The Unlikely Disciple Part 18

I don't blame him. It's been a hectic few weeks in the Falwell empire. After the Virginia Tech disaster, Dr. Falwell had to scramble to organize a prayer service at Thomas Road and comfort the Liberty community by e-mail. ("During times like these when unexpected tragedy strikes," he wrote, "I tend to refer to 1 Peter 5:7, which tells that we wors.h.i.+p a G.o.d who is wholly concerned about us."). In addition to his usual slate of media appearances, he's been busy denouncing the Emergent Church, a growing branch of evangelicalism that de-emphasizes political issues like abortion and gay marriage and seeks to return to a more spiritual form of Christianity. This afternoon, he'll be conducting a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Religion Department building on campus, and he's still fending off media pressure to endorse a candidate for the 2008 presidential election. Carrying out any one of these roles--megachurch pastor, theological gatekeeper, university president, conservative political icon--would exhaust most seventy-three-year-old men, and even though Dr. Falwell is a renowned workaholic (one Newsweek Newsweek profiler wrote of his nineteen-hour workdays fueled by a dozen cups of coffee), I can't imagine he has a lot of energy to spare. profiler wrote of his nineteen-hour workdays fueled by a dozen cups of coffee), I can't imagine he has a lot of energy to spare.

So today, I'm giving him a break. With the Champion Champion's permission, I'm planning to ask Dr. Falwell all the questions Anderson Cooper would never bother with--the ones that have nothing to do with gay marriage, abortion, or the war in Iraq. Instead, I'll ask about his personal life. What are his hobbies? Where does he take his wife out to dinner? Does he have an iPod?

"We'll do it," he says. "Ask anything you want."

It might sound like a soph.o.m.oric way to interview a major American religious figure, but I figure sticking to small topics will help me humanize Dr. Falwell. By this point in my semester, I've read all of his biographies, visited the museum bearing his name, and lodged a few dozen of his sermons in my brain. I might know more about Dr. Falwell than I know about my own grandfather, and yet, in my mind, he's still a larger-than-life movie villain, no more relatable than Vito Corleone or the Terminator. So today, I'm asking him questions so lowbrow and ba.n.a.l that he'll be forced to peel off the Superpastor mask and expose his baseline humanity. That's the plan, anyway.

In twenty minutes, I learn the following things: Dr. Falwell owns between forty and fifty red ties, his favorite TV show is 24 24, and he has recently learned how to send text messages on his cell phone, although he has never used Facebook or Mys.p.a.ce. His favorite dessert is vanilla Haagen-Dazs, and when not on the job, he likes to ride four-wheelers with his sons. (For the record, he does not have an iPod.) Surprisingly, Dr. Falwell doesn't seem to mind my line of questioning. In fact, he seems relieved to be asked about something other than his controversial political and religious opinions. He even helps me debunk some popular campus myths. The rumor that Liberty's administration is planning to legalize dances? False. ("Not while I'm living," he chuckles.) The legend that he drives a bulletproof SUV? Also false-- although he did have a bulletproof pulpit installed at Thomas Road during the Moral Majority's heyday. ("There were people who wanted to do us harm," he explains.) Bulletproof pulpit aside, the in-person Dr. Falwell reminds me of every other septuagenarian I've ever known. He coughs a lot, he's obsessed with his grandchildren (at one point, he lists all eight in order of age), and he's an early riser. "I wake up a little before six, and I go right to my study," he says. "That's where I do my daily reading of the Oswald Chambers book, My Utmost for His Highest My Utmost for His Highest. I've read that day by day for fifty years now. I have a one-year Bible, too. I read the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs every day. I'm at work by eight or eight-thirty, and when I get home every night, my wife and I walk around the lawn. We have dinner together, and then we spend most of our evenings alone."

Shooting the breeze with Dr. Falwell is a bizarre experience, because when you keep him on benign topics, the patriarch of the Religious Right is actually a likeable guy. He slouches low in his chair, making his points while jabbing the air with his index finger and saying things that, while not particularly newsworthy, seem altogether reasonable. Consider what he tells me about Liberty's dating scene: "I think Liberty students ought to date a lot without commitment in mind. If you're thinking commitment--and you probably shouldn't until you're a senior-- you don't want to start your marriage off under the constraints of poverty and schooling. I see it all the time: kids get here, fall in love the first year, and it prevents them from getting the best education possible. Sometimes, they drop out of school. When that happens, it's usually the girl, and she doesn't feel good about that later on."

