Almost every day I go to my little office and write a story like this one. Where I go to “hole up” is a small, quiet place in a little shopping center and I can read and write with no interruption or bother. It is just perfect for what I need, with a small refrigerator for my Diet Cokes, mustard and bologna, and it is close to anything else I might need.

On pretty days, people will often sit in the spring sun on the patio out front to eat their lunch and sometimes I’ll walk outside to puff on my cigar. Inevitably we’ll chat for a minute – I don’t care who it is – and then I’ll duck back inside where I can go about my business.

The other day I heard four or five college kids laughing with each other and, when I came out and chatted for a minute, one asked what kind of work went on in the office where I’d been. I told them in a straight-faced way that I was into human trafficking, working in the slave trade and stuff, which always gets quite a rise from those who wonder.

Soon I told the laughing boys the truth, that I was a sometime writer, and the conversation quickly shifted into sports once they learned that was mainly what I wrote about for such a long time. Then the questions started. One wanted to know why football players use strips of black under their eyes, and I explained it helps cut down on the sun’s glare when it reflects off the top of your sweaty cheeks into your eyes.

Then another kid shifted in his chair and wanted me to tell him why there had been a big ruckus around here in Chattanooga a couple of years ago when he had first come to college. “There were some kids who had Christian signs at a high school football game, or whatever, and I think they said that was forbidden. What was that all about?”

I explained that in America the citizens are no longer allowed to pray or have religious symbols at public events, that the Supreme Court has ruled it violates the separation of church and state. I told the guys that the Supreme Court believes that while several of us might be Christians and therefore not offended with an invocation, the reverse would happen if there were other American citizens present who believed in different higher power like the Muslims or Buddhists, for example.

“We are guaranteed the freedom to worship but there are different religions and the court feels the law should not have a favorite. The law, based on the Constitution, is obviously founded on Christian principles but the freedom includes every religion.”

Well, they couldn’t get their arms around that, not at all. For example, they had just seen news clips about a lacrosse player at the University of Virginia who had been murdered and had watched television footage of thousands of their contemporaries praying near the university’s fabled Rotunda.

There was another incident in the news about a controversial cross in the Mojave Desert that was actually a monument to men who were killed in World War I while fighting for their country. I told them the same Supreme Court had just okayed it to stand but then vandals had torn the cross down this week. “What’s with that?”

Well, the case was hard to explain, the final vote being 5-4, but one justice (Anthony Kennedy) said he didn’t feel the Constitution called for the government to “ignore” the role religion had played in our society. Justice Kennedy said, “One Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten.”

“Then why can’t we pray when a player is hurt in a game?” The obvious answer is that many of us do – we just can’t do it vocally or in an organized way because that would exclude those present who might be offended. Who knows? They could be asking for Allah’s help or Mohammed’s help with the same sincerity we pray to Jesus Christ, for all we know.

“Is that what just happened at Virginia?” No, news accounts showed pretty clearly that was Christ-centered, just like it is during most sudden tragedies like mining disasters or high school shootings in the United States when human emotions are so high. It’s probably because the Christian faith, on which this country was founded, is the best balm to help soothe the majority’s misery.

“Then why can’t kids hold up signs of Bible verses at football games? If the majority elects the president and makes the whole American system work, what’s with that?”

Earlier last week those in the Catoosa County (Ga.) courthouse had openly prayed, actually calling to Jesus in footage shown on national TV, during the Tonya Craft child-abuse trial that captured the nation. “Is that the same place they outlawed the Bible verses at games?”

Well, I was quickly “outplaying my coverage” so I turned the conversation back to the eye-black, that face-paint football players put under their eyes to cut the glare.

But – wait – several weeks ago the NCAA ruled such strips can no longer contain a message, like the “John 3:16” that University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow made more famous. “Is that saying an individual can’t display religion?” Well, maybe the NCAA is scared somebody like equipment giant Nike might put a swoosh on it or something.

“That swoosh is already on some of the uniforms. It’s on the shoes, the sweat bands. Why can’t you wear a Bible verse?” they asked. “Some major league baseball players wear a cross that you can see when they come up to bat? What’s the difference?”

Now the college boys were even more confused and, in a quiet and grateful sort of way, I was, too.