“The Real Hero”
by
Robert Beebe
Frodo was lying on his back with eyes open, staring at the cloudy sky. “Well, Mr. Frodo,” said Sam, “I’ve been having a look around and thinking a bit. There’s nothing on the roads, and we’d best be getting away while there’s a chance. Can you manage it?
“I can manage it,” said Frodo. “I must.”
Zeth took a sip from his can of Coke and turned the page. Backpack in front of him, he sat at his usual spot on the bleachers overlooking the football field, but his mind was far away in the land of Mordor. Every day for the past few weeks, as soon as the final bell rang, he was out the back door of the high school, leaving his freshman courses behind, and entered the world of The Lord of the Rings where he became Frodo, the Ringbearer, the One chosen to carry the Ring and cast it into the fires of Mount Doom to save all of Middle-earth.
Unbeknownst to him, two of the school’s cheerleaders were watching him from down on the field. Zeth’s daily appearance on the bleachers had not gone unnoticed.
“Look at him,” said Brenda, a sporty blonde who was the school’s head cheerleader and girlfriend of the football team’s star running back. “He carries that book around with him everywhere.”
“Yeah, but you know,” replied Jeanette, Brenda’s best friend, “I think he’s kind of cute.”
“You gotta be kidding. The guy’s a weirdo. Lives in his own little world.”
What Brenda said—name calling aside—was true. Zeth had trouble relating to people. Maybe it was his dysfunctional family. His mom and dad were always fighting and he had this younger brother, Alan, who was a super-achiever—a real nerd who always got straight A’s on his report card. Zeth wasn’t the brightest person in the world, but he had a good heart. He just didn’t know how to express it.
“Go on,” Brenda goaded Jeanette, “I bet if you went up there right now you couldn’t get his nose out of that book of his.”
Jeanette took up the challenge and headed up the bleachers to the top row where Zeth was sitting. He took no notice of her as she approached. He was now deeply into the climax of the story where he, as Frodo, with his friend Sam were making their way up the side of Mount Doom. He could almost smell the fire spewing out of the volcano.
“Hi, Zeth,” said Jeanette, now standing right beside him. “What are you reading?”
Zeth glanced up at Jeanette and simply showed her the book cover, then went back to reading.
“Oh,” she said, “you know, I saw one of those movies. I think it was the first one. It was okay, I guess. Too much fighting, though.”
Jeanette waited for Zeth to say something, but he just continued reading. He was about to enter into the mountain through a cave door on it side. There was nothing but fire and smoke all about.
“Well, see you around,” said Jeanette with a sigh and walked back down the bleachers to the field.
“Told you so,” said Brenda with a smirk. “The guy’s a loser.”
A couple of hours later Zeth was walking home along the main road that passed through town, oblivious to everything around him. He had just succeeded in fighting off Gollum who had fallen into the fire of Mount Doom along with the Ring. He had to admit, though, he probably wouldn’t have been able to make it without the steadfast support of his faithful friend Sam. It had been Sam who had urged him on and even carried him the last few hundred yards when his own strength had given out. It made him wonder: who was the real hero—Frodo or Sam?
Suddenly a scream jarred Zeth out of his reverie. He looked to the right and left to see where it came from. Down a side road off to his right—a dark alley really—stood a car with its headlights shining out into the gathering darkness. Inside he could see two forms struggling. Dropping his backpack, Zeth ran towards the car at full speed. As he approached, he could see that the two were a boy and a girl.
“Get lost, creep!” shouted the boy.
“Zeth, help me!”
He recognized the voice at once. It was Jeanette’s. Zeth approached the driver’s side where the boy was. He was practically on top of Jeanette. Zeth recognized him. It was Brenda’s boyfriend, Jim Davis, the star running back.
“Leave her alone!” Zeth shouted with such intensity that he surprised himself. “I said take your hands off her.”
“Hey, you’re the guy who’s always reading that book. Who’s going to make me, Frodo?” the boy said mockingly. “Mind your own business.”
“And you mind yours,” Zeth shot back, surprising himself again. “Step out of the car.”
“With pleasure, punk.”
Jim let go of Jeanette and opened the car door. Stepping out, he towered at least six inches above Zeth.
“You do look a bit like a hobbit down there, don’t you?” said Jim with scorn. “Well, Frodo, now what?”
Zeth hadn’t thought about what he would actually do once Jim got out of the car. He stood groping for words.
“Well, let me help you decide,” Jim said, grabbing Zeth by the front of his shirt. “You either scram or I drop you right here.”
“Leave him alone, Jim!” Jeanette cried, now outside of the car.
“You stay out of this. This is between me and the punk.” Jim glared at Zeth with gritted teeth.
Although initially at a loss for words, Zeth now had regained his composure and felt a strange sense of peace inside. Looking at Jim square in the eyes, he said calmly, “You can punch me if you want. Go ahead. But it’ll just make things worse for you. Whenever people see me at school—all banged up—it will remind them of you cheating on Brenda.”
Hearing this, Jim froze. Slowly, he released Zeth’s shirt. He seemed suddenly disoriented.
“You promise not to squeal?” he said, his voice quavering slightly.
“Get back in your car, drive off, and we’ll forget the whole thing,” Zeth answered with sudden confidence.
“Okay, I’m trusting you…” He was about to say ‘punk’ but bit his lip. Then he jumped into his car and sped away.
“Thanks, Zeth,” said Jeanette as the sound of Jim’s car faded in the distance. “That was real brave.”
“How did you ever get yourself into a situation like that?” Zeth look at Jeanette with a mixture of shyness and new-found self-respect.
“After cheerleading practice, Brenda had to go somewhere with her mom and I started walking home. After about five minutes, Jim pulled up beside me and offered to drive me home. Having no reason to distrust him, I got into the car. Then he turned down this side street. Boy, was I wrong about him.”
“Just like Frodo trusted Gollum,” Zeth said half to himself, “but then he turned on him.”
“Huh?” Jeanette said, uncomprehendingly.
“It’s like in the book. Frodo trusted Gollum, but then he betrayed him. Then Sam came and saved the day.”
“Oh,” said Jeanette, as if she now understood.
“Come on. I’ll walk you home.”
Zeth seemed like a different person to Jeanette, but still cute. She smiled. They walked back to the main street together.
Picking up his backpack, Zeth said, “Yep, I think Sam was the real hero.”
