What If?I awoke and stretched before getting out of bed, ready to face another day. After a quick shower, I turned on CNN as I prepared breakfast. I didn’t really pay much attention until I sat down. I nearly spit out my coffee when I saw it; a yearly report by Focus On The Family showing record lows in the areas of teen pregnancies and suicides I shook my head, convinced I had heard wrong. I had heard the opposite the night before, on the evening news. My confusion grew when I heard no mention of the deaths of three soldiers in Iraq yesterday.
Convinced that I was imagining what they said, I finished getting ready and stepped outside. My jaw dropped. The neighborhood I lived in was run down. It hadn’t always been that way, but times had changed and the rent was cheap. I was use to seeing overgrown lawns and houses with chipped and peeling paint.
Instead what I saw before me was a suburban paradise. White picket fences surrounding well-maintained lawns. As I climbed into my car, the one thing that seemed unchanged, my neighbor waved and said good morning. Normally he just gave me the finger and walked away.
Even the drive to work was different. All around me were courteous, careful drivers. No one talking on a cell phone. No one trying to put on make up. I accidentally cut off a driver and instead of getting angry, I saw him mouth “sorry.”
School was no different. The normal, graffiti covered walls looked brand new. None of the students in the hall were fighting or making out; just talking quietly.
I entered my room and prepared for class. Once all the students were seated, I began the lesson, only to be interrupted by Ashley McGregor.
She asked why I hadn’t prayed before class and I stared at her, dumbfounded. After a moment I explained that I had never led the class in prayer. That it was illegal for me to do so, and had been since the sixties.
As the rest of the class laughed, Ashley explained that the bill to ban prayer in schools hadn’t passed. Politicians realized that by banning prayer, they were essentially supporting Atheism, violation the first amendment. Instead they ruled that anyone offended by their teacher’s prayers could wait in the hall or join other classes, allowing them to pray with teachers who shared their faith.
Smiling at here, I began to pray.
I awoke with a start, sitting up in my bed. It had all been a dream. Or had it? Thoughts raced through my mind, thinking about what could have happened if the bill to ban prayer had been struck down. Then I heard a sound like a gunshot.
With a heavy heart I walked to the window. Instead of the peaceful, idyllic world I hoped for, I saw the run down world I was use to. I saw two young men running down the street while another laid bleeding in the street; the source and target of the gunshot.
Emotions overwhelmed me as I sat on the edge of my bed. I held my hands over my eyes and wept tears of sorrow for what might have been.
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