Chicago - The Climax

I do not have time to tell the story now, but I thought I would warn anyone who is here before we next post that Alan and I will both be writing our perspectives on today's experience, so it may be a slightly longer day, but I promise it will be a worth it.

Update #5.6 - One Last Indy Story

"Oh, man. This isn't going to end well..."

"What? What isn't?" Alan was looking around, but couldn't see what I was talking about.

"Don't worry, you'll find out right about....... now!"

Sure enough, just as I said that a young, bespectacled African American lad tried jumping both a row of bushes and the steep ledge below them on his bike. The result: PAIN.

"Ohhhhhhh! Ow! Mmmmmmmmm! Yup. Mmm hmmm.... Man! That kills!" Our needy friend was jumping up and down and running around in circles, doubled over and clutching his mid-section all the while. He tried getting back on his bike, but then seemed to decide it was a better option to just drag it along.

"You gonna make it?" I asked, somewhat playfully. He was in pain, there was no question, but death was not imminent, I was confident. "Uhh.... Yeah.... In a minute maybe. Mmmmm!"

After another minute of hopping around, superficial comforting, etc. I decided to take the conversation up a notch, "So what do you suppose is going to happen to you if you really crash one of these times - I mean, head out into the street in front of a car or something and die?"

"You just die, I guess."

"Really? So you don't think that there's any sort of life-after-death? When we die, there's nothing else?"

"Well, I suppose there's a lot of stuff that I'd like to happen, but I know that it won't."

"Like what?"

"Like, when I die, I'd like to just have peace, you know? Go to a place where I can just sit in peace and hang out with friends and stuff, but that won't happen."

"Why not?"

"Because I smoke. I smoke marijuana." This was an easy thing to believe given the general cadence (or lack thereof) to his speech. Indeed, recent exposure was not out of the question.

Though perhaps not surprised by his answer, we still weren't sure how to tackle it initially. "Well, don't think you have to giveup on going to Heaven just because you've made a mistake or two in your life. We're both Christians and that's the whole beauty of the Gospel - it's for flawed people like you, me, and even Alan here. We've both made our mistakes and done unwise things, but God tells us that if we acknowledge our mistakes and come to him and trust in him to help us through our mistakes, then he will save us and give us eternal life with him."

Our friend, Jared, listened carefully, but didn't seem to really understand. Maybe it was because he didn't care; maybe it was spiritual blindness; I'll write it off to his smoking, which is exactly what he came back to. "Wait. I'm confused. So if there was a law about to be passed legalizing marijuana, would you vote 'yes' or 'no'? Now be honest."

Seriously? I was on to much more important issues and he wanted to come back to that? Very well. I gave him my answer which is probably not what he expected to hear, but he was not satisfied with it either.

"Oh man, that's unfortunate. So you don't get high; ever done any drinking?"

"Yes actually, but I've never been drunk," Alan chimed in. These really weren't the issues that either of us wanted to be discussing, but maybe there was hope of pulling it back around if we stuck with it.

"Man, I just can't understand people like you. Man, I've been to so many parties it's crazy. I'm from California, and like all I did in high school is party. But I suppose you've experienced a lot of stuff by not partying that I could never experience and I've experienced a lot of stuff you couldn't." Okay, here was a glimmer of hope.

"Yeah, I suppose that's definitely true."

"Yeah, like I ran away from home for six months in high school and lived with the hippies on the beach, and we went from city to city in a school bus, and they would play music to make money, and sometimes we would be stuck in a place for like two weeks because we didn't have any gas and stuff, but we didn't mind because we weren't really going anywhere. But you guys could never understand wanting to do something like that."

Couldn't we? Oh, if only he knew where we spent last night! In none other than the back of my Jeep Liberty (both for the experience and to save some money; don't worry, we found showers at a nearby truck-stop)! "Actually, that definitely sounds like some crazy thing we might do. We're on a road trip right now, going from Birmingham, Alabama to Chicago. We're stopping along the way to tell people about God and about Jesus because we think it's the most important thing anyone can ever know in life. So a road trip down the California Coast isn't really too far off from the kind of thing we might do."

"Yeah, that's really cool. You know, I went to a Catholic School because my uncle was a priest and they told me some about the Bible and that kind of thing, but I couldn't really understand it, because we read a part about not making any images of animals or worshipping idols or something, but I think Jesus on the Cross is an idol, man! And Mary, and praying to all the Saints, and that kind of thing. I mean, it just doesn't make sense to me how they can say 'don't worship idols,' and then go pray to some statue of Mary."

