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During my teenage years I made some decisions
that took me down a path that could've been disastrous. I decided that God
didn’t make sense so I began telling people, and living like, I didn't believe
in Him. As I look back now, it was more that He got in the way of me doing and
being what I wanted to do and be. What I wanted was to live for myself and derive
as much pleasure in my life as I could. Was this a conscious decision? No, I just
sort of went with the flow, looked around me and decided I would just join in
with other people were doing. That decision let me into alcohol and drugs. I
only every tried “soft” drugs such as marijuana, hash and mushrooms (only one
time.) I remember being offered LSD and pills various times but declaring that
I didn’t want to put “unnatural chemicals in my body.” I started with heavy
drinking patterns on weekends with my friends. Our drinking always was
accompanied by loud, hard, angry rock music glorifying rebellion and expressed
through drunkenness, drug use and sex with no strings attached.
I knew
better than this because of my family background but I rejected all my parents
talked about. I just wanted to
have fun. Because of my attitudes and behaviours, even though I completed high
school, I never actually graduated. Weeks after my final year I began
travelling. I was attracted to a lifestyle of freedom, hitting the open road. The “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” by
Tom Wolfe, novels by Kurt Vonnegut and the lifestyle and philosophy of the
Woodstock generation were my inspiration. This led me to a bohemian lifestyle
of hitchhiking around Europe. To finance this I would work in Canada during the
wintertime and as soon as I had enough money would leave. I wanted to get as
far away from life in Canada as I could.
I hated my life and found it, and who I was, much more exciting on the
road. I wasn't interested in sightseeing.
I wasn't interested in culture. I was seeking new experiences through new
relationships, daily alcohol consumption and drug use. I remember more than
once, when looking at my dwindling money supply, choosing to drink rather than
buy food. That was my priority. I managed to stretch my time away from Canada
longer and longer by picking up informal jobs and living as cheaply as I could-
that meant camping out in parks at times, sleeping along the side of the road,
in parks and train stations and for free at youth hostels where I would pick up
janitorial work. I worked as a labourer at a construction site, in a restaurant
for a few months, in a bread factory, at a corner store.
After
my 4th visit to Europe I realized that the old song was getting boring and the
travelling life I sought was getting stale. It wasn't happening for me anymore.
Even that “romantic” life on the road was becoming “the same old, same old.” Although
it wasn’t from lack of trying, I wasn't capable of maintaining relationships
because I was too self-centred. It really was all about me. My heart got
broken a few times, and I returned to Canada knowing that Europe wasn't going
to satisfy me. I kept on drinking, smoking and living my life centred on music
and pleasure-seeking to escape the drudgery.
In
terms of my spiritual life: I had dabbled in eastern meditation but really I
was thinking and acting more like an existentialist. “So it goes” (Kurt
Vonnegut) was one of my favourite phrases. I was sliding into depression. My outlook on life and the future was more shaped by
negativism and pessimism than hope. I really didn't see much of a future. My
“blueness” never led me to contemplate suicide but I do know that my journals
reflected an inner darkness. I
didn’t think about the future because I had no idea who I was or where I was
going. After returning to Canada the 4th time, I knew I would not be
going back to Europe for a 5th. I
was done.
I
joined a high school friend in his house in the country and found a job as a
security guard. Punk music and its anger became part of my vocabulary. My job
was unsuccessful and short-lived. I eventually got fired for consumption of
drugs during my shift but not before I was involved in a pretty significant car
accident.
My
friend and I had closed out a bar that night. As we got into the car to drive
home we were very drunk. Drinking and driving was something that wasn’t foreign
to me at all- I had grown up doing it, living out in the country as we had.
Many times as teenagers, our only entertainment was to buy a “case of 24” and
drive around with music blaring, using traffic signs and country mail boxes as
targets for our empties. March 4, 197_ was a different night. Ontario had only
recently brought in the, what I considered invasive seat belt law. I did not obey it. My rationale- no gov’t was going to
tell me what to do. That night, as inebriated as I was, I remember clearly the
powerful sensation telling me to “put your seat belt on.” That night, for some
reason, I obeyed that voice and I did.
On the way home we hit a patch of ice on the road and the car spun out
of control, flipped over a number of times and ended up wrapped around a
telephone pole off the road. It all happened so violently and so fast and then
there was silence, broken only by the unconscious moans of my friend. We were sideways;
my feet had broken through the front windshield and were lying in a puddle of
icy water in the ditch. I was alone with my thoughts and unable to move,
trapped by that seat belt. I
didn’t feel any pain but I knew we were way out in the country and it was the
middle of the night. I was trapped and couldn’t move. At that moment I prayed:
“God, if you are there, I don’t want to die right now.” Eventually the fire
truck and ambulance arrived and we were cut out of the car. There was concern
for a gas explosion as they used a blowtorch to cut through the metal and
extract us. One of the ambulance drivers told me: “We were told by the person
who reported the accident that there were two dead guys in this car.”
After
a couple of painful weeks in the hospital with a cracked pelvis and bruised
spleen, I was released. My friend
suffered a broken neck but we both recovered fully from our injuries. I look
back now and wonder where my head was. It wasn’t more than a couple of months
later that I remember driving into Hamilton under the influence of substances
and thinking to myself: “Tim are you stupid or what!”
