Back on Murder

As interesting as all this is, I don’t need a lecture on how hard being a youth pastor is. “Can we steer this back to Ha

“Like I said, Ha

Cavallo would know what that means, but I don’t – and I’d just as soon not find out. “Again, could we stick to the matter at hand?”

He stops me with a raised finger. “It’s relevant. There was a sermon I did – I speak to the youth group on Sunday nights, I think I mentioned that. Anyway, you know the Narnia movies started coming out, and all the kids were eating that stuff up, so I did a talk about that line from C. S. Lewis – you know, about Aslan? ‘He’s not a safe lion, but he’s a good one’?”

My eyes glaze over.

“Anyway,” he says, realizing I’m not tracking, “the point is, God doesn’t want us to be safe. He wants us to do good. There’s a big difference.”

“Right.”

“So Ha

I’m not looking for ancient history, but sometimes there’s no choice. You have to let them tell the story in their own way.

“There was this girl,” he says, “named Evey, short for Evangeline. She and her mom relocated here from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the kid was really messed up. Evey ran away from home, got into drugs and who knows what else. She was Ha

“But not Ha

He shakes his head. “She befriended Evey, the way she did everyone. The same way she did him.” He jabs his thumb at James Fontaine’s house. “She didn’t judge. She tried to show Christ’s love to everyone, no matter how hard it was.”

“So she struggled with this love thing? And confided in you?”

“Yeah,” he says. “She grew up without a dad, you know, and I think I came along at a certain time in her life when she really needed one. A youth pastor’s always acting in loco parentis, but it was more than that.”

“You have any kids of your own?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Not yet.”

I’m not surprised. Telling other people’s kids it’s better to be good than safe is one thing. No matter how much you like them, or even feel responsible for them, they aren’t yours. Losing them isn’t always at the back of your mind. If Robb had a child, he might understand the attraction of keeping her “sheltered and safe.” Parents want to raise future doctors and lawyers – above all, future candidates for happiness. They do not want to nurture martyrs, whatever the cause.

“You can ask a lot of people,” I say, “but you can’t expect them to sacrifice their own kid. You’ll understand that when you have kids of your own.”

“But that’s exactly what Christianity is,” he says, “a father sacrificing his son.”

There’s a flash of passion in his voice, transforming him for a moment, giving me a glimpse of what he might be like in action. I can see how the teens in his charge might be inspired, and why their parents might get a little nervous. It’s one thing to talk the talk, but when you put your kid into someone else’s hands, you’ve got to believe that underneath all the radical rhetoric, there’s a check in place, some restraining impulse or i

“And Do

“She thought it was great. Just like Ha

“CCC?”

“Cypress Community Church.” He smirks. “Sometimes we speak evangelicalese instead of English. Sorry about that… Where was I?”

“Do

“Right. When I first got there, the youth group would have these a

“That’s really great. But why did you say Ha

He takes a deep breath. “Because. She took it so seriously. I mean, she really got into the mission work. She’d take an interest in people, you know? Not safe people – and not necessarily good ones, either. Not that any of us are good, but you know what I mean. At school she started having some trouble. She was making friends with the wrong people – ”

“Like the Fontaine kid?”

He nods. “And at the same time, she’s a normal seventeen-year-old girl. She likes boys, she wants to date, and she has the usual confusing mix of adolescent emotions. Her mom had a hard time coping, and Ha

“So she liked Fontaine?”

“I think so. And she also wanted to be a good witness, to be Christ in his life. I tried steering her away, tried to… you know, give her a reality check or something. But she couldn’t understand what I was saying. All this time I’d been telling her one thing and suddenly I’m contradicting it all.”

“Tell me about the relationship with him.”

“I didn’t know a thing about it until she got suspended last spring, that’s how secretive she was.”

This is the first I’ve heard of her suspension, but I try not to let on. “So what happened?”

He gives a disconsolate shrug. “All she’d tell me was they’d had an argument and he got really mad. The next day, there’s a drug search at the school and they find a bag of pot in her locker.”

So nice little Ha

“You’re certain it wasn’t hers?” I ask.

The question irritates him. “It wasn’t. She said so and I believed her. Her mom, I don’t know. After that, she had doubts about everything. About Ha

“What did she say?”

“She hasn’t said anything.” He rubs his eyes like he’s suddenly tired. “But she doesn’t have to. I know she blames me. And hey, maybe she’s right. I came here so certain, so self-righteous, and now… I don’t know what to think anymore.”

His voice dies, his fervor ebbs away. He glances at the Fontaine house, shaking his head like he’s not sure how he got here or what he intended to do. The conviction of a few moments ago is utterly gone now.

“That’s all I’ve got,” he says.

Everything he’s said has the ring of truth about it, but as far as I can see, none of it advances the case. All he can give me is history. His awkwardness yesterday stemmed not from real guilt but from a false sense of responsibility, a dubious co