A Story Or Two

Walter Scott, a Scottish poet writes – I cannot tell where the truth may be; I write the tale as it was told to me.”

You are invited to browse through the following pages of stories. A member of the congregation at St. John’s wrote each story. We will continue to add to this section as we discover the talent that may be sitting next to you.

It was a Miracle

We are all familiar with those television evangelists who heal, whose laying on of hands enables the halt to dance, the bedridden to walk, the afflicted to escape. I well remember the pile of crutches that we saw on a visit to St. Joseph’s Basilica while on a visit to Montreal – that pile of crutches and canes that had been left behind by those who had prayed and had been cured.

I have a different version of such miracles. I had been in and out of hospital for more than a year – I had been on crutches for months. One day in the Workmen’s Compensation Hospital in Malton, a new doctor was making his rounds. He asked me the usual litany of questions involving my injuries. Discussion revolved around the difficulty of a crushed heel to become strong enough to bear my weight. I already had more than one disappointment as sutures and skin grafts had broken down and a new cycle of healing had o begin. He examined the heel rather closely and then startled me with two questions:

Why are you using crutches?

Why aren’t you walking?

In my opinion, the first question hardly merited a reply; the answer seemed obvious. I was using crutches because I couldn’t walk without them. The second question called for a catch-22 sort of answer. I was not walking because I was on crutches. The doctor continued the discussion by asking:

How do you know you can’t walk if you have not tried to walk?

Do you have a shoe for that foot?

With his urging, I found the shoe and, rather gingerly, put it on my foot. Then I took three small steps – the first steps in over a year. Within a few days I was using two canes and was walking about the hospital ward; within a week those same two canes were taking me wherever I wanted to go.

If we were to transfer the tableau from hospital ward to a meeting tent, and change the person involved from doctor or evangelist – a miracle would have been proclaimed – a man who hadn’t walked for more than a year was now walking.

The truth is that I was ready to walk. I only needed encouragement and direction from someone who was not tied to past failures. This doctor brought a new set of eyes to my injury. Other equally qualified doctors had simply become used to me being in their care –they were looking but not seeing.

Were any of the crutches at the basilica in Montreal left behind because individuals were ready to walk and only needed the encouragement provided by prayer in a church setting? Perhaps . . .

Elizabeth

One of the hymns sung at a recent service of worship at St. John’s Presbyterian Church was entitled Brother, sister, let me serve you .. that hymn took me back about 17 years to an event that was most troubling .. our young granddaughter had been diagnosed with cancer .. a virulent form of that disease. Following is a letter that I sent to Elizabeth:

January 21, 1992

Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth

Tomorrow we begin a journey – a journey that will take time, perseverance, courage, and yes, good humour.

I say “we” because you are not alone; your family and friends are on that journey and are with you at every step.

I know that each of us can say this without hesitation:

I will weep with you when you are weeping;
When you laugh, I will laugh with you;
I will share your joy and sorrow
‘til we have seen this journey through.

May I give you a wee bit of advice?

Spend no time searching for answers to questions that ask:

Why me?
What did I do to deserve this?

Rather, consider these questions:

Now that this has happened to me, what are we going to do about it? and, Who is here to help me?

The answers to those questions are legion.

I love you Elizabeth. You can count on me.

Grandpa

Today, all that is part of family history. Elizabeth has been cancer-free in all of her checkups for a number of years .. her pictures, sans hair, remind us how our world would be a much diminished world without her.

Donald McGugan

200 Words

He was sitting in front of me – he in the first seat of the aisle, I behind the teacher’s desk. He was a Grade 9 Occupations student. He was writing a Composition examination. I was there to distribute the examination papers, see that no one was cheating, give out more foolscap if needed, gather the written papers and forward them to the appropriate teacher.

The wee lad was working on the first question on the paper. Those involved in the examination had to write a composition based on one of ten or more titles listed. The composition was to be 200 words in length.

The boy would look at the ceiling for inspiration, twist in his chair, scratch his ear, fiddle with his eraser, cross his legs, uncross his legs, pull his sweater straight – and taking ball point pen in hand, write a sentence of the story. Then he would count the number of words that he had written, strike out the previous running total found in the margin adjacent to the story, and write in the new figure.

I don’t know if he had reached the end of a sentence, the end of a paragraph, the end of a thought, or the end of a story. I do know that he had come to the end of the commitment – to write 200 words on one of the topics listed. The brakes went on and a troubled face relaxed. Any Midas Muffler and Brakes shop would have been pleased with the braking power of this youngster.

You want 200 words – you get 200 words – not 199 – and certainly not 201.

Donald McGugan