Do
You Live In Love?
Read this
story if you are searching for God and possibly having a problem finding
him.......
Father
John Powell, a professor at
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," 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!)
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 and I forgive 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 brothers. 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 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
it."
"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. 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.
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,
Rev. John Powell,