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Search Engine Placement - On-line Libraries
There are several major efforts underway to digitize the world’s books that are not currently under copyright. Google and Microsoft are leading the way to bring the world’s books to the online world. (They do charge organizations for this service). In addition, there are not-for-profit efforts by groups such as the Open Content Alliance, which can be found at The Internet Archive. You can visit their preliminary web site by clicking on the previous link.
Vast repositories of the entire text of books eventually will available to the major search engines. It is already possible to do a limited book search on Google. Books can be searched, just like many other categories on Google such as; Web, Images, Video, News, Maps, Gmail, etc.
This search can be done from the “more” tab at the top of Google’s homepage. Clicking on it will reveal numerous goodies, books included. Does this mean that Shakespeare will soon be appearing in Search Engine Placement results ? Not likely, but it does offer some exciting possibilities for research, and the potential for tremendous time savings by students and scholars whose material can be indexed on-line.
Why should this be of interest to Internet users, as well as Christian and principled writers ? Well, this will open up writings, initially Western literature, to several billion readers. There are only approximately one billion people in the world that have access to libraries in their native countries, mostly in the developed nations. Not only historical literature, but Old Testament, New Testament as well as Completed Testament versions of God’s Word will soon be accessible to a much larger world audience.
Major libraries such as: New York Public Library and libraries at the University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford have signed on with Google. Others wanted more open, unrestricted access to their archives, free from any possibility of commercial interest, such as the Boston Library Consortium, (with 19 members), including the University of Massachusetts, the University of Connecticut. The Smithsonian and the University of California, are other institutions that decided to opt out of offers from Microsoft and Google.
In order to put the scope of this effort in perspective, there are an estimated 32 million books in the world that could be scanned for this effort. This number is somewhat in dispute, since many books are out of print, yet not technically out of copyright. Google is not making this distinction, and has decided to digitize anything that is either out of print or out of copyright. This has produced praise from some quarters and wrath from others, mainly publishers, and some writers. Google is in the midst of numerous lawsuits, but their efforts continue unabated, and it will probably take years for the courts to work out the details. Ironically, even a settlement, may work in Google's favor. (see below sources).
Technically, the numbers of books in the world is much smaller if you only count books out of copyright. (See the following table).
Book Edition Count
From OCLC
2000 B.C. - 1 B.C. 779
1 A.D. - 1449 2.291
1450 - 1499 11,234
1500 - 1599 100,731
1600 - 1699 240,171
1700 - 1799 537,139
1800 - 1899 2,573,101
1900 - 1919 1,651,313
1920 - 1960 5,335,059
At the University of Michagan, using special proprietary equipment and software, Google is able to digitize one million books per year. It will take Google about six years to copy the Library's entire collection of 7 million volumes.
The amount of storage space required to store a single digitized book is approximately 1 MB. Google currently has over 10,000 servers on-line to index the entire Web, which consists of well over 2 billion web pages. 32 million MB of data storage required to store the world's collection of books, is information of a much greater magnitude than the entire Web today.
It has been revealed that it costs $ 30.00 for the Open Content Alliance to digitize a single book, (although Google's costs may be significantly lower). It may take more than 10 years and between 500 million to 1 billion dollars to digitize the world's books. (This may be a gross overestimate since I don't have figures on cost from Google, and the most aggressive effort is being made by Google in this area).
With these kinds of costs involved, it is understandable why it is important that Google is a part of this effort. Without taking sides one way or the other on the legal ramifications of what they are doing, clearly the idea of digitizing books is an idea whose time has come. When Stanford University made only their card catalog available electronically, within a fairly short period of time, students were visiting the library twice as often and checking out twice as many books. From these kinds of observations, it is clear that the availability of on-line books will not soon obsolete the existence of libraries, but only offer a new way to access the information contained in books of every description.
There is a very interesting article in a recent issue of New Yorker Magazine that puts libraries and great collections of writings in an historical perspective.
Read this New Yorker article !
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/05/071105fa_fact_grafton
Additional information from recent sources below.
Open Source (not-for-profit) efforts to digitize books.
An open-source-rival-to-Googles-book-project/2100-1025_3-5915690.html
http://www.news.com/An-open-source-rival-to-Googles-book-project/
2100-1025_3-5915690.html
New York Review of Books article
at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19436
New Yorker article on book digitization and copyright issues
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/05/070205fa_fact_toobin
I have included the full URL for you to cut and paste into your browser address bar, even if the link does not work.
All for now. More to follow later.
John Lombaerde
Search Engine Placement by the CAD CAM Guy
Vast repositories of the entire text of books eventually will available to the major search engines. It is already possible to do a limited book search on Google. Books can be searched, just like many other categories on Google such as; Web, Images, Video, News, Maps, Gmail, etc.
This search can be done from the “more” tab at the top of Google’s homepage. Clicking on it will reveal numerous goodies, books included. Does this mean that Shakespeare will soon be appearing in Search Engine Placement results ? Not likely, but it does offer some exciting possibilities for research, and the potential for tremendous time savings by students and scholars whose material can be indexed on-line.
Why should this be of interest to Internet users, as well as Christian and principled writers ? Well, this will open up writings, initially Western literature, to several billion readers. There are only approximately one billion people in the world that have access to libraries in their native countries, mostly in the developed nations. Not only historical literature, but Old Testament, New Testament as well as Completed Testament versions of God’s Word will soon be accessible to a much larger world audience.
Major libraries such as: New York Public Library and libraries at the University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford have signed on with Google. Others wanted more open, unrestricted access to their archives, free from any possibility of commercial interest, such as the Boston Library Consortium, (with 19 members), including the University of Massachusetts, the University of Connecticut. The Smithsonian and the University of California, are other institutions that decided to opt out of offers from Microsoft and Google.
In order to put the scope of this effort in perspective, there are an estimated 32 million books in the world that could be scanned for this effort. This number is somewhat in dispute, since many books are out of print, yet not technically out of copyright. Google is not making this distinction, and has decided to digitize anything that is either out of print or out of copyright. This has produced praise from some quarters and wrath from others, mainly publishers, and some writers. Google is in the midst of numerous lawsuits, but their efforts continue unabated, and it will probably take years for the courts to work out the details. Ironically, even a settlement, may work in Google's favor. (see below sources).
Technically, the numbers of books in the world is much smaller if you only count books out of copyright. (See the following table).
