My family and I watched ‘Tagged’, a Canadian movie on CTV about Jonathan Wamback, a 16 year old boy who was mercilessly bullied, beaten and left for dead. Repeatedly kicked in the head with steel-toe boots, Jonathan’s skull was shattered, and he almost died three times on the way to surgery. After spending his 16th summer in a coma, he miraculously gradually recovered. When Jonathan was well enough, he had this overwhelming desire to go back to the very high school where he had been so badly bullied and rejected. This gripping movie ends with Jonathan courageously walking back into school like a wounded bird that would not go away. Nothing could separate Jonathan from his school.
Watching the re-enactment of Jonathan being kicked in the head brought back vivid memories of myself being kicked in the head at the same age while surrounded by a frenzied gang. Fortunately for me, I was able to jump on my 10-speed Pugeot and escape before it was too late. But my ears ached and rang for days after that. Ashamed, separated, and slimed by that bullying, I never told my parents until years later.
Years later I now realize that I had nothing to be ashamed of, and in fact could just as easily have ended up in hospital like Jonathan Wamback. Bullying kills. Bullying shames. Bullying steals life and joy from others.
I thank God for Jonathan Wamback who would not let bullies separate him from his school and his friends. Bullying can so easily fill us with fear and bitterness. It can so easily separate us from the most important things in our life.
Until I could forgive my attacker, I was actually in bondage to him spiritually and emotionally. Once I could begin to forgive him, I began to be free. I learnt that unforgiveness and bitterness is like a wall that separates people from our life. My desire for revenge created a spiritual apartheid that left me cut off and shut down. When I met Jesus Christ in Grade 12, I experienced such forgiveness and joy that my family initially worried about me. Later they came to see that this new inner peace was more than one more passing fad. The wall of emotional apartheid, created by bullying, was gone.
This amazing inner peace has taught me that nothing can separate me from those I love. Nothing can separate me from those who care for me. Nothing can separate me from the things that really matter in life. Nothing can separate me from my faith and deepest values. I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38). No bully, no bitterness, no bigotry can rob me of love, can rob me of faith, can rob me of forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
My prayer for those reading this article is that nothing will separate us from the amazing love of God found in Jesus Christ.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier/North Shore News
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. In Canada, Amazon.ca has the book available in paperback and ebook.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just send a $20 cheque (USD/CAN) to ED HIRD, 102-15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, Canada V4A 0A5
– In order to obtain a signed copy of the prequel book Battle for the Soul of Canada, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #102-15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, Canada V4A 0A5. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $4.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
My family and I watched an Academy Award-winning movie which reminded me that every one of us owes an enormous debt to Dr. Louis Pasteur.
Just think of pasteurized milk and honey, making food safe for our families to eat and drink, thanks to Louis Pasteur.
Think of our children whose lives are safe from rabies transmitted by ‘mad dogs’, thanks to Louis Pasteur. Think of our wives and mothers who need not fear death from infection during childbirth, thanks to Louis Pasteur. Think of the sheep, cattle and chickens that we can safely rely on for our food supply, thanks to Louis Pasteur. No wonder that Pasteur’s name is better known than any other scientist who has ever lived.
Louis Pasteur is a living reminder that anyone who wants to make a difference in life is bound to face bigotry and opposition. The most narrow-minded usually turn out to be those who pretend to be the most open-minded and inclusive. Pasteur was maligned as a murderer and a menace to science. He was even challenged to a duel by an angry physician.
His ‘criminal’ behaviour was none other than publishing a pamphlet urging doctors to wash their hands before surgery and to sterilize their instruments. Thirty percent of pregnant women in Paris were needlessly dying from infection during childbirth. One grief-struck husband, whose wife had just died from childbirth fever, went on a rampage and shot his doctor dead. Medical doctors rallied against Dr. Pasteur, blaming his pamphlet for the murder and claiming that Pasteur was making the practice of medicine unsafe for physicians and surgeons. “Who did Pasteur think that he was?” They said. “He isn’t even a medical doctor…just a lowly chemist”.
The Emperor’s wife invited Pasteur to the French Court to explain his radical ideas. Pasteur had the nerve to tell the Emperor that the hospitals of Paris were death houses, and that there was hardly a doctor who didn’t carry death on his hands. After accurately predicting the death of the Emperor’s sister-in-law from childbirth infection, Pasteur was condemned as a fraud and banned by the Emperor from ever speaking out publicly again about medicine.
Having been banished into obscurity in the countryside of Arbois, Pasteur spent the next decade researching the causes of anthrax, the black plague ravaging the sheep across France. Miraculously Pasteur invented an anthrax vaccine, which he gave freely to all farmers’ sheep in Arbois.
