The Unlikely Professor
By Timothy W. Tron
“And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;”-Romans 5:3
The river is swollen this morning to the point it presents itself as a formidable obstacle. Recent memory and pain still linger in my mind like a cold, damp cloth from a previous washing; too long lingered wet beyond what one would consider normal. A frigid, deep penetrating cold that one could feel beneath their bones chilled my body that day. There was a haunting feeling of earthen sod becoming my eternal blanket of repose; a time when we face a life eternal, hell or heaven; an existence based on belief in God the Father. Such thoughts make me appreciate the warmth of my car as I sit facing the John’s River from the Church parking lot.
Like the water in the river before me, my mind drifts back to the encounter from the day before.
Yesterday morning, while sitting in the waiting room of the tire store, a young man, thin and wiry, walked in. His face was covered by a short, unkempt beard, the kind that grows on the neck and beyond, like weeds overtaking a garden. His clothes were dirty and worn, matching the generic cap on his head that covered his angry brown hair that pushed out beyond his ears. His hands were roughhewn like the logs he probably hauled daily. My attention was toward the page before me, not on him. My thoughts were of the rain outside and the 
comfort knowing I was here getting something accomplished off my to-do list. Yet, in the background, I could hear the young mountaineer discussing in detail the issues for which he was bringing in his vehicle. Having checked everything out within his mechanical tool capacity, he was bringing it in for those with the technology to resolve his problem. He knew what had to be done and asked if the person that would be performing said task was competent, by saying, “He’s done this kind of work before, right?” The man behind the counter assured him that it would be fixed properly. Satisfied, he then looked toward the seats. It was about that time another customer walked in, a lady in clothes more fitting for a shopping trip than a morning at the tire store. She walked to the counter hurriedly as the young man was preparing to sit down.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as he picked a chair one seat away from me and commented on seeing me working in my journal and asked, “What ya writin’?”
I looked up and thought as to how I should answer, but not wanting to delay, my reply was simply, “Just some random thoughts,” I smiled in return. He nodded but didn’t seem like that had really answered his question from the look on his face. The vagueness seemed to spur him on, so he spoke again, “I do some writing sometimes too.”
Now he had my attention.
“What kind of things do you write,” I replied, partly out of courtesy, partly out of sheer curiosity.
“Philosophical kind-a stuff,” he quipped, and smiled a mountain grin, and continued, “Math related.”
I nearly fell out of my chair.
“Did he say what I thought he said,” were the words that came to mind?
As far as I could tell, after a quick mental and visual survey of my person, there was nothing on me that said I was a Math teacher, no school clothing, no ID badge, nothing anywhere that would indicate I dealt with Math on a daily basis.
To be certain I wasn’t confused or hearing things, I followed with another question, “What sort of Math things?”
“You know, like Fourier and such.”
I nodded.
“You know who I’m talking about?
“Sure,” I smiled, and that was his queue to begin.
The young man went on to discuss theories of Mathematical, historical figures; people and concepts. He talked about Euclid, Fourier, and Fibonacci like they were his extended family. I was captivated. Yet, the more I listened, the more there became apparent something trying to break my focus.
To add to his unpredictable lecture, the overdressed woman at the counter was now apparently having some sort of distressful, life-changing car issues. As such, she was having a meltdown in the background. She paced the floor behind the scene of the professor lecturing his student, blowing, and fuming out loud. I tried not to look at her for fear he might disengage.
Meanwhile, the mountain genius spoke more intensely with each new historical figure he uncovered. As his intensity increased so did hers. It felt as if I was caught between two parallel universes, one expanding, one contracting. About the time the lady appeared on the verge of having a mental a stroke, we began delving into Quantum Physics and Einsteinian Relativity. My mind was awhirl, my comfort zone was beyond invaded. Meanwhile, there was another being in the room about to lose her mind for all intensive purposes, over her car. She seemed to feed off the energy that the young man exuded, but from the negative side. The mountain mathematician was the positive charge, she the negative, and in the middle, me; the neutron. Part of me was fully engaged in the lecture, while the other part was praying that these two worlds would not collide. I didn’t need a Large Hadron Collider to create another God particle, at least not here in the tire store.