Book Edition Count
From OCLC
2000 B.C. - 1 B.C. 779
1 A.D. - 1449 2.291
1450 - 1499 11,234
1500 - 1599 100,731
1600 - 1699 240,171
1700 - 1799 537,139
1800 - 1899 2,573,101
1900 - 1919 1,651,313
1920 - 1960 5,335,059
At the University of Michagan, using special proprietary equipment and software, Google is able to digitize one million books per year. It will take Google about six years to copy the Library's entire collection of 7 million volumes.
The amount of storage space required to store a single digitized book is approximately 1 MB. Google currently has over 10,000 servers on-line to index the entire Web, which consists of well over 2 billion web pages. 32 million MB of data storage required to store the world's collection of books, is information of a much greater magnitude than the entire Web today.
It has been revealed that it costs $ 30.00 for the Open Content Alliance to digitize a single book, (although Google's costs may be significantly lower). It may take more than 10 years and between 500 million to 1 billion dollars to digitize the world's books. (This may be a gross overestimate since I don't have figures on cost from Google, and the most aggressive effort is being made by Google in this area).
With these kinds of costs involved, it is understandable why it is important that Google is a part of this effort. Without taking sides one way or the other on the legal ramifications of what they are doing, clearly the idea of digitizing books is an idea whose time has come. When Stanford University made only their card catalog available electronically, within a fairly short period of time, students were visiting the library twice as often and checking out twice as many books. From these kinds of observations, it is clear that the availability of on-line books will not soon obsolete the existence of libraries, but only offer a new way to access the information contained in books of every description.
There is a very interesting article in a recent issue of New Yorker Magazine that puts libraries and great collections of writings in an historical perspective.
Read this New Yorker article !
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/05/071105fa_fact_grafton
Additional information from recent sources below.
Open Source (not-for-profit) efforts to digitize books.
An open-source-rival-to-Googles-book-project/2100-1025_3-5915690.html
http://www.news.com/An-open-source-rival-to-Googles-book-project/
2100-1025_3-5915690.html
New York Review of Books article
at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19436
New Yorker article on book digitization and copyright issues
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/02/05/070205fa_fact_toobin
I have included the full URL for you to cut and paste into your browser address bar, even if the link does not work.
All for now. More to follow later.
John Lombaerde
Search Engine Placement by the CAD CAM Guy
Saturday, November 3, 2007
To Glimpse the Sublime
“To Glimpse the Sublime”
by
Robert Beebe
rbeebe52@yahoo.com
Norwich, Connecticut, ca. 1960.
I stood atop my seat in the sturdy mahogany pew amidst the multitudinous congregation of the United Congregational Church as it sang The Lord, Our Father in thunderous unison. At my left was my mother, dressed in a long velvet skirt with matching vest over a fluffy yellow blouse and capped by a yellow dress hat. Her eyes fixed intently on the hymn book in her hands, she joined in the singing with her low shy voice. On my right my older sister’s clear confident soprano nearly drowned her out. Standing on my toes, I strained to look over numerous rows of people to the pulpit. There stood an old man in a long black robe, hand waving in air, leading the congregation in the singing. Flanking him were various other men similarly dressed. Beyond them, along ascending steps, stood the throng of men and women who formed the choir. And behind them all, its smooth chords flowing in and around the voice of the congregation, rose the gleaming copper pipes of the huge organ.
Suddenly the singing stopped, and people all around the spacious chamber settled back into their seats. I felt my mother’s large firm hands grasp me on either side, picking me up and setting me gently down on my seat. I looked up at her softly smiling face as she brushed my rumpled little suit. A hush had fallen over the congregation, broken only by an incessant string of muffled coughs. I became aware again of that permeating odor of mahogany so peculiar to that church. Then, with the first words from the pulpit, the people of the congregation lowered their heads as one. And so they remained as he alone spoke from his elevated position at the front of the church. The tone of his voice flowed from a low drone to a high pitched tone and back again with incredible ease, charged with far more passion and energy than I had ever heard from anyone else. My eyes wandered about the chamber, from the mysterious dark recesses far in the front to the tall narrow arch-shaped stained glass windows to the intricately carved white wooden balcony overlooking the congregation and straight up to the rafters of the vaulted ceiling. I could feel the eternally cold pew against my craning neck as I gazed skyward in wonder.
With my eyes fixed on the ceiling, the minister fell silent. The eyes of the congregation rose as mine fell. As I was turning my head towards my mother, a chorus of angelic voices descended from above. Following my mother’s uplifted gaze, I raised my eyes to the balcony where a heretofore unnoticed cluster of children, their heads and white-draped shoulders just visible above the railing, were singing Carry Me to Heaven, O Jesus!
* * *
Norwich, Spring 1966
“Hey, you guys! Let’s go up there! You’ve got ten minutes to get down here for breakfast,” my mother hollered from below.
“Oh boy,” grumbled my brother, rolling over in the adjacent bed.
In utter warmth and comfort, I lay still in my bed, knees near my chest, blankets drawn up under my chin. Another Sunday! And with it came the obligation to drag myself out of bed and dress for Sunday school. On some Sundays my brother and sister and I were excused from this painful exercise. The presence of visitors, work that needed to be done around the house or in the yard, or some other contingency could provide the relief. But this week it had been made clear to us that we’d have to go. Only bad weather could have saved us. I looked out the window above my brother’s bed. The sky was a perfect baby blue.
“You boys are being awfully quiet up there. Don’t let me have to come up there after you.” My father’s husky voice this time.
Not one to take my father’s threats lightly, I threw off the covers and set my feet on the cold floor. Before stepping out into the cold hallway, I turned to look at my still recumbent brother. Cocooned in his blankets with his back to me, all I could see of him were brown tufts of his hair upon the pillow.
“You’d better get up!” I warned.
A dull groan emanated from the bed. “In a couple of minutes,” was the muffled reply.
I shrugged and turned left into the bathroom. With toothpaste in one hand and toothbrush in the other, my thoughts dwelled on the next two hours—being with people whom I saw only at church and knew hardly at all, feeling guilty about my irregular attendance, and the numbing ritual of lesson and prayer. Paste on brush, I scrubbed my teeth roughly until they bled. Oooh, how I hated Sunday school! It was during these minutes of preparation that my desire not to go reached intense levels. What I would have given at those moments to avoid being thrust into that alien world and remain in the familiar surroundings of home. How I would have rather lounged around reading the newspapers or spent time with my friends!
