By Callie Feyen
@calliefeyen

I was in college and taking Philosophy when, for a term paper, I decide I would attempt to explain the problem of evil. There doesn’t seem to be much to explain now that I think about it, but my memory is that this was a worthy subject in regards to philosophical considerations.

I was a solid D+/C- student with a low tolerance for learning. I’m not sure what I was thinking trying to tackle evil.

What I remember about Philosophy is that it was a lot like Geometry. That is, the object of the game was to prove something. Something about the degrees of a triangle; about the messed up shape of a trapezoid. I’ve never been in the business of proving anything. It’s too much trouble. Plus, Philosophy is way more difficult because we’re dealing with people and not shapes. Never did a parallelogram get pissed off and take it out on a rhombus. I don’t remember having much to say about the problem of evil except that it was, indeed, a problem.

It was during Lent when I attempted to write this paper. That year, my friend Alison and I vowed to give up ice-cream for 40 days. We did this after Chapel on Ash Wednesday, and our sacred promise lasted until dinner that night.

The thing is, Calvin had self–serve ice-cream machines, and I couldn’t resist them. Next to the machines were toppings—chocolate chips, peanuts, marshmallows, and my favorite, rainbow sprinkles. What I did was put the rainbow sprinkles at the bottom of the cone, and filled it up with chocolate and vanilla twist.

“It’s a surprise every time!” I’d tell my friends as we walked out of the cafeteria.

“How is it a surprise if you did it?” Alison would ask.

“I make myself forget about the sprinkles at the bottom,” I assured her.

My problem of evil paper also fell around the time the college was doing a series on love, which seems as broad and as difficult to capture as evil, albeit a lot more fun to write about. I don’t remember what the evening seminars were all about except for one. The title was, “How Far Is Too Far.” Everyone on campus went to that one. Everyone in the greater Grand Rapids area went to that one. We crammed ourselves into the classroom—I remember some of us folded ourselves under tables—and sat rapt with attention at the two speakers, a married couple in their 50s, and that’s a generous assessment, waiting as if waiting for Moses himself to come down from the mountain and tell us all the rules.

It felt like weeks in that classroom, listening to Fred and Wilma Vanderklonken describe every single base there was to round in this ballgame. As if we didn’t already know. As if several of us in the room hadn’t already rounded them. Several times. Finally, I think it was the woman who gave us our answer, and we all gasped, and her husband gave a firm nod, and the room was silent until someone said, “Oh, shit. All of us are going to hell.”

***

My friends Lisa, Jaime, and I are at the entrance of the Ann Arbor Arboretum, looking at the map, considering which way to run. It’s the middle of February, a few days before Lent, and like most middle of Februarys in Michigan, today is the day when the weather will fool us all into believing winter will let go easily. Three days from now, on Ash Wednesday, a snowstorm will arrive closing schools. Right now, Lisa, Jaime, and I stand on slushy snow and mud, we don’t have gloves or hats on, and the sweat we’ve produced actually glistens instead of freezing to our bodies.

“Let’s just go this way,” Lisa says, and takes off down a path that slopes towards the river. Jaime and I follow.

As we enter, we slow our pace a bit, and begin trotting down the slope that will bring us to the Huron River.

“So there’s some discussion about how parks should be built,” I say, turning my body slightly sideways and holding my arms out a bit for balance. “I heard recently that we’ve made them too safe for children.” I veer toward the edge of the path because it’s more dirt than ice. “Kids have no fear of falling.”

Jaime, who doesn’t say much while we run, except words I cannot repeat, raises her hand and pumps it in the air in agreement.

The path widens and curves, and the slant becomes steeper. I wonder if it is the trees, the river I can now see at the bottom of the hill, or the people who’ve walked through here that have set this pattern for this trail. I wonder if it’s all three.

“So I guess a group of engineers have come up with a new kind of park,” I talk louder because the three of us have spread out—we aren’t so cramped on the sidewalks where we just were—and also because I’m getting excited talking about this new park concept.

