//------------------------------//
// January 30 [Lunch with Liz] 
// Story: Silver Glow's Journal 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
//------------------------------//

January 30 

I woke up later than I'd planned to. All that effort with the cloud yesterday had really tired me out, but it had been worth it. I know it's not nice to gloat, but I had showed my climate science professor that I really could work with clouds.

I didn't miss a lot from my late morning, though. Peggy usually sleeps in on Saturday mornings, and she was asleep now, lying on her side with the covers pushed half-off her. Her shirt had wrinkled up a bit, too, so that her belly was showing. She looked like she might be cold, so when I got out of bed, I pulled her covers up over her.

The clouds from yesterday had thickened and formed into snowclouds, and there were gentle flakes of snow drifting down. It didn't feel like there would be enough to do more than dust the ground with a fresh coat of white, but that was okay. There was still plenty on the ground from the last snowstorm, and the fresh snow might make the hill a bit more appealing. Since that first day, there hadn't been very many people riding sleds down it, and I hadn't had another opportunity to borrow one.

There are a couple of people who are often out trotting in the morning—they call it jogging—but today I was late and missed my usual friends, which made me feel bad. But I met somebody new, a man named John.

He was surprised to see me. He was coming around the corner where Academy Street curves around Valley Street, and he just stopped in his tracks and stared at me, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. I also stopped, because he was someone new and unfamiliar, and maybe he'd want to be my friend, too.

Once he got over his surprise, he moved up closer to me, and we introduced ourselves. It turns out that he won't be a trotting buddy for very long; he lives out in the country and was only in town because he was visiting his mother, who lives nearby. That was kind of disappointing; he was a very nice man. Hopefully I'll see him again.

When I was back, I took a nice long shower and made sure I was presentable. Peggy has a mirror which hangs over her closet door, and I groomed myself in front of it. She still wasn't awake, so I kept very quiet.

I had a light breakfast, and then checked my mail. I didn't get any letters, which was disappointing. Maybe there would be some on Monday.

Peggy was finally up when I got back to the room, and she asked me what I was doing today, and I told her that I was going to lunch with Liz, who was going to tell me about God.

Well, then Peggy got kind of a funny look on her face, and said that I should be careful, and I asked what she meant, and she said that there were a lot of opinions about Him and maybe not so many facts. And then she asked if I was sure I wanted to do this.

I told her that I'd said that I would, and I was a mare of my word (even though I still haven't watched Star Trek with Sean but I was going to) and she nodded and hugged me tightly.

Well, I wasn't sure what to make of that. It was kind of an odd thing to say, and it got me a little bit worried. It's a small campus, and surely everyone knows everyone else, so maybe there was something about Liz that Peggy knew and I didn't. And maybe she was just too polite to say.

Or maybe she was jealous that I was doing this. But I think that Peggy is a good, trusted friend, and wouldn't tell me to be careful unless she was honestly concerned, although I couldn't think of a reason why she might be. But I thought I should stay at least a little bit on guard, just in case.

At half-to noon, I walked over to the chapel, which was where she was going to meet me. She was sitting in her office, typing on her computer when I walked in. As soon as she saw me, she stopped typing and gave me a warm smile and welcomed me in.

We walked together to her car, which is a boxy blue thing named Rav-4, which is a really dumb name. Maybe it meant something to her, or maybe she had had three others like it before she bought this one.

We weren't in it for all that long. She drove up to a small shopping center which isn't very far from campus at all. We could have walked.

One one side was a store called Tiffany's and a Papa Johns, which delivers pizza. In the back was a restaurant called Nina's, which is where we went.

The waitress was surprised to see me, but knew Liz—she called her 'Pastor Liz.' We picked a booth in the corner, and the waitress brought over a mug of coffee for Liz and two glasses of water, then asked me if I wanted anything to drink. I thought just the water was fine.

Then we looked at the menu and decided what to eat. That was a bit more difficult than being at the dining hall, where I can see what's offered, but luckily the menu had a little V for things that don't have meat in them.

There weren't a lot of choices, though, and Liz said that she was sorry and she should have thought of that, but I said it was okay; it was better to not have so many choices. I ordered a salad and a grilled cheese sandwich, while Liz chose an omelette and a bowl of fresh fruit.

While we were waiting for our meal, Liz asked me why I wanted to know about God, and I told her that Thomas Aquinas had mentioned him, and He seemed like He had been an important person.

Then she started asking me a whole bunch of questions about what we ponies thought about spirituality and how we believed that the world had been formed and what Princess Celestia's role was in our lives, and I thought that was kind of a dirty trick, since she wasn't telling me who God was, and by the time our food had arrived, I didn't know any more than I had before I came.

We ate in silence for a little bit, and I was just starting to wonder if this is what Peggy had meant to warn me about, then she put down her fork and leaned across the table.

She told me that some of the things that I had told her were faith, because we couldn't know them, and then she explained that many people—including herself—believed that back in the beginning God had created everything that there was, and that He was up in heaven. She said that humans who were good and who followed His laws would go to heaven to be with Him when they died, and those who were bad would not.

I asked her how it was that Thomas Aquinas knew of Him, but the Greek philosophers had not—if He had been around since the beginning of the world, wouldn't they know who He was as well, and Liz said it was very complicated how it all worked, and asked me just how much detail I wanted.

I said that I thought I could figure it out from His biography that she said she was going to give me, and she chuckled and said that with that kind of confidence, maybe I would.

She told me that the Bible was divided into two parts, the Old Testament and the New. She said that originally, God had made a covenant with the Israelites, and they had kept His laws. Then God sent Jesus to make a new covenant with the people, and that was the basis of Christianity.

That, she said, was what Thomas Aquinas had believed in. Then she reached across the table and put her hand on my hoof and told me that it was very important that I understand that while God is perfect, the men who wrote the Bible were not, and that they were not always wise either. She said that to this day people argue about what it all means, but she said that the one thing I should remember above all else was that Christians were supposed to love one another.

She said that some people had forgotten that, but that was the most important tenet of Christianity, and it was something I should remember. Then she drove me back to campus and parked along the street.

Then she reached in the back and brought a big black book with gold lettering on the cover. She told me that I could keep it, and she stuck a card inside which she said had her telephone number on it and I could call her anytime and it also had her computer mail address if I wanted to send her a computer letter instead of calling.

I thanked her for taking me to lunch and told her I would call her if I had any questions, and then I took the book in my mouth and went back to my dorm room. I had a lot to think about; some of what she'd said at lunch was still a bit confusing, but hopefully it would be a little more clear once I'd read a bit.

It was a really big book, and I wasn't going to get all the way through it anytime soon. The best way to approach it would be to read a chapter at a time. I didn't make it very far, though; just to the part where God made a perfect land for humans to live in, and then they messed up and He kicked them out.

I would have gotten further, but the telephone rang, and it was Mister Salvatore, and he wanted to check in and see how things were going with me and wondered if there was anything I needed, and we wound up talking for a little bit, up until it was time for dinner. I told Sean that I would watch Star Trek with him tomorrow after dinner, and he was really happy about that.

Then when I got back to the room, it was social time again. We sat around playing cards and drinking beer until it was pretty late, and I didn't have a chance to read any more.