Short Stories

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Her cell phone rang just as she finished fastening Constance into the car seat. For an instant, she was tempted to let it go to voicemail, but something prompted her to stop the process of securing her three month old into the car and dig for the phone.

“Yes, Pastor Douglas?” she asked with surprise. She had said goodbye to him five minutes earlier after taking care of some financial matters for City of Refuge, the church’s ministry to victims of domestic violence. The amount of paperwork involved with grant money never ceased to amaze her.

“Don’t leave just yet. Do you remember my telling you about a gentleman who wanted to say thanks?”

“One of Sarai’s relatives?”

“That’s him. He walked in two seconds after you left. If you have time, we’ll be out in a minute.”

“All right, we’ll hang out for a bit.”

As she settled Constance by rubbing the back of two fingers across the infant’s cheek, she took note of the man exiting the church with the pastor. He was slightly less than six feet tall, wore normal street clothes save for the white kufi skullcap, had olive skin and sported five days growth of goatee. Though he didn’t look dangerous, she glanced up at the security camera in the parking lot just to make sure the red light was flashing, an indicator that the pastor was recording.

“Elishama Tuallah, this is Mrs. Valendar,” the pastor said by way of introduction.

“You are Madeline?” Elishama asked and nodded his head slightly, sort of an abbreviated bow.

“Yes, but I go by Maddie. So you are related to Sarai?”

“She is my sister. I wished to express my appreciation for the help you gave her during a difficult period of time recently. Her husband is a passionate man, and he doesn’t always express that passion in healthy ways. And please don’t understand that to mean I am excusing his actions. I am forcing myself to behave with restraint in this matter.”

“You do it well,” she said, understanding from too much experience what a vital role restraint played when dealing with domestic issues. She briefly outlined the kinds of support offered by City of Refuge and quickly learned that Elishama’s interests lie in another direction.

“I am most interested in why you do what you do.”

“Primarily because we respect the God-given dignity of all people. Though we all walk through trials in life, it is what we do with those trials that make us who we are today. Some of the folks who work with City of Refuge are past victims of domestic abuse, and though it was a painful experience for them, they believe that they are called by God to help others caught in the cycle of abuse.”

“And why do you participate in this work?”

Maddie was getting an odd read from Elishama and thought that his question was not the one he really wanted to ask. “I’m going to answer your question with a question. Why is this such an important matter to you?”

“Because I know very little about Christians. I have heard and read much about Christianity, but that information comes from people with a prejudiced view of your faith. I’m from Saudi Arabia, a country that is by and large insulated from western thought. I in truth wish to know why you believe what you do.”

She looked at the pastor to gauge his reaction to the statements Elishama had made. He in turn raised eyebrows and shoulders as if to indicate the ball was entirely in Maddie’s court.

“I am not unwilling to offer you an explanation, but here is not the place to do it. I need to feed my daughter shortly and this discussion could take a while. I would, however, be honored to have you as a guest in our home.”

“I would like to have this discussion, but that would not be proper.”

“My husband is at home. Will that satisfy the concerns of propriety?”

“Yes it will. Do you live nearby?”

“We live about six blocks that direction,” she said and pointed in the general direction of their house.

“If you drive the speed limit, I can follow you in my vehicle.”

“Pastor, what have you been telling him?” Maddie asked with a feigned look of injury on her face.

“Nothing. Would you like me to call Kyle?”

“No, I’ll let him know we’ll be having a guest for dinner.”

“Oh, my remark about the speed limit was not directed at you, Madeline. Since coming to your country, I have gotten two warnings because of some metric/English confusion. I have since resolved to let the people driving near me help set the speed for me.”

“I understand. I promise not to let us get above thirty-five miles per hour.”

Six minutes later, she was making introductions. After charging Kyle to not begin a discussion of theology until she returned, she excused herself to feed Constance.

As they discussed their respective careers, Elishama ventured in a spiritual direction.

“I trust that you and your wife are both Christians.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“In your chosen profession, do you ever find it difficult to integrate your faith and work?”

“Tricky question. I have only recently come to understand the relationship of being a history teacher and being a Christian. I used to think that I was a Christian and I was a teacher. That meant that I would be especially sensitive to the subject matter when it touched on the role of the Church in history and that I would reflect that role positively to my students and colleagues.

