The Theology Professor

When I was a student

Like all of you are now

I was finishing up my advanced degree

In theology

At another school

That is not as good as this one is

But, uh, is still--very reputable

My professor asked me

If I’d like to take part

In a, uh, I guess you could say

An experiment?

That he said ancient monks

Used to have to, uh, endure

As part of their--their training

I said, ‘Okay’

When you’re, you know,

When you’re in your twenties

You say ‘Yes’ to things

And you spend the next twenty years

Wondering if that was the right call

But, um, so I say ‘Sure’

He says ‘Okay’

There were--

I think there five other people

In that program with me

At that point

Because, um, believe it or not

More people drop out of theology programs

Than med school

It’s this strange--

You all probably

Understand why

But to the outsider

It might seem odd

We were down to five students

In my program

Four of us said

We would do the ancient monk experiment

Even though

Whether we did it or not

Wasn’t going to affect our place

In the program

But we loved our professor

This old, steamship Dr. Dubium

Who, um, was like a cross

Between Tolkien and John Houseman

From The Paper Chase

He couldn’t stand any of his students

And that made us really, really want to please him
So we said--

‘Okay, Dr. D, what do you got?’

He gave us a place

And a time

And told us to be there

And not tell anyone

Where we were going

Or what we were doing

I was a little, uh, whatever

But I did as I was told

Sunday morning, 8am

We all carpool together

And we drive to this--

This building

At the edge of campus

Abandoned

Used to be the Psych building

Boarded up

For the most part

Except you could still go in

The front door

And into some of the classrooms

Okay

Dr. Dubium lines us up

And one by one

He leads us into the building

I was the first one

To go in

Barely any light

A rat or two running around

But that was the only noise

And, uh, he took us--

Well, he took me

I don’t know where the others, uh--

He took me

Down one flight of stairs

Then down a few corridors

And into this room

With no windows

Big heavy door

No idea what they would

Have used it for back then

But, uh, he took me in there

And he said--

‘You’re going in this room

And you’re going in alone

And you’re going to stay in here

Until it’s time to come out’

I didn’t say anything

I didn’t know what to say

The doctor closes the door

And I don’t hear it lock

But…

I don’t check

To see if it is or not

Because, um, it doesn’t matter, right?

He said I’m staying in the room

So I’m staying in the room

Until it’s time to come out

What does that mean?

No idea

Didn’t ask

Wasn’t going to ask

I assumed it meant

That he would come get me

After, uh, you know, a long time

To, uh, teach me

How to be alone

With my thoughts

Or something like that

To meditate

On existence

Something lofty probably, right?

By the way, none of you

Have to write this down

I’m just talking

This wasn’t what
I was going to talk about today

But just, uh, just listen

So I’m in this room

All by myself

There’s a chair

That’s about it

I sit in the chair

I get up

I sit back down

I have no idea

How much time has gone by

I didn’t wear a watch back then
Now I do

I do because of being in that room

That’s the truth

I start to do what you do

When you’re somewhere

And you don’t know

How long you’re going to be there

I count the seconds

Then I count the minutes

Try to figure out

When an hour’s gone by

When two hours have gone by

Three

I pace

I walk every inch of that room

I start listing off

Things in the room

I talk

I talk to myself

I talk to my mom

Or I try to talk to my mom

But she’s not answering

I had lost her that winter

I, uh...

I tell her where I am

I tell her what I’m up to

How I’m still in the program

Even though she hated religion

And told me

I was studying fairy tales

And harassed me about it

In between coughing up blood

On her deathbed

And maybe she was right, right?
I mean, here I am

In this empty room

Trying to talk to ghosts

And it’s my theology professor

Who put me there

I start thinking about

The other students

In the program

Where they are in the building

Can they hear me?

Should I call out to them?

Is that cheating?

Is Dr. D still hanging around
Somewhere

Making sure we follow the rules?

But there wasn’t a rule

About calling out, right?

