John Powell
a professor at Loyola University in Chicago writes about a student in his Theology of
Faith class named Tommy:
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."
www.holybible.com/resources/bethel_stories/found_atheist.htm/
