One day of sunshine in Deep Cove/Seymour is enough to make me forget all the other kinds of days. I was raised in the days before skin cancer totally changed our views of sunbathing. Suntan lotion in the 1960’s had little to do with the ozone layer and everything to do with looking more pleasantly roasted. I remember feeling guilty if I didn’t burn! One of my favorite places to catch the rays was on the Sunshine Coast in a little place called Roberts Creek.
My paternal grandparents had left Vancouver in 1959 to becoming a ‘pioneering family’ in a community that didn’t even having running water or electricity. Grandpa Vic Hird, who was a 60-year-old master mechanic and second-generation blacksmith, decided to tent out with his wife Olive while building their own house in the Roberts Creek woods. Each morning they trekked down to Flume Creek with the other pioneers to collect their daily water.
To help his parents build their house, my engineering father, accompanied by his young family, would take the Langdale Ferry many weekends to the Sunshine Coast. My strongest memory of the Sunshine Coast house-building spree was when I stepped on a long construction nail and had to be driven to my Grade One class for the first two months. My Grandfather worked so hard building his house and digging a well through ‘hardpan’ that he suffered a heart attack and promptly decided that he would be dying within a year. For the next 32 years of Grandpa’s life on the Sunshine Coast, we ‘knew’ that Grandpa would be dead within about a year. Surprisingly all the healthy people died before Grandpa Hird.
All throughout my childhood and teenage years, we made our regular Sunshine Coast pilgrimages to visit my grandparents. My grandpa loved the Sunshine Coast for the fishing, and often took us out in the early mornings to catch ‘a big one.’ While I found fishing rather boring, I loved strolling down to Henderson Beach to lay on the sand and swim out to the float. This summer had a surreal feeling as we took our three boys there to ‘re-enact’ my childhood. Dozens of rich memories came flooding back as I watched my boys run up and down the beach, climbing on the endless logs and looking for crabs under the barnacle-covered rocks. I find that there is still something indescribably peaceful about sticking one’s toes in the nice warm sand and counting the sailboats floating by.
When my grandparents both died, we lost the ‘magnet’ that drew our family to the Sunshine Coast again and again. In the past few years however, a number of our Deep Cove friends made the move to the Sunshine Coast, giving us the perfect excuse to resurrect our ‘family pilgrimage’. Our transplanted Deep Covers on the Sunshine Coast also tell me that once you have lived in Deep Cove, you never get it out of your blood. In some strange wonderful way, you never really leave Deep Cove.
Because Deep Cove was birthed originally as a vacation get-away only accessible by boat, Deep Cove still feels a lot like the laid-back Sunshine Coast to me. The miracle of Deep Cove is that being only ten minutes from one of the busiest Metropolises in Canada, Deep Cove still gives one the sense of being countless miles away from anywhere.
Many of us remember the Travel Industry jingle where they sang: ‘I need a vacation, I’ve got to get away!’. I recently learnt that the word vacation comes from the word ‘vacate’….to go away from so as to leave empty or unoccupied. All of us need times to be able to get away, to leave our worries and stresses behind. All of us need to be able to cut off our cells phones and leave our minds and hearts unoccupied with the unending busyness of business. Deep Cove’s laid-back ‘genetic code’ can help us vacate our worries and really ‘let go and let God.’
No matter how dedicated to our careers, all of us need holidays…all of us need times of recreation. When the rush and tumble of September arrives, how quickly our sunny holidays can seem like distant memories. Holidays (or holy days in the original meaning) are not a luxury or an option. They are at the heart of what it means to be re-created through recreation. As created beings of a wonderful Creator, all of us tend to wear out. All us literally need to be re-created on a regular basis. The actual dictionary meaning of going to a local Rec Centre is that we might be re-created, re-newed, re-freshed. My prayer for those reading this article online is that Jesus Christ our ‘Sun of Righteousness’, in whom we were created, will recreate us in body, mind and spirit.
