53 pages • 1 hour read
Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People
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Chapter 19-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary: “Be. Not. Afraid.”
The final five chapters of Everybody, Always consist of stories about Goff’s work for child justice in Uganda. Chapter 19 commences with Goff’s description of talking his way into a meeting with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Uganda. He writes that he had no agenda going into the meeting but did manage to open the door for his benevolent organization (177-79). He ends the meeting by physically embracing the justice, a breach of protocol, and giving him the key to his San Diego home.
Goff moves to a discussion of being an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University. He holds his office hours at Disneyland. He states that the reason for this is “location drives content” (181); the place a meeting is held can determine the success or failure of the meeting. He reports that the Ugandan Chief Justice traveled to California, where Goff took him to Disneyland and to his home to demonstrate the door key he gave him really worked (182-83). During the visit, the two men determined they would work to eliminate the stranglehold of witch doctors on the Ugandan populace (183-84).
Chapter 20 Summary: “Witch Doctors and Witness Stands”
Having criticized various forms of religious authority throughout the book, Goff now discusses his challenge to a different kind of religious authority: witch doctors. Goff participated as a trial lawyer in the first-ever prosecution of a witch doctor for the attempted murder of a child, eight-year-old Charlie, who was mutilated in the attack and left for dead (187). The chapter is a straightforward account of the prosecution of Kabi, the witch doctor, resulting in the first-ever conviction for this type of crime. After the successful prosecution, Goff reports a surprising need to minister to Kabi (192). The remainder of the chapter is made up of Goff’s theological musings about Jesus calling him to witness to the witch doctor.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Randy’s Skill”
Goff continues the story of Charlie and his recuperation in Chapter 21. Upon hearing of the injuries Charlie suffered, a reconstructive surgeon named Randy contacts Goff to offer his services free of charge in Los Angeles if Goff can bring Charlie (196-97). Goff details the arduous trek he makes, describing what Charlie has suffered. Upon arriving in the United States, Charlie and Goff are invited to the White House to meet President Obama. Before submitting him to the successful, eight-hour surgery, Goff takes Charlie to Disneyland (198-99).
The author portrays the intervention of surgeon Randy and the subsequent notoriety as a surprising divine intervention. He writes: “Why does God do things like this? The honest answer is, I’m not really sure, but I’ve got a good guess. I think He wants to blow our minds” (199).
Chapter 22 Summary: “Kabi”
Goff returns to his inner wrestling match over how he should relate to the witch doctor, Kabi, who mutilated Charlie and left him to die. Goff travels to the maximum-security prison in Luzira, Uganda, for the first of a series of meetings with Kabi. Goff is surprised when Kabi is candid and forthcoming with him and asks for forgiveness (201-03). Kabi becomes a Christian and eventually preaches about his faith transition to 3,000 inmates, many of whom come forward to be baptized by him. At the end of the service, Kabi turns to Goff and forgives him, something Goff did not realize until that moment he needed (204-05).
Chapter 23 Summary: “Where Do You Want to Go?”
Goff relates that, as with his own three children, he allowed Charlie to request a 10th-birthday trip to the location of his choosing. Charlie chose to make the 40-mile climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. This chapter is devoted to Goff’s description of the difficult five-day climb. Goff confesses that, for himself, the experience was a spiritual lesson in proceeding deliberately and being patient (209). He notes, “What I learned from our guide is I could either run fast or get to the top of the mountain. I couldn’t do both” (210). The chapter culminates with a reflection on the progress Charlie has made since he was injured, with Goff counseling readers to tell “the people they love” “how far you’ve come” (210-11).
Chapter 24 Summary: “Graduation Day”
In this final chapter, Goff describes his ongoing work in Uganda to end the kidnapping and murder of children by witch doctors. He meets with witch doctors in groups to warn them of the consequences of their crimes, often after setting up stings in which he traps them into agreeing to kidnap children, then threatening prosecution (213-14). Goff started a school for the witch doctors in hopes an education would give them alternative economic possibilities (215).
Goff concludes the chapter with what Christian preachers term an “altar call,” inviting readers to imagine that the entire book has been “an intervention” by “all the people you know” who have contacted Goff and asked him to tell the reader to change her or his way of living (218). Goff advises the reader to begin immediately to begin acting out in love, saying that, in doing so, “God will turn you into love” (219).
Chapters 19-24 Analysis
Goff’s effusive personality is on full display in Chapter 19 as he talks his way into a spontaneous meeting with the Ugandan Chief Justice and physically embraces him. Goff hints this was a dangerous action, “the reason he has guys with machine guns guarding his office” (179). Later in the chapter, the justice visits California, and this story, along with those of numerous distinct international trips Goff recounts in the last five chapters of the book, may leave readers wondering about the logistics of Goff’s lifestyle. In discussing his travels, or when he talks about setting up schools and taking guests to Disneyland, Goff does not discuss how he procured the funding to do so. That he does not mention the source of his finances and why it is available makes him sound like a magical presence who causes things to happen at will without effort. Again, Goff leaves some elements of his stories unexplained.
Chapter 20 introduces the two pivotal characters Charlie and Kabi and the riveting story surrounding them. That Goff had elicited a promise from the Chief Justice to allow his participation in any trial against a witch doctor was surely a departure from the norm. That Goff was an active participant in the prosecution and enabled the filming of the trial is at once characteristic of Goff’s showmanship and a break from the British form of jurisprudence used in Uganda. Goff seems amazed at the sudden spiritual imperative he feels to interact with Kabi, the witch doctor, after the conviction. Readers acquainted with Goff’s style, however, may be unsurprised at Goff’s need to interact with Kabi.
In the middle of Chapter 21, Goff refers to Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 1:26-29 (199):
For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God (Revised Standard Version).
The reference both appropriate and ironic. The connections, ancillary events, and outcome of Charlie’s story indeed appear miraculous. However, no one reading the narrative could escape the irony that Goff’s actions instigated the miracles. Following Goff’s assumptions about the divine, this raises the question of whether Goff is God’s “foolish” tool, being used for divine purposes.
Goff’s recounting of Kabi’s sermon to the other prisoners at Luzira reveals something about the message of Everybody, Always. In Goff’s telling, Kabi butchers the Gospel, but he so embodies the essence of Jesus’s inviting love that prisoners are compelled to accept it and accept Jesus. This is the same thing Goff has done throughout his book. He handles theology, the church, and Christians roughly, but he still manages to convey the power of his Gospel message. Goff is also self-disclosing in Chapter 23 when he addresses the difficulty he has in being patient enough to allow processes to develop (209). He also displays difficulty in allowing others to guide events. The reality of this tendency becomes clear during his climb of Mount Kilimanjaro. Goff attained the summit of the mountain, despite his self-reported clumsiness. This entailed him climbing for another 3,000 feet after Charlie, the one for whom he was allegedly climbing, gave up (210).
In tine final chapter, Goff states that serving Jesus either changes everything about a person or changes nothing at all (214). Goff seeks to emulate Jesus, and the book is an ongoing account of his attempts at serving. As Goff records his struggles and growth, readers are left to decide whether Goff’s story embodies that statement.
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