Things get even stranger when I bring up his widespread reputation as a prankster.

"Oh, yes," he says. "The pranks."

An admitted no-goodnik in his youth, Dr. Falwell wrote in his autobiography that he still savors a good practical joke "like some people savor old wine." When I quote this line back to him, he spends ten minutes regaling me with decades-old stories about hot-wiring his colleagues' cars and blowing up mailboxes with M-80 firecrackers. His back comes off his chair as he tells me about the time he placed a stink bomb under the chair leg of Bob Jones, Jr., the then-president of Bob Jones University, at a conference of pastors.

"When he sat down, the bomb broke," he says, his belly rising and falling with laughter. "And in a crowded auditorium, it got pretty rank pretty quick. Everyone was choking for ten, fifteen minutes."

A juvenile sense of humor is an unexpected thing to find in a religious zealot. It's hard to imagine James Dobson telling "yo mama" jokes or Pat Robertson making fart noises with his armpit. And yet, I have to admit that Dr. Falwell's blend of religious authority, preening confidence, and irreverent wise-a.s.sery--equal parts Billy Graham, Henry Kissinger, and Walter Matthau--makes for a fairly pleasant package.

After he finishes with his prank anecdotes, Dr. Falwell tells me a story about an African American family that lives next door to him.

"This family has young children," he says, "and one of the lads knocked a baseball over my fence one day. I have an eight-foot fence around my property, and my security officer found the ball and showed it to me. I said, 'See if you can find out who lost it, and get it back to him.' A few days later, a young boy came around to the gate and said, 'I lost my ball.' The guard said, 'All right, you can have it back . . . if you talk to Dr. Falwell.' I met him. He was a fine young man. I asked him, 'Where are you going to go to college?' He didn't have any idea. I said, 'I'll tell you what. I'm going to write on this ball.' "

So Dr. Falwell took a permanent marker to the ball and inscribed This ball ent.i.tles you to a full four-year scholars.h.i.+p at Liberty University, whether I'm dead or alive. --Jerry Falwell This ball ent.i.tles you to a full four-year scholars.h.i.+p at Liberty University, whether I'm dead or alive. --Jerry Falwell As anyone who has spent time in evangelicalism's inner orbit knows, there are really two Jerry Falwells. One, of course, is the frothing, shameless fundamentalist most Americans have seen on television, the man who once denounced h.o.m.os.e.xuality as "a vile and satanic system" and the feminist movement as "a satanic attack on the home." This is the Jerry Falwell who not only blamed the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on a long list of domestic minorities (h.o.m.os.e.xuals, feminists, pagans, abortionists, et cetera), but who also tried to cash in on the public outrage over those remarks by telling his supporters--in a letter signed by his son Jonathan--that he was being victimized by "a vicious smear campaign" and asking them to send "a special Vote of Confidence gift . . . of at least $50 or even $100."

The other Jerry Falwell, the one I'm seeing today, is more akin to a religious w.i.l.l.y Wonka--a whimsical, mercurial figure who delights in unexpected acts of generosity and trickery. This is the Jerry Falwell who gives away college scholars.h.i.+ps to kids who hit baseb.a.l.l.s over his fence, who plays lighthearted pranks on uptight fundamentalists and speaks adoringly of his grandchildren. This Jerry Falwell has made some unlikely friends over the years, including Senator Ted Kennedy and Hustler Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, both of whom praise Dr. Falwell as a decent human being while condemning his political views. publisher Larry Flynt, both of whom praise Dr. Falwell as a decent human being while condemning his political views.

What both Jerry Falwells have in common is a rock-solid streak of self-confidence. Dr. Falwell is almost universally described as a man who never wavers, never waffles, never second-guesses his beliefs in the open. In his autobiography, when writing about the day he became a Christian, Dr. Falwell wrote, "I accepted the mystery of G.o.d's salvation. I didn't doubt it then. I haven't doubted it to this day."

That certainty dominates his management style as well. During our interview, he gets a call from Jerry Falwell, Jr., a lawyer-c.u.m-businessman who, along with his brother Jonathan, is being groomed to take over the Falwell empire someday. Jerry Jr. is calling, it seems, because he needs his father's approval for a new bookstore being proposed for Liberty's campus. The elder Falwell listens to his son rattle off the pertinent facts and figures, looks up at the ceiling while performing a series of quick mental calculations, and slams his empty Snapple bottle on the desk.

"I'm for it!"