The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin
-previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-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
-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
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
To have the 3508-hectare Mount Seymour Provincial Park right in our Greater Vancouver backyard is such a blessing. All of us, whether nature enthusiasts, hikers, skiers or mountaineers, would enjoy the serene forest cover of hemlock, Douglas fir and red cedar. My wife and I, along with our three sons, have enjoyed many pleasant hours hiking along the Mt Seymour trails, especially on the Baden Powell Trail that ends up down in Deep Cove. In the last number of years that we have been hiking on Mt Seymour, I have often wondered just whom Mt Seymour was named after.
After being given a fascinating book entitled ‘British Columbia Place Names’, I discovered that Mt Seymour is named after the first Governor of the united British Columbia colony, Frederick Seymour. Even though Frederick Seymour has been described as the forgotten governor, his namesake is found scattered all throughout our local community. Examples are Mt Seymour Lions, Mt Seymour Dry Cleaners, Mt Seymour Little League, Mt Seymour Soccer, Seymour Dental Centre, Seymour Animal Clinic, Seymour Golf & Country Club, Seymour Heights Elementary School, and the 11th & 13th Seymour Scouts, Cubs, and Beavers. Even SeyCove High School is a combined name involving Seymour, as well as Deep Cove.
The more I learned about the Seymour connection, the more curious I became about just who Frederick Seymour was and why so many things were named after him, including Seymour Creek, Seymour Arm, Seymour City, and Seymour Street in Vancouver. I discovered that Seymour was born in Belfast, Ireland on September 6, 1820 to a formerly wealthy family that had just lost its properties, position, and paycheck. Through a family friendship with Prince Albert, Seymour was appointed as assistant colonial secretary of Tasmania. Before being appointed as Governor of the mainland colony of British Columbia in 1864, Seymour also served in Antigua, Nevis, and finally as lieutenant governor of British Honduras for 16 years. The Duke of Newcastle chose Seymour for BC because he saw him as ‘a man of much ability and energy’. Seymour was thrilled at the ‘prospect of a change from the swamps of Honduras to a fine country’.
Frederick Seymour got along well with the citizens of the capital city of New Westminster. He upgraded their school, made personal gifts of books and magazines to their library, built a 200-seat ballroom, and encouraged the growth of cricket, tennis, & amateur theatre. He also ambitiously attempted to complete Sir James Douglas’ great highway to the interior of BC, but the financial costs of construction were staggering.
Seymour hosted 3,500 First Nations people at New Westminster for a weeklong celebration of Queen Victoria’s birthday. He also gained the support of a Chilcotin Chief in ending a violent inter-racial dispute at Bute Inlet. Seymour later reported that his ‘great object was to obtain moderation from the white men in the treatment of Indians.’
As the interior BC gold rush began to slump in 1865, Seymour went to England in a bid to cut costs by consolidating the two colonies of Vancouver Island and the Mainland. The British Government endorsed Seymour’s plan which resulted in the abolition of the Vancouver Island House of Assembly and the establishment of New Westminster as the sole capital of BC. Victoria was outraged that it ceased to be a capital and lobbied successfully to move the BC capital back to Victoria. Seymour grudgingly was forced to move from his beloved New Westminster to Victoria where he was deeply disliked by many locals. Despite such Islander animosity, Seymour was able to establish the BC public school system, improve the courts, draw up public health regulations, set standards for mining, and reduce the provincial debt.
During this period, some BCers petitioned that BC join up with the United States. Others began campaigning for BC to join Confederation, a move that Seymour opposed in numerous ways. Seymour initially ‘forgot’ to forward a number of pro-Confederation letters to the Colonial Secretary in London but, when he did, he included his own anti-Confederation messages. Seymour believed that Confederation was only wanted by a vocal minority of business people who were hoping that Confederation would solve BC’s economic woes. Prime Minister John A. Macdonald was outraged at Seymour’s opposition to Confederation, stating that Seymour should be recalled “as being perfectly unfit for his present position, under present circumstances. From all I hear, he was never fit for it.”
