Godless

Godless by James Dobson Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Godless by James Dobson Read Free Book Online
Authors: James Dobson
confidential ear and a bit of perspective and advice?
    Matthew’s finger hovered momentarily over the calendar. He pressed it, then chose a convenient time and began entering the required details.
    â€œIs this seat taken?”
    Matthew looked toward the voice, which belonged to a man he didn’t recognize. “Um, no,” he muttered. “It’s all yours.” Matthew paid no attention to the stranger, who, he assumed, wanted to pull the chair to the edge of some crowded nearby table.
    â€œGreat,” the man replied. “I hate to drink alone.”
    The chair hadn’t moved. The man plopped himself down while extending a hand toward his unsuspecting host. “I’m Mori. Short for Bryan Quincy.”
    Matthew returned the gesture. “Matthew, short for Matthew Adams.”
    â€œPleased to meet you, Matthew Adams.” The man seemed to mean it. He appeared almost as lonely as Matthew. Not a solitary, reclusive lonely. The kind of lonely that talked to anyone and everyone to fill the silence.
    The man had brown hair and a rich-looking beard containing much more gray than his crown or temples. Unlike Matthew’s, his hair showed no trace of thinning. He appeared to have benefited from genetic screening. Impossible, of course, since blind conception would have been the norm at the time of the man’s birth. Fifty years old? The estimate seemed plausible, especially in light of a rotund torso that suggested several decades of chatty beer-and-chip consumption.
    â€œHow did ‘Mori’ become short for Bryan Quincy?” Matthew asked, more from polite courtesy than burning curiosity.
    â€œMy middle name, Morrison, was my old man’s surname,” he said with a chuckle. “They called him Mori, so I became Little Mori. Then just Mori.”
    â€œGot it,” Matthew said with an upward nod.
    A cheer erupted around them, prompting both men to turn disinterestedly toward a screen. A replay, which seemed to delight the crowd, meant nothing to Matthew.
    â€œâ€˜Little Mori’ just didn’t feel right in the classroom,” the man added while lifting a mug to his lips.
    â€œYou teach?”
    â€œIf you can call it teaching.” Another singular laugh.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI mean that teaching, by definition, ought to include learning. Which is something my students seem determined to avoid.”
    â€œHigh school?”
    â€œCollege. University of Denver.”
    â€œWhat department?”
    â€œHumanities.”
    â€œPhilosophy?” Matthew asked, suddenly intrigued.
    â€œLiterature.”
    â€œOh,” Matthew said limply.
    â€œYeah,” Mori sighed, “that’s how most of my students respond when they discover mine is the only elective class that still has openings.”
    â€œSorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I was a philosophy major before…before I took a sabbatical.”
    â€œNo need to apologize. I’m used to it. And I get it. Our generation was formed by Google and Facebook.”
    Matthew smiled at the mention of the classic brands. His thirty-seven years suddenly felt ancient.
    â€œWhy dive deeply into an ocean of words when you can skim along the surface on a Jet Ski?” Mori paused to reach for a source. “I think it was Nicholas Carr who said that.”
    Matthew didn’t recognize the quote, or the author.
    â€œAnyway,” Mori continued, “this generation is light-years beyond where you and I were when we graduated from college.”
    Matthew didn’t correct the misimpression.
    â€œOr should I say, light-years behind. I can’t remember the last student who had actually finished reading an entire classic novel. They don’t know Melville, or Hugo, or even Dickens. You have no idea how irrelevant I feel teaching a literature appreciation course to kids who, for all practical purposes, are illiterate. At least when it comes to the greatest books

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