Dr. John Powell, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago, wrote this
touching 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
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 cynical tone, ‘Do you think I’ll ever find God?’
I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. ‘No!’ I said very
emphatically.
‘Why not,’ 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 came. 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, 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!) 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 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
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 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 would not be
half as effective as if you were to tell it.
‘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 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. 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 read this simple story about
God’s 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.
~~
Dr Bob Griffin
bob@grif.net www.grif.net
“Jesus Knows Me, This I Love!”
