ANYTHING BUT JESUS

Amos 5:19

You will be like a man who runs from a lion — only to meet a bear.

She sat in Professor Schuler's office. He had surprised her with an invitation, but before he could explain his office phone beeped. He took the call and stood up to face the window. As she waited to receive the details, she gazed at the series of framed pictures covering the back wall of his office. The pictures portrayed the history of vacuum coffeepots beginning with glass pots in 1830s Germany. Space devoid of matter, she thought, soon filled with rising steam and, later, steaming water to initiate the vacuum phase. An empty space inviting transformation. Sometimes the result pleased, sometimes not. In the vacuum in which she now sat, wondering if she would be pleased or leery, she filled the empty time by gazing at the coffeepots and the dog hair clinging to her coat like moss to a rock.

Professor Shuler continued with his phone call, so she perused the long narrow table pushed against the wall opposite his desk. On its dusty surface, the professor displayed his collection of antique vacuum pots and a newer Asian model made by Toshiba. The first time they met to discuss her scholarly paper, he explained that a microchip controlled the new vacuum brewer. Like Rudolfo, Professor Shuler poured out his heart as he described the workings of vacuum pots and their history. She listened to the music filling the office and tried not to yawn. Unlike Puccini's male lead, the professor's rangy long curls were white, not black. After his solo, he offered her a cup of the fragrant beverage made for those who appreciated fine coffee; she declined. Young law students could live on caffeine, but she was no longer young. One cup a day or she couldn't sleep at night. Besides, her favorite cup was made at McDonald's.

She crossed her corduroy-covered legs and studied the professor's face. She agreed with his students who considered him hot and had smiled when she saw red chili peppers next to his name on ratemyprofessor.com. She watched his perfectly formed but small frame glide into his desk chair and observed how his wrinkled shirt ballooned over the belt in his pants. Had he lost weight since the term started? Continuing his conversation, he swiveled in his chair and faced the window. His passion for the law made him a popular professor. He was not arrogant or stuffy. No, his appeal was in the easy way he wore his intelligence, like a soft summer shirt, the kind you wanted to touch.

She wasn't the only student who found him engaging. During class breaks, the younger students hurried to talk to him. The kids smiled, and so did he. Before class began, the auditorium always filled up quickly. No one walked in late. Before the start of term, she overheard one student say that he read the entire syllabus over Christmas break. Simply put, Professor Shuler made a discussion of individual rights, free expression, and equal protection exciting. He wasn't so engaging with coffeepots.

She knew, however, that this professor and constitutional law were not universally loved. Her law school friend, Brenda, was bored.

"Carrie," Brenda said, "I don't care about the laws governing my genitals and what gay men can do with theirs. Besides, the Constitution is a living document that needs to change with the times. Get with it, girl."

Carrie disagreed. She believed new law should adhere to the original document and that this document did not need updating. She feared that progressive interpretation of the Constitution added new liberty rights not on the minds or in the hearts of the Founding Fathers. Her directed study examined freedom of speech for high school valedictorians, a topic of no concern to Brenda, who had sat through the high school graduations of her own two kids and those of numerous relatives. She was emphatic. "No one listens to those speeches, Carrie. No one cares."

But Carrie did care, at least most of the time. The Court did not protect a valedictorian's speech rights to make expressions of faith, but it did support political speech. And while Professor Shuler reminded her that high school students did not receive full free speech protection, she found this decision arbitrary and capricious, a favorite law school phrase both she and Brenda loved. They tried to use it often, especially in restaurants away from school where strangers might believe they were lawyers. However, after several years of going to school part-time, a stockpile of "legal speak" burdened their heads, and they tired of showing off.

Carrie was changing. She questioned if she was turning into someone better or worse. Was she turning into a new Toshiba model or resisting change to stay in the past? After retiring from teaching, she filled the void in her life with law school. While she still felt passionately about kids and their speech rights, she had transformed from being an optimistic believer in all children into one who accepted reality. Some of her former students were headed to jail. She felt depressed watching young men and women stand before a judge during motion hearings at the circuit court, and she did not join the chorus of those who believed the defendant didn't know what he was getting into or simply made a poor decision. Too many of those decisions were as permanent as the ink on their skin. Didn't they know that no matter how hard they stretched their shirts, the judge could still see the tattoos on their necks?

Professor Shuler stood and looked at her. She wondered if he had said something to her she hadn't heard. She raked her fingers through her short hair and moved forward in her chair. Lowering her glasses, she looked over their gold frames at his eyes, which were blue.

Carrie wanted to write a paper arguing that student valedictorians should have the right to invoke the name of Jesus in graduation speeches. In fact, censored speech in public schools had motivated her to apply to law school. Prior to making a final decision about her future, she heard a news reporter detail what happened to a valedictorian who thanked Jesus after being told she couldn't mention His name in her speech. School officials pulled the plug on her microphone. That news report had been the tipping point. She studied for the LSAT, applied to law school, and put her house on the market. She moved to a state she had never visited and where she knew no one. She had to understand what had happened to free speech in a nation founded upon religious freedom by Christians.

Before Professor Shuler finished his phone call, a young student walked into his office. Short and trim, she shook her wavy brown hair behind one shoulder of her black pinstriped suit and took a seat next to Carrie. After crossing her legs — legs covered in fishnet stockings, her feet held hostage in four-inch heels — she leaned over and introduced herself. When Carrie leaned in to hear her, she noticed an imperfection in the fishnet. Carrie...