The Question

continued

Go with John at last into one of the cubicles with its wall charts of head and neck anatomy. Watch, scarcely breathing, while Dr. Catlin adjusts the light on his metal headband and grips Johns tongue between squares of gauze. Practiced fingers probing the neck. "Okay. See you in a month." And to celebrate, calamari at a restaurant on Second Avenue.

Train Time

In March 1959, two and a half years after the surgery, the time between checkups was extended to six months. That was the sum­mer of the long car trip and the decision to attend the gray stone church near the Indian.

When the date for the second six-month checkup rolled around the following March, we broke our routine for the first time. It was Parents' Day for Scott's fourth grade. His story about a ferocious wolf was up on the wall, he informed us, with six stars on it.

"You've got to be there," John told me. "Silly for both of us to spend all afternoon sitting around a waiting room anyway."

I drove him to the train station - there'd be no one to keep run­ning out to feed the meter. "Call me when you know what train you'll be coming out on," I said.

He phoned around 5:00. ''I'm catching the five-twenty," he said in what he probably supposed was a casual tone. "Gets to Mt. Kisco at six-sixteen. "

John is the world's worst actor. Before he got three words out, I knew that the news, this time, was bad. He was to enter the hospital next day for a second operation.

Again, the boon of things to do. Go to the phone, cancel dates. One call was to Guideposts' editor, Len LeSourd, to tell him we wouldn't make the editorial meeting that week. Early the next morning Len's wife, Catherine Marshall, telephoned. Could we come over for a few minutes? The LeSourds lived around the corner.

Both John and Catherine have written about the conversation that morning in the LeSourds' family room. Driving over, John and I expected the usual commiserations, a promise to pray, perhaps an offer of help with our kids, the same ages as their three.

The Leap

Instead, Catherine put to John the question that all his life, grow­ing up in a clergyman's home, writing stories of other people's faith, attending St. Mark's Sunday after Sunday for the previous six months, he had avoided confronting.

"John," she said, "do you believe that Jesus Christ is God?" It was an immensely important question, she went on. Perhaps the only question that mattered. "An eternity in heaven hinges on your answer."

I kept my eyes fixed on the dark TV set across the room, the screen as black as my fears. I didn't want to think about heaven! Heaven was what people talked about when someone was dying.

“I’d feel like a coward," John answered Catherine. "To come run­ning to Christ with my tail between my legs when I'm scared."

"John," Catherine said urgently, "that's pride. That's wanting to come to God in your own time, your own way. Maybe this is Jesus' time, Jesus' way."

It wasn't writing Christian articles that made someone a Chris­tian, she continued, or going to church, or living a moral life. It was answering that question. John brought up a lot of arguments, and Catherine was buying none of them. At last I reminded him of the time. We'd asked for an appointment at 9:00 with the rector of St. Mark's.

John thanked Catherine for her concern, and we hurried out to the car. We'd gone about half a mile toward the church along winding Millwood Road when John broke the silence.

"Well, I've done it."

"Done what?"

"What do they call it? Making a 'leap of faith'? I believe that Jesus is God."

For another half mile neither of us spoke. "What does it feel like?" I asked at last.

John thought for a moment. "I guess it feels a little like dying."