Seymour’s provincial recall campaign never had a chance to get off the ground, as Seymour was called up north to settle an inter-tribal war between the Nass and Tsimshian First Nations. Using the famous Anglican missionary William Duncan of Metlakatla as an interpreter, Seymour convinced the warring groups to sign a lasting peace treaty. On his way back, Seymour died in Bella Coola from one or more possible causes: dysentery, Panama Fever, and/or acute alcoholism. His convenient death paved the way for his opponents to sweep the memory of Seymour and his anti-Confederation feelings under the carpet. It is amazing to realize that when BC entered Confederation in 1871, BC had fewer than 40,000 people, of which almost 30,000 were First Nations people. Confederation for better or worse was the ‘watershed experience’ that defined our province. Seymour was an embarrassment to John A. Macdonald and friends. So Seymour the anti-Confederationist became the Forgotten Governor.
In the same way that Seymour was a forgotten governor in the civil realm, God is so often a forgotten governor in the spiritual realm. It is time that we re-establish Jesus Christ in his rightful spiritual place as governor of our land. My prayer is that God may keep our land glorious and free and that God the forgotten governor may have dominion from sea to sea.
-previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-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
-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
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
As told in the delightful movie “Mrs. Brown”, Queen Victoria had a great love for the Scottish Balmoral Castle. The Queen actually preferred Scotland to England. As a result, everything Scottish suddenly became fashionable. Tartans, reels, bagpipes and sporrans were considered cultured and refined where before they had been hidden away when friends from the South arrived.
Queen Victoria also had a preference for Scottish doctors, in particular Sir James Simpson of Edinburgh. Her appointment of James Simpson as one of her Majesty’s Physicians was symptomatic of Victoria’s innovative leadership style. Despite the prejudice many have today to all things ‘Victorian’, Queen Victoria helped open the doors for her people to modern science and medicine. Even as a child, she led the way as the first member of the Royal Family to be vaccinated for smallpox. Later as Victoria was to give birth to her fifth child, she turned to Sir James Simpson, the father of modern anesthetics, for help.
Until Queen Victoria’s bold move, there was a great controversy about the morality of whether women should use anesthetics in childbirth. Her leadership broke people free from superstition and fear. Her use of an anaesthetic was so controversial that the official Royal Press ‘The Lancet’ actually denied that she had accepted chloroform, but the lay press rushed to spread the news.
Dr. Petrie in Liverpool considered anesthesia a breach of medical ethics. It was the act of a coward, he wrote, to avoid pain, and if a woman insisted on the use of chloroform to alleviate her labour pains, she must be told that she was in no fit state to make decisions. ‘Are we going to allow the patient to tell us what to do?’ he enquired indignantly.
Sir James Simpson used careful statistics to overcome enormous prejudice among these medical colleagues. Many of Simpson’s fellow doctors feared that chloroform would increase the already high death rate following operation, increase the incidence of bleeding, paralysis, & pneumonia, and bring on ‘mania’ in the mother.
There were also clergymen who argued that anesthetics was somehow against the Bible. Simpson humorously responded that on the occasion of the first recorded operation –the removal of a rib – the Lord had caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, proof of his approval of anesthesia! In defending anesthesia against clerical criticism, Simpson noted that some churchmen also first spoke against optical glasses, spectacles and the telescope as ‘offsprings of man’s wicked mind’, because they changed the natural appearance of things and presented them in an untrue light. Simpson was so convinced of the rightness of anesthetics that he even called his study ‘St. Anesthesia’.
In the midst of this raging battle with the medical and ecclesiastical establishments, along came Queen Victoria who settled the controversy in one decisive act. Throughout the British Empire, her loyal subjects agreed that the sensible Queen would have never taken chloroform from Dr. Simpson if it was really dangerous or against the will of the Lord. The gift of anesthetic was Queen Victoria’s present to millions of grateful mothers around the world.
The mothers of the mid-nineteenth century were looking for a doctor who would consider them seriously as people, and not as baggage. James Simpson was a man of great compassion who could not bear to see women in pain. As a young intern, Simpson ran out in horror during a cancer operation and almost switched to studying law. ‘Can nothing be done’; he pleaded, ‘to make operations less painful?’ James Simpson was a man who respected women of all classes and considered it their due to receive the best medical attention that there was to offer. Simpson didn’t just treat the Queen as an individual; he treated all women as ‘queens’. Simpson, as a man of deep faith, knew that in Christ there was neither slave nor free, male nor female, for all are one and equally valued in the Lord (Galatians 3:28).
