Sometimes when things go wrong I don’t react in any outward way. I sigh so deep it comes out of my soul and I just have to stand still. You can’t see me move, and only I understand what’s going on. Some people are struck by the oddness of it, you can tell because they stare while the rest of the world goes crazy.
During a Year Nine Beliefs and Values class a bunch of girls want to meet at lunch to discuss how God talks. It strikes the teens as ridiculous, incomprehensible that God would talk. They visibly struggle with the concept in half sentences and erratic hand waving, spitting out sentences like, “So he talks in your head… like a voice?”
“No it’s kind of like a thought that isn’t part of your own stream of consciousness.”
“So He doesn’t talk?”
“Not in the conventional sense, no. But you talk to Him and as the days go by you watch and wait, paying attention to seeming coincidence, except the things that happen, or the things that people say just happen to answer some of the questions you were asking. But it’s really important to first and foremost to read the Bible. Test everything against that.”
So a group of girls decide they want to talk about it further, can they meet at lunch? I set the bar high, telling them they need to bring another twenty kids who want to talk about the matter. I’ve been confronted by enthusiastic teens over the years that you give up your free time for only to find that they don’t turn up. I mean, there have been times when huge gangs of students turn up, a couple of years ago there was about twenty five year twelves who wanted to go through a little bit of the Gospel of Luke. That was a wonderful time. But having chased my tail I’m not so enthusiastic anymore. If it cost me it cost my family in the end and they haven’t asked to pay a price.
Nine girls meet me at lunch time. We’re eleven short but I meet with them anyway. I casually walk over to close the door to the class. My classroom is an old foyer converted by slapping up a few false walls and a million power-points. The huge glass double doors remain. As I casually go to close the door a year ten student grabs the door.
“What are you doing?” (Subtext: why are they allowed in there and we’re not?)
“I’m talking to these girls about talking to God.”
He smiles through my explanation without a hint of comprehension. I finish my point by closing the door.
He grabs it from me.
I pull it closed, dragging him with me. Suddenly three adolescent males grab the door and start pulling.
I pull back. Then I think to myself, no, use the situation to my advantage. They’re all pulling so if I push it suddenly they’ll go reeling. Suddenly I shove the door and brace that action by slamming my boot into the metal cross beam in the aluminium frame. Except I put my boot into the glass and it shatters spectacularly with a ‘set your teeth on edge’ crack.
In my defence the idea worked, they let go of the door… to fall about on the floor laughing.
The girls behind me in the class fall about laughing. The school yard outside has come to a grinding halt as students come across the court yard to see what’s going on. They try to fall about laughing, but now there's no more room on the gorund, so they just stand there laughing.
It’s like those films where people laugh in slow motion, the camera tilting wildly and careering about.
I mutter to myself a single word and after a moment, sigh.
Two girls stand and watch off to my right. They are completely silent and perplexed by my inaction. It is a mystery to them. I’m not laughing, or yelling or jumping around with the boys. I’m just standing there.
I finally move across to the set of draws where I have left my lunch.
A girl stares incredulously, “How long’s that lunch been in there?”
“A week,” I lie. She recoils in horror.
I sit and allow the questions to come.
“Are you angry Mr. Limb”
“No, I wasn’t angry, just hopelessly uncoordinated. It was supposed to look a lot cooler than that.”
And so we talk about Jesus and how He talks all the time to His Father, and how He teaches His disciples to pray. I go and photocopy the Lord’s prayer, taking a quick detour to explain to the groundsman that I’ve smashed a door. He thinks I’m kidding. I explain which door it is and leave him to his lunch.
In closing our discussion, as I mentally gear up for the onslaught of Year Tens, one of the girls pipes up.
“Do Christians swear?”
One of the girls yells out in a rebuke. “Derrrr! Mr. Limb swears.”
“What does he say?” Asks the girl.
“Crap.” Offers a bright eyed blond girl.
“No, that’s not a swear word… he says ‘shit’ I just heard him say it when he smashed the door.” She says matter-of-factly.
I was going to offer that I thought that I had said it under my breath. I don’t bother.
