Tag Archives: growing up

Growing up and the “Good Book”: Reflections on a Year at Bible School

23 Friday Sep 2016

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Ten years ago – has it really been that long? – I found myself in a remarkably similar circumstance to the one I am currently facing. Out of work, in a place of personal, spiritual and professional transformation, I decided to take the plunge and spend a year at a small unaccredited Bible college. My choice was made because of a complicated combination of financial and theological crossroads, and it’s a decision that I have never regretted.

 

So why am I writing this now, a decade later? A combination of reasons. One of the benefits of being out of work is the ability to read books by a wide variety of people – those who have embraced the Christian faith wholeheartedly, those who have abandoned it due to pain or abuse, and those who struggle to believe. It’s beautiful and tragic and messy, seeing those who share my faith embrace some fellow earth-dwellers and reject others, those who no longer share my faith who cry and wrestle with those who do and whom they love, and those who never shared my faith – or those whose departure from it was particularly traumatic – who become furious at anyone who professes any form of belief in the divine. Such literacy and conversation has rounded out my worldview in ways I never anticipated, and it started at that small Bible college ten years ago. Another reason I decided to write about it is that a friend and classmate wrote of his experience in an articulate, moving reflection (though one that’s more theological than I’m going to get into here).

 

I remember the day I dropped off my application form. The journey to that place is too long to get into here, but I remember thinking that it was foolish for me to be out of work and wanting to spend money to study the Bible… but I had to do it for reasons that I still can’t quite explain. I remember calling the school, being so lost in a residential area, expecting more foot traffic than I got, and having one of the instructors come out and meet me. I was so embarrassed, but I put in my application (and, not 3 hours later, received a part-time job offer that would work around my class schedule). After being accepted, I wondered how my classmates and instructors would accept me as a blind student – I worried for nothing.

 

Our courses were a combination of Bible study, interpretation, and practical Christian living. We read the whole Bible during the course of that year – when I discovered all the passages about justice for the oppressed that I had never encountered in my previous church experiences. We discussed living on earth and a home in heaven and how to emphasize both and neglect neither. We volunteered in organizations that challenged us, that showed us poverty or illness or disability. Along with classes and short-term missions trips and volunteering and working, I found my faith changing from a loud, boisterous show of enthusiasm to something quieter, something stronger, something harder to describe. Along with that spiritual struggle – because that’s what it was – came the most complete exhaustion I have ever felt in my life. I was in many ways happier and busier than I ever had been, but my schedule was so hectic that I would go to my little basement apartment after a day of classes and/or volunteering and/or working, say hi to my roommate, and fall exhausted into bed… only to do it all over again the next day.

 

But it wasn’t all hard work; in many ways it was a ton of fun. My classmates took me in as one of their own – pushing me beyond my comfort zone, asking questions, all but stapling my pants to the piano bench during chapel because I was the only student who was even remotely willing to play the piano publicly. I fell in love with the piano again during that year, frequently taking time alone in the chapel to decompress and play that out-of-tune upright that belonged in a 1900s saloon. I found out later that the entire school could hear me, and more than once someone would slip quietly into the chapel and hear me sing hymns or write chord progressions or just make up little ditties where my fingers would dance across the keys.

 

I not only learned a lot from instructors, but many of my classmates taught me about openness and generosity. Within two weeks of starting classes, I moved from an apartment into a basement suite, and no fewer than half my classmates helped move my stuff (in the rain) and helped clean up my old apartment. Over the year, many cried with me, some sang with me, even more laughed with me, others encouraged me to jump off a roof into a snowbank (my other option was to climb down the ladder after 20 minutes of panicking). I hated to feel like I needed help with anything, ever, but both classmates and staff patiently helped me realize that everyone needs help sometimes, and that’s OK.

 

Instructors were accommodating in most ways. Even the one who seemed to never get me assignments or tests on time – due to his reluctance to use email – let me explore with my hands a model of the Old Testament Tabernacle. Another instructor shared of his faith journey with such vulnerability that I related to him so completely. Another listened to me obsess and worry when my feelings for this guy who was “just a friend” had morphed into something I didn’t even recognize or want to acknowledge as romantic intentions. Still another gave me a ride to class once a week, allowing me to sleep in an extra thirty minutes; that thirty minutes was so small in the grand scheme of space and time, but it was inestimable in its impact. Looking back on it, I learned more about self-care at Bible college than I ever learned anywhere else. It’s a term that doesn’t appear in the Bible, though the concept certainly does.

