[Bible Jim and me, part ii]

Backtrack to September 2001. Our scene: College, take two. After taking a year off recuperating from my disappointing performance at Bible college (maybe I’ll have the courage to post on THAT sometime…), I enrolled at Western, and, knowing no one in Bellingham, was forced to move into the dorms. I must admit, dorm life held much more allure the first time I tried it. Now I found myself moving in with a bunch of crazies who were in eighth grade when I was grabbing my diploma to Pomp & Circumstance.

I had, in a moment of later-appreciated wisdom, requested a single room. Western housing terms this a “Super-single” accommodation. “Super-closet” would have been more appropriate, as the room’s width was the length of my twin bed… one long skinny rectangle. The flooring? Think junior high cafeteria. Then think cold. (No one warned me of the glories of Fairhaven housing. I think I handpicked the ghettoest housing on campus. But hey, at least it was my own private corner of ghettodom, just below the laundry room). But I digress…

The first day, as I was getting things set up in my room, more specifically, shelving my massive collection of Christian non-fiction, Allie walked in. I’d already met some of the girls with whom I shared a suite (two shared rooms + a super single + bathroom = suite), and to be quite honest, thought she was one of their brothers for a brief moment before it clicked. Our eyes met, and it was that classic deer-caught-in-headlights look… from both of us. I can’t know her perspective for sure, but I could guess her thoughts as she caught my Bible on top of the shelf: I’m living with a Bible thumper. She’s going to hate me. Mine, as I caught her spiky hair and carharts: I’m living with a lesbian. She’s probably been given plenty of reason to hate me. We managed a polite, hello, how’s it going, but I know we both walked away thinking oh-crap-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into kinds of thoughts.

That night, as I lay there in bed, my nose stuffy from the potent combo of pot and incense wafting in from the celebratory festivities next door… I wondered again what I’d gotten myself into. I’d said that I wanted to be out of the bubble of sheltered surreality that was Bible college. I’d said that I wanted to be in touch with what was really happening in the world, to know people different than myself. Well, between Allie and her polar-opposite roommate, a Britney-ish cheerleader who was quite proud of her contribution to a Girls Gone Wild video… I’d say we were there. I would continue to be stretched in the months to come, as Allie’s girlfriend entered the picture, and as my allergies became fairly regular.

It was strange. It wasn’t that I’d never been exposed to any of this before… I’d been working with youth for a while, and after a while things sort of cease to shock you. But working with the kids, they’re on your turf. They’ve chosen to come, at least for the most part. I was on foreign turf; I knew I was far away from home, from familiarity, and felt it keenly. And the last thing I wanted to be – the thing I was most scared of – was that I’d be one more Christian earning the reputation of hatred and bigotry so far from the heart of who Jesus was.

So in those first few weeks, I decided something important: I decided to shut up. To just shut up and be as kind as I knew how to be; to let people be themselves, without being judgmental and condescending. Sometimes my former tendencies would have been to be harsh, to be unwilling to associate with people who were living certain ways, but things had changed. I think partially it was that I was out to prove something: All Christians aren’t jerkfaces. But for whatever reasons, I just wasn’t willing to be that person anymore.

Growing up, I’d always been taught – subtly -- that it was about what you’d SAY to people far from God, that one day you’d have this talk where you knew all the answers, and they would be just SO hungry to hear how right you were, and that would be it. Uh huh. Yeah right. Only within the confines of the Christian college bubble does that kind of thinking survive.

For me, it didn’t take long to find that people already knew where I stood, what my life was about, simply by the way I lived it, imperfectly but graciously. I didn’t need to say anything... it wasn’t necessary to communicate my values. To say something would have wrecked it, I think. Yeah, I got teased sometimes. Especially at first, but as time wore on, it was nearly affectionate.

Allie, running into my room: “Stacey! Turn on channel 12! It’s Destiny’s Child! They’re singin’ about God & Jesus & stuff! You’ll love it!”

Me: falling off my bed laughing.

I don’t think I ever once talked to Allie about the Bible, or my beliefs vs. hers, or anything like that. Some would say that I was foolish, others would say that I did the right thing… all I knew was that I cared more about being able to laugh with her than I did about being able to out-debate her. What we did talk about was English. English, and Saturday morning cartoons. Allie was dyslexic, and admittedly was terrible at writing. Me, I wrote for fun, so it worked out for me to proofread her papers and help her get her essays started. I like helping people write in general, but getting that chance to build a friendship with someone so seemingly unlikely through something so simple… meant a lot. Saturday morning cartoons… everyone would pile onto my twin bed some Saturday mornings and we’d sit there and watch Flintstones or Jetsons or whatever else was on as we ate unholy amounts of breakfast cereal. You couldn’t have come up with a more assorted crew if you tried, but there we were.

One thing they did teach me at Bible college was true, however. I had always thought it was total myth, but it turns out it still happens every now and then. Sometimes people really do ask you what’s different about you. Emily, one of my other suitemates, asked me that once as we were hanging out in my super-closet. After I recuperated from passing out that she’d actually ask me, we talked. And talked. And talked.

During one such talk, she asked me about how I’d felt when I first met Allie. I was honest… saying that I was afraid she wouldn’t like me. Emily said they’d talked about it, and that Allie had feared the same thing. And then Emily said this to me, which I will hold on to forever: “Yeah, but then she got to know you. We were talking about it not too long ago and she said, ‘Stacey’s not like any other Christian I’ve been around. I actually like being around her.’”

(I smiled for like a week. People liked being around Jesus too).

***
No one “got saved” on my floor during the few months I lived on campus, at least not that I know of. All I can say is that I attempted to love people like Jesus did… that I tried to live truth in front of them, and let them open up the discussion. While I’m not concerned with my knowing the outcomes – those are up to God -- I do hope that because I lived there, people realized that God is nearer and more gracious than He sometimes has been portrayed.

Some more zealous types would no doubt think me an absolute failure. But that’s ok with me. Those zealous types were up in Red Square, yelling and screaming about who makes Jesus sick.

The prayer I prayed under my breath as I walked away from Red Square that day was that, when Allie thinks of a Christian, she doesn’t see Bible Jim. I hope she still sees me.