Finally! We were back on track! "You know, that's very, very true, and we agree with you completely. But those parts of Catholicism are not Christian at all. I should say that there are Catholics who are Christians, but Catholicism itself is not very Christian because, even though it claims to understand Christianity, it misses the central part."

"So what makes Christians different from Catholics?"

"Well again, some Catholics are Christians, but the central idea is grace. That's a very important word; the most important one in the world, in fact. It means that all of us screw things up but that God saves us anyway. It means that you and I can't save ourselves or help ourselves or make our way to God on our own. Because we've all done bad things, we've been separated from God and he has to fix that. So he sent his Son, Jesus, to die for all of the evil things that we do, because someone had to pay the penalty. And then Jesus conquered death and came back to life so that, if you and I believe in this that I'm telling you right now, then you and I can conquer death and live forever, too. Now we still have to die a bodily death, but then we have a real hope of living in Heaven after that. Catholics often don't understand that you can't get to Heaven on your own works, by just being good or something, so that's what makes Christianity unique over all of the other religions." Alan nodded his assent and Jared sat and pondered for a moment.

"While I've got a Bible that I read every now and then, and it talks about how the world is going to end and stuff, and I just think that some of the sort things it says might be happening right now."

"Well we're told that when Jesus comes back, he'll be like a thief in the night and no one will know the hour that he's coming, but trust me, no one will miss it when he does," Alan offered.

"Yup. We're told that the clouds will roll back and the very foundations of the Universe will be shaken. No one alive will be able to mistake what's happening, I'm confident," I added.

"Oh man! Then tons of people are going to be looking up and saying, 'Holy s***, this is bad!' But I bet other people are going to be saying, 'Oh yeah, man! This is what I've been waiting for!' "

"That's exactly right, and we just want to make sure that you're on the 'Oh yeah, man!' side and not the 'Holy s***!' side when it all ends. Whether you die first or the world ends first, at that point the discussion is over and you're stuck with whatever side you're on."

We exchanged a little bit further, encouraged him to read the Bible he said he had, gave him a couple of verses to look at, and gave him a CD of Richard Dawkins and John Lennox discussing belief in Christianity at Trinity College (he had asked for one). Then we both went our separate ways.

What happened? We don't know and maybe never will. Typical of yesterday's experiences, there was a lot of "potential" in the conversation, but no end that we could see. Seed planting; or weeding; or watering; or all three. This appeared to be most of our work yesterday, but there was still something very exhilarating (if exhausting) in our discussion with Jared. This was by far the most extensive and laid out discussion of Christianity that anyone had received from us yet, and I hope that something in it stuck.

--Michael Taunton

Update #5.5 - In Which We Realize this is not Purdue

While I was in the library, I managed to get my hands on "a map." I put the word in parentheses because it accomplished only one of the two functions it was meant to. Maps are used to a) tell you where you are, and b) tell you how to get somewhere from your present location. Not realizing that this was "a map" and not a map, we found our way to Purdue University only to realize after an hour on campus that Purdue University is not in the city of Indianapolis. Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) is in the city of Indianapolis.

The good news is that even though we weren't where we thought we were, it soon became clear that we were, in fact, exactly where we were supposed to be. How do we know this? Cornelius.

Normally we change the names of people in this blog, but in this case, the name was far too telling. Cornelius...please don't sue.

Flashback to I-65 yesterday morn:

"What are you reading, Alan?"

"Acts. I'm seeing what different tactics the apostles used to evangelize."

"Hmm. You know, they had an advantage. It seems like God is always putting people in there way and telling them exactly where to go. Like with Cornelius. Peter's sitting on the roof and has a vision. Off to Cornelius he goes, but doesn't know why until he gets there. I'd like to have a Peter-on-the-roof moment."

"Yeah..." So we prayed that God would put people in our way today - people he wanted us to come in contact with.

Four hours later found us in the science building of IUPUI, walking into every open office and handing out the Lennox-Dawkins radio interview to interested parties. Just as we were pressing the elevator button, we noticed a student in the lounge area packing up his books. I'd go into the whole conversation, but this post is long enough already. To tell it short, the student's name was Cornelius and he was a fellow Christian who expressed his gratitude for "people like us."

Bold, he called us. Courageous and confident.

"Whenever I try to do stuff like that, I'm so afraid of being rejected."

"If only you knew," we told him. "I wish we could say we were comfortable doing the things we've been up to the last few days, but we're not. There's a reason we left our own state to do this - it would have been even more terrifying back home, amongst people we know."

