Whatever He Says, It's That One

When my college friends traipsed into the dining hall one night, we wrote our names on slips of paper for the game show staff stationed in the entryway and then sat at a round table not far from the newly erected set. It was Deal or No Deal, a sort of traveling entertainment company that would host the game right there in Bates Common Dining with all but Howie Mandel and the chicks in evening garb.



Students were randomly selected to participate for the chance to win money, gradually eliminating numbered cases holding various amounts. A one-night campus event, you could say it was a limited time offer.

I'd never seen the show - I vaguely remembered that some kids I'd babysat liked it, but they hadn't even watched it while I was with them - so friends filled in the gaps for me when I was confused.

And then my name was called.



The round table of knowledgeable advisors suddenly seemed so very far away.

A few of us were organizing a relief trip to New Orleans at the time, and we'd discussed that if we won something, it would go toward the cause. But I'd imagined that, if any of us were even called, it would at least be someone who knew what they were doing. I tended to figure that my being randomly selected for a guessing game was even less probable than my being purposely selected for a dodgeball team. Either way, I guess it's a bit hit-or-miss. (OK, bad joke, I'm sorry. Please don't throw things at me! Heh.)

I must have looked flustered, but the host was reassuring: this round would be simple. Because we were nearing the end of the event, there would be a few modified rounds for set prize amounts, rather than the whole song and dance.

The host motioned to two cases.

Over his directions, I heard within, "Whatever he says, it's that one."

I glanced at the case closest to me.



What the host was saying finally registered: one of the cases had a card inside with the amount of $50 while the other showed 50 cents. Choosing correctly meant a prize of over a hundred dollars.

"So," he finished, "which case do you think has the amount of 50 cents?"

I pointed.

Anyone who had ever seen me pick out ice cream or decide what to do with the afternoon knew very well that I seemed a little too sure of what I was doing.

In actuality, I can't really say that I was certain. In the fleeting moment of time between standing by the cases and pointing at one, there was literally no deliberation in my mind, yes, but there was also no sense of "I know this." But the funny thing is, in that moment without certainty, I also had no doubt. I simply did not experience either certainty or doubt in the way that I had ever known either one.

And so it is in contemplating my faith - the beliefs upon which so much of myself is grounded, with or without tangible evidence - that I now remember that night.

I don't insist that it was God, though it was hella creepy in the sense that it was so unlike my usual inner thought processes. But of all of the times that I have had the it-doesn't-feel-like-me-thinking-this experience, this one seems among the least "holy." It would be easy enough to say that it was God's will for us to receive that money for our trip, or to shake things up in my faith life in just one more way. But I don't know. I'm grateful, regardless; I just think attributing anything to God is a matter not to be taken lightly. Wherever the words came from, the trip and my deepening faith were what they were, and that seems to suffice for me.

All that said, this spontaneous phrase still intrigues me to this day.

It strikes me that it was so distinctly, "Whatever he says, it's that one" - so unwavering in its basic concept that truth existed and it did not depend on the host or on me.

It also strikes me that it was something of a declaration of that truth, not a command or advice as to what to do. It even came before the man had said what was expected of me.

Sometimes we are spiritually guided or instructed. "Be not afraid."

But other times, I believe we simply hear truth, and we must act on what we have heard.

Not "Pick the one on the left," but "Whatever he says, it's that one." It just is. It just is. So now what?

When we're confronted with unusual proclamations of truth, especially when we don't expect them, perhaps we will need to pause and consider, mull the words over in our minds, discern their truthfulness and only then formulate a response. Or perhaps we will hear it and know what to do with it before we even realize the magnitude of what's happening.

Either way, true Truth seems to wait for no one to tell it that it's true - as though it's comfortable in its own skin. It can be told or heard, mangled or celebrated, denied or upheld. But at times like this I suspect that it isn't our embracing it that makes the Truth true.

God is in the Detours

My alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College, has unique course registration methods which sometimes work in a student's favor, but usually only if the student has recently sacrificed a rack of veggie burgers on the grill behind Westlands. (Now you know the real reason for all those orientation BBQ picnics.)

