Ignatius’ Sunday School teacher Nora was “big-boned” and very tall. She was taller than most of the men at church. She wore her hair twisted up into a bun on top of her head, which made her seem even taller. Ignatius thought she looked beautiful because she had large, expressive eyes, a pleasant face, and a graceful, well-proportioned body. She had big teeth, smiled a lot, and spoke with a full, resonant, tenor voice. She reminded Ignatius of a big, friendly giraffe. Everyone felt sorry for Nora, because she wasn’t married yet, and she was already in her thirties.
Ignatius felt sorry for Nora because she always came to class with a mission that unruly kids kept her from completing. They asked her questions that had nothing to do with the lesson, or gave silly answers to her questions. There were a few especially bad boys at the back of the class who would poke each other, pass notes, or whisper things loudly into each other’s ears. Nora had to stop frequently to tell them to “be quiet!” or “sit still!” or “pay attention!” Ignatius wanted to understand her lessons, though her lesson plan invariably left out critical information.
For example, Nora once gave a lesson on how, “God Created Everything.” Ignatius had a question about that, but he waited patiently till the very end of the lesson, to make sure she didn’t answer his question without his having to ask it. But by the end, she still hadn’t, though he might never be sure if she might have if the boys in the back hadn’t perpetually been distracting her. He raised his hand for a very long time until she finally called on him, and then he asked it. “If God created everything, did He create the Devil too?”
“Yes, God created the Devil too,” replied Nora, projecting an unusual degree of certitude. “Why would God create the Devil?”
“Well, because when God first created him, the Devil wasn’t evil. His name was Lucifer and he was good. God gave Lucifer free choice, and Lucifer chose to become evil.” She seemed relieved that she had the answer to this one.
“But couldn’t God have created Lucifer so he would choose to stay good instead of becoming evil?” When Ignatius asked questions like these, Nora’s big giraffe smile turned into a frown. She pruned her lips and hemmed nervously and finally said, “That’s a very good question. I’m going to have to ask Pastor Whitmore about that and bring back the answer next week.”
Ignatius couldn’t say for sure, but Pastor Whitmore did not seem to like the Sunday School. Once kids made it through confirmation, they appeared to join a secret club of which he was the leader, giving them special access to his office, but until then he didn’t seem to notice their existence. Ignatius imagined Nora knocking timidly on the door of his office and passing on the question, only to have Pastor Whitmore sigh and roll his eyes at its impertinence and wave her impatiently away. Pastor Whitmore had better things to do with his time. Either that, or by the following week Nora had always forgotten about the question in her kamikaze attempts to bring a Sunday School lesson, for once in her life, to successful conclusion.
In any event, Ignatius had to fill in the holes with his own deductions. Perhaps when God created Lucifer, He put something of Himself in him, some piece of His power that once He had surrendered He couldn’t take back, because it was His power. But does that mean God is no longer all-powerful? That the Devil might have some of God’s power in him? That couldn’t be right. Ignatius had to think about it some more.
Ignatius had stymied Miss Nora so many times – with questions about Martians and earthquakes and whether animals have souls – he was convinced she couldn’t like him anymore, though he was fairly sure that, for all her faults, he liked her. He wished somehow he could get back into her graces, but it was certainly too late for that.
But even if he could, she was ultimately no help to him. She was far too fragile for him ever to dare ask the one question that really mattered to him, the question that made his heart skip beats just to think about, the question that he could not bear to have carelessly cast unanswered before Pastor Whitmore like so many pearls: If God loves us, why did his mother have to die of cancer?