Gospel apport

This happened when I was a young student at a small college of higher education in the early 1980s. I was not at my happiest at this time for various reasons and I got talking to someone at the college who was a devout born-again Christian. He said reading the Bible had helped him and though not religious I asked him what I might find helpful from the Bible. He said: “If you only ever read one thing, make it the Gospel of John.” He claimed it had had a profound effect upon him.

I lived quite near to the college and so one morning a few days later when I woke very early I decided to go in, even though it was barely light. The doors were unlocked ridiculously early by the caretaker who I think lived on the

site so the building was open long before most people, whether staff or students, began to arrive. (Security was a lot more relaxed in those days.) I went to sit in the refectory intending to get a coffee from the vending machine and enjoy the quiet before everyone started arriving and the day began.

The refectory was a large hall with long wooden tables each with about eight wooden chairs apiece. These were always placed on top of the tables by the cleaners the night before. I took down the chairs at my chosen table and those of about four other tables around about so as not to be sitting in a forest of chairs. Just as I reached for the last chair of the fourth table I heard a loud “SLAP” –the sound made when someone drops a pamphlet or magazine onto a table rather than just placing it.

Looking in the direction of the noise, I saw, there on the previously empty first table, a small, square, paperback. It was The Gospel of St John from The New Testament – the sort of booklet given out by churches to the congregation or to Sunday school children. I was a bit startled by this as well as ‘weirded out’ on finding it to be the very book that so recently had been recommended to me.

I have tried to explain this incident ‘rationally’, but have been unable to do so. Did the book fall

from the seat of one of the chairs as I moved them? Well, it cannot have been the last chair as I had not even moved it yet. If it had fallen from the seat of one of the previous chairs it would have had to hang in mid-air for some time before landing when it did!

Did the caretaker or someone else walking through pick it up from the floor perhaps and throw it on to the table? It would have been strange that they never spoke to me even if just to remark on how early I was. Also, there were three doors to the hall, one was in front of me so I would have seen anyone coming or going through it, and the others were a good distance away to the back of the hall. After walking through the maze of tables, no one could have got to them and exited in time without me seeing them when I spun round to look – which I did. I heard no footsteps.

Was it the Christian (perhaps in as early as me) who had recommended the book to me? Again, the problem of his coming into the hall and leaving unseen would apply. Also, I think he would have spoken to me along the lines of “After our chat the other day I thought you might like this.”

I do recall that he lived quite a distance away, so was unlikely to be in that early. I never spoke to him about this later or asked him if it was him and he never mentioned it to me. I would also point out that this wasn’t a theological college or one having a significant religious studies department, so was unlikely to have such publications hanging around. I did read the book and have a few times since over the years. I can’t say it had any real impact on me, but the fortean nature of the incident certainly did.

Dawn Jacobs

Basildon, Essex