I spit the toothpaste out into the sink and washed out my mouth with water. After wiping my hands, I returned to my room. The lump in my brother’s bed hadn’t budged.
“Hey Gary, you better get ready for Sunday school,” I admonished him, “or you’ll be in trouble.”
No response.
Feeling playfully aggressive, I walked softly over to my brother’s bed, leaned over him and jostled his body.
“Hey c’mon, whaddya think ya doin’?” he whined as his arms and legs flayed in vain attempts to push me away, in the process rumpling the blankets into total disarray.
“Well, get up then,” I smirked, easing up and walking away, satisfied at having disrupted his little heaven.
“I’ll get up. Don’t worry,” he retorted curtly as I shuffled into the closet. I rummaged about in search of my blue tie with the gold anchor imprinted on the front.
I soon heard my mother’s irritated voice from the doorway.
“Gary! Will you get up and get dressed? It’s almost ten-thirty!”
My brother moaned. Peering out from the closet, I watched him turn over slowly to look at my mother. In a pitiful nasal voice, he responded, “I don’t feel very well, Ma. Can I stay home today?”
What! Not feeling well! Why, that little faker!
A look of skepticism crossed my mother’s face.
“Not feeling well, huh?” She strode over to his bed. Sitting down on it, she placed the back of her hand upon his forehead. “You don’t seem to have a fever.”
“But I feel really awful, Ma. I can har’ly breathe an’ my throat’s pretty sore.” His face took on a sickly expression with his eyes half-closed and his mouth half-opened. He wheezed slightly through his nose. My mother scrutinized him as my brother played his act to the hilt. Finally, she pulled herself up off the bed.
“All right, but you’re staying in bed all day. I’ll bring you up some orange juice after I get Danny squared away downstairs. Let’s go, Dan. It’s getting late.”
My dressing had been brought to a standstill by the little scene. I stood in the closet’s entrance in my underwear.
“Your father and I have to go to New London this morning, so Mrs. Johnson will be taking you and Deborah to church. She’ll be here at ten to, so let’s go,” said my mother as she hurried out of the room.
Picking my pants up off the bed, I glared at my brother as his face broke into a grin.
* * *
Princeton University, Spring 1972
The lamp light reflected off the wet road in ever changing patterns as Karen and I walked along. A cold, moist early spring breeze battered our reddened faces. We walked in silence. My hands dug deep into my coat pockets, while my chin pressed against my collar in a protracted attempt to fend off the chill. Karen walked more freely, Bible in hand, her straight brown hair hanging uncovered over her loosely fitting white raincoat, seemingly unaffected by the weather. We’d just finished a long conversation/lecture/sales pitch on the message of Jesus Christ, and its wake found me lost in thought.
Karen lived in my dorm one floor below my roommates and me. Frail, timid, but surprisingly strong-willed about her beliefs, she “witnessed” frequently for her Lord like any good Christian. Although turning off most people in the dorm, including my roommates, a few like myself were receptive to her. Ironically, although repulsed by religion since childhood, I found myself intrigued by what she had to say. Perhaps, having gotten away from the dry routine of attending church during my childhood, I now felt confident enough to approach the subject in my own way. My thoughts dwelled often on spiritual matters and, when Karen came in my direction, I jumped at the chance to talk to her.
I was amazed. Through countless conversations, her enthusiasm never waned. Answering an endless series of questions, she guided me through the passages of the Bible. My mind easily grasped the contents, or so I thought. Yet, her unbounded delight and unquestioning faith in God suggested something more, something I was missing. I had received Christ’s message. Why was I not rejoicing and giving myself up to Him as Karen had years before? Why did I not feel the irrepressible urge to go out and spread the good news to the world, or at least to my roommates?
Karen’s explanation: I had to start associating myself with other Christians. See how they lived their faith. Then I would understand. After an unrelenting stream of invitations from Karen, I finally consented to give it a try and go to a Bible study meeting.
We approached the building where upstairs the weekly meeting was to be held, its dark Gothic shape set against the moonlit sky. My already smoldering apprehension began to flare. Karen, sensing my anxiety, smiled gently at me.
“Don’t worry, Dan. Everybody’s real friendly,” she reassured me in her soft, shy voice.
I nodded knowingly. Observed from afar, those in the “God Squad”, a name colloquially applied to the group, seemed to radiate an unceasing confident happiness, almost to the point of snobbery. It was this apparently unfettered happiness and my inability to comprehend it which lay at the root of my feelings of apprehension.
We reached the outside entrance at the end of an arched passage, and stepped inside. The large downstairs room, replete with stuffed chairs and sofas and a plush purple carpet, was quiet. As we ascended the wide stairway, I could hear voices filtering down from above. Turning on the intermediate landing, I could see several people standing in an open hallway, evidently just outside the room where the Bible study was to be held. Three guys and two girls—all quite well dressed. The guys wore slacks or corduroys, the girls knee-length dresses. Colorful, but simple. As we reached the top of the steps, they broke their conversation to greet us.
Ah, Karen,” hailed the tallest boy. He had black bushy hair and a rather gaunt face. “I see you brought a friend.”
He smiled at me warmly.
I shifted my feet uneasily as Karen looked at me brightly, then back at the group.
Yes, this is Dan. He’d like to participate in our study tonight,” she said proudly. I looked into their smiling faces, shaking hands all around.
“We’re happy to have you, Dan,” said the tall one, Bill was his name, dropping a hint of a drawl this time.
“Where are you from, Dan,” inquired one of the girls sweetly.
I looked into her inquiring eyes, staring out at me from behind the brown horned-rimmed glasses set on her plain pale face.
“Uh, Connecticut,” I responded hesitantly.
“Oh, we have someone else from Connecticut. Wayne Gordon,” she informed me, casting a searching glance into the meeting room.
I followed her glance and met a host of faces staring out at me through the doorway. I had very quickly become the center of attention, it seemed. Promptly, I swung my head back to face my next questioner. My discomfort heightened. In the subsequent minutes I caught small snatches of conversation floating in from the other room. Their contents suggested that Karen had mentioned me to them previously. Irritated at this realization, I glanced sidelong at Karen, who was engrossed in a discussion about a Biblical passage with the pale-faced girl. Finally, upon a call from within, we entered the long rectangular room. Uneasily, I took my place with the group.