That's it. No committee meetings, no focus groups, no spreadsheets. Dr. Falwell runs his university like a Tammany Hall politician, with direct edicts, micromanagerial governance, and an organizational chart shaped like an upside-down T.

When applied to his evangelical faith, that gut-based conviction leads to a worldview that is almost preternaturally unshakable. When I ask him the famous Proust question--"What do you want G.o.d to say to you at the pearly gates?"--he smiles and leans back in his chair.

"That's easy. He'll say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.' "

It's not a wishful answer--Dr. Falwell feels absolutely, 100 percent sure that when he gets to heaven, the Lord will thank him for his service and usher him swiftly in. A television interviewer once asked him what he'd do if he turned out to be wrong--if, when he got to heaven, G.o.d thanked him for his ministry, but chastised him for getting involved with the h.o.m.ophobes and the misogynists and the people who want to use Christianity as a battering ram. Dr. Falwell responded, "I wouldn't think it was him I was talking to."

Earlier this semester, I caught a glimpse of Dr. Falwell walking through the central corridor of DeMoss Hall, one of the busiest areas on campus. He was on his way to a meeting, but once he was spotted, a hundred Liberty students swarmed him immediately, creating a George Clooney-esque frenzy in the s.p.a.ce across from the school bookstore. Some students clamored to shake his hand. A few snapped cell phone photos. But most just shouted their prayer requests from afar.

"Dr. Falwell, can you pray for my uncle George's pancreatic cancer?"

"Dr. Falwell, I'm trying to decide whether to go into the ministry, and I need your prayers!"

"Dr. Falwell, will you pray for my financial aid for next year?"

What struck me about that encounter is that while evangelical theology teaches that G.o.d considers all prayers equal, no matter who the pet.i.tioner is, these students seemed convinced that Dr. Falwell's prayers would have more oomph than their own. In other words, his c.o.c.ksure confidence and his Wonka-esque unpredictability had combined to make a figure who seemed to straddle the line between prophet and publican, biblical hero and fallible mortal.

Almost an hour into our interview, I've learned what Dr. Falwell's favorite meal is (steak and baked potato, no b.u.t.ter) and where he gets his hair cut (Lynchburg's A-Plus Barbershop), but I still haven't glimpsed any mystical, quasi-divine side of his personality. Maybe, I decide, I should be asking him about bigger, more consequential things.

"What's the biggest cultural deficit in America today?" I ask, holding my breath for some fire and brimstone.

"The breakdown of the family," he replies. "We have a 50 percent divorce rate. Seventy-five percent of all African American children born in the United States this year will grow up in a single-parent home. The trend is going the wrong way, not the right one."

Huh? What about gay marriage?

"That's serious," he says, "But frankly, I think we've got it pretty well hedged in now. Of course there are gays, but you can't make laws against that. They just have to meet the Lord."

Spending time alone with Dr. Falwell in his office hasn't made me a convert. When I look at him, I still see a man who has used his charisma and razor-sharp business ac.u.men to spread the worst form of religion. He may be friendly and compa.s.sionate with his followers, but making a judgment of him based on how he treats the people in his flock seems a little like complimenting the builders of the Death Star for their solid metalwork. It might be true, but it's sort of beside the point.

All that said, I can certainly see why die-hard liberals like Larry Flynt and Ted Kennedy have been able to forgive Dr. Falwell for his sins. In person, he beats you over the head with his folksy charm, his relaxed confidence, and his polished interpersonal skills (in the last hour, he's started almost every sentence, "Well, Kevin, you see . . ."). And in the end, you're ultimately cajoled into liking him, even if you still hate everything he stands for.

So who is the real Jerry Falwell? Is he a rabid, hate-spewing fundamentalist? Or is he a dutiful family man, a talented preacher, and a competent administrator? Was John McCain right when he called Dr. Falwell an "agent of intolerance" during the 2000 presidential campaign? Or was the Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal right when, in 1978, it described him as a "man of charm, drive, talent, and ambition"? right when, in 1978, it described him as a "man of charm, drive, talent, and ambition"?

Well, in a way, both are right. In fact, that's the overwhelming impression I get from the time I've spent watching Dr. Falwell this semester and talking to him this afternoon: he's a complex character, but he's not hiding anything. He may be a blundering, arch-conservative provocateur, and he may spew anti-gay venom more often than most people brush their teeth, but I honestly think he believes every word he preaches, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he really does stay awake at night worrying about the h.o.m.os.e.xual agenda, the evils of abortion, and the imminent spread of liberalism. He really does think America needs to be saved.

