Tell His Story

Some of my earliest memories are from Mrs. Ginnan’s second grade class at South Corning Elementary School. I had a friend, a good friend, since first grade, Lance Ness, and we played together every chance we got when we weren’t learning to read and write. He has come to mind to me many times over the years, because after second grade I lost track of him for many years, and our connection, our friendship, is an example of God’s Faithfullness, mercy, love and greatness.

In the summer between second and third grades my family changed churches to the Caton Bible Chapel, and it was during a special service for youth that summer, where a “fire and brimstone” movie was shown, it may have been titled “Left Behind,” (I am not sure of the title, but that is what memory always populates when I try to remember), that I found myself fearful of being kept out of heaven, and after that movie I met with a jolly and loving soul, our pastor, the Rev. Fillmore Cobb, where he shared the love of Christ to me, and at that time both I and my brother accepted Christ as our saviour and Lord.

At the end of that summer my parents decided to take me and my siblings (the three of us), out of public schools and we attended Horseheads Christian School, and later, Twin Tiers Baptist High School. HCS and TTBHS were great places to learn and to grow, but a part of me always remembered my friend Lance, and that I never had a chance to tell him of what had happened to me that summer, so that he could experience that same joy and life that I now had. I didn’t think of him always, but at least once or twice a year I would remember him, and say a prayer for him, since I didn’t know anything else I could do, and my heart still wanted him to know the same love that I had found.

It took until after graduating from Houghton College, and coming back to work at The Corning (NY) Leader, that I finally saw Lance again. I was working on the community desk, and someone brought in an engagement announcement, and the name on it rang a bell. Over the years, while I had rememebered him, I never was certain of his last name, and sometimes was uncertain of his first name. But there it was in front of me. I called and asked if he had attended South Corning Elementary, and yes, he remembered me as I had remembered him.

Christ had found him during his teen years, he was studying to become a pastor, and through the years he had often thought of me as well.

This would seem to be the close of the chapter, or the story, a satisfying conclusion, and yet, there is more.

Both of us went on with our lives. I will let him tell his story where he wants, how he wants, but both our lives experienced great joys, rocky passages, expulsions and rejections, acceptances and warm welcomes.

Friendships have been a big part of my story. In high school I had several close friends – Glenn Payne, Bill Hill, Jim Barnes -that have lasted through the years. I remember singing at Jim’s wedding when he finally got married, having waited until he was 40 and found the right (short) girl for him. In college there was my roommate of three years, Matthew Schlaegel, and his future wife Ramona (Mead) Schlaegel, who though I have not kept up with like I should, still feel the bond of our being Matthew and Jonathan, not Matt and John. I can still hear him saying “t hew” whenever someone called him “Matt”.

But definitely, and not perhaps, the most significant friendship was that quiet, tongue-tied student in my Junior and Senior writing classes, Betsy Buss, now published author Elizabeth A. Lightfoot. It took me 2 years in college and 5 years after of friendship with her before I got by the fear of losing a friendship by suggesting to court her, followed by a proposal, which she took several days before her tongue untied enough to accept. And now, two children later, we are halfways through the 30th year of our married life.

Those years had a lot of fun and blessings in them. I worked 20 years for the investment bank and spent 13 of them doing OJT with the offshore expansion into India, and made a lot of friendships there with respect for me greater than I probably deserved, but which I repaid with mutual respect and encouragement. It was at the bank that I found my “catch-phrase” for life — “Let’s Pool Our Ignorance.”

Yet there were also headwinds, places the Lord taught me his Way is not our way of progress, and to stay close to the people.

I could say that the Covid Response (2020) was the start of those headwinds, but I saw them before that, during my last years at the bank. The bank, which had an admirable mission statement, seemed to be taking the short path to get there, which of course doesn’t get there at all, and my way of thinking proved unpopular. I used a rearguard action that led to my disgrace and and ultimate peaceful parting of the ways.

The next year saw the beginning of my dental troubles. An auto-immune issue I was being treated for affected my dental health, and my dentist’s receptionist took an irrational dislike for me that almost killed me before I got in for treatment. The dentist we went to after that turned out to be just as irrational, waiting 11 months after the covid lockdown to get me back in, though everyone else got in merely one month after the lockdown. By the time I got to my current dentist, my teeth were too far gone to do most anything but pull them, thus my current snaggletoothed look.

The next employer I had, the year before the Covid Response, had a similarly irrational person in HR who ultimately got me fired for things I didn’t do, the week before the Covid lockdown, though they paid my unemployment as a Covid casualty, so I didn’t make any waves.

