Where the Light Fell: An Interview with Philip Yancey

[HRankin (Hillary Rankin)]

Where the Light Fell: An Interview with Philip Yancey - Article - BioLogos

Did anyone else read Philip’s memoir? Heart-wrenching and insightful.

[Laura]

Yes, I just finished it a little while ago – quite a story! I’m amazed (but grateful) he stayed in the church!

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

Read it a few months ago. Interesting book, gives insight to life in that era. He is pretty much a contemporary of mine, though I grew up in a more rural area with less racial tension. I did identify with him in many ways as I recognized the general mindset. In addition, we had the same budget ($300) for our wedding!

I might add I bought the NIV Student Bible he edited for my teenaged grandson, It is a good choice for a first “grown up” Bible if you are in the market.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

I just finished it last night. Not a fun read, and I wept some, but it shows how God’s grace can break through.
 

@jpm

He is pretty much a contemporary of mine

He is very much a contemporary of mine, remarkably so, but I did not skip a grade. Like him though, my birthday had me in school early – back then it was thought to be a good thing, not so much nowadays. (I was always the youngest in my class, too, and that’s not helpful socially, especially for boys).

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

True. A high percentage of professional athletes have fall birthdays, putting them nearly a year ahead of those like you and me with summer birthdays. That year meant they got the attention of coaches, and made them the standouts on their teams, with success building to success.

[Dale (evolutionary providentialist)]

While looking for where I had posted this before, this thread was a hit for my search on ‘Phil Yancey’ (funny thing – I wonder how that happened ; - ), consequently and obviously discovering that I had not posted it in this most appropriate of places. It is Phil’s account of where and when ‘the light fell’, not that he hasn’t continued to receive grace in other ways and which he has shared with us in his prolific and appreciated authorship:
 

A few days later the university team gathers for a prayer meeting, as we do every Wednesday. We follow a consistent pattern: Joe prays, Craig prays, Chris prays, then all three pause politely, waiting for me. I never pray, and after a brief silence we open our eyes and return to our dorm rooms.

With the essay deadline looming, I join the team grudgingly for the requisite meeting. Joe prays, Craig prays, Chris prays, and they wait the usual few seconds. To everyone’s surprise—most of all my own—I begin to pray aloud.

“God…” I say, and the room crackles with tension. A door slams down the hall, interrupting me.

I start again. “God, here we are, supposed to be concerned about those ten thousand students at the university who are going to Hell. Well, you know that I don’t care if they all go to Hell, if there is one. I don’t care if I go to Hell.”

I might as well be invoking witchcraft or offering child sacrifices. Even so, these are my friends, and no one moves. My mouth goes dry. I swallow hard and continue. For some reason I start talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan, which one of my classes has just been studying. “We’re supposed to feel the same concern for university students as the Samaritan felt for the bloodied Jew lying in the ditch,” I pray. “I feel no such concern. I feel nothing.”

And then it happens. In the middle of my prayer, as I am admitting my lack of care for our designated targets of compassion, the parable comes to me in a new light. I have been visualizing the scene as I speak: a swarthy Middle Eastern man, dressed in robes and a turban, bending over a dirty, blood-stained form in a ditch. Without warning, those two figures now morph on the internal screen of my mind. The Samaritan takes on the face of Jesus. The Jew, pitiable victim of a highway robbery, also takes on another face—one I recognize with a start as my own.

In slow motion, I watch Jesus reach down with a moistened rag to clean my wounds and stanch the flow of blood. As he bends toward me, I see myself, the wounded victim of a crime, open my eyes and spit on him, full in the face. Just that. The image unnerves me—the apostate who doesn’t believe in visions or in biblical parables. I am rendered speechless. Abruptly, I stop praying, rise, and leave the room.

All that evening I brood over what took place. It wasn’t exactly a vision—more like a vivid daydream or an epiphany. Regardless, I can’t put the scene out of mind. In a single stroke my cockiness has been shattered. I have always found security in my outsider status, which at a Bible college means an outsider to belief. Now I have caught a new and humbling glimpse of myself. In my arrogance and mocking condescension, maybe I’m the neediest one of all.