When Demons Float. Susan Thistlethwaite

was a traveling exhibit of outdoor sculpture right there. And the sculptures were huge. It was a fairly recent installation. I had been planning to take the kids to see it.

      Jane saw me looking at the statues and chuckled.

      “No. Not right there. Further to the West.” She pointed in that direction.

      “That’s fairly close up on to the park there. I hope the city doesn’t have to get involved with permitting too.”

      The City of Chicago had a permitting system that seemed to be modeled on a labyrinth. With a Minotaur. And no actual exit.

      Jane shook her head.

      “No, that wouldn’t work. We have to stay on campus.”

      Then she stopped, and I stopped opposite her. The huge university chapel building was right in front of us. It was hardly a chapel, though, since it was the size and design of a medieval cathedral.

      “Anyway, here’s what I wanted to ask you. The students would like to have Dr. Aduba Abubakar, your new colleague, speak at the rally.” She paused and cleared her throat. Jane normally didn’t dither.

      “Anyway, they wanted me to ask you to ask him to speak.”

      “Why not just ask him directly, Jane?” I asked bluntly.

      “Well, nobody knows him, so they wanted you to ask because you do.” Jane was trying for a matter-of-fact voice, but I could tell she too thought they should just ask Aduba directly.

      I held in my irritation. This wasn’t Jane’s fault. I thought for a minute.

      “How about this? I’ll mention to him that a coalition of student groups wants him to speak at the rally and a representative will be in touch shortly. Do you know who will ask?”

      “Ah, no. Not yet.”

      Well, perhaps the organizing was not as organized as she was saying. But it had to be hard, and I needed to cut her some slack. Her job right now was impossible.

      “I’ll just say ‘someone’ will be in touch and leave it at that, okay?”

      “Yes, certainly. That will be a help. I’ll tell them. Thanks, Kristin. I’m glad I ran into you.”

      “Me too. Good luck, Jane.” Good luck to all of us, I thought.

      The shadow of the giant cathedral fell over Jane’s face as she turned toward her office.

      “We’ll need more than luck,” she said, looking up at the stained glass window that loomed over us, some angels flitting around.

      Well, if she was counting on divine assistance, I wasn’t confident we’d get any help. The problem of how God could be good and evil exist in this world never went away for me.

      ✳ ✳ ✳

      Aduba wasn’t in our shared office when I got there. I did think I shouldn’t wait to give him a heads up about the invitation to speak at the rally, so I composed a short email and sent it. Then when I saw him, I’d follow up in person.

      Also, I thought I’d better arrange the catering for Saturday night. After all, I smiled wryly to myself, “it’s only Wednesday.” I called an African vegan restaurant that I’d heard was good, though we’d not eaten there. I knew they did a lot of catering, and vegan food was considered Halal, the Muslim equivalent of Kosher, if there was no alcohol used in cooking. The woman who answered said they’d be delighted, confirmed that they never used alcohol in preparing food, and she took down the number of diners, the time and the address. She told me to go on their website and select the dishes I wanted, and she gave me a code to enter for the catering reservation. I did that and in about ten minutes that was taken care of. Oh, if only everybody were as well organized. Me included.

      Since I was already on my computer, I thought it would be a good idea to get some work done. I sighed. Email first. When I opened it, I saw there was an email from the Registrar. I read it. John Vandenberg had, indeed, dropped “The Social Gospel.” I’d try to talk to him anyway. I started to write John an email asking him if we could meet and talk, and then I hesitated. Maybe I should talk to Jordan again before I did that. I also thought about talking to Adelaide. I decided I’d wait on that until I’d talked with John.

      I was sitting there still pondering John’s dropping the class when my cell phone rang. I could see it was Alice.

      “Yes, Alice.”

      “You got time this afternoon for a meeting?” she said. We were back to the no chit-chat Alice.

      “Let me check. I think so.” I went to my calendar program, and I scrolled through the rest of the day. I had blocked this afternoon out for research. So much for that.