To Claim Love is What it Isn't

I question what my ideas of love are daily. You see, from the time I was a little girl, I have had the narrative of what love looks like handed to me in its neat little doctrinally sound package: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Again, I question what love is daily.

Is love all these things that this well-known scripture claims it is? Or furthermore, can love betray all these things and still be love? Does love fall on its face again and again, betraying all the things it claims to be and still be every bit as authentic as it is in its perfection?

Is love only love when it is all these things, or when it does all these things? If I am unkind or easily angered by someone, is it true that I must not love that person in that moment? Is it true that love must have many kinds of bi-polar attributes to it? In other words, is love either switched on or switched off at any given moment, depending on the action of the individual who claims to love another (or not love another, respectively)? But my question goes far beyond this, and I wonder if I may even be thought foolish to consider my questions. Can love be authentic even when it plunges into the negative? Can love be authentic even in the betrayal of love itself?

I don’t even know what I’m saying. All I know is that my whole outlook concerning the nature of love is being deeply challenged. It would appear that love is not all the things that it claims to be, but maybe even exactly the opposite.

Love, it would seem, never perseveres and always fails.

But it doesn’t make me seek to find it any less. 

All Saints Day for an Ordinary Person

When asked to write about someone who’s passed away but who’s also been very influential in my life, my first inclination switched from this person to think of someone more important to society as a whole. I think of the Mother Theresas of the world, the Ghandis, heck, even the directors of local soup kitchens would do. For some people it’s easy for someone famous and whom they’ve never met to make a profound impact on their life, those people may have read a book or two, maybe watched a documentary or interview about the famous person.

For me, I can’t embellish a story that’s barely there in the first place. Sure, I’ve met and read literature on some pretty great people, but have I been profoundly influenced by them? No, not like I have been by someone else, someone far more ordinary, someone who barely did anything great—except for maybe break the record for the running long jump in his fifth-grade track meet.

My brother Chad had terrible taste in music. He liked terrible musicians like Metallica and AC/DC and all their terrible songs. When he got his braces off, his teeth were scarred everywhere except where the brackets had been from all the Mountain Dew Big Slams he drank. He liked detestable “foods” like pork rinds, Jackson Pond snapping turtles (no, really), and blueberry candy canes, and with this diet, he was nearly unbearable to be around on a hot day if he forgot his deodorant. He was the kind of brother who pulled his bothersome little brother’s hair so much that he started to get a bald spot. He was the kind of brother whose horseplay with his sister ended with an unfortunate mishap with a preheating iron, searing its imprint into her butt.

But above all the ordinary things he was and did, there were three extraordinary things that I most loved about him: one, the fact that I, his little sister, got to teach him how to drive a stick shift. Two, his uncanny ability above anyone else to beat me in any game of chess—one-on-one chess, team chess, speed chess, it didn’t matter. And three, he could get me to smile no matter how mad I was at him.

What I’m trying to say is that you realize that the ordinary things about someone are truly extraordinary once that person is gone.

Sometimes the most ordinary people in the world are who influence you the most. They’re the ones that make the biggest impact on your life, not in what they do and say, but simply because they have existed in this life alongside of you. You’ve shared meals together. You’ve fought with each other. You’ve shared your secrets. You’ve laughed at each other’s expense. You’ve grown close. Others have impacted me in this way: my younger brother, my husband, my mother.

I’m a different person today because I knew Chad. What Chat taught me while he was alive were no age-old wisdoms. I don’t necessarily remember any remarkable quality about him that I wished I had. If anything, he taught me that deer hunting did not have to be a silent affair. We could drive through the forest, blaring and singing the lyrics, “and all the girlies say I’m pretty fly for a white guy.” Mother Theresa didn’t teach me this. My brother did.

But the truth is, it was not Chad’s presence in my life that impacted me the most, but his absence. Because of his absence, I want to make all my relationships with people count. Because of his absence, it distresses me to leave a conversation on a bad note. Because of his absence, I look at life differently. Because of his absence, I doubt my faith constantly, but perhaps have more of a drive to figure it out. And, maybe most of all, because of his absence, I don’t really mind the smell of pork rinds on someone’s breath anymore, but I’m afraid that eating Jackson Pond Snapping turtle was a one-time, or rather, two-time deal.

