Where the Light Fell

by Philip Yancey

It is easier to live in the world without being of the world than to live in the church without being of the church. —Henri J. M. Nouwen

Despite the scare, John F. Kennedy gets elected and, as far as I can tell, Christians don’t suffer any more than usual.

Colonial Hills opens a private school as a haven for whites who don’t want to attend integrated public schools.

I know about a father up above, for Mother has used that as a threat. My own father, I know, can see every time I pick my nose, every time I sneak behind her back and disobey, every time I tell a lie. God, a Super-Father, is much scarier, equipped with X-ray vision, an eye with no eyelid. Somehow I miss the “looking down in love” part.

I don’t question God—only heretics do that—yet I can’t help wondering about God’s way of making a point.

The tranquil mood feels vaguely religious, what I should be feeling in church but rarely do.

In order to be prepared to hope in what does not deceive, we must first lose hope in everything that deceives. —Georges Bernanos (in Reason for Being by Jacques Ellul)

After Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he packs up his family and moves to Australia, which at the time has a “whites-only” immigration policy.

By law Black kids cannot swim in a white swimming pool, and a Black doctor or nurse cannot treat a white patient. Some pet cemeteries even have a separate section for the cats and dogs of Black people.

I couldn’t put together the contradictions of my homeland. A religion-soaked place with so much gossip about cheating friends, child abuse, rape, drinking, and violence. A friendly, hospitable people who viewed outsiders with suspicion. An honorable people who defended that honor with violence. A defeated people who took out their anger on a race even more beaten down.

Hard as steel, Sylvania never apologized and never forgave. My mother remembers coming in tears to apologize for something she’d done. Sylvania responded with a parental Catch-22: “You can’t possibly be sorry! If you were really sorry, you wouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe, we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn. —Michel de Montaigne, Essays, “Of Glory”

Camp and church have taught me that much of life consists of acting. Pray from the pulpit or give a tear-jerking testimony at camp, and suddenly you’re a spiritual giant. Do the opposite, and you’re a renegade. People judge by the outside—as long as you keep the inside well hidden.

It occurs to me that deconstructing a person is easier than constructing one.

In my time at the Bible college, I’ll end up hearing several hundred chapel talks. Only two speakers stand out to me: Mr. H. and Anthony Rossi, the only two to admit failure and weakness.

the body of faith it so jealously guards. Perhaps, the thought crosses my mind, I am resisting not God but people who speak for God.

Why would anyone anticipate a better life without experiencing at least hints of it here?

“I had my back toward the light, and my face toward the things on which the light falls.”

As G. K. Chesterton put it, “The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.”

The simple act of a desirable woman extending her hand has changed everything. Goodness has become believable. I feel inspired to dismantle the shell, rejoin the human race, and stop being a jerk.

Augustine said, “Show me a man in love; I’ll show you a man on the way to God.”

My own, my own, Who camest to me when the world was gone, And I who looked for only God, found thee! I would soon reverse that last line: “I who looked for only thee, found God!”

Had I not seen the Sun I could have borne the shade But Light a newer Wilderness My Wilderness has made— —Emily Dickinson

She believes that any friendly association with him would imply approval. I believe the contrary, that Marshall needs to feel love for the person he is, not just the person he should be or could be.

Life rarely follows a fairy-tale script.

I begin to view church, like family, as a dysfunctional cluster of needy people.

“An idea cannot be responsible for those who claim to believe in it.”

Everything else I experienced at the school pales in significance beside the fact that God met me there.

It is never too late for grace and forgiveness—unless a person determines it is.

In the churches of my youth, we sang about God’s grace, and yet I seldom felt it. I saw God as a stern taskmaster, eager to condemn and punish. I have come to know instead a God of love and beauty who longs for our wholeness. I assumed that surrender to God would involve a kind of shrinking—avoiding temptation, grimly focusing on the “spiritual” things while I prepared for the afterlife. On the contrary, God’s good world presented itself as a gift to enjoy with grace-healed eyes.

An upbringing under a wrathful God does not easily fade away.

I came to love God out of gratitude, not fear.