Father 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 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 hea!rd 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," 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 replie! d
"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 s! trange.
(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 after life, 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
importan |