“Well…it’s possible, I suppose. I know, you probably think that’s crazy.”
“Why don’t we assume that there is and go from there? Maybe we can figure out something about what Nick’s going through.”
That seemed like a reasonable way to explore the topic and maybe to discover some answers.
“Okay,” I replied. “That seems good.”
“So what if God does exist? Do you think it would be possible to connect with him?”
I answered honestly. “No, not really. I mean, God would be so much bigger and more powerful—so far beyond us, I guess—that I don’t think we could presume to connect with him. What would be the basis for the connection? It would be like an ant trying to connect with us.”
“That’s a good question.” He sipped his coffee. “What if you looked at it from the other side?”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean from God’s viewpoint.”
“What—could God relate to us?”
“No. Rather, would he want to?”
I considered that for a moment. “It’s the same. I think the answer’s the same. If there is a God, and he, or she, or whatever, is big enough to create the whole universe and all the time that’s involved, billions of years, and here we are stuck out on this little planet in this nondescript galaxy—Nick always loves telling me about this astronomy stuff—anyway, what possible need would God have for us?”
“That’s an extremely good question.”
“I just have a hard time believing that any God would have much use for people, much less want to connect with them. I mean, wouldn’t he have more important things to do?”
He laughed. “You might think that.” He took a bite of his coffeecake and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Maybe the answer to that question would lie in the nature of God.”
“Meaning…”
“What would God be like? Would he just create everything, let it go, and watch it from a distance? Or, even further disconnected, would God be an impersonal force, like in Star Wars? Or would God be an involved being who thinks, chooses, and feels—who loves—like we do?”
I finished a sip of my latte. “Who knows? It’s not like God makes a grand appearance to everyone. Who knows what God would be like?”
“Well”—he took a long drink—“work from the evidence you have. If there is a God, don’t you think there would be clues as to what he is like?”
“Clues?” The cover of The Da Vinci Code suddenly popped into my brain. “What kind of clues?”
“What the universe would say about its Creator.”
“Well, he’d have to be really old.” I laughed.
“What?” he asked, grinning with me.
“I’m just picturing some really old guy who’s kind of shriveled up and doesn’t move around too well anymore, like they make actors look old in movies. God wouldn’t be like that, I suppose. If you’ve been around for billions of years, you don’t age, exactly.”
He smiled. “No, I wouldn’t think so.” He had another sip of coffee. “So God would be really old. What else?”
“He’d have to be really smart. The universe is pretty intricate. And humans themselves are so complex, given what we’ve learned about DNA and all.”
“Okay, God would have to be superintelligent.”
“Yeah. I’m not sure I buy that design in the universe proves God, but if there was a God, he would be really intelligent—and powerful—to pull it all off.”
“Why is that?”
“If we all got here by the Big Bang, then God would have had to fine-tune it to make the universe we have. I’ve heard Nick talk about how precise the whole thing is, how if just one of a thousand things were a little out of balance, the whole universe would be different, or we wouldn’t be here at all.”
I’m starting to sound like an advocate for the existence of God. But we are presuming that God exists…
“Okay,” he said. “So if God exists, he would be really old, superintelligent, and very powerful—at least as powerful as the universe itself?”
“If he put it all into motion, then, yeah, I would say so.”
“It sounds as though you’re saying that whatever traits the creation has would reflect some greater trait in the Creator—age, intelligence, power.”
I decided to think about that one for a minute. I didn’t want anyone putting words into my mouth. I broke off a piece of my scone.
Could what he just said be true? Would the universe reflect the Creator? I suppose that’s kind of a given. Whatever we make reflects us. Like my graphics. How could it be otherwise? What we create can only come out of who we are.
“All right,” I answered. “That’s a fair summary. I’m not saying I think it proves God.”
“Understood.” He had a bite of coffeecake. “So what if we bring this down to the level of people?”
“I’m not sure I’m following you.”
“People are part of the universe. The highest native intelligence on earth. What would people tell us about God?”
“What do you think?” I asked. “I’ve been doing all the thinking here.”
He laughed. “Okay, fine. I’ll think a little too. I think that the various aspects of our being—our mind, our emotions, our capacity to choose, our conscience—would all reflect God. In other words, humanity’s traits, just like the universe, would reflect the Creator. And the highest form of creation would most closely resemble who God is.”
“Meaning people.”
“Yes.”
“But people can be awful to each other. You’re not saying that’s who God is too, are you?”
“That’s a hard question, isn’t it?” He sipped his coffee again. “Because evil exists. Is that part of who God would be, or instead has something gone wrong?”
“I don’t know. If God was part evil, that would be pretty bleak. All I know is, the world is really screwed up, and lately it seems to be getting worse, not better. It’s a little frightening to have children and not know when the next bomb will go off or something.”