In 1870 a contemporary of Simpson wrote, “Simpson adopted obstetrics when it was the lowest and most ignoble of our medical arts: he has left it a science numbering amongst its professors many of the most distinguished of our modern physicians.’ The average physician of the early Victorian age was armed with a jar of sticky black leeches and an obsession for putting them to work. With the discovery of chloroform, Simpson held that ‘a new light had burst upon Surgery, and a large boon conferred on mankind.’
Simpson was a natural inventor who was always eager to experiment in new directions –the fight against puerperal fever, the invention of new types of forceps, the combating of cholera, and the invention of the vacuum suction extractor to help with childbirth problems. And he invented the uterine sound instrument by accident by dropping a straight tool on the ground and bending it!
For Simpson, faith was as natural as breathing. Family prayers were at 8:15am in the dining room. Everyone had their own Bible in their hand, and the family sat around the mahogany table. Simpson always read the Lesson, but enjoyed the children leading the prayers. After the tragic death of his fifteen-year old son Jamie, Simpson had a profound encounter with Jesus Christ. ‘I am the oldest sinner and the youngest believer in this room’ he said to a gathering of enthusiastic medical missionary students. Despite his fame for discovering chloroform, Simpson said to all: “My greatest discovery is Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour”.
For his service to Queen Victoria, Simpson became the first Scottish doctor to knighted as a baronet. In his memoirs Lord Playfair, Professor of Chemistry, called Simpson ‘…the greatest physician of his time’. A doctor in the Indian Army said in the Bombay Courier of 22 January 1848 that “the most outstanding character that he had come across in his tour of the medical centres of Europe was ‘little Simpson of Edinburgh’ who had the four ideals for the perfect physician: the brain of an Apollo, the eye of an eagle, the heart of a lion, and the hand of a lady –nothing baffles his intellect, nothing escapes his penetrating glance…” Despite all the rejection Simpson experienced, he was eventually elected President of the Edinburgh Royal College of Physicians, as a Foreign Associate of the Academy of Medicine of Paris, and given the Swedish Royal Order of St. Olaf.
The Scottish people loved him deeply. When Simpson was dying in extreme pain, he commented: ‘When I think, it is of the words ‘Jesus only’ and really that is all that is needed, is it not?’ To honour this Christ-like man, 80,000 Scots watched his funeral procession in Edinburgh.
My prayer is that each of us may treat the mothers in our lives, as Sir James Simpson treated all women, with respect and dignity.
-Previously published in the North Shore News/Deep Cove Crier
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-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
-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
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
Raymond William Stacy Burr was born on May 21, 1917 in New Westminster, BC. Raymond started in theatre in his late teens, as well as having other jobs to help the family and earn a living for himself. Joining the Armed Services during 1943, he was injured by shrapnel and discharged in 1946. After his movie role in the 1948 film “Pitfall”, Raymond became stereotyped as a portrayer of vicious vindictive “villains”. He went on to work in over 90 flicks in the next 11 years before landing the part of Perry Mason.
The original Perry Mason TV series first aired on CBS on September 21, 1957. The series was based on the famous “Perry Mason” books written by Erle Stanley Gardner. Raymond Burr played the remarkable attorney Perry Mason who never, except sort of once, lost a case. Running from September 1957 until May 1966, the series had 271 episodes, all but one filmed in black and white. Perry Mason is being seen in endless reruns all around the world, and is promoted by numerous Internet pages dedicated to Perry Mason.
As I thought about the enormous, lasting appeal of Perry Mason over the years, I realized that Perry Mason taps into that desire we all have for a father who is really willing to stick up for us. All of us need a father who will use his strength to protect and provide for his family. Some men are more known for their attacking and crushing, rather than for their protecting and providing. I am thankful for my father who defended me when I was being unfairly attacked, who believed in me when others turned their backs on me. Thank you, Dad, for being a Perry Mason to me.
