Excerpt: Descending Grace

Pam walked in the door like a cool wind filled with new ideas. It felt like a window was opening in my brain and I suddenly realized what I needed to talk about.
“Am I a teenager?” I asked her and Bill.
“No,” Pam said with finality.
“Explain this to me.”
“It’s the ordination, John.” She snapped her fingers. “Sucks all the youthful vigor right out of you. Instant geezer.”
“No, I’m serious,” I protested.
“What makes you think I’m not serious?” Pam asked.
“I’m not that old,” I said.
“It’s not chronological, John,” she said.
“You want to see my driver’s license?” I offered.
“John, it’s not chronological. Instead, show me your tattoo.”
“Tattoo?”
“I’ll take a body piercing, but as you have no earring in your ears it’s unlikely you’ve got a stud poked through you anywhere else.”
“What’s a stud?” I asked, confused.
“What you are not, my man. I told you, the ordination just sucks it right out of you.” She made a sucking sound. “All the studness, just gone.”
“Well, then, just show me your tatoo,” I said. “You’re ordained just like me.”
She smiled. “You’ll have to get my husband’s permission to see my tattoo, and I don’t think he knows you well enough.”
“You actually have one?” I asked.
“Why do you sound so surprised?” she said, laughing at me. “Can you see what you take for granted, John? You are making assumption just on the basis of theological education and ordination. And those assumptions totally prove my point.”
“But,” I protested, and turned to Bill. “Don’t tell me you’ve got one, too.”
Bill nodded. “They’re required in the tire business if you go into management. No wussies allowed on the sales floor. Cindy doesn’t have one, if that helps you.”
“Have I fallen through the rabbit hole?” I asked, obviously bewildered.
“No, John. You’ve spent years learning how to fit into an environment where not only the majority of the church members are older, but to where the institution itself is a monument to everything that is traditional and long lasting.”
“But that environment is ... normal,” I said, crestfallen.
“Exactly,” she said. “No tattoos or body piercing. No long hair. No electric guitars. Just tasteful music.”
I just collapsed. “You’re right.”
“Oh, it gets worse. Only white theologians, all men, and I’ll bet all dead.”
“The important ones all are,” Bill said with a grin.
“And depending on the denomination, sometimes dead for centuries. Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, am I right?”
“Some of them had only been dead a few years,” I said.
“Oh, the newly dead theologians. Bultmann, Tillich, Barth, Niebuhr, etc. The radicals when your professors were young and getting their PhD’s and who they are still teaching as if they were still relevant?”
“Uh...”
Bill laughed. “Give in, amigo. She’s got you cornered.”
“You know I do,” Pam said. “But the astonishing thing is John that you don’t really know what it means to be a teenager. I’ll bet you didn’t go through any sort of rebellion as a young man. Those of us who go into this profession either have a wild past or a mild past. I’ve got you pegged as mild through and through.”
“I’d like to tell you that you’re wrong, but you’re probably not,” I said.
“Don’t feel like there’s something wrong with you. God loves you just the way you are, John: totally white, totally geek, totally mild and calm and relaxing as peanut butter on white bread?”
“I like white bread!” I said, and laughed at the ridiculousness of it. I was now defending white bread. “And fries, with the Coke.”
“At the drive in on the way to the sock hop, too, I’ll bet. John,” she said in a much milder tone, “the important thing is to realize who you are, accept who you are and know that God played a role in your turning out that way. God must need a white bread loving hunk of burning theological love, because that’s who you are.”
“On fire,” Bill said, nodding.
“You should stop making fun of me,” I said. “Before I get defensive.”
“Actually, I’m done making fun of you, John. I’m serious. God uses us not for whom we become after all those years of graduate school, but for who we are. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. And that’s the secret of the teenage years.”
“Now you’ve totally lost me.”
“You’ll be glad we had this discussion when little John hits the teen years. You’re going to need it then.” She opened up her briefcase and began to paw through the files. “I think I have it here somewhere.”
“Do you really have a tattoo,” I asked Bill.
He nodded. “You should never drink too much with fraternity brothers on spring break. Fortunately, I married the girl whose name I tattooed over my heart or I’d only be able to date women with the name of Cindy.”
“Sadly, I am Ruth-less,” I said.
“His ego’s back, Pam,” Bill said. “He’s ready for more.”