Jon's Story, Part 2: Homesick to Belong

Ryan and I decided to meet in the school’s plaza one evening. It was early spring, and after a harsh Chicago winter students congregated everywhere outside, letting themselves breathe for the first time in months. I sat on the edge of a concrete tree planter and waited for Ryan to show up.

When he finally emerged from around the corner of the plaza’s foremost building, I was surprised by his appearance. He broke the stiff stereotype I had in my head of what a grad student would be. Ryan’s hair was longer and floppy, reminiscent of the 70s. He wore a cartoon t-shirt and by the looks of his jeans, he had been sitting on the ground somewhere. As it turned out, he had been. Before coming to meet me, Ryan had been sitting on a small patch of grass somewhere else on campus reading his Bible. Not because he had to for a class assignment–as I was accustomed to doing–but because he wanted to. 

Ryan didn’t greet me as a stranger; he shook my hand and pulled me in for a hug before taking a seat next to me. Then, the conversation opened up, stretching in every direction. 

At the time, I couldn’t tell you what it was, whether the voicemail he left me, his appearance, or that someone his age was sitting in the grass under a tree reading his Bible on a beautiful spring evening, but I felt safe with Ryan. That sense of safety grew roots of trust. Despite being the kind of person who loves to read and spends time putting words down, I’ve often felt like the words are always trailing behind my emotions. Sometimes it’s only minutes, but other times it can be days, months, or even years. It took me a long time to discover a word that wasn’t in my vocabulary when I met Ryan: authentic. 

As we sat on that concrete edge, Ryan asked me questions about myself. His questions were pointed, intentional. That was almost 14 years ago so I don’t remember much of what Ryan said back. But I think that’s really because he spent most of the time listening. When he eventually offered some thoughts he shared a story he’d heard. It went something like this:

A professor of biology was giving a lecture on trees. He was explaining to his students that as branches shoot off from the main vine or trunk, they extract all of the nutrients they need from the rest of the tree in order to survive. One student in the class raised their hand and corrected the professor. It was the student’s understanding that the trunk of a tree actually pushed out the nutrients necessary for branches to grow and thrive.

Ryan went on to explain to me how that story had been essential to his understanding of Jesus being the Vine and us being the branches. That all we have to do is remain in him and he’ll take care of the rest. He’ll push everything into our lives that we need to live. 

Up until that point I had felt lost and alone. I hadn’t had the social foundations like others and somehow missed the memo that playing guitar was a prerequisite to campus life. I hadn’t had the theological or literary foundations like others and eventually had to ask why so many people had The Chronicles of Narnia on their shelves. My puzzlement was met with disbelief that I had never read them, but in high school I mainly cared about three things: girls, playing soccer, and staying barely academically eligible to play soccer. So I wasn’t reading the chronicles of anything. 

None of that mattered to Ryan, though. He accepted me for who I was, not who I thought I should be. Our first meeting turned into another and then another. Whether sharing a meal on campus or sitting in a Starbucks, Ryan continued to probe, asking me questions about myself, drawing me out, and learning more about my story. 

Ryan eventually invited me to his apartment, its walls lined with bookshelves which were filled with books on ministry, spiritual formation, community, and theology–not to mention literary classics. It was there that I met Lewie Clark. I quickly learned that Lewie was more than a roommate and friend; Lewie had discipled Ryan. During my time there that day I learned more about what it meant to be discipled, about their friendship, about Lewie’s investment in Ryan’s life, and about why they were in Chicago: to do their part in Jesus’ commission to make disciples. As I listened to their hearts for the city of Chicago, I thought to myself, Are these guys for real? 

When Ryan gave me the tour of their cozy apartment, I noticed that on the frame of his lofted bed there was a sticky note with a quote that read, “I will never be part of something possible.” 

At that moment I wasn’t sure what that “something” was, but I was beginning to have an idea. As if everything I had come to learn about Ryan, and now Lewie, was captured in that one sentence. But it was only the beginning, one sentence of a larger story. And by the time I left their apartment that day I had answered my own question:

Yeah, these guys are for real.