The Perry Mason courtroom drama always had a set pattern to it. In the first half hour, a murder was committed and the police arrested the wrong person. One way or another, Perry was recruited for the defense. A trial or hearing followed. The police and prosecuting attorney were frequently baffled by Perry’s fancy footwork and almost illegal shenanigans. Perry always won the case, dragging a confession from the murderer, usually in court. His clients always went free. And of course, there was always the famous ending scenes, often ending with some sort of bad joke or humour.
What is it about the Perry Mason courtroom drama that still draws people year after year? All of us want to believe that life is fair and good. Yet very often tragedy and injustice crush our hopes for our future. Perry Mason represents an outside force that cares and has the power to really change our lives. In the midst of horrendous tragedy and injustice, Job cried out in the words made famous by Handel’s Messiah: “I know that my Redeemer Liveth”. Having finished two years of studying Hebrew, I discovered that the word Redeemer(go’el) in the Hebrew actually means “Defense Attorney”. Job was really saying: “I know that my Perry Mason, my Defense Attorney, lives…I know that he will have the final word in court and set me free. I know that he will baffle the prosecuting attorney. I know that Perry Mason will have me vindicated, and proven innocent.”
When Handel’s Messiah sings out the words: “I know that my Redeemer Liveth”, the redeemer being sung of is of course Jesus Christ. Most of us have never linked Perry Mason and Jesus Christ in our minds. But in fact, that is what Job is really saying: “I know that my defense attorney, my ‘Perry Mason’, liveth”. Is it any co-incidence that Jesus is described as a defense attorney, an advocate who will speak in our defense in court (1 John 2:1)? My prayer is that each of us may discover that we are not alone, that there really is someone out there willing to stick up for us.
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
-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
-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
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
One of the most significant books that I have read is Pain: the Gift Nobody Wants by Dr. Paul Brand & Philip Yancey. Dr. Paul Brand was a world-famous leprosy surgeon who has spent most of his life caring for the forsaken lepers in India. He performed countless medical miracles, enabling people with leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) to live healthy and productive lives.
Dr. Brand’s book was endorsed by Dr. C. Everett Koop, a former Surgeon General of the United States, who bestowed on Dr. Brand the Surgeon General’s Medallion. Dr. Koop said that when he wonders who he would like to have been if he had not been born C. Everett Koop, the person who comes to mind most frequently is Paul Brand.
One of Dr. Brand’s greatest breakthroughs was the discovery that people with leprosy do not have ‘bad flesh’ that just rots away by itself. In fact, their flesh is just as healthy as yours or mine. They are usually not even contagious. What they lack is the ability to feel pain. As the blood flow is cut off from key parts of their body, their nerve endings die. With the death of their nerve endings comes the death of their ability to sense danger to their bodies. Leprous people live a virtually pain-free existence. Many of us would do anything to live a pain-free life. Yet in fact, the absence of pain is the greatest enemy of the leper. Again and again they wound and impale themselves. Yet they don’t feel a thing.
Dr. Brand spoke movingly about little Tanya, a four-year-old patient with dark, flashing eyes, curly hair, and an impish smile. She seemed fine as an infant. Then when she was a year and a half, her mother came into her room. She noticed her daughter finger-painting red pictures on the floor of her playpen. Suddenly her mother realized that her daughter had bitten off the tip of her finger and was drawing with her own blood. Because of her leprosy, Tanya felt no pain even when she damaged herself. I wonder how many of us as parents have ever thanked God that our own children can feel pain?
We in the west live in a culture that has a remarkable ability to shut down pain in our lives. People in North America consume over thirty thousand tons of aspirin a year. North Americans, who only represent 5 percent of the world’s population, consume over 50% of all manufactured drugs, one-third of which work on the central nervous system. We are the most advanced society in the world in terms of suppressing pain. Yet the more we try to shut down pain, the more pain strikes back.