My attempts to get employment since have been met with similar success/failure series, with firings for things that people did to me, etc. making it difficult for me to apply for positions or even fill out employment forms, because my current employment history is such a mess.

It was just after leaving the bank that we started giving rooms to various people to stay with us, in exchange for assisstance with our bills. We never intended for it to be so, but it turned out as a way for us to actually come in contact with the people in need, both of material help and of the gospel, and we ultimately failed in it helping us with our bills, though we did make some differences in people’s lives, but never as much as we hoped. Their practice of deceipt and deception – of themselves and others — proved too overwhelming, but at least a couple of them have since turned their lives around (And given us some of the credit, little as we may have deserved it).

I think that phase of our lives is past, though our Lord gave it to us for a reason, and we certainly don’t want to get to the attitude of one of our neighbors — our “good Christian neighbor” — who said once “They are broken, let them go.” That did not sound like the words of Christ to us.

We have rested in the words of Him who said “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” For many years I also rested in the support and assurance that family would never leave or forsake, but that has proven a broken reed. This has led to moments where I almost lost my confidence, until I remembered it wasn’t mine, but His confidence I was trusting in.

During the Covid Response was when I started getting a series of assaults on me, now numbering over 15, that turned people against me. My stories, my true stories, were unbelievable to people, and of course if they were true, then somehow I must be at fault, and ergo, I must have deserved the assaults on me.

There was the time I was assaulted, and when I asked someone from church to come over to succour me, when he arrived he instead told me to treat the fellow better, and when I left to file a police report (the police took a report from my assailant on the scene, but ignored me), this church fellow denied Betsy of her personal agency and blocked her ability to leave her own house under her free will to follow me. When I mentioned this to the church, the pastor ignored what was done to Betsy, and threatened to call the police on me.

During this same time period the musical group I had sung in for over 20 years, took the words of a professional counsellor that I was mentally insane, even though this was a breach of professional ethics and a total fabrication, since she had never been my counsellor, and kicked me out of the group by ignoring their bylaws and not allowing me to face my accuser in mediation.

Being beaten upon so many times had an affect on my responses to stimuli, and I became more quickly eruptive in defense. It took time for Betsy to come to understand this difference, and help me to deal with it, especially as her parents came to be set against me and to make jabs about me in conversations that had no need of it.

I have been hospitalized twice since 2020, and during both hospitalizations somebody I trusted used the time to rail at me for alleged past infractions, and used those alleged infractions to justify why they could treat me as they did, though I was not allowed to do so in kind.

The first time was the choral director I most respected for his personal character and musical skill, Geoff Wilcken. He justified what the professionall counsellor did to me, because of things (unnamed), that I had done to others, none of whom had come to me about them, as I had first come to the counsellor.

The second time was my own sister, who accused me of abusing her, my mother and brother. After my mother had asked us all to wait until I got out of the hospital before discussing those matters further.

Our finances had gotten really tight, until we were unable to make the payment for house insurance. We struggled for 2 years to make the payment, and were almost there, when an arsonist set fire to our house and put us homeless, as we are now.

During those two years we tried to ask everyone we could for help, explaining how at risk we were for what actually did happen. My brother denied me twice, and when he came with his family to visit me on my birthday this year, I planned the whole thing to greet him well, and to implore, even grovel to him to ask his assistance. He never gave me the chance. He wouldn’t even come into our house — which greatly incensed Betsy — and deflected every attempt of mine to make our case and dire need for help.

We didn’t ask Betsy’s folks for help. We wanted to, but after Betsy tried to talk to them about something else, coming to them in a calm, controlled manner, rather than listening to her, her own mother shut the door in her face, and has never apologized for it, which is a deep wound to Betsy’s heart.

My last employer, also Betsy’s last employer, was a Lutheran Church, and there our common supervisor shut a door in her face, and lied about the same when she took me to court seeking an ex parte against me.

So we have learned not to trust in church or family, though we always find another church that will help us where we are now. We just find it hard to relax, having developed a reflex reaction to expect the stiletto in the ribs.

We spent 30 years planning and saving for the future and retirement, only to have it snatched away from us by things well beyond our control. Which has taught us the truth that we are to pray for our “Daily Bread” which he has always provided, and after all — 30 years old bread would be rather stale, anyway.

Are we perfect? far from it! But is God faithful? Yes He is!

I have a new sense of personal confidence. This past week I was assaulted again, the first time I had to actually go to the hospital, but it was also the first time that, having been assaulted, I was not the one charged with making the assault and having to defend myself, but actually being seen as the victim. Perhaps some of the insanity is in abeyance and the truth of what I have seen and done will be believed for what it is… After all, miracles DO happen. And if it doesn’t at least He knows, and He makes, preserves and keeps us.