After I recovered completely and was able to get a job cutting sod, my
mind started wandering again. I
had itchy feet and wanted to go back on the road. I chose California as my destination because of a friendship
I had made during my European years. That didn’t develop well and I soon found
myself hitch-hiking around California alone. I went to San Francisco. There I hooked up with a couple of
other backpackers lost in the city and we got on a bus to find somewhere on its
outskirts to pitch a tent. The
driver of the bus told us there were no campsites in the direction we were
headed but another passenger, hearing we had no where to sleep, offered a space
on his floor and breakfast along with it. He told us we had to agree to be on a
panel the next morning at his class, and to “represent the counter-culture in
America”. We decided we would.
Little did we know he was a Catholic priest and was teaching at a seminary in
San Francisco. His students came from
a variety of different religious backgrounds and the next morning we found
ourselves behind a table, facing them and their questions about our lives and
beliefs. They asked us about our lifestyle and beliefs. I remember two
questions that, although I answered them quickly and definitively, caused me
problems. The first was: “What do
you believe about God?” My
response: “I don’t believe in God.”
My response seemed fake to me as the image of me being trapped in the
car and calling out to Him came to my mind immediately. The second question was: “What do your
parents think about your lifestyle?”
My answer to that was a curt: “I don’t care what they think.” That was a
lie too. It went through my head
like a flash- “they have never hurt you. They have never done anything but
accept you and support you. You do care what they think.” I left that room that day feeling
uncomfortable with myself, like a hypocrite, and realizing my life was a
farce.
I
returned to Canada and managed to land a job in Brantford. It was a tough one, working with
children who were living with significant disabilities. It was a dirty job as
it entailed cleaning their messes daily. It was a depressing job because it
seemed to me that the kids I was working with weren’t going anywhere and had a
pretty grim life ahead of them. I was living alone. It was Brantford, ON
(apologies to any Brantfordites who may read this). I fell into
a deeper depression and I felt the walls closing around me. I could see no way forward. One Sunday
I went to visit my parents and they had invited the speaker from their church
for lunch. After we ate he and I
went to do the dishes and ended up having an important conversation. During our
time he asked me: “Do you believe in God?” I quickly replied, (but again with
the image of me trapped in the car in my mind) “No, I don’t”. He came back with:
“Have you ever given God a chance?” Faced again with my hypocrisy I had to acknowledge that I
probably hadn’t and he challenged me to buy a Bible and begin reading in the
book of John. I told him I would,
and I did.
Initially, as I read, my attitude was “Yeah right. This is garbage” but
then I remember clearly that I had said I would give God a chance, so as I sat
in the crook of a tree along the Grand River in Brantford, I prayed: “God, if
you are there, I want to give you a chance.” After that things began to change and that book, the Bible,
began to speak to me. I don’t know
how I ended up in Isaiah but I read a verse there that repeated itself two
times: “There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.” That verse hit me
between the eyes. I realized that
what I did not have and that I had spent years seeking without finding it was
peace. I wanted inner peace. I wanted to feel good in my skin. I wanted to rest from the endless and
fruitless pursuit of it through relationships, music, drugs and alcohol. I came
to understand that it was only by getting right with God that I would find it. I began to see as I read Jesus’ story
that he came to give me peace: first of all with God, and then from that-inner
peace. As I observed the response of those early disciples to Jesus and His
words to them, I also came to understand that Jesus came to not only save but
also give life a purpose. I was convinced about the person of Christ through my
reading of John and through Frank Morrison’s book: “Who Moved the Stone,” an
exploration of the historical reality of His resurrection from the dead. After
a few months I got down on my knees and said: “God, I can’t fight you anymore. I
am sorry for all the time I have wasted. I want you to take control of my life,
I want to live for you.”
Since then, I have been seeking God, through His word, through prayer
and through His people, the church. I struggle with some of the same issues
even now, at 56 years of age. I am selfish. I am proud. I
want to be noticed. What people think of me is too important and can influence
what I do and say. I still have issues with my thought life. I am judgmental of
others. I am disappointed with my spiritual maturity and depth- I figure I
should be much more like Jesus after 33 years of following Him. But, I do
remember where I have come from. I
do remember clearly the emptiness of trying to make it without Him in my life.
I do reflect on how He kept me and how He “got” to me. I am eternally grateful
to Him for giving me peace, and for filling my life with purpose as I seek to
put Him first and do what He has asked me and all of His followers to do: Luke
9:23: Deny myself, take up his cross daily and follow Him and to: “Go and make
disciples of all nations…”
This is a
verse that challenges me every day: 2 Corinthians 5:15 “He died for all, that
those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for
them and was raised again.”
I am ever thankful for His forgiveness
and patience, fruits of His love for me. I depend on them each day as I stumble
along. God has used and is now using many people to influence, teach and guide
me. And now, I have the wonderful privilege of having others inspire me as I watch them struggle for recovery and progress in their lives in my role in aftercare with New Life Prison Ministry (http://www.nlpm.com/). I want to learn from everyone who
crosses my path- many have much to teach and I know I have much to learn.