“As I pondered my presumed calling, the recent crop of history revisionists got me thinking about the role of truth in my profession. I could sense a divine obligation to present the truth to my students in matters of history. If we were discussing the economic causes of the Second World War or the impact of the Magna Carta upon today’s world, the truth of the facts of history were of primary importance.

“In this way I came to see that every statement made in class had the potential for being a theological statement. And if theological, perhaps even a means of evangelism. For truth begets truth, and as my students are nudged by one expression of truth to a broader understanding of its implications, they are being brought, even without their knowledge, closer to ultimate truth.”

Elishama nodded and smiled. “That is not far removed from my own understanding. First, any act in Islam can be viewed as worship. If one is working with the intention of earning money in a legal way in order to feed, clothe, and shelter himself and his family without getting into what is not permissible, then God rewards such a person. Secondly, whatever vocation a Muslim has, by his behavior he should be calling those around him to Islam.”

“Then we are in agreement that our respective faiths need to impact every dimension of our lives or we aren’t being entirely honest with ourselves and with God,” Kyle remarked as he broke a pound of whole-wheat spaghetti in half and dropped it into a pot of boiling water.

“Have you two started the discussion without me?” Maddie asked upon entering the kitchen.

“Not a chance. We were just talking about the relationship between faith and vocation. How’s our girl?”

“She dropped off in the middle of the feeding,” Maddie said with a pained expression. “But she’ll be up in an hour and be hungry again.”

“Then maybe you had better begin your discussion while I’m finishing the meal prep,” Kyle said as he slid a baking pan bearing a half dozen slices of garlic bread under the broiler.

“May we do so here? I would like to have your input as well,” Elishama said.

“Sure. So what is it you would like to know about our faith?” Kyle asked.

“I am curious about the term ‘conversion’. In Islam, we use the term ‘revert’ to refer to someone who has returned to a religion they previously had. Muslim custom is to apply this term to converts to Islam as well, on the grounds that Islam is the religion that every person was born into, but some become another religion by following the religion of their parents. When a follower of Christ converts, what takes place? What are you converting from and to?”

“We believe that we begin our lives estranged from God. I know Islam teaches there is no original sin, that everyone is born into a state of fitrah, a state of natural innocence.”

“Yes, and sin is acquired later by our own conscious and willful actions.”

“Here we differ in that Christians view sin as something we acquire through spiritual genetics, if you will. Because our first parents chose to rebel against God by not trusting him, that rebellious tendency passed along to all humanity in much the same way Constance has brown eyes. My eyes are brown, Kyle’s are brown, so are hers. It isn’t that we are being held accountable for the sin of Adam, as I think you interpret our understanding of original sin. It’s that we are born with a rebellious nature and given the choice would choose to sin over being obedient to God.”

“For myself, I have been having trouble with the concept of fitrah for a while now,” Elishama said as he grabbed a pile of plates and carried them to the dining room table. “If sin is something we all manage to fall into, then I feel there is something fundamentally wrong with each of us. Actions that result in sin being conscious and willful imply a predisposition towards sinning. If it were a matter of acquiring sin at some point, surely by now someone would have lived a life free from sin. I mean, out of the billions of lives lived, certainly there would have been one individual who would beat the averages and have lived a life that would show all of us how we ought to live. But history does not speak of such an individual.”

“I’m afraid I must disagree,” Maddie said as she placed silverware around the table.

“I had hoped you might,” Elishama said, apparently comfortable with the direction the discussion was going.

“It is our belief that Jesus of Nazareth was this individual you mentioned. He was unique in that he had both a human and divine nature, so the fact of his freedom from sin was not in keeping with the doctrine of fitrah.”

“And you believe the fact he was without sin made him a perfect sacrifice for the sins of humanity.”

“We do indeed,” Kyle said with confidence as he placed the plate of garlic bread on the table.

“And somehow trusting in his sacrifice brings about this conversion?”

“Conversion is a willful act of turning towards God with all of our being because of Jesus’ sacrifice and turning away from the life we had been living up until that point. It is the conscious act of giving God control of our destiny. But that is only the part we are responsible for. Upon conversion, we receive from God a new nature, a spirit that really wants to do what God would have us do. It is this new nature that allows us to live in a way that honors God.”

“How do you know that this new nature, as you call it, really exists? How do you know it is not just you telling yourself that something has changed when it really hasn’t?”

