I’ll Be Right There + Saint Christopher

I’m reading Kyung-Sook Shin’s book I’ll Be Right There and loving it, but there was a particular scene at the beginning of the book that really knocked me over. It’s the opening lecture of a literature course the main characters are involved in, and it’s got this glowy mix of optimism, highmindedness, and pretension that is simultaneously what is great about studying literature and what studying literature deserves to be ridiculed for.

Don’t worry, this scene doesn’t spoil anything. My apologies for any typos.

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One student hesitantly raised her hand. She stammered, “I don’t know, but…”

“Then tell us what you do know,” Professor Yoon quipped.

Everyone giggled. The girl stood up and said that she had heard the story from her Sunday school teacher when she was young and therefore did not remember it clearly, but was he talking about the man who was saved because he carried Jesus across a river? It was more of a question than an answer. Professor Yoon nodded. When the girl sat back down, Professor Yoon cleared his throat, glanced around the classroom, and said in a low voice that there was indeed such a legend. The students who thought class was almost over and had begun clearing their desks stared at Professor Yoon. He gripped the podium and began his lecture.

“This is the story of Saint Christopher.

“According to legend, Christopher was a Canaanite. A giant, some say. A man of great strength who was afraid of nothing. He made up his mind to serve only the greatest, strongest man in the world. But no matter where he looked, he could find none worth devoting his life to. Everyone disappointed him. He grew weary of ever finding someone worth serving and became despondent. But here, I’ll spare you the boring details and get straight to the most important part. Christopher built a house for himself on the banks of a river and made a living carrying travelers across the water. He was very strong. He owned only a single pole, but he used it to pick his way through even the roughest current and carry people safely to the other side. It was just a pastime to him. He was a boatman with no boat, a man who ferried people with his body.”

The world seemed to have come to a stop. In a classroom filled with thirty, maybe forty, students, no one so much as cleared their throat.

“One night, Christopher was fast asleep when he heard a faint voice calling his name. Wondering whom it could be at that time of night, he opened the door. But there was no one there. Only darkness. He closed the door and went back to bed, but the voice returned. Christopher! He opened the door again, but just as before, there was only darkness. The third time he heard the voice, it sounded like it was right beside him. He looked all around but saw no one. Thinking this odd, Christopher took up his pole and headed down to the river. There in the darkness beside the river was a small child. The child told him he had to get to the other side before the night ended, and he asked Christopher to carry him across. The child was so young and his plea so earnest that Christopher agreed to help, despite the late hour. He put the child on his shoulders and entered the river. But the moment he stepped into the river, the water began to rise. In an instant, it nearly reached over the tall Christopher’s head. And that was not all. The child, so light at first, grew heavier the higher the waters rose. The weight, like a massive piece of iron, so unbelievable for such a small child, pressed down on Christopher’s shoulders. The waters rose inch by inch, and the child pressed down on him with its enormous weight. The once overly confident Christopher began to tremble with fear for the first time at the thought that he might drown. Barely able to keep his balance with the pole, Christopher plowed his way through the water with the child on his shoulders and just made it to the other side. As he set the child down, he said, ‘I thought I was going to die because of you. Though you are so small, you were so heavy that it felt as if I was carrying the weight of the world. I have carried many across this river, but I have never carried one so heavy as you.’ At that moment, the child vanished and Jesus appeared before him, surrounded by a dazzling light. He said, ‘Christopher! What you just carried was no child. It was I, Christ. When you crossed that river, you were carrying the world on your shoulders.’”

Professor Yoon paused and looked around the room. I thought at first that he was trying to tell whether we understood the story. But then I thought maybe he had discovered something anew, something he had forgotten, about Saint Christopher. He held his silence for a moment and then resumed.

“So let me ask you this. Are those of you here today Christopher? Or are you the child he carries on his back?”

Professor Yoon’s story had started out like a single drop of rain amid the hustle and bustle of students preparing for class to end but turned into a sudden midday shower beating down on us. A clear ray of light from the last of the summer sun slipped in through a classroom window that someone had shut tight.

Professor Yoon studied us expectantly, but nobody offered an answer to his question. The slogans of student demonstrators outside followed the ray of sunlight through the window and pushed their way again into our midst. Over his glasses, Professor Yoon’s keen and gentle eyes stopped on each of us in turn before moving on.

“Each of you is both Christopher and the child he carries on his back. You are all forging your way through adversity in this difficult world on your way to the other side of the river. I did not tell you this story in order to talk about religion. We are all travelers crossing from this bank to that bank, from this world to nirvana. But the waters are rough. We must rely on something in order to make it over. That something could be the art or literature that you aspire to create. You will think that the thing you choose will serve as your boat or raft to carry you to that other bank. But if you think deeply about it, you may find that it does not carry you but rather you carry it. Perhaps only the student who truly savors this paradox will make it safely across. Literature and art are not simply what will carry you; they are also what you must lay down your life for, what you must labor over and shoulder for the rest of your life.”

Everyone’s eyes were fixed on Professor Yoon. Nobody looked out the window. Even the boy in the back row had stopped twirling his pencil. The girl, too, had lifted her head and was listening intently.

“You are Saint Christopher. You are the ones who will ferry the child across the river. It is your fate to brave the swollen waters. Though the waters may rise, you must not stop before the child reaches the other side. So, how do we cross this river?”

It both was and was not a question. Professor Yoon’s voice dropped even lower and grew stronger.

“We cross by becoming Saint Christopher to one another. By carrying the child across together. There is no difference between the person who crosses and the person who helps another across. You are not just Saint Christopher, carrying your pole into the rising waters. You are the world and its creators, each one of you. Sometimes you are the Christopher and other times you are the child — you carry each other across the river. So you must treasure yourselves and hold one another dear.”