Realizing that Dr. Falwell isn't a fraud--as troubling a notion as that is--has helped me solve one of the great mysteries of this semester. For months now, I've been puzzled by the thousands of good, kindhearted believers at Liberty who follow a man who seems, to my mind, to be almost unredeemable. They like him, I'm learning, because he's a straight shooter. In a half century of preaching, Dr. Falwell has said some outrageous things, and he's angered Christians and non-Christians alike, but he's never revealed himself as a hypocrite. He's never been caught in s.e.xual sin, and he's been as transparent in his financial dealings as you could reasonably expect. And in the world of televangelism, a world filled to the brim with hucksters and charlatans and Elmer Gantry-type swindlers, a little sincerity goes a long way.

After an hour or so of talking, Dr. Falwell sounds like he's ready to wrap things up, but first, he says he'd like to pray for me. And who am I to refuse? So right there in his office, he bows his head while I bow mine, and in his G.o.dlike ba.s.so profundo voice, he calls down the heavens on my behalf.

"Father, I pray for Kevin. I pray that your anointing will be upon him in a very special way. And Lord, if you want him in journalism, I pray you'll put him in key places where he can make a difference in the culture. G.o.d, give him a great family and children that he'll raise up in the nurture and admonition of your Son. I put Kevin in your hands, that you'll make him a special tool, a special instrument in your kingdom. For Christ's sake, Amen."

He shakes my hand and signs my Bible ("To my friend Kevin, Phil.1:6, Jerry Falwell"), and when I'm almost out the door, I hear his voice boom behind me.

"Kevin!"

I turn around to find him holding his empty Snapple bottle with two hands, the label pointed toward me.

"Make sure to tell 'em that every afternoon, I drink a peach tea," he says. "Diet peach tea. Make sure to tell 'em that."

I a.s.sure him that I will. He smiles, and I smile back, and then I turn and walk away.

After leaving Dr. Falwell's office, I feel a little woozy. All things considered, I think the interview went pretty well. But man, do I need to decompress.

Luckily, today is the next-to-last intramural softball game of the season, so I'll get to run around for a few hours and calm my nerves. My hall's team, the Billy Goats, has done fairly well this year. We're a few games above .500, a record I take pride in despite the fact that I contributed very little to it. After a game in which I struck out swinging two times in a row, Jersey Joey gave me the nickname "AC."

"AC?" I asked.

"Yeah, Rooster, AC. Air-conditioning. You're making a lot of breeze with all that whiffing."

Since then, I haven't done much to redeem myself. First, there was the choir practice incident, which I still haven't lived down. Then, there was the time I stole second base. During a game a few weeks ago, when the opposing team's pitcher wound up for his delivery, I put my head down, sprinted as hard as I could, made a sleek, well-timed slide into the bag, and rose up proudly, brus.h.i.+ng the dirt off my legs. The pitcher gruffly reminded me that there's no base stealing in intramural softball, and would I please go back to first?

These days, Joey usually puts me in for a few innings per game, but only if we're winning by seven or eight runs. And when I'm playing, my teammates' expectations of me are so low that anything I do right is grounds for completely disproportionate enthusiasm. I catch one fly ball, and they're hooting and hollering like I just made an una.s.sisted triple play while curing the common cold and fighting the mujahideen.

Today, though, I raise my profile. Our regular second baseman is sick, so I was called up to play his position. For most of the game, things are going along fine--a few runs here, a few fly-outs there--when, in the third inning, a guy from the other team wallops a ground ball in my direction. Actually, it's headed a good fifteen feet to my right, smack-dab between me and the shortstop.

Normally, I'd stand and watch as it careened into the outfield. But for whatever reason, I get a quick flash of optimism. I decide to go for it. I make a soaring, acrobatic, slo-mo-worthy dive to my right, and somehow, the ball ends up in my glove. Without thinking, I fire it across the field from my knees, where it reaches the first baseman on one hop, a millisecond or two before the runner reaches the base. He's out.

"Rooster!" shouts Joey from right field. shouts Joey from right field. "Where the eff did that come from?" "Where the eff did that come from?"

No one can believe it. My teammates look at me with the stunned expression you'd give a three-year-old who began quoting Moliere, and then they erupt into applause. By some act of G.o.d, I've just made a play befitting a Division I starter, not a klutzy choir singer. The impossible has been rendered possible.

