When Shawn arrived at Lyceum in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, just three days before the next evaluation week was scheduled to start, Liberty was in the middle of her atonement process, and Sarah was still spending most of her days with Mrs. Hutchinson. Ashley had not yet arrived.
Shawn, however, was quite content to be near the one friend he remembered from his first visit, in a place where he felt sure he would be treated with respect. The smile on his face revealed the relief and happiness he felt at that moment.
“Sister Samantha, this is Shawn, my pen pal!” Sarah said to the lady of about fifty who was sitting at a computer console. “He’s here for the evaluation week.”
“Hello, Shawn! I didn’t know any of the prospective members were arriving this early, but it’s no problem.”
“It was kind of an emergency transportation thing that Brother Jacob set up,” Sarah said. “I think Shawn’s file explains it.”
“Oh, yes, here it is. Well, you had an exciting trip across the country!”
“Yes I did,” Shawn said. “I met some of the non-resident members.”
“I see you got to ride with Sister Mary Jane! How is she? I haven’t seen her in over a year. We used to have some of the most wonderful discussions about existentialism.”
Shawn made a quick mental adjustment as he imagined Sister Mary Jane rattling along the back roads of Tennessee in her old truck discussing
existentialism. He had only recently learned what the word meant. It was, if not forbidden, at least a non-topic in his father’s house.
“She’s fine. Wonderful little house she has!” Shawn said, remembering her excellent cooking.
“Let me see here. We could just put you in the dorm that the evaluation group will be using... oops, no we can’t — someone has it reserved tomorrow through Friday. Well, I’ll just have to give you a single, and you can move into the dorm on Saturday. Would you show your friend to Guyon’s Cave please, Sarah?”
“Sure!”
Shawn smiled. It was the second time he had been shown to a Lyceum Lodge room by Sister Sarah. The first time had ended in tragedy. He vowed to himself that this time, nothing was going to stain the experience, no one was going to say nasty things to little Sarah, and he was going to see the Dining Hall, and the Art Gallery, and numerous other things that he had read about in the books Brother Jacob had sent him.
Shawn picked up his duffel bag and together they walked to the center of the Main Lobby, which contained only one couple talking softly and one other person reading. Some nice piano music was playing softly over unseen speakers. Sarah stopped at the sculptured fountain in the center of the huge room.
“Can you see all three of Lyceum’s missions in it?” she asked.
Shawn walked slowly around the fountain. He could see churches and cathedrals, holy books and tablets, Greek and Roman Gods and Christian angels. “The religious mission is easy to see!” He continued around the pool at the fountain’s base, and could see a telescope, a microscope, test tubes, and a computer. “I see the Scientific Research mission!” But even though he walked around it twice more, the third mission remained hidden. “Sorry, I can’t see International Services at all.”
“You’re too close!” Sarah said, and walked with him about half of the distance to the archway that led to the Lodge. They turned around and looked back at the fountain.
Shawn could then clearly see that the entire sculpture was an abstract globe of the planet, with the many religious and scientific symbols acting as
bridges between the countries and continents on the globe. Shawn smiled, and Sarah could tell that he was seeing it. They continued into the corridor.
“I wish I could give you a tour tomorrow, but I want to spend the day with someone who will probably die soon,” Sarah said.
Shawn was slightly amazed at how easily little Sarah spoke about an impending death, without any attempt to sugar-coat the words she was using.
And yet he didn’t feel she was making light of it either.
“Hopefully Brother Jacob will be free sometime tomorrow,” she continued.
“I hope so. I haven’t met him yet,” Shawn said, “even though I feel like he’s already a good friend.”
They passed through the lobby of the Lodge and soon came to a short little wooden door labeled Guyon’s Cave. “I love this little room,” Sarah said as she tapped a number into the lock’s keypad. “Now you can key it.”
Shawn punched in his favorite number, and the door opened.
It did indeed look like a cave inside, with walls and ceiling of simulated rock, and a small table that was a real boulder with a fairly flat top. The floor was uneven, and a little bed was tucked into a rocky alcove. A simple wooden desk with a candle in a holder completed the furnishings.
“I like it!” Shawn said. “Perfect for someone who just left home and is trying to figure out God’s will!”
Sarah smiled. “I’ll leave a message for Brother Jacob that you’re here.
He’ll send someone to get you for breakfast. Good night!” she said, stepping out into the corridor.
“Good night! And thank you... thank you very much!”