My left knee cracks, or pops, or does something it’s probably not supposed to do, and I tread a bit carefully, and look ahead at the path next to the river where it’s flat.

“Anyway,” I continue, “these parks are designed so that – get this – parents aren’t allowed in them!” I’m yelling now. “How awesome is that?”

“That’s the dream,” one of my friends say, though I can’t tell whether it’s Lisa or Jaime.

“No kidding,” I say above the water that’s rushing next to us.

I want to say more, but the water from the river rushes by, filled and energized by the newly melted snow. I want to say more about wanting a metaphorical park for Hadley—one where she learns to fall. One where an engineer calmly but sternly says to me, “You cannot come in. Hadley is safe to figure this out by herself,” and then leaving me alone to figure myself out.

I look at the ground to try and steady my pace, but it is no use. It is craggy from the mud and snow that have tangled themselves together so tightly that until the ice melts and seeps into the river – until the sun gives the water another path to take -  it’s too risky to stand on.

“I think we better head out,” Lisa says. Jaime and I nod, and the three of us make our way out of the woods.     

***

I am reading Gary Schimdt’s Orbiting Jupiter to Hadley and Harper, a painful and beautiful book that I’m not convinced is a tragedy, but I know there is no other way to understand love and grace and redemption without the sorrow in this story.

It is a story about a boy named Joseph and a girl named Madeleine and they are in love, and they are 13, and they have a baby, and Madeleine dies in childbirth and Joseph is labeled troubled and a delinquent and is sent away.

The baby, a girl, is named Jupiter.

I read to my girls about Madeleine and Joseph ice-skating, and how they boiled maple syrup and threw it on frozen snow and then ate it. I read to Hadley and Harper about the two of them having icicle fights, and the two of them dancing, and holding hands, and a first kiss, and then one night under a red woolen blanket.

I don’t read the story as a warning. I don’t read it to protect them. I don’t want anything bad or painful to happen to my daughters, but more than that, I want them to experience love in all its forms—friendship and romantic. I want them to experience a crush so suffocating the only way to breathe is to risk inhaling, and letting that person know they’re right here.

The problem with evil is it is no match for story. It is no match for an ice-cream with rainbow sprinkles at the bottom of a cone. It is no match for friends who will run into the woods with you, unsure of the path ahead, but being willing to share it all the same. It is no match for a first kiss—or any kiss—that happened on a not really spring day when everything was grey and murky and everyone else in the world is trying to get home to start the night’s activities, but not the two of you. You two are on the sidewalk where you part ways and you’re smiling because he’s said something funny and also because he’s standing there looking at you, expectant, smirking, and it makes you even more happy, bold even, so you step closer, and you close your eyes and after, he takes your hand and puts a note in it, says, “Your turn,” and you close your hand over the note and whisper, “Goodbye.”

The day is still cold and grey and it’s getting colder but it’s you’re world and you’re in it. The world is here for you and you for it and you want to stay and play. You will be heartbroken—you will fail—perhaps more often than not—but there is something inside you—perhaps it’s the compass you suddenly feel—that tells you: you don’t have to be good. You have to live.

***

 I am in the car, alone, after dropping Hadley off at soccer practice. The March evening is warmish, and the sun is still bright; the sky blue.

Here’s what I should do: go home and write. Go home and make my lunch for work the next day. Go home and clean up after dinner. Vacuum. Organize the basement. These are all good things to do, but I don’t want to be defined by my goodness. I’m not sure I want to be defined by anything at all.

Here’s what I do instead: turn the radio up, crack the windows and inhale, trying to smell summer. There are only hints of it outside, but I don’t feel like waiting. I steer the car in the direction of the river where the road twists and turns, just like the one I used to drive down in high school, when I should’ve been doing something else.

I’ll end up at Dairy Queen. I’ll be the only grown-up without children standing in line. I’ll think of the promise Alison and I made decades ago, and the paper on evil I received a C- on. We turned out OK, I’ll think to myself as I order a twist cone with plenty of rainbow sprinkles, and walk down the street for everyone to see.