
ARRIVING at the top of the cliff to catch the bus into town I was glad to see another person waiting which suggested that the bus hadn’t gone. “Are you waiting for the bus?” I had asked the middle-aged lady who had short blond hair and was wearing sunglasses.
“Yes,” she had replied, “it seems to be late I’ve been waiting ten minutes.”
So we waited together and chatted about the weather and living on the cliff. “We would stay here more often,” she said, “but we have a young one to look after now.”
The young one turned out to be a five and half year old girl, her granddaughter. “We take care of her because her dad is dead and her mum is in rehab. Because she’s at school we need to live in town”. She described how very challenging it was to bring up a young child again and that she and her husband had joined a support group call ‘Parents Second Time’. When they heard the problems other second time parents were having theirs seemed very slight. “At least Elaine is bright and learns quickly, some have taken on parenting mentally handicapped children.”
“What did you mean by rehab?” I asked.
“Addiction,” she had answered. “Anna, our daughter is a drug addict and she is on rehab at a community farm. Why is it that some become addicts and others don’t ?” Not expecting a reply she continued, “They all act the same in the beginning. I use to work in the College Library and every Monday morning it was always the same, so predictable and boring, the students would come in and their only topic of conversation was about how ‘wrecked’ they had been over the weekend! Anna had had such a promising career, she had even won a medal for excellence in Speech and Drama. Before that there was Grammar School and a good school for Girls but she got into a bad relationship. The child’s a miracle. When Anna was pregnant she used to inject the father’s insulin into her stomach to try and get rid of the child. We even had to stop her coming to stay as she stole from us.
The bus was seen winding its way along the cliff road and stopped when it reached us. I followed the lady on and she motioned with her hand an invitation to sit next to her. “I’m Sue”, she smiled, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses and she reached across to shake hands.
She talked about how much they treasured their time living on the cliff even though she had been away recently for ten days at the Edinburgh Festival. “I go every year,” she said enthusiastically.
“Friends say I should run organised holidays for it because I know how to do it so well! But I’m content with meeting up with a friend though this year I went alone, which was fine because Edinburgh is safe. I stay in the same excellent Bed & Breakfast and am treated as one of the family. It’s a wonderful experience! The city is buzzing with life, full of people from all over the world, celebrities, musicians, theatrical people and over three hundred shows a day. It’s my cultural experience for the year. Because of the bad weather this year I took in three shows a day, often the tickets are half price or free. This year the outstanding performance was a French acrobatic group. I also heard what must be the world’s best guitar player, a marvelous blues jazz band and went to ‘Tap and Talk’ by Lionel Blair, he must be in his seventies now but still has a full head of hair, a lean body and bursting with vitality! He showed a video taken in the 60’s of him tap dancing with Sammy Davis Jnr. which was pure magic! On the one sunny day I managed a trip to Edinburgh’s wonderful Botanic Gardens and had three hours there…”
I commented that Sue described things well, had she ever thought of writing? She had, but had never got round to it but she had recently been asked to write articles for the church newsletter, so maybe that was a beginning!
“I only managed to get away because Elaine went to stay at the Farm with her mother. She had a great time and enjoyed the country life.” She suddenly paused and turned to look at me saying, “I can tell you are spiritual by the way you listen and the questions you ask, what is your practice? What are you?”
After answering that I was a Buddhist, Sue said that she was a Christian. She spoke of the Community Farm where her daughter stayed, as being a Christian Rehabilitation Therapeutic Community which offered support for people with addictions. “It’s a special place, everyone feels it who visits but it struggles to survive financially. Because it’s Christian it is not eligible for Lottery money even though they take in anyone whatever their background.”
The reason Anna had apparently agreed to go there was because of a spiritual experience.
“Some friends had invited me to go along one night to meet a couple who had just come back from America,” said Sue. “They had gone to see this healer who was saying that it was not him, but Jesus healing through him, and he appeared to be having miraculous results! His name is Todd Bentley and he is almost black from being covered with tattoes! His story is that when he reached rock bottom after a life of drug abuse, jail sentences and criminal offences, in utter despair he appealed to God for help.
In that moment the Holy Spirit entered him, he died to his past and from then on he had the gift of healing. He began to gives prayer services for healing in halls but that has now grown to meetings of thousands and being televised. People just have to touch their television sets and they are healed. Those who are healed, Todd Bentley says, now have the gift of healing too.
Sue had asked Anna, her daughter, if she would like to accompany her and she had agreed. At the meeting place the couple began a prayer of healing and then invited people up for healing. Sue said she was just observing, having learned a certain amount of skepticism from her dad.
“He is a complete agnostic, from an experience in Italy during the war. He saw starving children searching in the gutters for food while the churches were full of gold and treasure. He was good at languages and had picked up Italian in a few days so he understood when he heard an abbess of a convent speak to another nun with contempt about beggars. He lost faith in the Catholic Church. So here I was trying to keep an open mind. Half way through, Anna said she felt very sick and nauseous in the tummy area.”
“I decided to go up,” said Sue, “which surprised Anna. I always ask for others to be healed particularly Anna, so when I went up, this was on my mind but what a shock when the lady of the couple seemed to shout at me, “Stop that! You need to ask for yourself to be healed!”
So, for the first time, I prayed for myself to be healed and suddenly I swooned and fell to the floor feeling nauseous and faint. I just cried and cried, keeping my eyes closed, hoping that no one would see the tears and I heard a friend praying for me. Then there was silence and a feeling of peace spread through the body. I became filled with light and joy. I had never felt so happy.
Seeing this affected Anna and after that she decided to go into Rehab.
“We weren’t allowed to see her for the first six weeks but speaking to the pastor on the phone he said Anna has changed and that we would know it for ourselves when we saw her. When we saw her we knew straight away from her eyes that he was right, Anna was healing.”
By this time the bus was in town and approaching the main stop. Sue suddenly came into the present and reflectively said. “I must have needed to let all that out… Please, come for tea or coffee at the chalet one day?” And we smiled, departed from the bus, and parted.
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(from Universal Satnav stories by Linden Brough)