A KIND OF PARANOIA
Robert Meyers

Everyone has a moment of illumination, now and then, when light strikes the mind from an odd angle and reveals a new truth, or irradiates an old one in a fresh way.

This happened for me the other day at the close of a university class I teach, called "The Bible as Literature." A young man, for whom I had already developed some admiration because of his test answers and good classroom comments, came up and said: "I have a confession to make."

I suppose Catholic priests get used to it, but those words always startle me and send my thoughts racing wildly over a vast expanse of possibilities. As usual, I missed the right guess by a country mile. This is what the young man told me:

"When I sign up for a course, I always look in the back of the catalog to see where my professor has gone to school. I do this because I want to know how well prepared he is, and also whether I should call him Mister or Doctor." I smiled sympathetically at his cleverness, and he went on.

"When I looked under your name," he said, "I discovered ...." I broke in before he could finish, because what was coming struck like lightning. I knew then why he had been smiling his peculiar smile. "You discovered," I finished for him, "that I had gone to Abilene Christian College!"

I felt that could mean only one thing. "You are a member of the Church of Christ," I said, and he admitted that he was. "In fact," he told me, "my wife went to ACC also." Both of us understood that some piece of significant truth was out in the open now. In this big state university, the world had suddenly contracted. Some of my earlier experiences made me feel a little wary, although I could see only amusement in his eyes as he savored the secret he had kept.

"That's not all," he went on, smiling broadly. "I went to Harding College, and I know about you." He said it in so friendly a manner that I felt no dismay, and he went on to tell me that he attended the most liberal Church of Christ in our town (where there are about 18 of them), and that he had told the minister of that church about the college course he was taking.

"He told me that you and he had talked several times," he explained, "and he likes you, although he said he didn't agree with all your beliefs." That seemed reasonable enough to me, so I made no response to it. Later, as I drove home, I thought about it again and was struck by its implications.

It suggests an almost morbid concern about being Absolutely Right. One may compliment a man whose ideas have sometimes been different from those of the True Church, but one must be extremely careful to say aloud that he doesn't agree with everything the man says.

It is a protective device, used almost unconsciously. Church of Christ preachers often use it even of their own brothers who fill pulpits in sister churches. It's a way of disassociating themselves from any possible "false" idea the other preacher may have.

I can remember that I used to do that, also, but it never occurs to me to do it anymore. I now assume that anyone will understand that whenever there are two men with free and honest minds, they will always have some differences of opinion. It is not necessary to assure a third party that this is so, because there is no compelling sense of urgency to be thought Correct about everything.

In fact, when I spoke my own admiration for the minister my student named, the last thing in my mind was suggesting quickly, "But, of course, he has some ideas I cannot share." It would have been true enough, but it seemed self-evident to me, a little like saying, gratuitously, "By the way, you know the sun is above us."

I understand why I feel no such need to protect myself. No one is lying in wait for me, where I am now, to catch me saying what to him is contrary to received church dogma, or even to catch me admiring without proper caution another man who just might have "missed it" on some point or other.

Paranoia comes in all shapes and sizes, and it is obviously not always fatal. But the caution of my student's minister will not seem odd until he escapes it. As he will.

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A couple of things have struck me with fresh force lately. One is that some people employ a studied diplomacy of manner so long that it gets engrafted into their natures and they cannot understand simple, open honesty. When they meet such a thing they must call it bluntness, or lack of discretion, or radicalism. They can no longer imagine a condition of life in which one quite simply and freely says what he thinks, without having to peek around the corner, weigh his words in a scale, or fret over whether his children will be deprived of food because of what he speaks. Their loss is cause for great sadness.

The other thing is the ease with which we read our prejudgments into the conduct of others. I heard that a couple sitting behind my wife and me at a concert by the Harding College Chorus had reported on our "abominable" conduct. We had, it was said, laughed and sneered at the performance.

What we remembered was quite different. We had smiled, because we were so happy to be there, listening, and because we saw lovely children who had lived next door to us in Searcy and who greeted us after the performance with embraces. And we took the director of the chorus to dinner the following day, because we love him very much.

But to the prejudiced eyes behind us, our smiles had been cold sneers and our happiness at being there was evil pleasure. I doubtless leaned over to Billie at some point to whisper, "Hasn't Jan grown to be a beautiful girl?" without knowing that behind me two minds were thinking: "Look at that! He is making fun of Harding's chorus because he hates all things Church-of-Christish."

I have undoubtedly done exactly the same thing to other people, but I repent of it and hope to do better. I want to remember that it is always easy to see, not the person who is there, but the one we expect. Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 

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"The distinction between faith and opinion was one of the most important principles of judgment and action developed by this reformation [Stone-Campbell], making the former imperative and the latter a matter of private liberty."   — C. L. Loos