• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I also believe that religious faith and social justice are inextricably linked. If faith is expressed in what you do and how you do it, not in what you claim to believe, then surely we must acknowledge the needs and support the dreams of those around us, those of the meek not just the mighty, and act accordingly.

We Christians believe that Christ will return one day. I’ve thought about what form Christ will take when he does. I’m pretty sure he will not descend in flowing robes or amid spectral choruses. I think there’s a good chance he will be the guy in rags, in an out-of-the-way place somewhere, begging, wondering if anyone sees him.

Chapter 7

I stink at standardized tests. I never had any real instruction in test-taking skills in the Chicago public schools, and even at Milton my exposure to standardized tests came only through the SATs. I got good scores, but far from the coveted “double 800s.” So when it came time for me to take the bar exam after law school, I was apprehensive.

To prepare, I took a bar exam prep course, at great expense, but found the mnemonic devices and instruction at calculated guessing gimmicky. I had been a strong law student, making minor (albeit worthless) history by simultaneously leading the Legal Aid Bureau and winning the Ames moot court competition. I was a successful summer associate at three different, sought-after law firms and had offers to join each one after my clerkship. I was about to start clerking for a renowned federal appellate judge. I knew how to practice, I thought, at a high level. I just needed my license. Surely I could pass a silly old bar exam.

When I learned that I failed in the fall of 1982, I was embarrassed and devastated. I thought it would reflect poorly on the judge and make him and my fellow clerks question whether I was worthy of the job. Fortunately, everyone was encouraging. “The California Bar is the hardest in the country to pass,” they said. True, but it was small comfort. I worked doubly hard in the chambers to prove my value and vowed to redeem myself the next time.

I was deep into my clerkship when I took the exam again. I prepared extensively. I was truly invested. It was a matter of pride. I would not fall short.

But I failed again, and the result was a seismic shock, with self-doubt now creeping into my mind. What if I’m not up to this? What if I’d overestimated my abilities all along? Who wouldn’t think that? This time, the judge and my fellow clerks just acknowledged the outcome and kept their thoughts to themselves. I thought they were looking at me as they would someone with a deadly disease: with pity, as if they knew I was not long for their world. My sister, one of the few people in whom I confided, worried aloud right with me. “Are you going to be able to practice law?” she asked. I honestly didn’t know. In some respects, it was the first time I had ever suffered rejection in an academic setting. Diane was unfailingly confident, which I appreciated, but I had learned that she could fake confidence pretty well if she wanted to.

There was nothing else to do but to try again—to prepare with greater urgency, to forgo Happy Hours and date nights, to invest even more time to meet the challenge. But my confidence remained badly shaken, and in the summer of 1983, when I walked into the convention center in Los Angeles with a couple of thousand other applicants for three full days of examination, I thought I might end up being a banker.

This time I passed, and the feeling was more relief than elation. I take comfort, to be sure, that my struggles with the bar exam were not a precursor to my legal career, which has had many highlights. But to get through my “California crucible” took the kind of concentration and resolve that I had not summoned since my time in Sudan. It was an act of will to quiet the doubt, to restore my faith in myself, and to get the work done.

I have experienced plenty of rejection, like everyone else. Not being picked for either side’s stickball team until the