When the French government needed more sheep to pay the 5 million francs War indemnity to Germany, they came to Arbois to find out why Pasteur’s sheep were healthy. Telling them of his vaccine, Pasteur was again mocked as a fool and charlatan by the Academy of Medicine. Only after a rigorous test where infected Anthrax Blood was injected in 50 sheep, was Pasteur finally vindicated. To everyone’s amazement, the only sheep that survived were the 25 sheep which Pasteur had injected with his vaccine.
Was Pasteur then accepted by the medical establishment? Not on your life! When Pasteur had the nerve to look for a rabies cure, again he was vilified and humiliated without mercy. Pasteur was such a servant of all humanity that he even risked facing prison or guillotine to save the life of a rabies-infected ten-year old boy, Joseph Meister. Joseph Meister was later made the caretaker of Pasteur’s tomb at the world-famous Pasteur Institute in Paris. When the Nazis tried to force him to open Pasteur’s tomb in 1940, Joseph tragically committed suicide rather than defile the grave of his hero.
The ‘great physician’ Jesus once said that if anyone wants to be first, he must become the very last, and the servant of all. Louis Pasteur was indeed the servant of all, who sacrificed his time, energy, and health so that others might live. Pasteur selflessly taught that the benefits of science are not for the scientist, but for all of humanity.
Though he has saved millions of lives through his discoveries, Pasteur was unable to save the three out of his four daughters who died from typhoid fever. In his unceasing striving to cure rabies, he suffered a crippling stroke at age 46. Yet even that setback did not stop him from successfully finding a rabies cure.
Near the end of his life, Pasteur was finally honoured by the French Academy of Medicine. He graciously said to them: ‘Doctors and scientists of the future, do not let yourselves be tainted by a barren skepticism nor discouraged by sadness of certain hours that creep over every nation. Do not become angry at your opponents for no scientific theory has ever been accepted without opposition.’
In so many ways, Pasteur embodied the true meaning of Christ-likeness. My prayer for those reading this article is that we may never let opposition embitter us as we seek to be the servants of all.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. In Canada, Amazon.ca has the book available in paperback and ebook.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just send a $20 cheque (USD/CAN) to ED HIRD, 102-15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, Canada V4A 0A5.
– In order to obtain a signed copy of the prequel book Battle for the Soul of Canada, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #102-15168 19th Avenue, Surrey, BC, Canada V4A 0A5. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $4.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to purchase the Companion Bible Study by Jan Cox (for the Battle of the Soul of Canada) in both paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
movie on CTV about Jonathan Wamback, a 16 year old boy who was mercilessly bullied, beaten and left for dead. Repeatedly kicked in the head with steel-toe boots, Jonathan’s skull was shattered, and he almost died three times on the way to surgery. After spending his 16th summer in a coma, he miraculously gradually recovered. When Jonathan was well enough, he had this overwhelming desire to go back to the very high school where he had been so badly bullied and rejected. This gripping movie ends with Jonathan courageously walking back into school like a wounded bird that would not go away. Nothing could separate Jonathan from his school.
Years later I now realize that I had nothing to be ashamed of, and in fact could just as easily have ended up in hospital like Jonathan Wamback. Bullying kills. Bullying shames. Bullying steals life and joy from others.
present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38). No bully, no bitterness, no bigotry can rob me of love, can rob me of faith, can rob me of forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
-Click to check out our newest marriage book For Better For Worse: discovering the keys to a lasting relationship on Amazon. You can even read the first two chapters for free to see if the book speaks to you.
and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. In Canada, Amazon.ca has the book available in paperback and ebook.
His ‘criminal’ behaviour was none other than publishing a pamphlet urging doctors to wash their hands before surgery and to sterilize their instruments. Thirty percent of pregnant women in Paris were needlessly dying from infection during childbirth. One grief-struck husband, whose wife had just died from childbirth fever, went on a rampage and shot his doctor dead. Medical doctors rallied against Dr. Pasteur, blaming his pamphlet for the murder and claiming that Pasteur was making the practice of medicine unsafe for physicians and surgeons. “Who did Pasteur think that he was?” They said. “He isn’t even a medical doctor…just a lowly chemist”.
countryside of Arbois, Pasteur spent the next decade researching the causes of anthrax, the black plague ravaging the sheep across France. Miraculously Pasteur invented an anthrax vaccine, which he gave freely to all farmers’ sheep in Arbois.
The ‘great physician’ Jesus once said that if anyone wants to be first, he must become the very last, and the servant of all. Louis Pasteur was indeed the servant of all, who sacrificed his time, energy, and health so that others might live. Pasteur selflessly taught that the benefits of science are not for the scientist, but for all of humanity.
let yourselves be tainted by a barren skepticism nor discouraged by sadness of certain hours that creep over every nation. Do not become angry at your opponents for no scientific theory has ever been accepted without opposition.’