* * *
Princeton, Spring 1973
Out through the large wooden doors floated the undulating choral sounds of a hymn. The open doors invited me in. Two young men stood watching the service through the left entrance into the nave from the dark and dank vestibule. They took no notice of me as I paused for a few moments to unbundled myself from my winter garments. Through the right entrance, scores of pews marched in impeccable formation to the chancel at the opposite end of the church.
It was not my first visit to the Princeton University Chapel. Its neo-Gothic structure and immense inner chamber were familiar to me. However, none of my previous visits were made with the design for which this one was intended.
My association with the Christian group over the past year had not filled me with the love of Jesus Christ. Indeed, my relationship with most members had become strained as the evidence of this fact grew with my invidious questioning of their beliefs. My refusals to eat my dinners with them instead of with my secular friends, to attend Sunday afternoon Bible studies and Sunday evening services only sustained my status as a spiritual outsider. The group had come to be what Sunday school had been to me as a child. Whether the group’s fault or mine, I felt stifled rather than liberated with its members. Its spiritual message was being choked by the mean pressure I felt to conform to its rituals. I had concluded that my search had to be made alone, so I would not be distracted by the beliefs and experiences of others. Recalling the awe and wonder I had felt as a young boy sitting in church services with my mother, I had come to the chapel seeking to recapture those feelings.
I walked quietly into the nave. The scattered congregation, perhaps filling half of the church’s capacity, was standing and singing Glory to the Highest. I slipped into an empty pew near the back among other sparsely-populated pews. Peering down the center aisle, the density of people increased as my gaze approached the front. The hall was long, narrow and steeply-vaulted, its framework constructed entirely in a gray concrete. It was dimly lit by two rows of chandeliers running the length of the church and by several small floodlights shining earthward from the apex of the ceiling. Thick columns reaching to the sloping ceiling lined the outer edges of the pews on both sides. Behind them, untouched by direct light, stood more rows of pews where a few isolated individuals sat.
There were two podiums. The higher one, apparently the pulpit, faced the congregation from the left. The other looked across the chancel from the right. The choir stood in the recess between them. Behind the choir stood a modest altar, over which loomed a huge stained glass window. A cold draft pervaded the expansive structure.
The hymn having been sung, the congregation seated itself noisily and awaited the commencement of the sermon. The chaplain, a tiny figure with white hair and in a scarlet robe, had ascended to the pulpit and was turning some pages, presumably of the Bible. Presently, he cleared his throat and spoke, his voice amplified by a microphone, welcoming the congregation and visitors to “God’s house of worship.” There I sat, listening not so much to his words but to the tone of his voice. I tried to feel the ambience of the church, searching for those elements which had so impressed me fifteen years before, trying to infuse them again with that mysticism they had once possessed.
But the aura and wonder did not return. Although physically larger, the interior of the chapel would not become the literal embodiment of “God’s house” as the nave of the United Congregational Church of Norwich had been to me. The vaulted ceiling obviously reached only a hundred-odd feet above the floor, not to the heavens. The darker recesses of the building contained only people, if anyone at all, not saints or devils. And the voice bellowing forth from the pulpit was not God’s, but merely the chaplain’s, assisted by a sound system. Everything which formerly had radiated a lustrous spirituality, now revealed nothing but man’s vulgarity.
* * *
Browns Mills, New Jersey, Spring 1975
“Do-be-do-be-doobee-doobee, do-be-do-be-doobee-do,” I chanted melodiously as I bounced my brother Gene’s two-year-old daughter on my knee. She laughed in her high-pitched voice, displaying her recently acquired set of off-white teeth. Her big round eyes gleamed.
“A-gain!” she insisted, rocking back and forth. She push me playfully on the chest.
“Oh, no,” I begged off. “Uncle Dan’s tired.” I put on an easily mustered expression of fatigue.
Not to be denied, she bounced herself emphatically on my knee. “A-gain! A-gain, Unca Dan!”
“All right, Kelly. One last time.”
With that, I “do-be-doobeed” several more times, finishing with a flourishing toss high into the air and setting her down gently on the hardwood floor. She gurgled happily as I pushed myself out of the chair to go into the kitchen.
The clock over the sink read four o’clock. My brother and his wife ought to be back fairly soon, I thought. We were to have dinner before I was to accompany my brother to evening church service. After a period of several months during which he suffered from long spells of depression and turned to drinking, he had “found Christ.” His conversion both interested and disturbed me. Although glad to see him in good spirits, I recognized his vulnerability and feared his being attracted to more fanatical religious elements. As for myself, the circumstances had brought me back to those old familiar arguments which address themselves to one’s fears, rather than one’s hopes. Feeling once again the social pressure to join—to conform—I was convinced more than ever that their road should not be mine.
Kelly’s giggles tore me from my thoughts. I stepped to the doorway and smiled. Sitting in the middle of the floor, she was clapping her hands joyfully and staring at the far wall. There, a newly hung silver cross, gleaming in the sunlight that was flooding in through the picture window, had entranced the little girl. I remained leaning against the doorway, marveling at her unaffected enjoyment and appreciation of beauty. My mind contrasted this to the sometimes neurotic confoundedness of adults, and their habitual ignorance of nature’s—God’s—simple gifts. That delighted child, like myself at her age, sat closer to the Divine Spirit than others older than she. Unencumbered by an awareness of the meanness of the world into which she had been born, she was capable of seeing clearly the beauty in the things that touched her senses. Witnessing such rapture, I regained the hope of one day transcending this world and glimpsing the sublime.
* * *
Boston, December 1977
It was a snowy afternoon in downtown Boston as I walked up and down Washington Street looking for the newspaper office where I had been granted an interview for a job as a reporter. I knew my chances were slim of landing the job. I’d already been rejected at several other places. Main reason: no education, no training, no experience in journalism. After all, my major at Princeton had been economics. A couple of months ago I had thought that my Princeton diploma would get me in the door no matter what the major. No more. I was coming up against the real world. Two months of job hunting and my wallet was getting lighter and lighter. If I didn’t land a job soon… Well, the thought of having to move back in with my parents at the age of 25 was not at all appealing.
You’re probably asking what was I doing looking for a job as a journalist after spending $16,000 on an economics degree. To make a long story short, after graduating and facing the prospect of working at a real job for the first time in my life, I found that employment prospects for economic philosophers/historians were hard to come by. I settled on a job at a firm that conducted economic research for the government (read statistical analysis and computer programming). It wasn’t my cup of tea. Meanwhile, I found myself starting to read classical literature for the first time in my life (outside of a high school/college course, that is) and getting ideas into my head that I could be a writer, too. So I saved up a couple thousand dollars, quit my job, and moved into a hovel of an apartment in Boston.