 

2006 – looking back on it – was truly a pivotal year in my life. I moved in with my first roommate (the first time I ever shared space with anyone as a contemporary), I met the man who would become my husband, I grew (as many people that age do) in maturity and life experience, and my faith morphed from the experiential into something more systematic and sustainable. It was the year I learned to carve out my own identity, discovered it was OK to not be OK all the time, and that sometimes quiet reflection makes you stronger than just faking it. Maybe I would’ve learned those lessons in other ways had I not attended that small Bible school, but I didn’t learn them elsewhere, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Girl on the Run: you do WHAT with Your Guide Dog?

20 Friday May 2016

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Until this past year, I didn’t consider myself a runner. Before I played goalball, I didn’t consider myself an athlete, either. Growing up, I firmly believe it had little or nothing to do with my blindness, but my interests went in different directions (music and books and learning languages, mostly). But in the way of most schools everywhere, all students – including this bookish, creative blind student were made to do things they aren’t interested in, or even want to do… something I whined about at the time, but am grateful for today. I try not to think about this much, as is the way of most high school memories… but I’m sharing it with you because… well, because I want to.

Grade 8, PE class. The time of year that all the students go for a 3 mile run (the exact distance I’m not quite sure of; the fact I was completely unprepared for it, I have no doubt). I was an out-of-shape thirteen-year-old who hadn’t done much physical activity since walking away from competitive trampoline more than a year earlier. I found myself walking more than running, but something in my brain clicked about 200 yards before the end of the run. My legs just went and took over my body and my brain, and I was running flat out. I know people were calling my name, I know at one point they were screaming at me to stop, but my feet and legs and body kept moving, and I just couldn’t stop… until I ran full-speed into a telephone pole.

I gave up running after that. To this day I don’t know if it was the fact that my interests truly did go in different directions, or the thought that I was too embarrassed to risk getting another shiner on my forehead. I was a blind kid with little true desire for physical activity, and – even though I was encouraged to pursue track and field – I resented the idea that I would need a sighted guide runner whose pace I would likely slow down, and it all just sounded so unfair. Besides, I had other things that took up most of my time, so I didn’t really miss it much.

I often think about that path not taken these days, since taking up running again. I’ve done a fundraising run in support of the local blind sports organization for the past five or six years, but beyond that, until this past couple years, it hasn’t been a burning need for me. Maybe if I had the confidence to run, or easier access to guide runners locally, or just more time to kill, maybe I would have done this sooner. But I can’t think that way, really, because it’s time to look forward, not back. I’m lacing up my shoes, harnessing up my guide dog, and going for a run.

Whoa whoa whoa! I am doing what?

I’ve written before about running with my guide, but since it’s a relatively unusual activity to do with one’s guide dog, and I get asked a zillion questions about why I would do this at all, here’s the route I’ve taken to this point, and where I want to go.

It all started a couple years ago after the fundraising run; I had made a great connection with my guide runner, and she and I agreed to go running together. This would involve going home from work, leaving my guide at home, taking my cane, catching the bus, going for a run, catching the bus home… and to me, that was a lot of planning for a quick run, as much as I loved running with my friend. Add to this the fact that I have a guide dog who genuinely likes to go fast (and occasionally we have “arguments” about such things), and I figured I could at least try running with her.

A friend makes sports-style harnesses and I asked her to make one for me. It has a lot of room for the dog to move and acts like a traditional harness in all other ways. The pull in the handle took some getting used to, but once I understood the feeling of the pull in the harness, we were ready to go! I started small (like, around the block small); if Jenny hated it, I didn’t want to make her run with me. She took to it so quickly that over just a few weeks, then months, we increased our speed, distance and complexity of routes. Our winter was short, so it didn’t take long for us to really get moving this spring. This past month alone, we have done our longest run ever (more than 7 km), had our fastest ever run longer than 5 km, and did our first ever big group run in support of the Fort mcMurray evacuees. That last wasn’t a flawless experience, but it taught me how to handle it, and gave me hope for other big group running events later on in the spring and summer, and even beyond. My goal is to run an organized 10K by the end of the season; we’re well on our way!