So why did it feel wrong to do it?

To even think about it?

I didn’t call out

I sat in that room

And I thought about my brother

Who I hadn’t spoken to

Since the funeral

Because he wasn’t there

When my Mom died

And I couldn’t forgive him for it

Even as I sat day after day

Studying all these texts

And all this ideology

On forgiveness

And forgiving

I couldn’t forgive him

I thought--

Maybe I’ll sit in here

And I’ll count the minutes

And after so many minutes

I’ll forgive my brother

Didn’t happen

Maybe I’ll be in here for ten days

And at the end of the ten days

I’ll stop thinking about my mother

Nope

Didn’t happen

I thought--

Nobody knows I’m here

What if I’m in danger?

What if the Professor

Had lost his mind

And this was his way

Of getting rid of all of us?

Who would know?

We were a bunch of college kids

College kids go missing all the time

If you want to write that down

You can

Never agree to go somewhere

And not tell anyone

Where you’re going

Even if I tell you to

Don’t do everything

The person in charge

Tells you to do

That’s your life lesson

Of the day

Don’t just say ‘Yes’

Because sometimes you wind up 

In a room

You wind up in a room

And nobody knows you’re there

And you don’t know how to get out

I started hearing my brother’s voice

And at first

It sounded like all the messages

He would leave me on my answering machine

That grainy, static-y sound

Then it was like

He was on the other side

Of the door

Then right next to me

Sitting in that chair

Asking for money

Telling me to go to hell

Saying he was sorry

That he wasn’t there

When I buried our mother

Telling me I should leave the room

I said, ‘I want to talk to Mom’

But nothing

Just him

Just my brother

And then nothing

The minutes go by

And they start to expand

So you think you’re counting to sixty

And getting somewhere

But really

You wind up holding

All this time in your chest

That you can’t expel

That you can’t get out

It lands in you

And you live there with it

And it’s so goddamn weighted

You feel like you’re going to go

Right through the floor

Which would be fine

Because at least

It would get you

Out of that room

The walls started to multiply

But the room didn’t get

Any bigger

The surfaces went opaque

I felt locked in to this rigid stance

The chair felt like

It was on the other side of the world

The door was gone

My clothes were gone

I started watching parts of me

...Disappear

My legs

My hands

The spot at the center of me

Where I felt like

I could center myself

Using techniques I’d learned

To calm down

When I started having panic attacks

After the funeral

I was unmoored

Truly

I started feeling days

I started feeling something more than days

But more than that

More than--

How we measure time

I started to lose it

That sense of time

And how it passes

And I realized

It wasn’t isolation

Or loneliness

Or boredom

That was disabling me

This way

It was grief

I had--I had gone

Right from losing my mother

And, you know, in a very real way

My brother

In such a short amount of time

My whole family

That, um, I had…

Sorry

I’m sorry

I had gone right from that

Into the next thing

And then the next

And then the next, and, uh--

I didn’t leave any room

For grief

I didn’t want to

And, uh--

I knew what would happen--

I didn’t know

That locking myself in a room

Would bring it out

But I knew that

If I didn’t keep myself occupied

The first thing

That would drop down into me

Into that center

Where I was--

Where I am

Bound to myself

Would be

Grief

Because it asserts itself, right?