While looking for a paying job, I began writing the Great American Novel. I had written perhaps seventy pages when this fateful day had arrived.
I was lost. I knew the place was somewhere on Washington Street, but I just couldn’t seem to locate the building. The address didn’t seem to exist. It was snowing all around.
“Excuse me.” A little Japanese girl with two gold teeth was standing in front of me.
“What?” I said. I was a bit disoriented.
“Do you believe in God?” she said, smiling at me, her gold teeth gleaming.
“God?” I repeated, trying to collect my thoughts. “Well, I guess I do sometimes. Not right now, though.”
“Are you concerned about the world situation—poverty, drugs, the possibility of nuclear war?”
“Well, yeah, I guess. Isn’t everybody?” What was this leading to? I wondered.
“Please come to our center. We have a lecture that talks about these problems.”
“Well, I’m kind of busy right now. What kind of center? Are you some kind of Christian group?” Memories of my time spent with the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship popped into my head.
“Something like that. Why don’t you come?” she repeated insistently.
by
Robert Beebe
rbeebe52@yahoo.com
Norwich, Connecticut, ca. 1960.
I stood atop my seat in the sturdy mahogany pew amidst the multitudinous congregation of the United Congregational Church as it sang The Lord, Our Father in thunderous unison. At my left was my mother, dressed in a long velvet skirt with matching vest over a fluffy yellow blouse and capped by a yellow dress hat. Her eyes fixed intently on the hymn book in her hands, she joined in the singing with her low shy voice. On my right my older sister’s clear confident soprano nearly drowned her out. Standing on my toes, I strained to look over numerous rows of people to the pulpit. There stood an old man in a long black robe, hand waving in air, leading the congregation in the singing. Flanking him were various other men similarly dressed. Beyond them, along ascending steps, stood the throng of men and women who formed the choir. And behind them all, its smooth chords flowing in and around the voice of the congregation, rose the gleaming copper pipes of the huge organ.
Suddenly the singing stopped, and people all around the spacious chamber settled back into their seats. I felt my mother’s large firm hands grasp me on either side, picking me up and setting me gently down on my seat. I looked up at her softly smiling face as she brushed my rumpled little suit. A hush had fallen over the congregation, broken only by an incessant string of muffled coughs. I became aware again of that permeating odor of mahogany so peculiar to that church. Then, with the first words from the pulpit, the people of the congregation lowered their heads as one. And so they remained as he alone spoke from his elevated position at the front of the church. The tone of his voice flowed from a low drone to a high pitched tone and back again with incredible ease, charged with far more passion and energy than I had ever heard from anyone else. My eyes wandered about the chamber, from the mysterious dark recesses far in the front to the tall narrow arch-shaped stained glass windows to the intricately carved white wooden balcony overlooking the congregation and straight up to the rafters of the vaulted ceiling. I could feel the eternally cold pew against my craning neck as I gazed skyward in wonder.
With my eyes fixed on the ceiling, the minister fell silent. The eyes of the congregation rose as mine fell. As I was turning my head towards my mother, a chorus of angelic voices descended from above. Following my mother’s uplifted gaze, I raised my eyes to the balcony where a heretofore unnoticed cluster of children, their heads and white-draped shoulders just visible above the railing, were singing Carry Me to Heaven, O Jesus!
* * *
Norwich, Spring 1966
“Hey, you guys! Let’s go up there! You’ve got ten minutes to get down here for breakfast,” my mother hollered from below.
“Oh boy,” grumbled my brother, rolling over in the adjacent bed.
In utter warmth and comfort, I lay still in my bed, knees near my chest, blankets drawn up under my chin. Another Sunday! And with it came the obligation to drag myself out of bed and dress for Sunday school. On some Sundays my brother and sister and I were excused from this painful exercise. The presence of visitors, work that needed to be done around the house or in the yard, or some other contingency could provide the relief. But this week it had been made clear to us that we’d have to go. Only bad weather could have saved us. I looked out the window above my brother’s bed. The sky was a perfect baby blue.
“You boys are being awfully quiet up there. Don’t let me have to come up there after you.” My father’s husky voice this time.
Not one to take my father’s threats lightly, I threw off the covers and set my feet on the cold floor. Before stepping out into the cold hallway, I turned to look at my still recumbent brother. Cocooned in his blankets with his back to me, all I could see of him were brown tufts of his hair upon the pillow.
“You’d better get up!” I warned.
A dull groan emanated from the bed. “In a couple of minutes,” was the muffled reply.
I shrugged and turned left into the bathroom. With toothpaste in one hand and toothbrush in the other, my thoughts dwelled on the next two hours—being with people whom I saw only at church and knew hardly at all, feeling guilty about my irregular attendance, and the numbing ritual of lesson and prayer. Paste on brush, I scrubbed my teeth roughly until they bled. Oooh, how I hated Sunday school! It was during these minutes of preparation that my desire not to go reached intense levels. What I would have given at those moments to avoid being thrust into that alien world and remain in the familiar surroundings of home. How I would have rather lounged around reading the newspapers or spent time with my friends!
I spit the toothpaste out into the sink and washed out my mouth with water. After wiping my hands, I returned to my room. The lump in my brother’s bed hadn’t budged.
“Hey Gary, you better get ready for Sunday school,” I admonished him, “or you’ll be in trouble.”
No response.
Feeling playfully aggressive, I walked softly over to my brother’s bed, leaned over him and jostled his body.
“Hey c’mon, whaddya think ya doin’?” he whined as his arms and legs flayed in vain attempts to push me away, in the process rumpling the blankets into total disarray.
“Well, get up then,” I smirked, easing up and walking away, satisfied at having disrupted his little heaven.
“I’ll get up. Don’t worry,” he retorted curtly as I shuffled into the closet. I rummaged about in search of my blue tie with the gold anchor imprinted on the front.
I soon heard my mother’s irritated voice from the doorway.
“Gary! Will you get up and get dressed? It’s almost ten-thirty!”
My brother moaned. Peering out from the closet, I watched him turn over slowly to look at my mother. In a pitiful nasal voice, he responded, “I don’t feel very well, Ma. Can I stay home today?”
What! Not feeling well! Why, that little faker!
A look of skepticism crossed my mother’s face.
