Finding God

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 had left doing 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.”

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.