When we refuse to listen to the pain in our bodies, we invariably begin to destroy ourselves. Just think of the number of famous football, basketball, and hockey stars who have damaged themselves for life by going out on the field, still injured, with the help of painkiller injections. If leprosy is the inability to feel pain, then alcohol and drug addiction, which deaden our pain, are forms of modern day leprosy. The greatest damage that pain-dead alcoholics and drug addicts do is the damage they do to their spouses and children. That is why I am so grateful for the gift of AA and related 12-Step groups. I wonder how many of us as parents have thanked God for the ability to feel our family’s pain?
As you are reading this article, you have probably blinked your eyes hundreds of times. Have you ever wondered why we blink? Dr. Brand discovered that leprous people go blind, because they don’t blink. Blinking functions like our car’s windshield wipers, washing away the impurities. It is pain that causes us to blink.
Try not blinking for the next 60 seconds, if you need proof of this. Because leprous people feel no pain, they don’t blink. The absence of pain actually makes them go blind. Dr. Brand solved their blinking problem surgically by attaching the chewing muscle to their eyelid. Every time they chew gum, their eyelid blinks. As we lovingly look at the faces of our children, how many of us as parents have ever thanked God for the ability to feel pain in our eyes?
One of the greatest mysteries that Dr. Brand faced was why leprous people kept losing their fingers and toes overnight. He knew that they didn’t just shrivel up and fall off. but no one could ever find what happened to the lost fingers and toes. Finally Dr. Brand decided to have people stay awake all night watching the leprosy patients sleep. To their surprise, they discovered that rats were coming in and nibbling off their fingers. Because the patients felt no pain, they never woke up and brushed away the rats.
To save their extremities, leprosy patients are now required to take cats with them, wherever they plan to sleep. I encourage you as you are reading this article to look down at your 10 fingers. How many of us as parents have ever thanked God for our hands that reach out to touch our children, and for the gift of pain that keeps them healthy?
Over 2,000 years ago, a Jewish peasant loved us so much that he allowed people to drive spikes into his hands. I thank God that Jesus chose to bear our pain that he might give us the gift of life.
-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier/North Shore News
P. S. Click this Amazon link to view for free the first two chapters of our new novel Blue Sky.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident…”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
Sandy receives shocking news that her children aren’t safe, which brings back haunting memories of the trauma she experienced as a girl. Then, the unthinkable happens…
A brutal attack puts Sandy on the brink of losing everything she’s loved. Her faith in God and the family she cherishes are pushed to the ultimate limit.
Is healing possible when so many loved ones are hurt? Are miracles really possible through the power of prayer? Can life return to the way it was before?
Blue Sky reveals how a mother’s most basic instinct isn’t for survival… but for family.
If you’re a fan of Karen Kingsbury, then you’ll love Blue Sky. Get your copy today on paperback or kindle.
-The sequel book Restoring Health: body, mind and spirit is available online with Amazon.com in both paperback and ebook form. Dr. JI Packer wrote the foreword, saying “I heartily commend what he has written.” The book focuses on strengthening a new generation of healthy leaders. Drawing on examples from Titus’ healthy leadership in the pirate island of Crete, it shows how we can embrace a holistically healthy life.
To receive a signed copy within North America, just etransfer at ed_hird@telus.net, giving your address. Cheques are also acceptable.
-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
-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
To purchase any of our six books in paperback or ebook on Amazon, just click on this link.
To help his parents build their house, my engineering father, accompanied by his young family, would take the Langdale Ferry many weekends to the Sunshine Coast. My strongest memory of the Sunshine Coast house-building spree was when I stepped on a long construction nail and had to be driven to my Grade One class for the first two months. My Grandfather worked so hard building his house and digging a well through ‘hardpan’ that he suffered a heart attack and promptly decided that he would be dying within a year. For the next 32 years of Grandpa’s life on the Sunshine Coast, we ‘knew’ that Grandpa would be dead within about a year. Surprisingly all the healthy people died before Grandpa Hird.
‘magnet’ that drew our family to the Sunshine Coast again and again. In the past few years however, a number of our Deep Cove friends made the move to the Sunshine Coast, giving us the perfect excuse to resurrect our ‘family pilgrimage’. Our transplanted Deep Covers on the Sunshine Coast also tell me that once you have lived in Deep Cove, you never get it out of your blood. In some strange wonderful way, you never really leave Deep Cove.
