Jennifer Swenson
“Not again,” I mutter, when I spot Dylan1 sitting behind the table at the onset of Sacrament meeting. He is flanked by Michael and Matthew, and I am hopeful that one of them will offer the blessings this week. Dylan’s previous attempts have all been disasters.
Dylan is a student in my Sunday School class. Every week after Sacrament meeting, he ambles into the classroom, collapses into a folding chair, and demands to know our lesson topic. When I answer, he grumbles, “Bo-ring.” Dylan asks if I have brought cookies. I answer in the negative. When I request a volunteer for prayer, Dylan gives no one else a chance to respond. Within the first ten minutes, Dylan randomly shouts, “Don’t do porn!” The class snickers.
During a recent lesson, I rummaged through my bag for a pen. Dylan jumped up and stood next to me. “What are you looking for?” he asked. I didn’t answer. He stuck his knobby finger into my purse and pushed aside the glasses case, the checkbook, the abandoned Target receipt. He was looking for food. Dylan is always looking for food.
He saw a pack of spearmint gum. “Hey! Can I have a piece?” he asked.
“No, Dylan. Please sit down.”
With a loud sigh, he flopped down in his chair, which was practically on top of mine. I asked him if he would move his chair just an inch or two. “I need elbowroom while I teach,” I said.
Dylan rolled his eyes, and he moved his chair eight feet away, plopping it down in front of the door.
Dylan always wears jeans, tattered black high tops, and a white dress shirt—unbuttoned at the collar and greyed from age. The sharp contours of Dylan’s face are pockmarked with festering acne. His lanky hands jut out past his shirtsleeves. His eyes dart around like a hummingbird.
This morning, those blue eyes flit around the chapel. They bounce from the sacrament table, to the light fixtures, to the wall-mounted clock. Rarely does Dylan look at people.
During the sacrament hymn, Dylan, Michael, and Matthew stand to prepare the emblems. These teenage priests fold back the white tablecloth that covers the trays, and Dylan starts to tear a slice of bread into morsels. I cringe, picturing Dylan’s filthy hands and fingers, which handle the bread the congregation will eat.
I noticed Dylan’s ragged nails, with their layer of grime underneath, during a recent Sunday School lesson. He had been thumbing through the Bible, struggling to find a reference he insisted on reading aloud. His subsequent reading was laborious; I prompted him on almost every word.
“Does anyone have any comments about this scripture?” I asked after Dylan finished.
On cue, Dylan tilted his chair, threw back his head, and closed his eyes. He interlaced his grubby fingers like a prayerful penitent, and then he pontificated, Dylan-style.
“When two people have sex,” he began.
The scripture we read had nothing to do with sex. The class sniggered. But Dylan continued, undeterred. His comment was nonsensical. We caught the words “God,” “commandments,” “porn,” and “Jesus.” When he reached the end of his treatise, the front legs of his chair hit the floor. Thud.
I wonder how much Dylan understands about God, commandments, and Jesus, much less porn. His family joined the Church just a few years ago. His father borders on illiterate, with little formal education. His timid mother is the sole breadwinner for their family of seven. Dylan and his siblings create chaos at every gathering.
The chaos Dylan and his family generate is in contrast to the Dylan who now kneels, compliant, at the foot of the sacrament table. Dylan clears his throat. He clips final consonants as the exacting words of the blessing trip over each other. “O Go’ th’etern’ Fath’, we as’ thee i’ th’ name thy Son…”
Dylan misses a word and restarts once, twice, three times. Here we go again, I think. Impatient, I shift in my pew. After the fourth fumble, he exhales, loud and frustrated, into the microphone.
Matthew and Michael kneel next to Dylan. Matthew pats Dylan’s shoulder. Michael whispers into Dylan’s ear. The boys huddle, conferring, with Dylan’s greasy, disheveled head in the center.
Dylan begins anew, but slower. “O God, the Eternal Father,” he starts, pausing between every word.
My eyes close, and I am met by a recent image of Dylan. “I’m not very smart,” he had mumbled. His hands had fluttered, touching his forehead, his dingy shirt. “Sometimes the kids at school make fun of me.” And then, he had said he was like a pesticide.
I have tried so many tactics to manage Dylan: Engaging. Correcting. Deflecting. Ignoring. But today, as Dylan toe-steps through the sacrament prayer, I see what I have been missing. It is in the words of the prayer, in the symbolism of the bread-and-water emblems, in the encouragement of the two boys at Dylan’s side, in the lyrics of the sacrament hymn.
Fill our hearts, the hymn had said, with sweet forgiving. Teach us tolerance and love.
I have been offering Dylan a thinly veiled tolerance, but somewhere along the way, I had forgotten love. Love without condition or the pursed lips of contemptuous patience. Love like a lodestar, offered to a boy who has been given life’s every disadvantage. Love patterned after the Master Teacher, who created the law to love another as oneself, and who typified that law every day of His life.
I need this kind of love, which sees beyond thorny personality or grubby exterior. And it is this kind of love I must offer, for this boy to feel needed and capable.
With Dylan’s triumphant “Amen,” the priests stand. Matthew’s hand has not left Dylan’s shoulder. Dylan beams up at the ceiling and pumps a fist, victory-style.
Moments later, as I pluck a piece of bread from a passing tray, I look at Dylan. Our eyes meet. He grins at me, sheepish and proud. I wink and return his grin.
1. Name has been changed. ↩︎
Jennifer Swenson has a degree in English from Brigham Young University. She lives in Southwest Missouri with her husband and five children.