My second big moment comes at the end of the game. We're down 5-4 in the ninth with two outs, and we're up to bat. Our last hope is Jonah, the pastor's kid who rooms with Jersey Joey. Jonah has runners on first and third, so if he can just get a base hit, we'll tie the game and send it into extra innings.

Jonah swings and misses on the first pitch, then again on the second.

"Come on, Jonah," says Marco, our first baseman. "Don't be a choke artist, buddy. We need this."

The third pitch comes, and Jonah winds up for a mammoth swing. It's a meaty pitch right over the center of the plate, and he misses. Strike three. Game over. Groans and boos erupt from the dugout.

Normally I try not to rejoice at the failings of others, but in this situation, I can't help feeling like the pimple-pocked loser in middle school whose emotional load is lightened when an even more unfortunate kid--pimples and and braces--moves into town. I'm no longer the worst player on the team. Now, Joey and his friends will be picking on Jonah instead of me, making gay jokes about Jonah instead of me. braces--moves into town. I'm no longer the worst player on the team. Now, Joey and his friends will be picking on Jonah instead of me, making gay jokes about Jonah instead of me.

"So, Coach," I say to Joey, on our way back from the game. "How'd I do?"

"You were pretty good, AC. I didn't expect that at all."

"Guess I should change my nickname to Amazing Champion, huh?"

Joey laughs and looks me over top to bottom, from my gloriously unathletic khaki shorts to my T-s.h.i.+rt, emblazoned with the name of my old a cappella group.

"How about Adores c.o.c.k, Rooster? That work for you?"

Wednesday night, I walk into Thomas Road for the second-to-last Campus Church of the semester, and there's a party going on. Well, not really. But it's close. All around the sanctuary, students are standing in the aisles, cheering and yelling, snapping photos with their cell phones. It takes me a few seconds to realize that everyone's attention is directed upward at the pool.

Tonight is Baptism Night. A few times per semester, the first half of the regular Campus Church service is replaced with baptisms for Liberty students who have never been baptized or who want to get rebaptized. The baptismal pool at Thomas Road is lofted high above the sanctuary, built into the wall in about the same spot as the seats of those two bickering cranks on the Muppet Show. Muppet Show. The pool is filled waist high with unnaturally blue water and fronted with a pane of gla.s.s so the cameras can show the facial expressions of the baptizees as they get dunked. The pool is filled waist high with unnaturally blue water and fronted with a pane of gla.s.s so the cameras can show the facial expressions of the baptizees as they get dunked.

"This is Brandon from Dorm 8," announces the pastor standing in the pool. He and Brandon are both clad in long black robes, which gives the whole thing a wizards-stuck-in-fish-tank aesthetic. Brandon's name and hometown flash on the Jumbotron, prompting wild screams from his friends on the floor below.

"Yeah Bran-Dogg!"

"Yeeeeeeeaw!"

"That's my roommate!"

"Brandon, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?" the pastor asks, shouting over the crowd noise.

"You bet I have!" yells Brandon, provoking more hoots and catcalls.

"Well then, Brandon, upon profession of your faith, and in obedience to Christ's command, I baptize you, my brother, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

He dunks Brandon backward into the pool . . .

"Buried in the likeness of his death."

. . . and lifts him out.

"Raised in the likeness of his resurrection."

I know one of the girls getting baptized tonight--Valentina, a girl from my Daytona Beach evangelism trip. Halfway through the service, she wades into the pool, smiling nervously.

"This is Valentina from Dorm 13," the pastor says. "Valentina, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior?"

"Yes, I have."

This morning, Valentina told me she was worried about looking her best for her appearance on the Jumbotrons. She said she spent "an unG.o.dly amount of time" primping, straightening her hair, and buying special waterproof makeup, and her effort isn't lost on me. As I watch her being dunked in the water, coming up with her hair dripping, the wet robe gripping her body, I can't stop my mind from wandering to that Denise Richards pool scene from Wild Things Wild Things. Which probably means I'm not ready to get baptized, come to think of it.

After Valentina's turn, the pastor continues with the a.s.sembly-line baptisms. Students file into the pool, and they're in, under, and out in less than a minute apiece. Everyone gets a hearty round of applause, and when the line runs out, the pastor dries off, and we move on to church as usual.

Earlier this week, I got a call from my friend Laura, the one who helped me prepare for Liberty. She knows that my semester is coming to a close, and she asked me what I'm going to miss.