No matter how dedicated to our careers, all of us need holidays…all of us need times of recreation. When the rush and tumble of September arrives, how quickly our sunny holidays can seem like distant memories. Holidays (or holy days in the original meaning) are not a luxury or an option. They are at the heart of what it means to be re-created through recreation. As created beings of a wonderful Creator, all of us tend to wear out. All us literally need to be re-created on a regular basis. The actual dictionary meaning of going to a local Rec Centre is that we might be re-created, re-newed, re-freshed. My prayer for those reading this article online is that Jesus Christ our ‘Sun of Righteousness’, in whom we were created, will recreate us in body, mind and spirit.
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
eymour Street in Vancouver. I discovered that Seymour was born in Belfast, Ireland on September 6, 1820 to a formerly wealthy family that had just lost its properties, position, and paycheck. Through a family friendship with Prince Albert, Seymour was appointed as assistant colonial secretary of Tasmania. Before being appointed as Governor of the mainland colony of British Columbia in 1864, Seymour also served in Antigua, Nevis, and finally as lieutenant governor of British Honduras for 16 years. The Duke of Newcastle chose Seymour for BC because he saw him as ‘a man of much ability and energy’. Seymour was thrilled at the ‘prospect of a change from the swamps of Honduras to a fine country’.
As I thought about the enormous, lasting appeal of Perry Mason over the years, I realized that Perry Mason taps into that desire we all have for a father who is really willing to stick up for us. All of us need a father who will use his strength to protect and provide for his family. Some men are more known for their attacking and crushing, rather than for their protecting and providing. I am thankful for my father who defended me when I was being unfairly attacked, who believed in me when others turned their backs on me. Thank you, Dad, for being a Perry Mason to me.
All of us want to believe that life is fair and good. Yet very often tragedy and injustice crush our hopes for our future. Perry Mason represents an outside force that cares and has the power to really change our lives. In the midst of horrendous tragedy and injustice, Job cried out in the words made famous by Handel’s Messiah: “I know that my Redeemer Liveth”. Having finished two years of studying Hebrew, I discovered that the word Redeemer(go’el) in the Hebrew actually means “Defense Attorney”. Job was really saying: “I know that my Perry Mason, my Defense Attorney, lives…I know that he will have the final word in court and set me free. I know that he will baffle the prosecuting attorney. I know that Perry Mason will have me vindicated, and proven innocent.”
Sandy Brown and her family have just moved to Spokane, Washington where her husband, Scott, is pastoring a new church. With a fresh start, Sandy is determined to devote more time to her four children. But, within weeks of settling in their new life, the Brown family is plunged into turmoil.
One of Dr. Brand’s greatest breakthroughs was the discovery that people with leprosy do not have ‘bad flesh’ that just rots away by itself. In fact, their flesh is just as healthy as yours or mine. They are usually not even contagious. What they lack is the ability to feel pain. As the blood flow is cut off from key parts of their body, their nerve endings die. With the death of their nerve endings comes the death of their ability to sense danger to their bodies. Leprous people live a virtually pain-free existence. Many of us would do anything to live a pain-free life. Yet in fact, the absence of pain is the greatest enemy of the leper. Again and again they wound and impale themselves. Yet they don’t feel a thing.
remarkable ability to shut down pain in our lives. People in North America consume over thirty thousand tons of aspirin a year. North Americans, who only represent 5 percent of the world’s population, consume over 50% of all manufactured drugs, one-third of which work on the central nervous system. We are the most advanced society in the world in terms of suppressing pain. Yet the more we try to shut down pain, the more pain strikes back.
As you are reading this article, you have probably blinked your eyes hundreds of times. Have you ever wondered why we blink? Dr. Brand discovered that leprous people go blind, because they don’t blink. Blinking functions like our car’s windshield wipers, washing away the impurities. It is pain that causes us to blink.
now required to take cats with them, wherever they plan to sleep. I encourage you as you are reading this article to look down at your 10 fingers. How many of us as parents have ever thanked God for our hands that reach out to touch our children, and for the gift of pain that keeps them healthy?
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