I met an adorable little dude in the library a few weeks ago. On that particular night, he was working feverishly on a massive research paper covering the historical development of certain doctrines within the church—apparently this brain exercise is part of the degree completion plan for a Master of Divinity program.

Now, there are lots of adorable little men and women who work feverishly in the library on a regular basis. This is hardly outside the realm of the normal and expected. What was particularly striking about this little fellow, however, was the fact that his dad was working with him, helping him to edit the paper, and as they worked, they were conversing together in low tones, sometimes even bantering back and forth. I was intrigued.

I was working on a paper myself that night, but when the little dude took a quick water fountain break, I took the opportunity to strike up a quick conversation with his dad. I’d assumed that his dad must be a pastor, if he was helping him with the paper, but not so much—Little Man’s dad smiled at my assumption, and informed me that he was, in fact, an engineer, qualified to edit papers simply by virtue of the fact that he had written and read so many of them himself. He told me also that his son was an undergrad student, that he was enrolled in a Master of Divinity program online through another university, and that this massive paper was due at midnight (it was about 10:30 at this point). I was impressed that Little Man would enroll fulltime at two different schools, but he returned from the fountain just then to resume frantic work upon his paper, so that was the end of the conversation.

I’d mostly forgotten about Little Man until I bumped into him (not quite literally) outside the elevator yesterday. He has a full head of intensely black hair, with large black eyes that are equally intense and appear to be always observing. He’s a rather quiet sort of fellow, and thus, when I nodded in his direction, smiled, and said, “Oh hi!” he simply gave me a puzzled look, and said nothing. Apparently he was quite positive that I couldn’t have been speaking to him, or else he was secretly wondering whether I was a lunatic (in which case, he may also have been wondering if he should run in the opposite direction very quickly while screaming for assistance).

He did neither, however, and so we stood in very awkward silence for a long second, and then I laughed, and explained to him where we’d met before, and asked about his paper, and how it had turned out. His face lit up with recognition then (much to my relief—it would have been excruciatingly awkward and irresistibly funny otherwise), and I realized that perhaps his silence was simply the result of a little mind trying desperately to remember where this tall strange person would know him from.

He politely introduced himself, began talking animatedly about the paper, and answered a few questions about his student status. He told me bits and pieces about what it was like to be a commuter student, and how, although his sister is older, he’s the one who has the car—he grinned a little when he said that, shrugged, and said that maybe it was luck (or perhaps a state of affairs decided by virtue of the fact that he possesses a Y chromosome, but I didn’t ask). And then we were at my classroom door, and so we parted ways of necessity, and he went off smiling to find whatever it was that he was looking for…

But as he strode away, the thing that stuck with me was his intensity. Perhaps part of it is just his being rather shy (although it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s a bit outgoing when he’s with his family) or the fact that he has piercing black eyes, but the youngster—I discovered that he goes by PJ—was one of the most focused little dudes that I’ve met for quite some time. His walk, his tone of voice, his facial expressions—everything conveyed a sense of urgency which spoke of an inner drive uncommon in today’s average college student (it may also have been caused by a mild case of indigestion, but I doubt it).

I found myself shaking my head, and wondering…wondering how he’d been parented, where he’d gone to middle school, what he wants to do with his life after Liberty, what his parents are like, and what the family dynamic might be…because from surface appearances, it would seem that his parents have done some things very, very right.