THE STORY OF TOMMY

Some 12 years ago, I stood watching my university students file into
the classroom for our first session in Theology of Faith. That was the
first day I saw Tommy. My eyes and my mind both blinked. He was
combing his long flaxen hair, which hung 6" below his shoulders. It
was the first time I'd 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 50 and having no values or ideals, like being 50
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 everyone 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'd 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 it 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 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 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
couldn'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."

By: John Powell, Professor at Loyola University in Chicago