And it's true. Some of you have told us you can see an increasing boldness. We feel an increasing exhaustion. Some of you have told us we are courageous. We appreciate that, but let me tell you, we don't feel all that courageous. So many conversations that don't go anywhere, so many opportunities we see missed, so many times we'd rather sleep than engage our neighbor.

Thank you all for your continued encouragement - I've never felt like I needed it more. Thank you Cornelius for being an answer to prayer - we left you with great confidence in God's power.

We are not fearless. Brave, perhaps, but not any more than what is common to man. "When you're scared but you still do it anyway," says Coraline in the book after her own name, "that's brave."

~Alan Halbrooks

Update #5.4 - The Historian

Next was the Indianapolis Public Library, because people who go to the library are people who are interested in being intellectually engaged, right? Wrong. We discovered very quickly that the public library was not a hang out for the city's thoughtful, but rather for the city's homeless or just generally bored. Books seemed to be a very secondary consideration to the draw of the library's many computer labs, all of which were full.

So Alan and I went scouring the isles, looking for somebody who didn't have headphones on head. After thirty minutes, things were looking bleak, for anyone who wasn't listening to music was actually engaged in serious study for school or some other such activity. Eventually we split up, hoping that we might have better luck engaging people solo, and indeed we did. He found a high school girl studying AP English in the library's new lobby, and I found a War Memorial worker with a keen interest in history and a good knowledge of the South.

"What are you reading?" I asked casually. He lifted up the book to show me the title, almost like he was trying to remember himself. It was a history of Tennessee.

"Ah! Tennessee! I was actually there just a couple of days ago in Chattanooga."

"Oh, I've been there a few times myself. I really enjoy Southern history and so I've been in the South quite a few times. I really like Chattanooga." About this time we introduced ourselves; his name was Andrew.

We were off to the races from there, as I told him that I myself was a Southern boy on a road trip to Chicago and had only stopped in Indianapolis for the day. "The South is an interesting place to study, as I'm sure you know, because it still retains alot of its historical identity where other areas of the United States have since lost that. I don't really know why that is; maybe it's because of heavy immigration into other areas or something, but it generally seems to be true."

"Why yes, I'm actually from the North East, so my family believes all of the stereotypes about the South and the Mid-West and I've tried to do alot to dispel those notions. I haven't convinced any of them to move out of this way yet, but maybe they have a better understanding after hearing some of these things from me." Ding! I had found my connection:

"Are you at all familiar with Christopher Hitchens?" He was. "Well my friend and I run an organization at Samford University called the Socratic Club, and we actually invited him down from Washington D.C. for a debate on the existence of God. You see, the Socratic Club is an openly Christian organization dedicated to engaging other worldviews on meaningful issues. It's kind of like Christianity with a 'we dare you' attitude, because the idea is that if Christianity is just an antiquated belief, it needs to be done away with, but we believe it can take it's stand in the marketplace intellectually, and we're willing for people to come and openly challenge that."

"Anyway, the point is that Hitchens said something just like what you did in the opening remarks of the debate. He said that the hardest thing he had to do when he got back to D.C. is convince his friends that there was a Socratic Club in Birmingham, Alabama at all! Stereotypes continue to abound, it seems." The hook was more than out there at this point, and the bite was modest.

"Yeah, Hitchens is one of those guys that both sides kind of hate and love at the same time; on the one hand, he used to be very liberal politically and is an atheist, which generally appeals to the Left, but on the other hand, he's come out as something of a War Hawk since 9-11, which generally appeals to the Right. I suppose that no one really knows what to do with him."

"There's some truth to that," I said. "I can really enjoy reading Hitchens' journalism in other areas besides religion, but that's primarily the part of his writing that interests me, and I disagree with him there quite profoundly" - another hook. The conversation continued, but he kept focusing on the political aspects of Hitchens' writing, so I tried a different tactic, since I just happened to be carrying around some of Professor Lennox's talks on "Hope and Politics" that day; I could certainly discuss politics, though it wasn't really my forte.

"Well, I don't know where you stand politically, and you needn't worry about offending me since I'm not very political, but what's your opinion of Obama?"

"Well, I don't really like him," Andrew said, "but I don't keep up with politics quite the way that I used to. In graduate school, I was very political, but politics is so divisive that there were times where I would get in arguments with friends where it would nearly destroy the friendship. Usually I was able to say, 'hey, I don't want this to destroy our friendship,' and they would agree and we would go on being friends, but not all times. That's when I began getting more interested in history; it's safer and just about as interesting."

