John
Powell a professor at Loyola University in Chicago writes about a student in his
Theology of Faith class named Tommy. This is a true story:
Some twelve years ago, I stood
watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session in
the Theology of Faith. That was the first day I first saw Tommy. My eyes and my
mind both blinked. He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six inches
below his shoulders.
It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with
hair that long. I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in my mind
that it isn’t what’s on your head but what’s in it that counts; but on that day
I was unprepared and my emotions flipped.
I immediately filed Tommy under
"S" for strange ... very strange. Tommy turned out to be the "atheist in
residence" in my Theology of Faith course. He constantly objected to, smirked
at, or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father-God. We
lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he
was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew.
When he came up at
the end of the course to turn in his final exam, he asked in a slightly cynical
tone: "Do you think I’ll ever find God?"
I decided instantly on a little
shock therapy. "No!" I said very emphatically.
"Oh," he responded, "I
thought that was the product you were pushing."
I let him get five steps
from the classroom door and then called out: "Tommy! I don’t think you’ll ever
find him, but I am absolutely certain that He will find you!" He shrugged a
little and left my class and my life.
I felt slightly disappointed at the
thought that he had missed my clever line: "He will find you!" At least I
thought it was clever. Later I heard that Tommy had graduated and I was duly
grateful.
Then a sad report, I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer.
Before I could search him out, he came to see me. When he walked into my office,
his body was very badly wasted, and the long hair had all fallen out as a result
of chemotherapy. But his eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first
time, I believe. "Tommy, I’ve thought about you so often. I hear you are sick!"
I blurted out.
"Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It’s a
matter of weeks."
"Can you talk about it, Tom?"
"Sure, what would
you like to know?"
"What’s it like to be only twenty-four and
dying?"
"Well, it could be worse."
"Like what?"
"Well, like
being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being fifty and thinking that
booze, seducing women, and making money are the real ‘biggies’ in
life."
I began to look through my mental file cabinet under "S" where I
had filed Tommy as strange. (It seems as though everybody I try to reject by
classification God sends back into my life to educate me.)
But what I
really came to see you about," Tom said, " is something you said to me on the
last day of class." (He remembered!) He continued, "I asked you if you thought I
would ever find God and you said, ‘No!’ which surprised me. Then you said, ‘But
he will find you.’ I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was
hardly intense at that time. (My "clever" line. He thought about that a lot!)
But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was
malignant, then I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread
into my vital organs, I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze
doors of heaven.
But God did not come out. In fact, nothing happened. Did
you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with no success? You
get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying. And then you quit.
Well,
one day I woke up, and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that
high brick wall to a God who may be or may not be there, I just quit. I decided
that I didn’t really care ... about God, about an afterlife, or anything like
that. "I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable.
I thought about you and your class and I remembered something else you had said:
‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be
almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling
those you loved that you had loved them.’ "So I began with the hardest one: my
Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him."
"Dad". .
.
"Yes, what?" he asked without lowering the newspaper.
"Dad, I
would like to talk with you."
"Well, talk."
"I mean. .. It’s
really important."
The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is
it?"
"Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that." Tom smiled at me
and said with obvious satisfaction, as though he felt a warm and secret joy
flowing inside of him: "The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did
two things I could never remember him ever doing before. He cried and he hugged
me.
And we talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next
morning. It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his
hug, to hear him say that he loved me. "It was easier with my mother and little
brother. They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying
real nice things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping secret
for so many years. I was only sorry about one thing: that I had waited so long.
Here I was just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close
to.
"Then, one day I turned around and God was there. He didn’t come to
me when I pleaded with him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a
hoop, ‘C’mon, jump through.’ ‘C’mon, I’ll give you three days .. .three weeks.’
Apparently God does things in his own way and at his own hour. "But the
important thing is that he was there. He found me.
You were right. He
found me even after I stopped looking for him."
"Tommy," I practically
gasped, "I think you are saying something very important and much more universal
than you realize. To me, at least, you are saying that the surest way to find
God is not to make him a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant
consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You know, the
Apostle John said that. He said God is love, and anyone who lives in love is
living with God and God is living in him.’ Tom, could I ask you a favor? You
know, when I had you in class you were a real pain. But (laughingly) you can
make it all up to me now. Would you come into my present Theology of Faith
course and tell them what you have just told me? If I told them the same thing
it wouldn’t be half as effective as if you were to tell them."
"Oooh . .
. I was ready for you, but I don’t know if I’m ready for your
class."
"Tom, think about it. If and when you are ready, give me a call."
In a few days Tommy called, said he was ready for the class, that he wanted to
do that for God and for me. So we scheduled a date. However, he never made
it.
He had another appointment, far more important than the one with me
and my class. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only
changed.
He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life
far more beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man has ever
heard or the mind of man has ever imagined.
Before he died, we talked one
last time. "I’m not going to make it to your class," he said.
"I know,
Tom."
"Will you tell them for me? Will you . . . tell the whole world for
me?"
"I will, Tom. I’ll tell them. I’ll do my best."
So, to all of
you who have been kind enough to hear this simple statement about love, thank
you for listening. And to you, Tommy, somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills of
heaven: "I told them, Tommy . ... ...as best I could."
God is love and when we truly love other's....we will have found God.