The Day I Moved Into a Commune with No Showers

As Jeremy would say, it’s not the physical act of moving into a place with other people that’s the problem; it’s the mind-trip of doing so. It was a good thing we didn’t see it coming, otherwise we would have had too much time to take that mind-trip. To explain, we were supposed to take up residence in this church building on Thursday, November first, but the contract for deed/lease had been signed and we were anxious to get in and paint, to make it our home before ever taking up residence. Mainly, we wanted to get the kids’ rooms situated so that they didn’t feel uprooted in this whole process. But on Friday afternoon, as I sat at work, I got a text from Ryan asking if we’d like to split the cost of a U-Haul truck and that maybe we could move the next day.

We agreed to bring our families together for a night of pizza and painting and general readying of the new place now that we’d received a key. Ryan and Erin brought their dining room table—now our dining room table, and as we stood around it, eating a sort of Passover if you will, because we didn’t have any chairs, Erin began to pace. “Why don’t we friggin’ move in tomorrow? I mean, we’re bringing all the mattresses over tomorrow. Where’re we supposed to sleep? Both our families have hardwood floors!”

And so it began, this crazy adventure that we’re taking, this adventure that nobody seems to understand, and that I’m not even sure we do. And the highlights are these: Jeremy and Ryan are already deeply saddened that Alex and his array of home-brewed beers are not coming, and that Erin and I would have really benefitted from a voice of reason, Carla, in choosing these crazy paint colors for the girls’ room. Two of the three cats have been acquainted and greeted each other with decided unfriendliness. We still have hope though, for their greeting did not end with any scratched-out eyeballs. Our youngest, in an insightful moment put together the idea that she now has “two mommies,” and we begged her, whatever she does, please don’t also tell her preschool teachers that she has “two daddies” too. We just don’t feel like explaining that one yet, especially since (entirely coincidental, trust us!) we all four have tattooed wedding bands. Ryan met a neighbor and as he tried to make friendly small talk, the neighbor said, “So what’ve you got, like 4 or 5 families moving in?”

Apparently, rumor of a cult moving into the neighborhood has also surfaced, but with Ryan and Erin’s ancient Toyota station wagon with a gazillion bumper stickers like, “The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth,” “Coexist,” and “If you can’t play nice, play roller derby,” we're hoping the rumors of a cult will be dispelled fairly quickly. But in trade for what? For the idea that we are a bunch of dirty hippies living in a church with no shower? We might as well start smudging with marijuana leaves now, and then invite the neighbors over for coffee.

Ryan and Erin's youngest and our youngest playing dolls on the handicap chair lift

Speaking of trippy, there’s a trick to making moving into a commune a little less anxiety ridden: you’ve got to make your current living situation totally unbearable for moving into a commune to be a breath of fresh air. For example, our house has been emptied of furniture for weeks now. Because we had the floors refinished, it made little sense to move back in since we were so close to moving anyway. So imagine if you will, a small little house, all hardwood or laminate flooring, completely devoid of furniture or sound-absorbing rugs, and then imagine three crazy kids in it. I cannot even begin to describe how terrible that echo is. Forget a short fuse. I’ve had no fuse with my kids at all lately. Move into a building with 6,300 square foot to run in, even if you’re adding 3 more kids in the mix, it feels like a little bit of heaven. Heaven, I tell you.

There are two more things to note. One, I am now a music pastor, but if you refer to me as Pastor, I’ll never forgive you. And two, there was much conflict in me about this, it ended with my bloody nose. True story.

Getting Used To You

As Sarah and I walked the boulevard today, I reached up to touch my face, realizing that in the rush of getting out the door to meet her I forgot to put on foundation. As I felt my face flush from our brisk walk, I said aloud that I’d forgotten.

“I thought you gave up makeup,” she said, in reference to my August 5^th decision.

“I did. Foundation’s not makeup,” I replied. “It’s colored moisturizer.”

She laughed, and I admitted that I’d cheated, almost always wearing foundation throughout the whole ordeal, wearing a ‘full face’ of makeup when I sang at two different funerals (sparkly eye shadow and everything!), and  wearing a touch of mascara for a few of the days, especially recently.

“I think I’m ready to give up giving up makeup,” a said as I ducked under a low-hanging tree branch bordering the sidewalk.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You know, giving up makeup was really hard. For the first month it sucked. I didn’t want to look in the mirror because I looked terrible. Wearing makeup every day since I was 13 had trained me never to get used to what I looked like without it. But now, it’s not so bad. It took almost two months, but I’ve finally gotten used to seeing myself without makeup. This isn’t to say that I finally think I look better without makeup, but simply that I don’t feel rotten and unpresentable if I don’t wear it. Not to mention, not wearing makeup came in really handy when I gave up Conroy.”