Shawn spent half an hour unpacking his duffel and realizing how relaxed he felt now that he was there, at Lyceum. And as an adult no one could tell him that he should be somewhere else. His bits of camping equipment seemed perfectly natural in the cave-like room, but he left his sleeping bag rolled up. He didn’t even feel greatly concerned with the upcoming evaluation week. They would accept him or they wouldn’t, as God’s will dictated.
Soon he started to yawn, so he got himself ready and crawled into the cozy little bed in the rocky alcove in Guyon’s Cave.
At seven o’clock the next morning, the sun was angling through a window
set deep in the simulated rock wall, and Shawn had the little book from his grandmother open on the stone table when he heard a knock at his door. He opened it and a white-bearded gnome of a man about sixty was standing there.
“Shawn! I’m Jacob,” he said, thrusting out his hand.
“Um... good morning!” Shawn said with a hint of timidity, taking the man’s hand.
“Will you have breakfast with me? I’m sorry that Sarah’s not free today.”
“Uh... sure. She told me she had to spend today with someone.”
“Neat little room, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I like it a lot! I’ll get my wallet.”
“You won’t need it. You’re Lyceum’s guest, and even though we can’t make good with your father right now, we at least need to show you our hospitality, without rainstorms or premature departures!”
Shawn chuckled, recalling the still slightly painful memory of his first visit to Lyceum.
“I have this morning free if you’d like a tour from an old man who walks a bit slower than you do...”
“I like walking slowly,” Shawn said. “I’m just not quite used to the idea that I can go anywhere I want.”
“There’s a lot to see and do. Let’s start with the Dining Hall. I could eat a bear!”
Shawn laughed as he pulled the door to his cave closed. He discovered he was quite hungry also, and over a tasty breakfast, Brother Jacob made suggestions about how Shawn should use his three and a half days of free time before the evaluation week began. He gave Shawn coupons for the Dining Hall, a pass to the Recreation Center, and wrote out a schedule of when they would be able to spend time together.
After breakfast, Brother Jacob had a pretty good idea of what Shawn most wanted to see. They started by walking through the Ecumenical Temple. It was not being used, and Shawn’s eyes were big as he imagined it full of people during one of Lyceum’s inspirational services. Jacob smiled, and then guided him to the observation walkway in the Hall of Shrines.
After going up a short flight of steps, Shawn found that the dark walkway
completely encircled the building, with the inside wall made of glass so that they could look down upon the many shrines and chapels without disturbing the people within.
Shawn gazed down in silence. He had just recently started to learn about other Christian sects — but he knew next to nothing about the other religions of the world. There they were, all of them, side by side, all receiving about the same amount of space... all decorated and furnished to about the same standard... all very beautiful... and most of them being used even as he watched.
He soon noticed little placards attached to the glass that identified the different religions and sects, told in which part of the world they were primarily practiced, and gave a brief description of each. The Protestant Christian chapel was very familiar to him, but he gazed long at the beauty of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox chapels.
Then came sections devoted to Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, and shrines of many smaller faiths. Shawn marveled at their beauty, but knew that his understanding of their beliefs was tiny, and what little he did know had come from sources that were attempting to discredit them as untrue religions. Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto were there also, and it occurred to Shawn that he was looking at the religious trappings of the vast majority of the people of the world. He felt a deep down longing to learn about them all.
Shawn was quiet as they wandered into the Research Complex. But his excitement soon returned as they walked through the Library and the Museum. He peered at artifacts and exhibits about many of the key events of both Religion and Science, and was fascinated by a number of displays that told about those areas where the two institutions had already found common ground — nuclear physics and Hinduism, cosmology and Judaism, psychology and Christianity, medicine and Islam.
Next they walked down a corridor lined with murals that depicted all of known history and cosmology. Shawn was fascinated, and would have spent hours there if Brother Jacob had not wanted to show him the laboratories before he had to leave Shawn and go to work.
They peered through the observation windows of the many different labs, most of which had several groups of people working in them, and students
coming and going every few minutes. While they were looking into the Physics and Astronomy Lab, Brother Jacob waved through the glass at a white-haired man of about eighty, who motioned for them to come in.
Shawn soon discovered that in order to get into the lab, they had to go through a series of little rooms. The first room had places to hang up coats and other unnecessary items. The second blew a strong blast of air over them to remove most of the dust and lint from their clothing. In the third they put on white lab coats, combed their hair, and washed their hands. Finally they could step into the laboratory.