“Not feeling well, huh?” She strode over to his bed. Sitting down on it, she placed the back of her hand upon his forehead. “You don’t seem to have a fever.”
“But I feel really awful, Ma. I can har’ly breathe an’ my throat’s pretty sore.” His face took on a sickly expression with his eyes half-closed and his mouth half-opened. He wheezed slightly through his nose. My mother scrutinized him as my brother played his act to the hilt. Finally, she pulled herself up off the bed.
“All right, but you’re staying in bed all day. I’ll bring you up some orange juice after I get Danny squared away downstairs. Let’s go, Dan. It’s getting late.”
My dressing had been brought to a standstill by the little scene. I stood in the closet’s entrance in my underwear.
“Your father and I have to go to New London this morning, so Mrs. Johnson will be taking you and Deborah to church. She’ll be here at ten to, so let’s go,” said my mother as she hurried out of the room.
Picking my pants up off the bed, I glared at my brother as his face broke into a grin.
* * *
Princeton University, Spring 1972
The lamp light reflected off the wet road in ever changing patterns as Karen and I walked along. A cold, moist early spring breeze battered our reddened faces. We walked in silence. My hands dug deep into my coat pockets, while my chin pressed against my collar in a protracted attempt to fend off the chill. Karen walked more freely, Bible in hand, her straight brown hair hanging uncovered over her loosely fitting white raincoat, seemingly unaffected by the weather. We’d just finished a long conversation/lecture/sales pitch on the message of Jesus Christ, and its wake found me lost in thought.
Karen lived in my dorm one floor below my roommates and me. Frail, timid, but surprisingly strong-willed about her beliefs, she “witnessed” frequently for her Lord like any good Christian. Although turning off most people in the dorm, including my roommates, a few like myself were receptive to her. Ironically, although repulsed by religion since childhood, I found myself intrigued by what she had to say. Perhaps, having gotten away from the dry routine of attending church during my childhood, I now felt confident enough to approach the subject in my own way. My thoughts dwelled often on spiritual matters and, when Karen came in my direction, I jumped at the chance to talk to her.
I was amazed. Through countless conversations, her enthusiasm never waned. Answering an endless series of questions, she guided me through the passages of the Bible. My mind easily grasped the contents, or so I thought. Yet, her unbounded delight and unquestioning faith in God suggested something more, something I was missing. I had received Christ’s message. Why was I not rejoicing and giving myself up to Him as Karen had years before? Why did I not feel the irrepressible urge to go out and spread the good news to the world, or at least to my roommates?
Karen’s explanation: I had to start associating myself with other Christians. See how they lived their faith. Then I would understand. After an unrelenting stream of invitations from Karen, I finally consented to give it a try and go to a Bible study meeting.
We approached the building where upstairs the weekly meeting was to be held, its dark Gothic shape set against the moonlit sky. My already smoldering apprehension began to flare. Karen, sensing my anxiety, smiled gently at me.
“Don’t worry, Dan. Everybody’s real friendly,” she reassured me in her soft, shy voice.
I nodded knowingly. Observed from afar, those in the “God Squad”, a name colloquially applied to the group, seemed to radiate an unceasing confident happiness, almost to the point of snobbery. It was this apparently unfettered happiness and my inability to comprehend it which lay at the root of my feelings of apprehension.
We reached the outside entrance at the end of an arched passage, and stepped inside. The large downstairs room, replete with stuffed chairs and sofas and a plush purple carpet, was quiet. As we ascended the wide stairway, I could hear voices filtering down from above. Turning on the intermediate landing, I could see several people standing in an open hallway, evidently just outside the room where the Bible study was to be held. Three guys and two girls—all quite well dressed. The guys wore slacks or corduroys, the girls knee-length dresses. Colorful, but simple. As we reached the top of the steps, they broke their conversation to greet us.
Ah, Karen,” hailed the tallest boy. He had black bushy hair and a rather gaunt face. “I see you brought a friend.”
He smiled at me warmly.
I shifted my feet uneasily as Karen looked at me brightly, then back at the group.
Yes, this is Dan. He’d like to participate in our study tonight,” she said proudly. I looked into their smiling faces, shaking hands all around.
“We’re happy to have you, Dan,” said the tall one, Bill was his name, dropping a hint of a drawl this time.
“Where are you from, Dan,” inquired one of the girls sweetly.
I looked into her inquiring eyes, staring out at me from behind the brown horned-rimmed glasses set on her plain pale face.
“Uh, Connecticut,” I responded hesitantly.
“Oh, we have someone else from Connecticut. Wayne Gordon,” she informed me, casting a searching glance into the meeting room.
I followed her glance and met a host of faces staring out at me through the doorway. I had very quickly become the center of attention, it seemed. Promptly, I swung my head back to face my next questioner. My discomfort heightened. In the subsequent minutes I caught small snatches of conversation floating in from the other room. Their contents suggested that Karen had mentioned me to them previously. Irritated at this realization, I glanced sidelong at Karen, who was engrossed in a discussion about a Biblical passage with the pale-faced girl. Finally, upon a call from within, we entered the long rectangular room. Uneasily, I took my place with the group.
* * *
Princeton, Spring 1973
Out through the large wooden doors floated the undulating choral sounds of a hymn. The open doors invited me in. Two young men stood watching the service through the left entrance into the nave from the dark and dank vestibule. They took no notice of me as I paused for a few moments to unbundled myself from my winter garments. Through the right entrance, scores of pews marched in impeccable formation to the chancel at the opposite end of the church.
It was not my first visit to the Princeton University Chapel. Its neo-Gothic structure and immense inner chamber were familiar to me. However, none of my previous visits were made with the design for which this one was intended.
My association with the Christian group over the past year had not filled me with the love of Jesus Christ. Indeed, my relationship with most members had become strained as the evidence of this fact grew with my invidious questioning of their beliefs. My refusals to eat my dinners with them instead of with my secular friends, to attend Sunday afternoon Bible studies and Sunday evening services only sustained my status as a spiritual outsider. The group had come to be what Sunday school had been to me as a child. Whether the group’s fault or mine, I felt stifled rather than liberated with its members. Its spiritual message was being choked by the mean pressure I felt to conform to its rituals. I had concluded that my search had to be made alone, so I would not be distracted by the beliefs and experiences of others. Recalling the awe and wonder I had felt as a young boy sitting in church services with my mother, I had come to the chapel seeking to recapture those feelings.
