Chapter 8. Anomalies in Eden

My parents and uncles, aunts and cousins were Adventist. I went to an Adventist school, read Adventist books, went to Adventist campmeeting and Adventist summer camp. We ate Adventist food (vegetarian), did Adventist entertainment (no movies) and Adventist fundraising (door-to-door solicitation for cash donations “for the poor, sick and needy”). Adventism was a complete system, nearly an entire world.

The only exception to this complete social system was our neighborhood. No other Adventists lived in the area, so our playmates were Baptists or Catholics or people who did not go to church. We played and fought with them in typical city neighborhood fashion, and never worked too hard at figuring out how they could be such good friends and at the same time be candidates for the Mark of the Beast. In the neighborhood, friendship counted for more than theology.

But with the one exception of our neighborhood, the rest of my world was Adventist. Everything that was necessary–truth, God, adventure, meaning, guidance for life, theories of earth history and political science, romance, professional education–could be found inside the Edenic ecosystem of our church.

But there were anomalies in the Garden.



Like many Adventist elementary schools, our ten-grade school, Memphis Junior Academy, had two grades in each classroom. So every other year I was in the same classroom with my sister, Jeannie, who was a year behind me. When I was in sixth grade we had a dreadful teacher. She must have thought we were second graders. One recess, she required us to sit in a circle. Then she tried to force us to play Patty Cake. In front of students from other grades who were also on the playground at the same time.

We sat in a circle like she said. And some of the kids cooperated in clapping their hands with her. But the guys were appalled at the very idea of playing a little kids’ game. We hooted and jeered each other. We were careful not to make fun of our teacher directly, but we loudly ridiculed the game.

Mrs. Larson finally cut recess short and made us return to the classroom. She was still in charge. But that day we declared war. We put a tack in her chair. She didn’t sit on it, but we felt brave for our effort. We slammed our books in unison. We drew comical pictures of her on the board when she was out of the classroom. We threw paper planes when her back was turned.

Nearly every day, my sister and I would come home to recount to our mother some fresh indignity we had suffered at the hand of Mrs. Larson. How could the church employ someone so utterly unfit for the job? We occasionally reported on our own guerilla tactics, but always in the context of extreme provocation by Mrs. Larson. Mom counseled obedience and courtesy and forbearance. But I thought I detected in her some amazement at the loony actions of our teacher.

When we returned to school after Christmas break, Mrs. Larson was gone. Mrs. Crowson took her place. Mrs. Crowson was pretty, young, and tough as nails. She was my third cousin. I quickly fell in love with her. We had a great rest of the year. I think I even did a little school work, though that’s probably just wishful memory in honor of a favorite teacher.



The following year I returned to campmeeting. I took with me my most prized fossil, a gift from one of the old men at church. It was some kind of plant, the piece I had ten inches long, two or three inches in diameter and branched. My first thought was petrified wood, but it didn’t look quite like wood. I asked all the men at church who might know about rocks. But none of them knew what it was. I was eager to show it to Pastor McLean. He would know.

Sure enough, when I showed it to him, he immediately identified it.

“No question about it. You’ve got a nice piece of petrified wood.”

I protested slightly. “Well, I asked several other people and they weren’t sure it was petrified wood.”

“Oh, there’s no doubt about it. It’s petrified wood.”

“But what about these lines that run length-wise on it and even appear to run lengthwise inside it. Shouldn’t petrified wood have rings inside instead of these little stringy things?”

“No, it’s really quite simple. What you have is a nice piece of petrified wood.”

I was a Southerner. While I might have been a social misfit, I did have manners. And a young person does not prolong an argument with an adult. Especially one you admire. But I wasn’t sure what to do with my admiration. It appeared to me the coolest preacher I had ever known had just made a fool of himself. He was certain when he should have been tentative. He had made an authoritative statement, and I suspected he was wrong. I didn’t know he was wrong. I didn’t know where to find a better identification, but I trusted my own eyes as much as I trusted a preacher when it came to rocks. And this fossil did not look like wood to me.