The white-haired man greeted them. “Hello, Jacob! Hello, young man!
I’m Brother Carl.”
“Carl! What kind of mischief are you up to today?” Brother Jacob said cheerfully.
“Come over here and see. We’re looking at some new data from the Apollo space telescope that strongly suggests most galaxies lie in four spherical shells, with significant voids between them. Maybe we’re at the center of the universe after all!”
Brother Jacob chuckled. They stepped to a large graphic display screen around which several other researchers were gathered. There before them a three dimensional image of a very symmetrical, yet very complex universe was slowly taking shape.
“God’s creation...” Shawn whispered.
“That’s right, son,” one of the researchers said.
After a few minutes of watching, Jacob and Carl separated themselves from the group. Shawn followed.
“This is Shawn,” Brother Jacob introduced. “He’s in the next evaluation group, so you just might be seeing a lot more of him soon. He’s very interested in the relationship between Science and Religion.”
The young man and the old man shook hands.
“I’m honored to meet you,” Shawn said.
“And I am likewise honored,” the white-haired man said. “If you’re interested in that mysterious region between the two ways of looking at the universe, you’ve come to the right place. I wish you Godspeed in your evaluation. Come back and visit again. I’d better go see how the data
presentation is progressing. It’s a test program that still has a few bugs.”
Brother Carl went back to his work. Shawn and Jacob wandered around and looked at experimental stations of every description, from simple magnetic fields to high energy particle physics. Some seemed to be set up primarily for teaching and demonstrations, others were oriented to the casual tinkerer, and still others, like the controls and computers of Lyceum’s small but sensitive radio telescope, were definitely designed for serious research.
As noon approached, Shawn and Jacob hung up their lab coats and exited the lab, as Brother Jacob had to go to work.
Shawn had lunch alone. He didn’t mind — he had seen many interesting things and he needed some time to himself to decide what he wanted to do next. The buffet looked good, so he presented one of his meal coupons to the young man behind the counter and received a tray with all the dishes and silverware he needed.
“Welcome to Lyceum,” the young man said. “Please let us know if anything is not just right.”
“Thanks,” Shawn said.
As Shawn filled his plate with strips of London Broil, real mashed potatoes, and a steamed vegetable medley, several images from his morning tour stuck in his mind: the beautiful chapels in the Hall of Shrines, the intricate murals in the corridor to the Laboratory Complex, and the image on Brother Carl’s screen of a universe organized in four spherical shells. He found a little table by a wall and sat down.
As he ate, his mind drifted back to his first visit to Lyceum, a year and a half before. I’m sorry, Father. If there is evil here, I haven’t found it yet.
Then, remembering what he had wanted to do the first time he had visited, just before his father had turned against little Sister Sarah, he decided that after lunch he would take a long look at the Art Gallery and the Lyceum Art Collection.
Shawn easily found the gallery by following the signs from the Main Lobby. He soon discovered that the drawings, paintings, sculptures, miniatures, and other works in the gallery were diverse in their themes and came from all over the world. But they shared several qualities: all of them
were interesting and fun to look at, all of them seemed to have meaning on at least two different levels, and all of them were high quality works of fine art.
After he had been looking for half an hour, a tall and slender lady of about fifty appeared beside him. “You appreciate good art when you see it.”
“Yes, I... I like almost everything here.”
“Then I imagine you’ll like the Lyceum Collection even more.”
“I haven’t seen it yet, but I want to.”
“Here is a little guidebook that will direct you and tell you something about each piece.”
“Thank you.” He looked at the booklet that the lady had given him. It had a map of the central part of the campus, with the location of each item in the collection numbered. When he looked up from the booklet, the lady was gone.
He looked around the gallery, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Looking back at the booklet, he learned that the tour began right there in the gallery, where there were two pieces of the Lyceum Collection on display.
She was right — they were even better than the gallery pieces. He headed down the corridor toward the Healing Arts Clinic, as the tour booklet directed, to find the next pieces.
Two hours later, Shawn had been through just about every building at Lyceum, including the Mortuary and the Welcome Center, both of which required going outside, in order to see the entire collection of sixty-seven works. He had been to a number of famous art museums in his life, and the collection he had just seen compared favorably, not so much in quantity, but definitely in quality. Re-entering the Main Lobby, he happened to glance at the back of the booklet. There was a small picture of the lady who had given him the pamphlet, and it identified her as Sister Rachael, Curator of the Lyceum Art Collection.
