she said across the room as the rhythm of our mutual mopping fell into sync. We'd been cleaning together for nearly 3 hours. Our stories and mostly our grievances we aired freely. It was clear that she did not want to park in the vicinity of her spiritual heritage. She was a pastor's kid just like me, only a few years my senior. Her brown hair fell all around her shoulders. We made little eye contact.
I could feel my face growing hot and my hands grip the mop I held that much tighter as she went on. The missional vengeance with which I customarily approached people reared and roared. She was so matter-of-fact. She didn't seem out of her mind. That title, 'Christian,' that book, the Bible, maybe even any religious establishment- she wanted nothing to do with it. How could she say this stuff?
Confused by both her air of nonchalance and my own inability to come up with something in my raging thoughts that would change her mind - that would set her straight - I finished the rest of my tasks in silence. Our cordial final remarks were insincere, and I resolved to talk with her again. By then I'd know what she needed to hear.
The rest of the day passed.
My afternoon study period was spent perusing Farel House - the library below the chapel, just down the mountain from the other L'Abri chalets. It was here that students, just like me, through the 1950's, '60's, '70's, '80's (when I was born!), '90's and all the way up to the present, followed an individualized course of study. The homemade desk-nooks fit snug around the edges of the library and cushiony chairs offered a different course - in sleep - (I witnessed at least 2 curled up students profoundly unaware of the books that had fallen out of their hands and into their blanketed laps).
The shelves smooshed full of mesmerizing titles and an enormous tape library: recorded lectures from the likes of Francis Schaeffer himself, Os Guinness, and James K.A. Smith threatened to undo any commitment I had to any particular topic. My eyes paused the longest on the bindings with words like A Christian Critique of Capitalism. Having just spent a semester in the extreme poverty of Nairobi, Kenya (resulting in a pile of questions too frightening to name and too ugly to pick through), I thought the sterile world of economics would satisfy my deep unrest.
At 6 pm, we were free to make our way back up the winding path to Bellevue. Dinner was lively and full of laughter. As the conversation I was a part of died down, I got up and walked down the hall toward the stairs. A young man gripping both sides of the frame on the door to the kitchen leaned out towards me as I walked by. His jeans were ripped and his shoes looked a few sizes too big.
"Do you want to get together next Tuesday, in the afternoon?"
Um.
While I had seen this student around, and we had exchanged a few words, asking me to do something with just him seemed presumptuous in the extreme. I bumbled and awkwardly forgot how to use my own arms when he, noticing my obvious discomfort, added:
"I'm your tutor. I'm Dave. My name is Dave and I'm supposed to be your tutor."
"Oh!! Wow, OK. You work here?"
"Yes. Oh man, sorry. I didn't mean to confuse you."
"No, no. It's alright. It's fine. So Tuesday afternoon? Sounds good."
...
