Pascal's Wager by Nancy Rue

Author:Nancy Rue [Rue, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Religious, Contemporary Women, Religion, Christian Life, Inspirational
ISBN: 9780307565211
Google: L02RtcqcGMoC
Amazon: B003DYGNPQ
Barnesnoble: B003DYGNPQ
Goodreads: 8640058
Publisher: Multnomah Books
Published: 2001-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

I took Sam’s advice—grudgingly—and called McDonald’s office and asked for a different social worker who could list my options for me. They referred me to a Paige Hill, but she was on vacation and couldn’t see me for two weeks. Maybe that was good, I decided. It would give me time to “explore the angles.”

So I met with Sam several more times—purely for that reason. And he followed the ground rules nicely, both the spoken and the unspoken ones. We carried on our discussions in some fairly bizarre venues—while throwing darts at the Rose and Crown, while eating peanuts and tossing the shells on the floor at Antonio’s Nut House, and after running each other into the ground up on the Loop and then dialoguing over Gatorade. In spite of all the distractions, I was determined to keep the conversations academic.

One afternoon at the Rose and Crown—a student hangout in Palo Alto—I pushed it until we established the fact what we were actually doing was searching for truth. He insisted that we first had to define truth. His classes, I thought, must be a real snore.

I played along and defined truth as “life’s inward reality.” It was about as philosophical as I could get and still not stray too far from being rational about the whole thing.

Sam defined it as “God.”

I wanted us both to continue to refer to it as truth, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do that, so I had to compromise. That only gave me the motivation to beat him in darts that afternoon.

At our next off-the-wall meeting, he flew a kite out on the Oval while I watched. I asked pointedly how we were going to get to the truth. Maybe he had time to just toss it around between picnics, but I didn’t.

“So you’re asking what our guide is,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” I said. “In my view, it’s science.”

“It’s faith,” he said. “Have I ever told you about my friend Pascal?”

“Who?” I said innocently. “Is he on faculty?”

He looked intently at his kite. “I’ve got to give this some more string. Yes! See that thing bobbing and weaving up there? Check it out!”

Only because I knew he wouldn’t let it go until I did, I glanced up at the sky. The red-and-white fish-shaped kite was indeed “bobbing and weaving,” as if it were dodging a barrage of something. I decided I knew how it felt.

“Where was I?” he said.

“Your friend Pasquale,” I said, tongue firmly in cheek.

“Blaise Pascal. Seventeenth-century mathematician.”

“Right. The guy who bases his belief on flipping a coin,” I said. “That’s very mathematical. Although what can you expect from someone with a name like Blaze?”

“B-l-a-i-s-e.”

“Blaze,” I said. I sat down on the grass and leaned back on my elbows so I could look up without getting a crick in my neck. Sam looked away from the kite, his face lit up as if he’d just had a scathingly brilliant idea. I groaned inwardly.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Come to my nine o’clock class tomorrow morning.

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