Brother Jacob caught up with Shawn just before dinner time, so they ate together in the Garden Dining Room. After dinner the older member introduced Shawn to the various recreational opportunities that were available during the evening. Shawn elected to make use of the Water Sports Pavilion until he was pleasantly exhausted and ready for bed.
Shawn had spent his first day at Lyceum unwinding from his cross-country journey and getting familiar with his new surroundings. But as Thursday dawned warm and golden, Shawn was in a much more thoughtful mood. He spent some time with Brother Jacob, and considerable time by himself in the many gardens of Lyceum. All day long one particular person was on his mind: his mother. As the day passed from morning, to noon, to afternoon, Shawn slowly was able to separate his father and his mother in his mind. His father had hurt Sister Sarah, not his mother. His father had been rude to the people in the Information Center, not his mother. And his father had informed him that if he was going to associate himself with Lyceum, then he had no claim on any family resources... not his mother. His mother might be completely loyal to his father, but she was still a separate person.
At five o’clock, when the day’s visitors were beginning to thin out and most of the members were going to dinner, Shawn went to the front office, got plenty of change, and found a phone booth. He was happy to discover that it was actually a small, comfortable room. He sat down and tapped in his old phone number.
“Mitchell residence...” his mother’s voice said.
“Hi,
Mom.”
“Shawn! Where are you, Honey? Why don’t you come home?”
Shawn was silent for a moment. “Because I’m an adult now, Mom.” He was glad her second question allowed him to skip the first.
“I’ve been so worried about you, Shawn. Are you safe? Has anything bad happened?”
“Nothing bad has happened to me, Mom.” Except being chased all over my own home town. “I am safe, and many good things have happened to me.” He knew he needed to go on the offensive. “How are things with you?
How is your Sunday School class going?”
“Oh, I don’t want to talk about myself, Shawn. Please tell me where you are...” she said in a pleading tone of voice.
“I’m in a phone booth, Mom, and that’s all I can say right now. I just wanted you to know that I was fine, and that I don’t blame you for the things my father did...”
“Your father is a good man, Shawn. He just came in — I’ll put him on.”
Shawn could hear her calling his father to the telephone. He knew he wasn’t ready to talk to his father, so he gently set the handset down in its cradle.
The rest of that evening was spent pondering the few words Shawn had been able to exchange with his mother. Brother Jacob informed him that a movie about Saint Francis of Assisi was being shown in one of the residence halls. Shawn decided the movie would be a good idea — he could use some saintly inspiration at that moment.
Friday morning brought a clear conscience for Shawn, knowing he had made contact with his mother and had done his best to reassure her. He rose early and went for a swim, then ordered a hearty breakfast in the cafeteria and began to flip through the Lyceum Visitor’s Guidebook to decide what he wanted to do that day, his last full free day before evaluation week. His breakfast arrived, and he decided it would be a good day to spend some time in the library.
Suddenly Sister Sarah sat down in the other seat at his table with a smirk on her face and pushed a basket of strawberries to him. “From my garden!”
“Wow! They’re beautiful! You really know how to grow things!” He picked up a strawberry and pinched off the stem. “Mmmmm!” he said as its flavor hit his taste buds.
“Mrs. Hutchinson died Wednesday afternoon. I needed to be alone yesterday. Would you like a companion today? Someone’s doing my chores, so I have lots of free time.”
“Sure! I called my mom yesterday.”
“How did it go?”
“Not very well. She’s not ready to believe that I’m not a baby anymore.”
“Does she want you to come home?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s sad. My mom knows I’m happy here.”
For the rest of that day, Sarah took Shawn to all of her favorite places at Lyceum, most of which he had not yet seen. They went out to the farm and zoo, and after petting animals for awhile, harvested some vegetables to take
into the kitchen. In the afternoon, they ran along the fitness trail together, and then walked one of Lyceum’s long nature trails. Sarah showed him places deep in the woods where no one ever went, and little shrines she had made far from the main gardens.
Shawn had more fun that day than he had had in years. On that day, Sarah became the little sister he had never had, and he became the big brother she had never had. They ended the day by joining Brother Jacob and Sister Rachael in the large hot pool in the Water Sports Pavilion. Shawn and Rachael exchanged opinions on many of the works currently in the Gallery, while Jacob and Sarah talked about Mrs. Hutchinson’s wishes for her funeral.
Shawn went to bed very happy that night, feeling that he had just acquired at least three new friends. His only regret was that he would have to move out of the room called Guyon’s Cave the following day.