Wednesday August 4, 2004
A second chance
(If television shows can coast through the summer on re-runs, so can columnists, occasionally. This column first ran on July 14, 1999.)
I was 14 – shy, small, very unsure of myself – the summer I went to Camp Byng, the Scout camp on BC\’s Sunshine Coast.
Camp life did not, initially, build confidence. We were arbitrarily assigned to patrols, a group of strangers living together in close quarters, in tents.
Teenaged boys can torment each other unmercifully. In the dining hall, my patrol leader poured most of the contents of a pepper shaker into his palm. He raised it to his nose, and sniffed deeply. Nothing happened. “Will power,” he bragged. “Try it.”
I wanted respect. I wanted to belong. I shook pepper into my palm, and raised it – carefully – towards my nose.
“Don\’t be a wimp,” he said scornfully. “Take a deep breath!”
I did. At the same moment, he bumped my hand upwards. I got a snoot-full. My sinuses exploded. My eyes streamed. In agony, I raced out of the dining hall to the water pump outside. I even inhaled water, trying to flush my nasal passages.
The camp supervisor penalized me for leaving the meal without permission.
From humiliation to success
Later that day, I took the test for my “Axeman” badge. Back home in Vancouver, my family lived next to ten acres of scrub alder. I learned how to handle a hatchet fairly skillfully. But when I took the test, I failed miserably. “Sorry, son,” the examiner said.
It was not turning out to be a good summer.
The next day, though, the same leader took us across the highway into the deep forest for some instruction. He found a standing dead tree, and had various scouts take turns felling it. By the time I got a turn, the trunk looked as if it had been attacked by a demented beaver. But the axe felt good in my hands. The chips came out straight and true. The cut deepened.
I heard someone complain, “Isn\’t it my turn yet?” The instructor gestured for silence and let me continue. After a while, the tree came crashing down.
“Aren\’t you the lad I failed yesterday?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“You just passed,” he said.
He awarded the badge at campfire, that night.
Keeping an open mind
For the first time, I got some respect. Another leader noticed that I knew semaphore fairly well, and made me a trainer of other boys. Another found I could read maps and follow a compass, and put me in charge of a small group learning orienteering.
By the time camp ended, I held my head higher than I had ever before.
I\’m still grateful to that scout leader. He could have assumed that he already knew my skill – or lack of it. But he kept an open mind. He gave me a second chance.
In theological terms, he forgave me. That\’s what forgiveness means – giving someone another chance, without pre-judging the results.
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Copyright © 2002 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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