became a South African Major League Baseball coach, manager and team executive. At first it was with an all White team in the all White league but after a couple of years of success I jumped to managing a team in the mixed race (called coloured by South Africans themselves) league. Out of the approximately 20 teams. I was the first person to cross the league’s race barriers. Two years later I helped amalgamate all the racial separate leagues into one league. Players now were recruited regardless of race. I built a baseball stadium with help. South Africa changed, Mandela was released, free elections were held. We left back to Canada with two new children added to our two born in Canada.
Coming back to North America from over eight years in Africa had a period of adjustment. My wife, as a physician, had medical licensing problems. Our children, being out of rhythm with the school years between the North and South hemispheres took some time to adapt. We had no place to live, no vehicle, no winter clothes and no money. This is the reality for most returning missionaries.
We did settle in, we solved my wife’s medical licensing problem, moved to a small university town where I started a student church and ministry. I also started a career of software development, particularly in the medical field. For the next 20 years I designed and produced medical software. At the business height, there were eight employees. Hundreds of doctors were using the software. Obama care had many changes not just for insurance but also for medical records. Regulations were made so only large companies like General Electric and Seimans could afford to meet them. Almost overnight hundreds of companies disappeared, mine lasted a few more years.
I was at a retirement age so it was easy to simply enjoy life. I built a house, did gardening and landscaping, downhill skied at different world resorts, learned to play the harmonica and contributed to my local church where I could. I dabbled in new possible software designs. The children had grown up, graduated university and moved away. Then my wife after all these years decided she didn’t want to be married any longer! But, God is always in control and I knew He always looked after me.
Looking back a few years now, all the things that occurred set the stage for writing a book, journalism, blogging and posting the theological depths of who Christ is. During this difficult time I was given a deeper insight into church religious-ism and the many things hurting the Kingdom: the meaning of becoming and being a Christian and all things that have crept into our thinking that are destroying spirituality. Chief among them is feminism, not in equality but the secular application that has led to abortion, no fault divorce, Black Lives Matter, Believe All Women and Cancel Culture.
Wisdom in the Bible is defined as knowledge with experience. While a Christian can know a lot of “things” until they have experience they are not wise. Sometimes you can gain experience vicariously by reading biographies of great Christians but we are moving into times that have not been experienced before at any other previous time in history. I have suffered as Christ in the last few years, standing boldly, falsely accused, wrongly convicted and suffering at the hands of others. I know my Redeemer lives.
The world, led by the United States is moving into a post-secular world. “That’s your opinion, I have mine” is dying. It is being replaced by the spiritual with reliance on a set of new absolutes. My writing will be to try and help Christians to be the path finders over others claiming spirituality.