Choices

Lucy Cunningham-Schultz likes science, but she does not like the film her class is watching. While the narrator on the screen explains how stars formed and how a huge clump of gases exploded into a universe, Lucy whispers to everyone around her that the whole thing is wrong, because God created the world. Her friends shush her. When the lights come back on, her teacher, Mr. Winthrop, asks her to stay behind for a minute.

Lucy expects trouble. Instead, Mr. Winthrop hands her a copy of The Educator, the newspaper that goes out to every teacher in the district. Each year the paper publishes a report written by the student with the highest grades in the district, and this year, after Mr. Winthrop submitted her work, the editors have chosen Lucy. It is a real honor, and it is also a class assignment that will be graded. Then Lucy asks the question that spoils everything: what is she supposed to write about? The category is science, and the topic the class is studying is evolution.

Lucy asks if she can write about something else. Mr. Winthrop says he did not make the rules, and that nobody is asking her to believe in evolution, only to write about it. Plenty of students would trade places with her in a heartbeat. If she refuses, her grade will show it. He gives her the weekend to decide.

At home, drying dishes with her father, Lucy is so lost in thought that Hal has to call her back to earth twice. When she finally explains, he tells her that everyone has to do things they would rather not do, and that he obeys his own boss because God placed him in authority. But Lucy has a worry that goes deeper than a grade. The report will be printed for the whole district to read, and everyone will assume it says what she believes. Hal admits that is a good point. He promises that nobody will be allowed to make fun of her, whatever happens, and then he tells her something she does not expect. He is not going to decide for her. Part of being her parent, he says, is knowing when to hand a choice back to his daughter. Whatever she picks, he and her mother will stand behind her one hundred percent, and they are proud of her already. Lucy says that helps - a little - and goes to bed early.

That night she dreams. In the dream she is at Whit's End, and everyone she knows is telling her the same thing. Whit reminds her that the Bible says to be subject to the governing authorities, and that her teacher is the authority in this case. Connie quotes the verse. Then Whit calls the whole soda shop over to hear about it, and the crowd starts chanting at her to write the report. When Lucy says she does not know what the right decision is, the voices turn on her and tell her that anyone who cannot make right decisions has no place at Whit's End. She wakes up alone in the dark, still asking herself what she is going to do.

On Sunday, in Whit's Bible class, Marsha asks what people mean when they say Christians are supposed to be in the world but not of it. Whit explains that believers walk and talk and eat like everyone else, but they see life through Christ's eyes, and that shows up most clearly in the choices they make. Lucy speaks up. What if you do not know which choice is right? Marsha thinks right and wrong are always obvious. Whit says they are not. Sometimes the line is very fine, and sometimes what is right for one person is not right for another. When a decision is hard, he says, pray about it first, talk it over with someone you trust, and see what the Bible says. He asks Lucy to read the end of Romans 14:23 aloud: everything that does not come from faith is sin. Lucy says honestly that this is not helping. Whit puts it plainly. If you believe in your heart that something is wrong, you should not do it, even if everyone around you says it is fine, because going against what you believe is right is itself a sin. Lucy goes quiet, and then says that now she does understand.

Monday brings another film, and Lucy has another set of comments for it. When class ends, she stays behind and tells Mr. Winthrop her decision. She is not going to write the report. She knows what that costs her. She is a Christian, she believes God created people rather than that they evolved from an amoeba, and writing the report would mean going against what she believes deep down, even if it means a failing grade.

Mr. Winthrop's reaction surprises her. He asks why she did not tell him all of that on Friday. He had thought she was only inventing an excuse to dodge an assignment, and he says that making a student act against her personal beliefs would go against everything he stands for as a teacher. Now that he knows the real reason, there may be a solution. His idea is simple: let Lucy write a Christian perspective on evolution. Evolution is a theory, after all, and he thinks a report from that point of view would be genuinely interesting, and that Lucy is exactly the person to write it. Lucy is delighted and wants to start right away.

Then Mr. Winthrop mentions that he has one more problem she might help him with. He has been trying to work out who keeps making all that noise during the movies, and he has a pretty good idea which part of the room it is coming from.