"The next afternoon, as soon as my last pupil had gone for the day I started for Miss Alice's cabin. She was at home and showed no surprise when she saw me standing there.
"I had scarcely gotten inside before I found myself saying with no preliminaries, 'I have to talk to you. Two days ago in talking with Dr. MacNeill, I discovered something about myself. It's that I really don't know what I believe about my religion. I guess I never thought it through before. I made a stupid hash of answering some questions Dr. MacNeill put to me. It was embarrassing.'
....
"'He wanted to know what I believed about God. I think he put it, "What's your working philosophy of life? Why is this Christianity important to you?" He wanted to know what difference it makes to me.'
"'And your answer left you dissatisfied?'
"'Worse than that. I didn't have answers. That's a horrid discovery to make.'
"'That's a great discovery to make.' The grey eyes were sparkling now.
"'I don't understand.'
"'So many people never pause long enough to make up their minds about basic issues of life and death. It's quite possible to go through your whole life, making the mechanical motions of living, adopting as your own sets of ideas you've picked up some place or other, and die -- never having come to any conclusion for yourself as to what life is all about. But you, Christy, are facing these issues early. That's good.'"
-Catherine Marshall, Christy (1967), pp. 309, 310.
Photographs by Liz Kufs, mosaic art and sculptures by Isaiah Zagar
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