I’ve made some mistakes along the way – misjudging if my guide wanted water (the answer is usually “no”) or underestimating her willingness to go at fast speeds – but when we have this matching jogging-pace speed and are completely in sync, there’s no feeling like it. Many people ask me if I’ve ever been hurt; the answer is yes, but it’s got nothing to do with Jenny and everything to do with my thinking I know more than she does. If I listen to her quick, decisive, flawless guiding moves, I know I’m in good paws. More than once I let Jenny set the route (or, at the very least, don’t direct her as much); our neighborhood is a veritable labyrinth of angled sidewalks, roads that intersect and curve around back to each other – a residential runner’s paradise. I can focus on my feet, on my music (90s music is the best to run to!), on the feeling of wind in my face and the smell of pine sap in the air. I don’t have to think too much about where I’m going, what street I’ve crossed, if I’m lost or not, I can just run. I know my guide will run me home when she needs a drink of water.

Pass me a Screwdriver… the Tool, not the Drink

05 Saturday Sep 2015

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Every now and again, life throws you some introspection, some minor way of making you look at your childhood and thank God, your parents, teachers, the neighbor down the street, or plain dumb luck that you were shown or taught something at an early age that made your adult life so much easier.  As a very young child, you remember thinking – as all children think – that everyone’s parents taught them how to cook four-course dinners, name all the birds in the sky, or (in my case) use hand tools and identify the size of drill bits by touch.

 

Last night, Ben and I put together a bookshelf.  Leaving aside the really annoying fact that the delivery company left an 8-foot tall box leaning up against our house, making it impossible to move it inside single-handedly from my 6-foot-wide porch, I was thrilled that our music room would soon have an additional book case.  As everyone knows, braille books take up an insane amount of room, and Ben’s huge collection of paperbacks are relatively scattered, with no set place to go.  So last night, we were putting our new shelf together with screws and nails, and (obviously) a screwdriver and hammer.  I had been struggling tightening a screw, so I opened the top of the screwdriver and grabbed the #3 Robertson bit… it worked like a charm!  Ben asked me how I know what we needed, and how I could tell the #2 from the #4, or a Robertson from a Phillips by touch.  I told him that my father taught me the basics as a child, and other friends along the way have had me set up stage sets and other things, and when I first moved out on my own I did most of my minor home repairs myself.

 

As a child, I thought it was perfectly normal to go down into my father’s workshop in the basement (and later the garage) and hand him tools while he was working.  But it was a rude awakening when I was about seven or eight, and I told someone to hand me the hammer so I could fix something or other.  The reaction was just priceless: “Um… no! You can get hurt!”  No amount of begging, pleading, telling them I’d fixed things before would make them relent.  I can’t remember the general outcome, or even what I wanted the hammer for in the first place, but I remember feeling so dejected; my father believed in my abilities, but no matter what, to this neighbour, I was still viewed as the blind kid who dared to want to wield a hammer.

 

Fast forward several years, and I had moved in to my own apartment in Edmonton.  My kitchen cabinets were loose, and I just grabbed a screwdriver and within five minutes they were good as new.  The empowering feeling is almost indescribable even now, more than ten years later.  When Ben and I bought this house, I took delivery of a new bedroom set, and put it all together, with the exception of the bed.  Little things come apart, and I can put them together again… and there are few better feelings of accomplishment in the world than simply being able to get them done.  This was all made possible because I was the daughter of someone who not only believed that I could learn about tools and perform these tasks, but that I should, whether or not I could see what I was doing.

 

I know that this blog has blind subscribers, and I know there are parents of blind children who read this blog; I may be preaching to the choir here.  Those who are blind, don’t let anyone clip your wings.  If your family does not believe in your abilities, I am so sorry… but don’t give anyone the power to tell you that you cannot do something before you try and succeed, fall on your face, or somewhere in the middle.  For parents, relatives, or friends of blind children (or even adults), please resist the temptation to jump in and do for them something that they may really want to do for themselves.  Would you deny a sighted family member an opportunity to make mistakes?  For most, the answer is no.  So if you have the skills, show them.  Give them the opportunity to fly.  I may never use a table saw, and that’s OK… but pass me that screwdriver… this table leg is wobbly.