We know that

...Or maybe you don’t, but…

I was not unique

I am not unique

We are all--

We all live

With grief

And--

The challenge

I think

Of being who we are

As people

In this life

Is to find a way

To appreciate

And not fear

Grief

That grief had been ignored

For so long
At that point

That it had manifested

It had, uh, morphed

Into this liquid

That was pouring down the walls

Coming at me

Like a great flood

Pouring into the room

But then I saw a break in it

An opening

And, uh, I remember

Feeling--knowing--

That in that opening

Was my brother
And what was left

Of my connection

To him

And I knew

That there was no surviving

This grief

Without, um, reaching out

To him

With--maybe not with forgiveness

But, um, with--

A movement

In the direction

Of something

That could one day

Lead

To forgiveness

I remember reaching out

And then

I remember falling asleep

And, when I woke up,

Still in that room

I heard a voice

On the other side

Of the door

I don’t know

Whose voice it was

It wasn’t my brother’s voice

It wasn’t the voice of Dr. Dubium

Or someone else in the program

Or, uh, or my mother

And I don’t think it was god

Because, as you know, uh,

I have a reputation

In this department

For being the theology professor

Who doesn’t believe in god

But, uh--

I heard a voice

I’ll leave it at that

And the voice said--

‘Come out’

So I got up

I noticed

That the room

Looked like

A room again

The walls were walls

The floor was a floor

I was myself

In a way that I hadn’t been

Previous to that

I opened the door

It wasn’t locked

It had never been locked

I went down the corridors

I want up the stairs

I made it to the front door

I walked outside

It was dark

I didn’t know

How long I’d been in there

I still don’t

Because, uh, the car was gone

The car we took

Me and the others--

They had, apparently, gotten scared

And left

I don’t begrudge them for it

They didn’t want to interfere

With whatever it was

That was happening with me

And they probably wouldn’t have found me

Even if they had wanted to

Later they told me

They would have come back for me

But whether or not that was true

Doesn’t really matter

I walked back to the apartment I had

In student housing

A mile or so away

I heard the grasshoppers

On my walk home

I smelled the air

Coming off the pond

Near the road

I felt the early evening warmth

That meant graduation

Was right around the corner

And when I got home

I slept for a long, long time

We never had another class

With Dr. Dubium

He passed away

The night he left us all there

Heart attack

In his sleep

We never got to ask him

What the point of that experiment was

And when we looked through his books

To find stories of the ancient monks

We couldn’t find any proof

That they ever had done anything like it

Or that he’d done it

With any other students

Before us

Because we were so close

To the end of the semester

All other obstacles in the way

Of our completing the program

Were removed

And we did

We finished

We got our degree

But we never spoke

About our time

In those rooms

I’ve never spoken about it

To any class

To anybody at all

Until now

My brother didn’t come

To my graduation

But that summer

He came to live with me

For a few months

Because he had gotten himself

Into some really bad trouble

And, uh, well

We started out

On the long road

To reconciliation

And we’re still on that road today

But, uh, we are...on it

And I’m grateful for that

I still talk to my mother every day

Except now I don’t need her

To talk back to me

Because I know what she’d say

And that’s enough for me

They want me

To give you all

An exam

In theology

But I’m not going to do that

Because it occurs to me

That right now

You might be in a room yourself

Although your room

Might seem to have windows

And doors

And other people in it

With you

That’s fine

But I’m going to say to you

What my professor said to me

And I hope you hear it

Even though I couldn’t hear him

When he said it

‘You’re going to stay in here

Until it’s time to come out’

That sounds like a demand

Doesn’t it?

It sounds like an instruction

Sometimes an education

Teaches you

To hear things

In a different way

Like a voice

Like guidance

Like a grasshopper

On a spring night

On a long walk home

I won’t be giving you

Any more tests

Or lecturing

After today

All I’m going to ask

Is that you to sit in the room

You’re in

Until it’s time to come out

Rarely do we get the chance

To be anywhere quietly

And listen

To the things

We’ve been trying

Not to hear

I think you should take that time
I really do

But I want you to know

That while it’s true

That when you leave

Is up to you

There are others in your position

Not very far from you at all

Despite you thinking that they are

Call out

Call out to them

Even if you think they can’t hear you
It’s enough to even let them know

You’re there

But leaving is still up to you

I would be remiss in suggesting

That there’s a resolution
On the other side of that door

But please know that when you leave

It won’t be the end

Of the despair you’re feeling

Or the rage

Or the grief

But it is a step

Outside

The room