Jesus Freaks: Sins of the Father(23)

“Some people like that. This is the first time, except for mission trips, that anyone over eighteen is away from home for a long time.”

Yeah… Missions trips …

He continues after a swig of ice water. “Even when you’re around a bunch of believers, there’s tons of temptations driven by hormones and the devil and everything.” He takes a deep breath and eyes me seriously. “I know, for me anyway, the rules help me make safe choices while I figure out who I want to be.”

“You mentioned that your parents don’t like the worship team’s music?” I question as I shift in my seat.

I don’t think Jonah feels like he’s under anyone’s thumb. He seems like he doesn’t trust himself, though. My initial reaction is that his feeling of uncertainty comes from the rules themselves, but I’m not so sure now. He seems so normal.

“Yeah, they’re not a huge fan of rock music. At my dad’s church—”

“He’s a pastor?”

Jonah nods.

Figures.

“At my dad’s church, they just do piano or organ,” he continues without offering anything more about said church. But I guess it’s kind of normal around here. “They think rock music muddles the Message.”

“No way,” I say with more passion than anything else I’ve said since arriving on campus. “I think it’s the opposite.”

“Me too!” Jonah is equally animated and soft-spoken. “When you feel the music, I think it’s easier to hear the Message, you know?”

I chuckle and shake my head. “Oddly enough, Jonah, I do. I just started listening to that kind of music over the summer and it’s brought me to tears more than eighteen years of hymns and organs ever did.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “You cried a lot today.”

My eyes shoot down as I fight the overexposed feeling.

“Sorry,” he says empathetically. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I think it’s powerful what God’s word can do. From bringing people to tears to saving lives.”

“Saving lives,” I repeat in a near whisper.

“Don’t you believe that? That the Word can save lives?” Jonah leans forward and his voice takes on the intense tenor of a door-to-door evangelical.

Holy Rollers, my stepdad calls them.

I picture a drunk and strung-out twenty-five-year-old Roland Abbot staring at his choices: another drink in one hand and a Bible in the other. Then, I see my mother a few years earlier. Twenty-one years old, working full time, and going to school part time while juggling an infant daughter. No husband.

Where was her Savior? Where was her Jesus when she had to fight for food stamps? Was he too busy preparing the multi-million dollar way of my birth father?

I look at Jonah and set down my fork, having lost my appetite for the second time today. His eyes are intense. Filled with belief.

Unfaltering, one hundred percent belief.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I just…don’t know.”





CHAPTER EIGHT


We Are the Body


My first day of classes was largely uneventful. English and US history were standard; my biology class—and its creationist slant—wasn’t a surprise. You know: God created absolutely everything under the sun and evolution is too slippery a slope and seems to contradict that. I’m not sure it does, but we’ll see if we get there this semester. Even my Old Testament class was fine. I just looked at it as another history class, though it felt like I was in Sunday school, honestly.

“There are just so many names,” I remark to Bridgette as we trudge back to our room. She’s in three of my classes and is super excited to have a built in study group.

In fact, lots of my floormates are in my classes, leaving me to wonder if CU designs it that way to make study groups easier. Smart, really.

Bridgette shrugs. “At least we know the stories already. That helps a lot. I find that if I can place someone in the correct story, the details figure themselves out.”

“Right,” I respond noncommittally.

Walking up the stairs, Bridgette takes a breath as though she’s about to say something but she stops herself. When she does it a second time, I interject.

“What?” I ask while adjusting the straps of my backpack on my shoulders.

She shakes her head. “It…it’s nothing.”

With a shy smile, she pulls her room key from her backpack and unlocks our door. Eden has returned from her classes and is already positioned at her desk, pouring over various syllabi.

“It’s something,” I press, setting my bag on my desk.

Eden looks up from her papers. “What’s something?”

I point at Bridgette, who seems to be growing more flustered by the minute. Her cheeks are pink and she’s making piles of the paper on her desk.

“This one. She was going to say something as we were walking in here, but she keeps stopping herself.”

Eden’s eyes widen for a second, returning to normal as she looks at Bridgette. Bridgette looks back at her, extending her hands and asking, “What? I didn’t say anything.”

The atmosphere shifts to uncomfortable rather quickly. It becomes clear they’re silently discussing their other roommate.