Today is Wednesday, July 14th, 2004; Karen's Korner #333

I received this email from Tim and Shelley Fletcher several days ago. I really liked it. I have no way of knowing whether it is true or not; it says at the end that it is. I trust that it is:

 

"Faith and Love"


John Powell, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago writes
about a student named Tommy in his "Theology of Faith" class:

Some 40 years ago, I stood watching my university students file
into the classroom for our first session in the Theology of Faith. That was
the 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, 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 came. I heard 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?" I asked.

"Sure, what would you like to know?" he replied.

"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, I thought!)
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, that's when 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 something 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 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 it 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.  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 really 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 to open up 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."

"Ooh ... 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, Tom called, said he was ready for the class, that
he wanted to do that for God and for me.  So we scheduled a date,
but 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 read this simple
statement about love, thank you.  And to you, Tommy, somewhere in
the sunlit, verdant hills of heaven - I told them, Tommy, as best I
could.

If this story means anything to you, please pass it on to a
friend or two. It is a true story and is not enhanced for publicity
purposes.

With thanks,

John Powell, Professor Loyola University, Chicago

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