This is my last week to live. On 5/30/2008, we’ll all be dead. Got it? So, am I okay with that? Well, yeah. Why? Because this school, this secular school (or at least a lot of the intolerant people within it), hasn’t gotten to me. Since that emergency All-School Meeting last Thursday, what have I done differently? A couple of things. I cleaned my room. If I go out and someone else is left living and that person happens to wander into my room, I want it to be clean. I also went to a different church this Sunday, the Free Christian Church. It was wonderful. I’ve turned my Christian music on more too. I even listened to Christian music while I was cleaning my room. Sorry to shock you with the C-word three times in three sentences, I know you’ve been immersed in a pretty secular atmosphere here at Phillips Academy, so you’re probably no longer used to the fact that part of diversity is religious diversity. You can laugh at me all you want, but if this Friday is the last Friday I’ll ever see (and wouldn’t that be clever of God to have us go out at the end of the week) I hope that I make it to Heaven. But I hope even more that you do. Sorry, I keep doing that—praying. There are few worse things to do here. Cheating’s not smart, but at least it’s understandable. Praying — now that’s beyond comprehension; it’s just not socially acceptable. I’m on the board of the Andover Christian Fellowship. Whenever a meeting is cancelled for one reason or another and my friends hear word of it, they (including the one who adamantly proclaims “I’m an atheist, not an anti-theist!) shout, “Hooray, good for you! Don’t go waste your time praying. You’re smarter than that.” I planned on conducting a little experiment today: I was going to pray (out-loud, but discreetly) at lunch and see what would happen, how people would react. But I didn’t. The days when I’m the most rundown, have lots of work, just a lot going on, are the days when I most need to pray, most need that outlet of support. But those are the days when I can’t pray because I don’t have the energy for the arguments or stamina to bear the taunting. So instead of trying my experiment, I asked what my friends what they would do if I sat down and started praying. Some responses included: “That would be okay, just as long as you were only praying silently.” “We would all stare at you awkwardly and ask you about it afterward.” Then I asked about what would happen to a particular friend, who is not part of any religion in particular, if she had a change of heart, a natural progression in her spirituality, and decide she wanted to pray. The response: “We would ridicule her until she stops.” It is not alright if even one person at this school feels uncomfortable practicing their religion. You can blame it on me, say the social awkwardness and intolerance are just my imagination, but even if I were the only one at the school who feels ridiculed, that would not be an acceptable standard. We can do better than that. You might laugh at me; you might think I’m delusional. You might think I’m joking or lying or kidding, but I’m not. I believe. I believe that one day, we will all be judged, and I hope you won’t regret your decision whether not to pray, or worse, to claim you champion diversity and then scoff at us who choose to pray. That’s hypocrisy. That’s the one thing Jesus has trouble forgiving. Sorry for not making this non-denominational. I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I haven’t prayed enough, that I haven’t repented enough, that I’ve picked the wrong church, or suffered from pride. I’m afraid of hell. Does that scare you? Not hell, but the fact that you probably think I’m a stupid lunatic now, a stupid lunatic among you. Sorry for my stupidity, except not really. “Everyone will die on 5/30/2008.” That was the phrase, right? When you heard it, what did you think? I heard that a lot of people imagined an explosion, some people envisioned a masked man with a gun, some joked that it sounded more like a prophecy than a threat. When I heard that, I laughed. But three days later, it’s changing me. Just a sentence, but it’s changing me. Live as if this were my last week? Okay, I am. Jane Thomas is a two-year Lower from Saratoga, Calif and a board member of Andover Christian Fellowhsip. jthomas@andover.edu