I walked quietly into the nave. The scattered congregation, perhaps filling half of the church’s capacity, was standing and singing Glory to the Highest. I slipped into an empty pew near the back among other sparsely-populated pews. Peering down the center aisle, the density of people increased as my gaze approached the front. The hall was long, narrow and steeply-vaulted, its framework constructed entirely in a gray concrete. It was dimly lit by two rows of chandeliers running the length of the church and by several small floodlights shining earthward from the apex of the ceiling. Thick columns reaching to the sloping ceiling lined the outer edges of the pews on both sides. Behind them, untouched by direct light, stood more rows of pews where a few isolated individuals sat.
There were two podiums. The higher one, apparently the pulpit, faced the congregation from the left. The other looked across the chancel from the right. The choir stood in the recess between them. Behind the choir stood a modest altar, over which loomed a huge stained glass window. A cold draft pervaded the expansive structure.
The hymn having been sung, the congregation seated itself noisily and awaited the commencement of the sermon. The chaplain, a tiny figure with white hair and in a scarlet robe, had ascended to the pulpit and was turning some pages, presumably of the Bible. Presently, he cleared his throat and spoke, his voice amplified by a microphone, welcoming the congregation and visitors to “God’s house of worship.” There I sat, listening not so much to his words but to the tone of his voice. I tried to feel the ambience of the church, searching for those elements which had so impressed me fifteen years before, trying to infuse them again with that mysticism they had once possessed.
But the aura and wonder did not return. Although physically larger, the interior of the chapel would not become the literal embodiment of “God’s house” as the nave of the United Congregational Church of Norwich had been to me. The vaulted ceiling obviously reached only a hundred-odd feet above the floor, not to the heavens. The darker recesses of the building contained only people, if anyone at all, not saints or devils. And the voice bellowing forth from the pulpit was not God’s, but merely the chaplain’s, assisted by a sound system. Everything which formerly had radiated a lustrous spirituality, now revealed nothing but man’s vulgarity.
* * *
Browns Mills, New Jersey, Spring 1975
“Do-be-do-be-doobee-doobee, do-be-do-be-doobee-do,” I chanted melodiously as I bounced my brother Gene’s two-year-old daughter on my knee. She laughed in her high-pitched voice, displaying her recently acquired set of off-white teeth. Her big round eyes gleamed.
“A-gain!” she insisted, rocking back and forth. She push me playfully on the chest.
“Oh, no,” I begged off. “Uncle Dan’s tired.” I put on an easily mustered expression of fatigue.
Not to be denied, she bounced herself emphatically on my knee. “A-gain! A-gain, Unca Dan!”
“All right, Kelly. One last time.”
With that, I “do-be-doobeed” several more times, finishing with a flourishing toss high into the air and setting her down gently on the hardwood floor. She gurgled happily as I pushed myself out of the chair to go into the kitchen.
The clock over the sink read four o’clock. My brother and his wife ought to be back fairly soon, I thought. We were to have dinner before I was to accompany my brother to evening church service. After a period of several months during which he suffered from long spells of depression and turned to drinking, he had “found Christ.” His conversion both interested and disturbed me. Although glad to see him in good spirits, I recognized his vulnerability and feared his being attracted to more fanatical religious elements. As for myself, the circumstances had brought me back to those old familiar arguments which address themselves to one’s fears, rather than one’s hopes. Feeling once again the social pressure to join—to conform—I was convinced more than ever that their road should not be mine.
Kelly’s giggles tore me from my thoughts. I stepped to the doorway and smiled. Sitting in the middle of the floor, she was clapping her hands joyfully and staring at the far wall. There, a newly hung silver cross, gleaming in the sunlight that was flooding in through the picture window, had entranced the little girl. I remained leaning against the doorway, marveling at her unaffected enjoyment and appreciation of beauty. My mind contrasted this to the sometimes neurotic confoundedness of adults, and their habitual ignorance of nature’s—God’s—simple gifts. That delighted child, like myself at her age, sat closer to the Divine Spirit than others older than she. Unencumbered by an awareness of the meanness of the world into which she had been born, she was capable of seeing clearly the beauty in the things that touched her senses. Witnessing such rapture, I regained the hope of one day transcending this world and glimpsing the sublime.
* * *
Boston, December 1977
It was a snowy afternoon in downtown Boston as I walked up and down Washington Street looking for the newspaper office where I had been granted an interview for a job as a reporter. I knew my chances were slim of landing the job. I’d already been rejected at several other places. Main reason: no education, no training, no experience in journalism. After all, my major at Princeton had been economics. A couple of months ago I had thought that my Princeton diploma would get me in the door no matter what the major. No more. I was coming up against the real world. Two months of job hunting and my wallet was getting lighter and lighter. If I didn’t land a job soon… Well, the thought of having to move back in with my parents at the age of 25 was not at all appealing.
You’re probably asking what was I doing looking for a job as a journalist after spending $16,000 on an economics degree. To make a long story short, after graduating and facing the prospect of working at a real job for the first time in my life, I found that employment prospects for economic philosophers/historians were hard to come by. I settled on a job at a firm that conducted economic research for the government (read statistical analysis and computer programming). It wasn’t my cup of tea. Meanwhile, I found myself starting to read classical literature for the first time in my life (outside of a high school/college course, that is) and getting ideas into my head that I could be a writer, too. So I saved up a couple thousand dollars, quit my job, and moved into a hovel of an apartment in Boston.
While looking for a paying job, I began writing the Great American Novel. I had written perhaps seventy pages when this fateful day had arrived.
I was lost. I knew the place was somewhere on Washington Street, but I just couldn’t seem to locate the building. The address didn’t seem to exist. It was snowing all around.
“Excuse me.” A little Japanese girl with two gold teeth was standing in front of me.
“What?” I said. I was a bit disoriented.
“Do you believe in God?” she said, smiling at me, her gold teeth gleaming.
“God?” I repeated, trying to collect my thoughts. “Well, I guess I do sometimes. Not right now, though.”
“Are you concerned about the world situation—poverty, drugs, the possibility of nuclear war?”
“Well, yeah, I guess. Isn’t everybody?” What was this leading to? I wondered.
“Please come to our center. We have a lecture that talks about these problems.”
“Well, I’m kind of busy right now. What kind of center? Are you some kind of Christian group?” Memories of my time spent with the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship popped into my head.
“Something like that. Why don’t you come?” she repeated insistently.
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