“I know,” he replied. “It is frightening.”
He had another piece of his coffeecake, and I had some more scone.
“You mentioned your daughter—Sara?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have a picture?”
“Of course.”
I pulled my billfold out of my bag and held out Sara’s picture to him. It was a really good one, with her new blue dress against a backdrop of red and yellow tulips at the arboretum. She had a pigtail sprouting out of each side of her head, and she did look precious.
“She’s adorable,” he commented.
“Thanks. We think so.” I couldn’t help smiling at the picture one last time before returning it to my bag.
“What do you do with her when you’re working?” he asked.
“I take her to my cousin’s three days a week. She has a three-year-old and a fourteen-month-old. Sara does great with them.”
“How do you do being away from her like that?”
“I do okay. I really like my work, and I’m not sure how I’d do without a break from parenting sometimes. But some days I do have mixed feelings.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s just that when they’re little, they do things every day that mean the world. Yesterday I had Sara at home, and we were talking about going to visit her grandmother and how Grandma was my mommy. Of course, she doesn’t really understand how all that works yet, but she looked at me with those big round eyes and said, ‘Mommy, I like you to be my mommy.’ It just melts your heart.”
He smiled broadly. “I bet it does.”
I pointed a finger at him jokingly. “You just wait. One day if you have a little girl, she’ll look at you like that, and you’ll want to give her anyth
ing she asks for. It’s worse for dads, I think. Nick would give Sara the world.”
“Tell me,” he said. “What do you like best about being a mom?”
I could feel a big grin slide over my face, and a joy washed over me just thinking about it. “Everything. You treasure the time they sit on your lap…feeling their soft hair, taking in their unique scent, being warmed by their little legs and back on you. Your own child is truly the most beautiful child in the world. You study her features more closely than any other person does. She comes from you, and she resembles you. You touch and hold her more than anyone else does, so you’re able to absorb all there is about her in a unique way.”
A smile had grown on his face as I spoke. “What else?”
“You love it when they discover something, like conquering the stairs or waving bye-bye. You love bragging about them to anyone. You could fill a book with how much you love them, how wonderful they are, and how they learn new things day after day.”
I paused for a second, thinking about the things I treasured most about Sara and how I would go through all that again. “You know what else you love? You love the sound of their voice above all other kids’. It feels wonderful when Sara finds me and runs to me in a crowd of other kids and parents.”
I thought about that morning at the breakfast table. “Though you can’t always, you really want to give them what they want, like the sugary cereal or a stuffed animal—even if Sara already has more than I can count. You delight in the happiness it brings them, even if it’s fleeting. And when they’re naughty—which is often enough—you sometimes have to hold back your smile because they are so precious to you. Maybe that’s what I like best: loving someone so much, regardless of what they do.”
He leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, and intertwined his fingers. “Let me ask you this. If there was a God who created everything, don’t you think it’s possible that he would feel the same way about you that you feel about Sara? Love you as much? Want to give you the world? Want to be as connected to you as you are to her? In other words, is it possible that your love for Sara is a reflection of who the Creator is?”
I leaned away from the table and thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I’ve never really considered that before.”
He continued. “Do you think that people’s desire to connect with God could have come from him? That God might have placed within them the desire for such a connection, because he is the one who actually wants it? That he designed them for intimacy with himself, and they are incomplete without it?”
“Maybe. I suppose it’s possible.”
“If this was the case, would Nick’s course be a reasonable response to that God-placed desire? Would Nick’s wanting a close connection with God be nonsense, or would it make the most sense?”
I sensed that we weren’t dealing in hypotheticals any longer.
“YOU SOUND LIKE you actually believe in God,” I said tensely.
“I do.”
“But…you said you didn’t.”
“Not at all. I said I hate religion.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Religion is what people mistakenly do to try to get to God—by being good enough, keeping certain rules, performing certain rituals, and so forth. But God? Of course I believe in him.”
This was completely not what I was expecting.
“So you also think it’s possible to know God personally?”
“Yes. I know it is.”
I could feel my blood pressure rising. This has all been a setup. He has the same agenda as Mr. Evangelism on the first flight, whose approach didn’t work. So he pretended to be on my side. And I fell for the whole thing!
“You’re no better than that guy on the plane—no, worse! Here I am, pouring my heart out to you about my marriage, and all you want is to trap me into talking about God. At least the other guy was straightforward in his approach.”
I reached for my latte and my bag.
“I wasn’t trying to trick you,” he replied. “I was simply helping you do what you said you wanted—to explore why Nick might be on this new course. I couldn’t do that by stating up front my own perspective. You were too closed for that. But thinking through the issues and reaching your own conclusions—that’s what you’re trying to do, isn’t it?”