I told her that, if anything, I'll miss the nights like tonight, when Liberty students come together to lift each other up in celebration. Because isn't that what this is? Take away the religious symbolism, and Baptism Night is a giant group hug. It's six thousand Liberty students saying, "We affirm your members.h.i.+p in this community. We value you." And as mawkish and sentimental as that sounds, it's true.

The French sociologist Emile Durkheim wrote about "collective effervescence," a special type of energy that forms around ma.s.s gatherings --concerts, raves, political rallies, things like that. Liberty, for all its flaws and quirks, fosters more collective effervescence than any other place I've ever been. Every Wednesday night and Sunday morning, you feel it at Campus Church. Three times a week, you feel it in convocation. You feel it in dorm-wide prayer meetings, at Christian rock concerts, and during Spiritual Emphasis Week. It's the sensation you get when your mind is swallowed by a sort of group mind, when the hundred-decibel wors.h.i.+p music and the laser light shows and the people jumping and screaming and hollering all around you combine to form a social organism that takes on a life of its own.

It's sort of sad that most secular colleges have no real subst.i.tutes for this kind of ecstatic group activity--or at least none that occur weekly, involve the whole student body, and are enjoyable while sober. At most schools, the social, intellectual, and spiritual components of the college experience are confined to separate experiential spheres. We party, we learn, and we contemplate the metaphysical, but we rarely do all three simultaneously and en ma.s.se. And maybe that's just as well. Maybe secular college shouldn't be in the business of collective effervescence, and maybe most college students aren't looking for ma.s.s spiritual euphoria from their schools. But after all I've seen this semester, I can't say I blame the ones who are.

The next morning, I get a call from my aunt Teresa.

"Kevin!" she says. "You're almost free!"

This is how most members of my family talk about Liberty--in prison parlance. For my aunts Tina and Teresa especially, experiencing my Liberty semester from afar has been torturous. When I told them I was coming here in the first place, they winced. When I told them I didn't hate it here, they s.h.i.+vered. When I told them I was sitting down for an interview with Dr. Falwell, it was all they could do not to go into paroxysms.

In fairness, my family has tried very, very hard to see things from my point of view. My mom, for example, has been watching Thomas Road's church services on TV every Sunday morning to see what all the fuss is about. Several aunts and uncles have sent supportive e-mails, and a few weeks ago, my aunt Tina told me that she didn't blame me for enjoying myself at Liberty. "It's natural to connect with people on a human level, even if you do disagree with everything they say." She added, "You do do disagree with everything they say, right?" disagree with everything they say, right?"

In short, although they hate the fact that I'm here, my family has been treating me a lot more civilly than I'd be treating my hypothetical son if he spent a semester with my ideological enemies. If we're talking biblical family conflicts, I'm somewhere between the prodigal son, who ran off to squander his inheritance money, and Absalom, who formed an army to rebel against his father's empire. I'm sure I'm causing them a lot of heartache and anxiety, and yet, they're still treating me with the same amount of love and compa.s.sion they always have. It's amazing, really.

In fact, I'm starting to think that after this semester, I should do something to compensate my family for all the pain I'm putting them through. Today, Teresa made a suggestion for my next project.

"You should spend a semester living with a gay-rights group in San Francisco," she said.

It's worth a thought, anyway.

With less than two weeks left to go in the semester, I figured it was time to start telling people that I'm not coming back to Liberty next fall. So I did. And so far, I've gotten a range of responses.

My roommate Eric just shrugged, told me he'd miss me, and wished me well wherever I ended up. Fox the RA spent ten minutes trying to convince me to change my mind. My next-door neighbor Zipper gasped, shook his head, and asked why I didn't want to stay. I told him that I missed my friends from my old school and added, "I just don't think this is the place I'm supposed to be." He nodded, sighed, and said he hoped I would come back to visit.

Even Jersey Joey took the news well. When I told him that I was planning to go back to Brown in the fall, he asked me a few questions and then slapped me on the back.

"Well, you gotta do what you gotta do, Rooster."

The most unexpected thing about the reaction to my news was that no one seemed at all suspicious. None of my friends were troubled to hear that I'm leaving Liberty after only one semester, even though I've displayed no signs of unhappiness. I gather, though, that quick turnover is not altogether unusual at Liberty. Here, people come and go all the time, often on short notice. Some are expelled, some get married and drop out, and others simply feel called elsewhere. Maybe I'm just another transient soul.

Or maybe it's that everyone else is preoccupied by their own worries. After all, summer vacation is coming up, and for a lot of my friends, spending three months away from Liberty's rigid spiritual structure is a nerve-wracking proposition.