March 11, 2004

• The student center was full of its usual rushing throng.  It seems as though anyone who is going anywhere in Hofstra University has to pass through the Student Center.  Students flowed out of the long tunnel of the Unispan to flow, liquid-like, into the cafeteria; to trickle into the Hofstra Bookstore, or to drip out into the freezing cold outside.

  Every time the outer door would open (which was often), a gust of December air would press its cold hands to my face.  Fat snowflakes would drift inside--The tiles near the doorway were wet and slick.  Everyone walking by was bundled up in layers of polar fleece and Gore-Tex¢â.

  Even though I was sitting far from the doorway, I held my hands near the sides of the large coffeemaker to warm them.  Beside me, Tole was still doggedly calling to passersby.  "Free Hot Drinks!  Tea?  Hot Chocolate?  Soup?" 

  Most of the students didn't even miss a step, but hurried on.  We have places to go, things to do--don't bother us, said their pace.

  Two sorority girls eventually approached our table and looked it over.  We had the large coffeemaker at one end, perking full of hot water.  Beside it were boxes of herbal tea, packets of hot cocoa mix, little styrofoam cups of dried soup mix.  Near the front of the table were a few flyers, giving the time and place of our meetings to whomever was interested.  In the corner was a small stack of blue pocket-sized copies of the gospel of John.

  "What group are you with?" the brunette asked us.

  "We're with Hofstra Christian Fellowship," I replied, with what I hoped was a friendly grin.

  She looked at the herbal tea again.  "And this is all free?"  She laid an incredulous emphasis on the word free, as though it ran counter to the established laws of nature.

  I said, "Yep."

  Tole supplied, "We're trying to show the love of Jesus in a practical way."

  "Do we have to take any of your pamphlets or something?"

  "No.  Only if you want to," said Tole.

  The other girl, who hadn't spoken yet, tugged suddenly on her friend's arm.  "Hey, let's get some Starbucks," she said without looking in our direction.  "I'm dying for a Caramel Macchiato."  The brunette giggled and allowed herself to be led away; in a moment they had both vanished into the ever-flowing stream of people.

  Tole and I exchanged glances.  He raised one eyebrow at me.  I just shrugged, and idly began to straighten the hot cocoa packets.

  Beside me, I could hear him calling, "Free Hot Drinks!  Tea?  Hot Chocolate?"

   

  Outside, the sky had darkened from pewter to slate, slate to hematite, and was working its way into obsidian.  The windows of the distant dorm towers twinkled yellow like jaundiced stars.  It was certainly getting colder.

  I was pouring hot water into a styrofoam cup, to make myself a cup of... (I glanced at the package)... "Peppermint Herbal Blend" tea.  Few other people were drinking it, and it seemed a shame to let it go to waste.  Personally I preferred Earl Grey with a spoonful of honey, but what I got was Peppermint Herbal Blend with two packets of pink cancer-causing sugar subsitute.

  "Hot Drinks?  They're free!" Tole called to the passing students.  Even his undampable spirit seemed somewhat frustrated by the level of rejection we had been facing.  It seemed that all one had to do was mention the name "Jesus" to send people scattering.

  About half an hour earlier, a law student had stopped by with his girlfriend.  She asked for a cup of Hot Cocoa, which I began to prepare for her.  Meanwhile her boyfriend looked at our sign, and asked which organization we represented. 

  Tole told him.  "We're showing the love of Jesus in a practical way," he added brightly.

  "Ah," he said, in a strange sort of way.  After a moment he continued, "I think that Jesus was a good teacher--a good man."

  I bit my lip and said nothing, while I mixed the cocoa powder into the water.  This stance on Jesus has never made sense to me.  We're referring to someone who claimed to be divine--to be the Son of God--to be equal with God himself.  How can such a man have been "a good teacher?"  Either he was a lunatic of the tin-foil-hat variety, or he was a liar, or he was telling the truth and was the incarnation of God.

  Now, if he was a lunatic, he wouldn't have made a very good teacher at all.  And if he was a liar, he violated his own commands, was a beastly hypocrite, and wasn't a good teacher.  And if he was--is--God, then he is so much more than a mere good teacher.

  "Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."  --C.S. Lewis

  But the law student was already starting to drift away, and the girl was impatiently waiting for her drink.  I handed the hot chocolate to her with a smile.  She said, "Thank you," and I replied, "God bless."  And then both of them were gone.

   

  At the end of an hour, we were waiting for our replacement.  In a few minutes someone else from Hofstra's Christian Fellowship would stop by and take over the Hot Drink table.  Tole had given up on calling out "Hot Drinks" because the Student Center was starting to empty out.  Before long there would be no-one left.

  "This was interesting," I commented to him, sipping from the last of my Peppermint Herbal...Stuff.  (I could not honestly refer to the drink in my hand as "tea.")

  He smiled, but said nothing.

  "Hey, are you going to be at the meeting on Thurs--"

  "Are these free?"

  I broke off and looked up.  A younger student, probably a freshman, was standing in front of our table and pointing.  But she wasn't pointing to the tea bags, or the packets of chocolate.  She was pointing to the stack of blue booklets in the corner.  The pocket-sized copies of the book of John.

  "Uhh....yeah.  Yeah, those are free," I said, too stunned to say anything else.

  She picked one up and leafed through it.  It vanished into her purse.  Then, with a smile and a "Thank you," she walked away.

   

  (The events described in this essay took place about a year ago.)

  • 12:31 pm
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