Oh. Yeah. I am trying to do that, aren’t I?
I folded my arms across my chest. “Okay,” I conceded, “maybe I did say that.”
I let myself calm down just a little. But I’m still not happy with the subterfuge. Or with where this guy is coming from.
I decided to give his motivation the benefit of the doubt and keep on conversing. It’s not that long before my next plane, so I won’t have to endure much more if I get sick of it. And despite his religious beliefs, he is a counselor. Maybe he can actually help. After all, how many counselors are willing to offer free advice during a trip?
I steered us back to my specific situation—Nick. “But not everyone’s spiritual pursuit involves becoming so zealous as to claim to dine with Jesus. I mean, have you ever heard anyone say that?”
“It’s been a while, I admit.”
“Surely you’re not saying that you think Nick really dined with Jesus.”
“I think only you can decide whether to believe his story or not. I’m just trying to help you assess whether his direction of connecting with God is a reasonable one.”
“And you think it is.”
“Certainly. But I can’t make up your mind for you. And I’m not the one who has to live your marriage.”
“That’s the truth.” Be thankful.
I took another drink of my latte. “You said something a minute ago. You said that if God designed people for an intimate connection with himself, then we are incomplete without him. But don’t you think that God is just a crutch for some people?”
“I suppose that depends on what you were created for,” he answered. “If you were created for life without God, then he’s a crutch. If, on the other hand, the very reason you were created is for an intimate relationship with God, then he’s not a crutch. He’s the fulfillment of what you were created to be.”
“But you’re implying that people can only be fulfilled through an intimate connection with God.”
“Yes.”
“But that’s not true.”
“Do you think people are truly satisfied in other things?”
“Of course. There are lots of people who are fulfilled who don’t have God in their lives.”
“Are you?”
“Well, no. But I’m not everybody.”
“You are more everybody than you realize.”
“I feel fulfilled in my career, for the most part.”
“And as a parent,” he added.
“Definitely as a parent.”
“But not as a wife.”
I could feel my eyes give a slight roll. “No. That doesn’t rank quite as high on the fulfillment scale.”
“Why not, do you think?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I had this fantasy of what marriage would be like, starting with the wedding. Doesn’t every woman have that? Well, we didn’t make it through the ceremony without that fantasy going awry. I should have known we were in trouble when the minister, instead of saying that the rings represented an endless circle of love, said they represented an endless circus of love. It was his second wedding, and he was dyslexic, we were later told. I don’t even know why we got married in a church. Anyway, he was right, after all.”
“A lot of people start off on the wrong foot.”
“Yeah, well, we never got on the right one. At least that’s how it felt. That wasn’t the case before we got married. Things were great then. But things are always great at the beginning of relationships. It’s later I get bored. Except wi
th Nick I really didn’t. I stayed interested in him.”
A large flight or two must have deplaned, because suddenly the ordering line had almost backed up to our table. We both shifted our chairs around to give people more room to stand, then picked up where we left off.
“What kept you interested in Nick, do you think?”
“I think it was because his whole world didn’t revolve around me. He was real focused on his career, and I liked that.”
“You don’t seem to like it anymore.”
“That’s the truth. I suppose I got exactly what I wanted—someone who had another life, who wasn’t too clingy. Now it’s not enough.”
“What would you say you want out of marriage?”
“I guess I want to be intimate in a way that’s just as satisfying as the passion we first had. I know you can’t sustain that level of passion forever; no one can. But I thought it would be replaced by an emotional closeness that would be just as good, in a sense. That hasn’t happened, though.”
I took a final sip of my latte, then continued. “Have you ever felt that way—a fulfilling emotional connection in a long-lasting relationship?”
“Yes, I feel that way all the time.”
“You do?” I was taken aback by his answer. “How?”
“Well.” He smiled. “That’s kind of an involved story.”
I glanced at my watch. If we have time, I would kind of like to know his secret.
He resumed. “What do you think stops you from experiencing that in your marriage?”
I pondered that for a moment. “I just don’t feel completely known by Nick. He thinks he knows me, but he doesn’t really understand what makes me tick, what my dreams really are, what…I don’t know. For the longest time it was his work that kept him distant. And now, I suppose, it’s this Jesus thing.”
I felt myself straighten in my chair. “I do not plan on being married to someone who lies in bed next to me watching a guy on TV touching people’s foreheads, and then they fall down and pretend to be healed. I mean, who could stand that?”
He chuckled. “Is that what Nick watches?”
“No. Not yet. Or maybe he sneaks it in while I’m in the bathroom.”
A Day with a Perfect Stranger Page 4