Higher than Our Ways

During bedtime prayers, Olivia Parker presents her mom, Eva, with a list of twelve prayer requests, proudly noting it is eleven more than her sister Camilla had. The next morning at school, Olivia's teacher, Miss Adelaide, announces exciting news: an anonymous donor has given the $1,500 the class needed, so the ski trip to Snow Mountain is on after all, and parents are invited to volunteer as chaperones.

Olivia and her friend Zoe stop by the antique shop, where Jason Whittaker is covering the counter for his father. When the girls mention that the whole class is going skiing, including their classmate Emily Jones, Jason grows strangely uneasy. He soon meets with Pastor Wilson Knox over coffee to talk about something that has been troubling them both. A few weeks earlier, Wilson believed he heard a message from God, almost an audible voice, saying, "One of three will fall." He had a strong feeling the three might be Emily, Zoe, and Olivia. Now all three inexperienced girls are headed up a mountain on skis. Alarmed, Wilson calls the middle school and volunteers to chaperone the trip.

At Snow Mountain, Olivia and Zoe finish their third run down the bunny slope and decide to try the green slope. Pastor Knox hovers nervously, trying to lure them toward the lodge instead with rambling facts about hot chocolate, including that sixteenth-century Spaniards used it to treat liver disease. He is even more rattled to learn that Emily, an experienced skier, is tackling Delirium Dive, the mountain's most dangerous black diamond run. Soon afterward Zoe takes a spill and twists her knee, but she is mostly fine, and Wilson wonders if he worried over nothing. Then five ski patrol snowmobiles race down the mountain. There has been a terrible accident, but not to any of the girls: Mr. Norton, the beloved science teacher, has struck a tree, and the patrol cannot revive him. He has died.

At the funeral, a grieving Miss Adelaide remembers Mr. Norton as her friend and an inspiration, but she admits she cannot understand why he is gone and cannot find any hope in it. Pastor Knox follows with Isaiah 55, reminding the mourners that God's thoughts and ways are higher than ours, and that faith means trusting what we cannot understand. Afterward, Olivia gently approaches Mr. Norton's small son, Trevor, and tells him how much she liked his dad, who once gave her an A-minus even though her paper-mache volcano never erupted. When she says she wishes she had told Mr. Norton how much she liked him, Trevor innocently offers, "He's right over there. I'll wake him up for you." Shaken, Olivia excuses herself.

Days later, Olivia lingers after school to check on Miss Adelaide, who admits she is tired and angry. When Olivia presses her, the teacher reluctantly confesses that she does not believe in God; she sleeps better believing that things like Mr. Norton's death do not have to make sense, they just are. She points out that Mrs. Norton recently learned she is expecting twins who will never know their father. Though uncomfortable discussing faith with a student, Miss Adelaide suggests Olivia get an early start on an upcoming paper about philosophers, warning that some of them may make her question things she has never questioned before.

In Mr. Norton's untouched classroom, where his handwriting still covers the whiteboard, Olivia and Zoe share memories of the teacher who made them love science. Olivia asks Zoe a strange question: what if you looked closely at gravity and began to doubt everything you believed about it? Zoe insists she never would, and Olivia quietly replies that she once thought the same thing. At home, Olivia begins researching an atheist philosopher, and when her mom comes in, she asks to skip prayer time. Eva responds with patience, assuring her that being mad at God is okay as long as it is not disrespectful, and promising to pray for Olivia until she is ready to pray again herself.

Meanwhile, Jason and Wilson puzzle over the message. Perhaps Mr. Norton was the one who fell, or perhaps falling does not mean falling down a mountain at all. Someone could fall from grace, or fall out of faith. Though all three girls have seemed strong in their beliefs, the two men agree that no one is beyond deception, and they resolve to keep their eyes open and pray.