I have to confess; since my earliest years I have been powerfully driven by fear. When I was about three years old and living in Kaslo, a little hamlet on the western shore of Kootenay Lake in southern B.C., my mother and I would take trips up the lake on the old CPR sternwheeler, the Moyie. Our destination was always the remote community of Argenta, where my mother’s family lived. There were few roads back then and the Moyie would nudge its nose up on any beach where there was a fruit farm or other tiny settlement to take on or disembark everything from milk cows to people. The Moyie was a combination freight and first-class passenger steamship, 50 metres long, three decks high, stern-driven and flat-bottomed; the kind very common on many of the large lakes and rivers of B.C. from the 1890s until the 1950s (the Moyie plied Kootenay Lake from 1898 to 1957). Kootenay Lake was and is known for vicious storms that can kick up without any notice, and flat bottom sternwheelers were noted for not weathering them so smoothly. On one of our trips up the lake the wind whipped up, the Moyie acted up, and I threw up. I had just drunk a bottle of my favorite Stubby Orange pop. From then on I was terrified of the old Moyie, and Stubby Orange made me sick to my stomach.
In Kaslo, we lived on the ridge not far above the rail yard that was associated with the CPR barge system on the lake. One day when I was about four years old, my mom took me to the edge of the bank to gaze down on the steam locomotive switching a few freight cars below. She was no doubt thinking, ‘Every little boy loves trains.’ About the time we looked, the engine loudly belched steam, the whistle shrieked and I freaked. From then on I was absolutely terrified of trains, right up until the time the CPR had the good sense to change to diesel electric engines.
When I was six years old, my parents’ marriage fell apart and I went to live with my Dad in southeastern B.C. We took the bus from Kaslo to Castelgar to catch the plane, a little DC3 that flew from Castelgar to Cranbrook in those days. Dad was a big boxing fan and for some reason Premo Carnera, who had been the heavyweight boxing champion for a tad less than a year back in the 1930s, was on the plane. There was nothing for it but that Dad had to go and get “The Champ” to come to the back of the little plane to meet me. I was cowering in the back seat of the little plane and, though he was pushing 50 by then, “the Ambling Alp’s” near-seven foot, 300-pound body coming at me all crouched over and filling the whole plane made a big impression. When he took my head and literally wrapped his massive hand around it and gave it a shake saying, “He’s a nica leetle fella,” I wet my pants. From then on I was terrified of planes.
Planes and boats and trains, just a few of my childhood phobias. Add to that list sirens, bees, heights, inoculations, loud noises of any kind — and the list went on and on — to put it mildly, childhood for me was often pretty uncomfortable. Fear is a powerful driver. As I blossomed into my teenage years my worst fears became illness and death. They terrified me.
About the time I turned 29, most of my fears were realized. I was diagnosed with a very serious cancer, was given a very bleak prognosis, and then had to go through all the medical procedures, which included lots and lots of needles, vomiting and a general ravaging of my body that only a whole year of chemotherapy could inflict. This was followed by two 30-day courses of radiation treatment that left me looking and feeling like an atomic bomb victim. Miraculously I beat the cancer and my fears.
At this point it’s tempting to say something about beating fear by facing fear, and I suppose there was an element of that in my experience. But the biggest element was a Scottish preacher and the scriptures. Hamish would come to visit me at least a couple of times a week. He always had his Bible in tow. I would pour out my heart to him, he would read a verse or two of scripture and then we would pray. I was a new Christian, having come to it out of desperation as much as anything else, but the power in those times was shocking. I would glom on to the scripture verse that Hamish read like a lifeline, and it became a promise of God to me. I did not believe it to be true, it was the Truth for me. On one occasion, when I was to the point of being really immobilized with fear, Hamish held me and prayed the scripture, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7) This scripture was the truth that powerfully bracketed my life and prayers for weeks.
And so I learned to filter my life through scripture. I learned to hold all of my life up to the light of scripture. I learned to examine all of my life through the lens of scripture. I learned to ground all of my life upon scripture. At one point Jesus Christ said to his disciples, “If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31-32) For me, that’s exactly what it was like. As to life, and fear, and liberty, I can put it no more clearly.