"I completely agree with you there," I said. "I'm a Classics major, so I know something about ancient history, and people are far less combative over Rome's ancient history," I laughed.

"Yeah, and if you can use history to support your political opinions, people are alot more willing to swallow them and not make a huge fight out of it."

I tried steering the conversation back into modern politics to see how desperate he thought times were politically, but I couldn't make it stick. About now, Alan showed up after his conversation and so the conversation turned lighter again. It was probably time for us to leave. Before we left, though, I had one last card:

"Here, before we go I want to go ahead and give you this DVD. You might be interested in it given our discussion about Christopher Hitchens earlier; this is the debate he had at Samford this last year, and I think it's a good laying out of the issues on both sides. Obviously, I believe the Christian argument, but it lays both out so that intelligent people like yourself can make the decision for themselves." He thanked me for it, said he would look at it, and then we all three walked out together while he told us about the city.

He walked us over to the War Memorial where we worked, let us inside the lobby area to look around even though the memorial was closed for the day (spiffy), and went on his way. As one of our longest conversations to date, I hope it was a productive one. It certainly was nice to finally speak with someone of Andrew's demographic - well-educated, white, male - the sorts of people we began the trip expecting to see the most of and have actually spent the least amount of time with. "It will be harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle." This passage is beginning to make more and more sense, for the well-off of American society, and even those who have the potential of being well-off, simply don't seem interested in spiritual questions. They remind me of Jack from the movie Family Man: "I have all I need," each businessman who passes us by seems to say silently.

Andrew was different in this respect, and that was nice. In a day where we saw many "potentials" laid, Andrew stands out as one of the biggest "potentials."

--Michael Taunton

Update #5.3 - What Really Happened at the Borders

Denny and I sat our bags down in the cafe part of what looked to be the coolest Borders in Indiana. It had been converted from an old bank, so the metal bars and old type-set remained embedded in the walls. Meanwhile, a young woman rearranged a shelf of 2009 calendars which shouldn't have been there in the first place. Not only did they cover half a year that was already in the past, but they were all cat and dog specific. She knocked down a baker's dozen of the assorted canines and I jumped up to assist her.

As a note, it's far less awkward to initiate a conversation when you're naturally helping someone in need. Note also that I say "naturally." It can become far *more* awkward if you just show up and start pushing someone's baby stroller when they were perfectly fine doing it themselves.

"Is there some sort of fascination with dogs and cats here?" I asked her, as I picked up some calendars off the floor.

"Ha! No, not really. And the strange thing is that there's about four types of every one....Look!" She showed me the Yellow Labrador 2009 calendar. Next was the Labrador Retriever 2009, the Labrador 2009, and finally the Black Lab Monthly 2009 with Holidays marked in red Calendar. We laughed.

I asked her if she was from around Indy, since I was from out of town, and she explained that she had lived in northern Indiana until she was married to a man of the city. "Cool," I said, and the conversation continued for some time.

Eventually, she started asking me questions about where I was from and when the subject of the road trip came up I decided to tell her exactly what was up, and she was pleasantly intrigued. Excited about what we were doing, and glad to have a chat, she told Denny and I a few places we could go evangelize (she was a Christian herself, it turned out, which is always encouraging), and away we went.

Before leaving, she told me this: "My sister goes to places a lot and sits down hoping that someone will come and preach the gospel to her. She's a Christian, so she doesn't need to be converted or anything, but she wishes more people would go around evangelizing. No one's ever done it. I'll be sure and tell her about you."

No life changing experience, but I think we all left each other encouraged. And at this stage of the trip, little conversations like that have immense power to keep us going with a spring in our step. But more of that to come...

~Alan Halbrooks

Update #5.2 - The Indianapolis Elephant Gun

After our previous failed attempt at the bookstore in Cincinnati, Denny tried once again to engage a gentleman in conversation at the Indianapolis Borders. The religion section was empty, as usual, but just below the Psychology sign was what looked to be the CEO of some large local company. Denny turned the corner to open his mouth, but as soon as it was opened, he noticed he was definitely *not* in the psychology section.

So he regrouped and then pulled an audible. What we call the "Indianapolis Elephant Gun" - the elder brother of the Louisville Slugger. "Sir," he said bluntly, "Have you ever thought of sex as a metaphor for our relationship with God?"

The man was shocked. Dumbfounded.

----

Sadly, the second part of this tale never happened. But Denny *did* seriously consider posing the question. In retrospect we concluded it was probably for the best that he refrained.