Maddie paused with a ladle-full of spaghetti sauce poised an inch above the serving bowl, nodded slightly and smiled. “That’s easy. Temptation and sin.”

Elishama’s expression changed to one of confusion. Those were the last examples he might have expected. “How does sin prove that you possess a new nature?”

“I know the logical assumption is that if I still sin, then my new nature is suspect. But when I sin, that sin leaves me unsatisfied, broken, and empty. This is proof that a change has occurred. Sin is no longer the status quo, but is rather a violation of who I have become. When I am tempted, there is now a struggle involved. Am I going to give in to the old nature or am I going to do it God’s way? To struggle with temptation means we are alive to God.”

“That seems to be convincing evidence, but it serves as more of an internal witness. How does this new nature express itself to the world?”

“Something from the letter to the church at Galatia?” Kyle offered after a moment’s thought. “Oh, and the toast that is butter side down doesn’t have any garlic on it.”

“Good thinking, and yes, Galatians. Elishama, our new nature displays itself to the world by the character traits that it encourages. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This is especially powerful evidence when viewed by anyone remotely familiar with what our old nature looked like,” Maddie said as she reached for one of the indicated slices of bread.

“I must admit that they are beautiful sounding words and worth aspiring towards. But I know few Christians who exhibit these characteristics.”

“Something you might not understand about salvation is that it is both a done deal and a process. When we are saved, our eternal destiny is set. But we are not yet what we will be. Through confession and repentance, we grow into these characteristics that we call the fruits of the Spirit.”

“Yes, and repentance is both passive and aggressive,” Kyle said. “It is aggressive when we choose to stop doing whatever it is we have done that dishonors God. It is passive in that we ask God to replace it with something of His resources. I mean, if you suddenly just stop coveting, you rather create a vacuum. If you don't fill it with something of God's, then it will eventually fill itself with whatever will fit the shape of the vacuum, and that might end up being the sin you repented of in the first place.”

“I can imagine any number of spiritual vacuums being filled quite nicely by... love, joy…?” Elishama began.

“…Peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control,” Maddie finished.

Twenty minutes later the table was clear and coffee and cookies were in place in the living room. As the discussion continued, Elishama again asked Maddie to list the fruit of the spirit.

“That is so like God,” he said after a moment’s reflection.

“What is?” Maddie asked.

“To take negatives and replace them with positives. Hate becomes love, sorrow becomes joy, disquiet becomes peace, and anxiety becomes patience. Maddie, you have been given an amazing gift. And I am favorably impressed that you seem to realize what a great gift it is.”

Before she could reply, a halting sound from the nursery prompted the letdown reflex to engage. As she quickly excused herself, Kyle marveled at the way the sound of a child’s cry could evoke such a response from the child’s mother.

“I came here tonight anticipating something very different,” Elishama said and emptied his coffee cup.

“How so?”

“I half expected to find myself offering you a defense of Islam. We refer to this as making da’wah, which is roughly equivalent to your own practice of witnessing to the truth of your faith. But as I got to know you and your wife, I came to see that Islam has nothing to offer you. That is both troubling and intriguing. I want you to know that I appreciate this time you spent sharing your faith with me. I should be going so you are free to spend time with your wife and daughter.”

A few minutes later Elishama was heading back to the guest lecturer quarters at the local liberal arts college with enough snickerdoodles to share with everyone in the political science department at lunch come Monday. Of course, that was assuming they lasted the weekend.

Kyle knelt down beside the rocking chair and whispered, “How are my girls?”

“We’re good. I take it our guest left?”

“Yes he did. Now that was an interesting evening. Shall I wait until later to discuss it?”

“Give us a few minutes.” Five minutes later, Maddie had encouraged a burp and was holding Constance like a football in the other arm.

“So, how did that dinner leave you feeling?” Kyle asked when it seemed they had settled comfortably into the second half of the feeding.

“Both excited and ashamed.”

“Excited I can understand. But ashamed?”

“Yes. When Elishama referred to our new nature as an amazing gift, I was excited about that gift in a way I don’t think I’ve been since I first trusted in Jesus. And then I was ashamed at how lightly I often take that gift, at how easily I can forget who I am in Christ.”

“The only cure for that kind of shame is to be thankful. And that’s not hard to do when you consider all we have to be thankful for,” Kyle said as he stroked the nape of Maddie’s neck and allowed Constance to squeeze one of his fingers.

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