Alas, in my sophomore year I was bumped from the apparently popular course called Psychoneuroimmunology, which had taken me a substantial chunk of the summer to learn how to pronounce... so it's probably for the best that I didn't get to take it. Still, I suspect that I would have (blissfully and ignorantly) enjoyed it, because I'd bought some of the textbooks in advance and started reading early. This, in light of my procrastinating nature, was downright miraculous.

Being bumped sort of popped the miracle bubble.

Reluctantly, I returned my orphaned books and began the well-loathed ritual of Alternate Registration. I revisited the course listings, jotting down feasible second choices. Possibly the most fear-inducing part of this process is that registration takes place the week before classes begin, and by the time Alternate Registration rolls around, you have both fewer options and less time until term. Not uber conducive, I feared, to good decision-making.

I eventually narrowed it down to two courses, including a philosophy course called "Language and Religious Experience." The title hummed back at me from the page, like a fiendish zombie or a frustrated teenager (obviously interchangeable): Take meeeeeeeeee.


Source

It drooled. Or I drooled. I'm not really sure. Anyway, it suddenly sounded especially interesting, and the very fact that both of my remaining options were each somehow theological in nature (and I'd not yet studied anything of the like) sort of whacked me upside the head with insight.

Okay, God, I get it.

Ultimately I decided that this two-and-a-half-hour, 8:30 AM class would be well worth it.

Mind-blowing academia aside, it certainly left me with a few quotable gems, like this one from a discussion on humans' "sense of time," and the student was entirely serious and unaware of what he was saying (TO OUR PROFESSOR) until it was out:

"Sometimes time seems to go by very quickly and other times it moves very slowly. Like this class is two and half hours long, but it feels like forever."

Beat. Laughter. Yeah, it was a good time.

But most significantly, I gained vivid understandings of ideas that had absolutely baffled me, particularly the doctrine of the trinity and the duality of Jesus' humanity and divinity. By the end of the course, I still couldn't articulate it for beans. Yet there was a distinct time of growth in my spirituality, mostly toward reconciling intellect and mystery of faith.

The irony is that these are exactly the sort of topics (and then some) with which I am struggling now in my theology program.

Sometimes we have to take multiple detours.

And all the while, there is a pervasive sense that any such pain truly is an aspect of growth, that this is just one step in a complex process. Like wanting to loathe the detour of Alternate Registration, yet knowing in my core that I'm headed to where I must be.

Open Doors

One winter night during my first year of undergrad, I began to walk home from the shopping center, exasperated with the wind and cold and a few petty things that had happened while I was out.

The last utter annoyance was the way cars had twice barreled through the crosswalk just ahead of me, despite my usually successful New Yorker's "Pedestrian's Rights" mentality. I didn't so much as feel validated in my aggravation, muttering to myself with my scarf wrapped around my mouth, as I just savored the warmth of my breath remaining around my covered lips, but venting still felt good.

As I passed the bus stop, a bus picked up the one waiting passenger and left. Immediately, another bus pulled up to me and the doors opened. I explained to the driver that I wasn't waiting for the bus, but he asked if I was headed for the college and offered me a free ride. I hadn't planned on it, I didn't mean to wait for it, but there it was.

I gave him the Are-You-For-Real eyebrow, but, feeling calm and reassured, found my feet climbing the steps. He said he was going in that direction anyway, so we would both get where we needed to go and I could avoid the cold.

When I thanked him, he told me, "Don't thank me. Thank Him," and pointed above him. "He's given me so much," he said. "It's good to pass it on."

Without my prompting, he drove past the main entrance to the college and stopped at the bottom of the hill at the half-hidden entrance near the dining hall. I went straight to dinner and never enjoyed a bowl of campus soup more than I did that night.

I called my mother since she had recently had a number of similar experiences - random acts of kindness - in the midst of her father's illness, and I almost cried as I told her.

It's the same feeling as receiving a visit or a note from a friend, or sharing a mutual embrace, or seeing a student I've never met smile at me in passing and wondering if they've confused me with someone they do know or if they just felt like smiling. It's cheesy or corny or whatever cynicism and too-coolness makes us think about it, but it's the kind of thing that lifts us before we hit bottom.

Good things come back to us. They even come to us when we aren't sure that we deserve them. Look for them and you'll see.


Some of you may remember this story from January 2007, years before AmenAbility was even a twinkle in my eye, but I wanted to tell it again. I will also refer back to it in an upcoming post and decided that this was simplest.