As bewildering as that moment was in time, looking back, it seemed as if God had put me in that room between those two opposite forces, one to challenge what I knew intellectually, the other to test my ability to withstand adversity in the face of taking on a mental challenge. To some, this would have been the epitome of multi-tasking-to-the-extrema. In life, when we step into our journey of faith, we often find that God will test us with trials and tribulations. As it says in Romans, “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;.” We never know what our purpose might be at any given time. Nor, when we are being used to reach someone. This particular day was my Math exam from the most unlikely of people in the most unlikely of places.
The lady was now leaning against the wall by the front door of the store, her phone was appearing to add to her frustration. Again, I tried not to look in her direction as the young man then continued on with his presentation. He took a perplexing twist when he began a tirade of attacks on some of the figures he had yet to name, one being Sir Isaac Newton. My woodsman professor claimed that Newton had ripped off the German Mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and that Einstein was an idiot for his theory on the Speed of Light, since it had been disproven (something I had once heard in some realms of conspiracy theorists). In fact, my Physics teacher and I, back at Macon College worked out his famous E=mc2 equation to the point it was obvious, the mass would expand (or explode) at the speed of light, and as such, light travel as far as we would know it was impossible. Part of me knew he was on to something, but where was he going?
As I listened, I kept telling myself not to judge. Who was I to say that God was not also laughing at these supposed historical, scientific heroes? For, in reality, their findings could all easily be invalid when we someday find dimensions beyond what we can truly only grasp in our earthly bodies. Einstein did prove that light could be bent by gravity, but I dared not speak it to the man with a mission. He was well within his own right to speak about what he wanted, even if it only further frustrated the poor woman only feet from where we sat. The lady, who by now appeared about to collapse from disbelief of her car’s problems. She acted as if it were causing her life to fall apart, or at least that is what it sounded like from where I sat. Truth be known, she was probably a Science and Math teacher from a nearby college who had about all she could take from this young man’s rant.
What did I know?
When the young man began asking me to question whether the arm of the chair I sat in was actually even there, I thought we were about to spin into another dimension. The lady nearby appeared on the verge of weeping.
“You take the arm of that chair, for example,” he said pointing where my arm was leaning, “You only know it’s there because you feel it, and see it, but who’s to say that it’s really even there at all, because if you look deep enough, it’s just a bunch of tiny particles floating around in space.”
I don’t know if it scared me more that I understood where he was coming from or the fact that he was scaring the life out of the woman who now seemed to be trying to call 911 on her phone, with no luck. Either way, my mind began to go past the young man, the bewildered woman, and far above where we sat. There was a calm to the hysterics in that it was as if God wanted me to understand, that no matter how much I knew, there would always be more to learn.
In my heart, I wanted to somehow find a way to slow down this rollercoaster ride. The only thing that would come to mind was to bring it back to faith.
As we swept through the realm of reality and beyond, I began gently asking the mountain mathematician theologically related leads that might allow him to reveal his spiritual basis; or rather, if he believed in God. In the end, it was apparent, that he wanted to prove to me that zero could not be nothing. He was convinced that even if we called something nothing, there would always be something.
“Genesis and the creation,” I blurted out loud.
“You can’t make something from nothing,” he said, pounding his fist inside his other hand’s outstretched palm.
I wasn’t sure if he got what I said, so I repeated it to be certain, “Like the book in the Bible, Genesis,…the creation?”
“Exactly,” he replied, smiling broadly.
“You can’t make something from nothing,” he smiled that broad Appalachian grin once more, satisfied that he had accomplished his mission.
It was then I had my answer.
“Amen,” I replied.
In the background, the troubled women, nearly in tears, whispered out loud, “THANK YOU JESUS!”
It was then our ride ended, and we came back to the platform from whence we had entered. “Exit the ride to your left,” I could almost hear the attendant saying.
“Mr. Tron, your car’s ready,” came the voice from the counter. I got up to pay, and as I turned to leave, I nodded in passing, “Good talking to you,”
“Likewise,” he said.
In the end, my tires were replaced, nothing was written in my journal, and the distraught woman left with a man that came in to escort her, by the arm, to a waiting car.
As I drove away, I realized he never gave me his name. My mind thought of how much more I needed to study, not just Math, but my Bible as well. It was as if God had sent a messenger that morning to show me how much more needed to be learned and how much more there was to understand.
Someday, when we reach Heaven’s golden shore, we shall finally know it all. Until then, we must realize as the messenger said, “Nothing is ever as it seems, but then again, you can’t make something from nothing.”
Thanks be to God.