~Alan Halbrooks

Update #5.1 - Life - Money = Happiness

Around mid-morning, Alan and I bid our kind Cincinatti hosts farewell and headed for Indianapolis. We had hoped to be on the road a little earlier perhaps, but as we knew we would be changing time zones during the day, we thought it might be a good time to catch up on some much needed rest. If there's one thing we've discovered, it's that this sort of work is absolutely exhausting; maybe not so much in a physical sense, but after dinner, Alan and I usually find ourselves so emotionally and mentally spent that we are quite ready to hit the sack. Now is such a time.

BUT, before I drift off into sleep (where that will be is yet to be determined), I wanted to tell you an experience or two from the day:

Our first stop was Indianapolis's Monument Circle and one of the two Starbucks located nearby. Inside, we were warmly greeted by two of the baristas who seemed to genuinely enjoy their job and the people that they came into contact with; in other words, they were good baristas. We sat down and began looking for ways to start a conversation, but it wasn't long before we found ourselves engaged first!

"So where you from?" one of the girls behind the counter asked us as she busily made the next person's latte.

"Birmingham, Alabama actually," we said. "Ha! I knew it! It was clear you weren't from around here, but I have family down in Alabama and my uncle is always getting on to me for talking like a Yankee, so I'm good at spotting Alabama accents."

"Well, you nailed it then. We're actually on a road trip up to Chicago testing a theory of ours. The theory is that coffeeshops are one of the only places left in the United States where you can get away with engaging complete strangers in conversation, and you're fitting in rather nicely with that theory right now."

All of this dialogue was taking place while she was busily attending to all the other customers that walked through the door, and believe me, this was one of the busiest Starbucks I have ever seen. Eventually we re-engaged the conversation and asked her "our question:"

"We've been asking everyone along the way a question and seeing what kind of answers we get. So, if you could tell us any one thing, what would it be? We've gotten some interesting answers." The barista behind her didn't hesitate: "The American vulture can vomit up to nine feet," (truthfully, I don't remember the type of vulture, but you get the point). While amusing and definitely one of our more "interesting" answers, he of course was not taking the question seriously at all; not a surprise, maybe, as many people simply don't want to engage on a more meaningful level and would simply like to keep the conversation light and superficial, and he seemed to fall into this category. Still, he was a nice enough guy and certainly introduced us to warm Indianapolis hospitality, which we would experience throughout the day.

Our female barista took the question more in the direction we wanted, though. "Let me think about it," she said, turning to deal with another customer. A few minutes later she handed us a cup with the formula Life - Money = Happiness written across the top - this seemed to be a recurring theme in our conversations.

"That's very interesting," Alan and I responded. "We actually took a homeless man to lunch yesterday who said almost exactly the same thing. He told us a story about how he had held two jobs, worked seventeen hours a day, had credit cards, and been able to buy anything he wanted, but then he threw it all to the wind because he didn't have time to think."

"Well it sounds like he might have been alot smarter than most people would give him credit for," she said. "Especially in today's economy where so many people find themselves hard pressed and out of work, I think alot of businessmen and working people are beginning to go home and discover that they actually enjoy spending time with their families more than they enjoy working sixteen hours a day. I mean, engaging with people is just so much more meaningful." We agreed and told her that this is part of the reason we were on this road trip.

Then the topic changed: "So what other responses have you gotten?" We told her about our waitress who told us not to baptize our neighbor's cat. "That was obviously a response from Alabama; or wait, maybe Kentucky?"

"It actually was Kentucky."

"Ha! See! I can nail these things! Well what else?"

Then we told her about Bruno who had told us that life was meaningless. "Wow, that's really dark," she said, clearly disappointed in this answer.

"Oh yes, and we told him we thought so. Because life is not meaningless at all, but is full of meaning! We had a very interesting conversation with him about his answer."

For whatever reason, the conversation froze up here. Of course, we wanted her to ask about the discussion, but she simply nodded and went on working. As it was very busy and all of this dialogue had come in phases, we thought it may simply have been because she was busy or because it was too noisy for her to hear us, so Alan tried repeating: "Yeah, I tell you what, that was an interesting conversation."

She looked up and said, "I bet," and then went back to work. It was far to busy at this point for us to really continue the conversation longer, and she had been given a good chance to bite and had not taken it, so we considered that the conversation must be over. We would have loved to have talked longer, as this was one of the most generally hospitable coffeeshops we had been in yet, but circumstances didn't seem to permit it. So we gave our new-found friend the blog address (are you reading this?), took our cup, thanked her for the conversation, and walked out into the city. It was time for somewhere different.

--Michael Taunton