Even my hairdresser says that she tries to go at least one day a week without makeup for this reason alone. “Women aren’t comfortable with themselves anymore because they are never purely themselves for most of their adult lives.”

And as I think I’ll officially give up giving up makeup, I realize that this may have been the point all along. The point isn’t that it’s wrong to spend $20 on a tube of hypoallergenic blackest black mascara. The point isn’t that that makeup won’t be acceptable at Shelter50 (where I’ll take up residence come November). The point isn’t that I made a decision to give up something and now I can’t turn my back on it. The point is that it’s possible to retrain your mind how to view yourself. Sometimes what you once thought was terrible is really neither terrible or beautiful; it’s just you, and it’s never a bad idea to get used to you.

How to Ethically Justify Abortion

I remember the blond-colored pine coffee tables, the floral-printed white davenport, the dainty hand-painted tea cups. It had been one of my first few visits with the women of my new husband’s family. A senior citizen now, “Linda” had sold the family ranch and moved into this apartment shortly after the death of her husband. Linda was my mother-in-law’s cousin. Also there was my mother-in-law’s sister. Linda sat across from me, my mother-in-law sat to my right, and her sister sat to my left. My mother-in-law and her sister, both very politically conservative, had been discussing the events of the 2004 proposed law to outlaw all abortions in South Dakota. “I just don’t see how any woman would ever want to have an abortion,” one of them had said. “That’s killing an innocent baby,” said the other.

I remember feeling too new to the family to offer any opinion on the matter, even though I would have agreed with them at the time.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Linda. “I’m alive today because I had an abortion, and I’d make the same decision again if I had to.”

Her simple admission commanded our attention. My mother-in-law and her sister fell silent, seeming to offer her the space to speak again.

“It was one of the most difficult decisions that my husband and I have ever made,” Linda said. “But at the time, I had three small children to consider. The cancer would have taken my life, and they would have been without a mother. My husband couldn’t have made a living and taken care of them too. We really did want another child, but life is more complicated than that.”

“Oh, Linda, we know that you aren’t one of those women who’d have an abortion without a good reason,” said my mother-in-law’s sister.

“You had a very good reason to have an abortion,” said my mother-in-law. “But girls have abortions all the time and use it like it’s some sort of birth control.”

Linda set her teacup down in its saucer and folded her hands in her lap. “I know you don’t think less of me because of my abortion, but you don’t have to justify my own decision to me. My point is that you never know the reason why any woman would choose abortion.”

This story has stuck with me throughout the years. I’ve given birth to two more children since hearing that story, and there is one thing that I know more than anything else: I would do anything for my children. This story has also stuck with me because of my in-laws’ reaction to it. These women loved each other dearly. And though the two of them are very conservative, and the other is very liberal, there seems to be a divide that was crossed that day. My mother-in-law and her sister, because of their love for Linda, and because of their knowledge of Linda’s character and her love for her children, understood why Linda would choose abortion.

I have women who are very close to me choose abortion at some point in their lives. You’d never know it to look at them, some of them friends, and others of them family members, but they are not terrible and selfish women, like many pro-lifers seem to think, and all of them are good mothers, and a couple of them, outstanding mothers. I know their stories, and all of them, for their given circumstances, I can understand why they chose to terminate their pregnancies. What’s curious about these women’s stories is that none of the women chose to share them with me until they knew they were safe in sharing their secrets. This took me taking a step back from whatever idealisms I may have had about the world, and learning to listen and relate to these women on a very human level. It took me having some life experience too, understanding that life and humanity can sometimes be very, very grey. A woman can never know what decision she might make for abortion until she’s in a situation that requires a decision to be made. Before this, a woman can only assume she’d respond a certain way.

As we go into another election year, and as with years before, political parties often seem hijacked with agendas that have little to do with the overall views of a party; I can’t help but feel like abortion is one of these issues. We have liberals saying that conservatives are heartless for imposing on women to continue pregnancies that they don’t wish to, for whatever reason. In contrast, you have conservatives denying that “extreme” cases happen, hence the Todd Akin controversy. I have personally known conservatives who feel like if they believe abortion is wrong, they need to vote republican, because at the end of the day, they can say with a clear conscience that they’ve had nothing to do with killing the unborn. In contrast, you have the pro-choice people saying that any shame or loss that a woman might feel about having an abortion is completely put on them by society and nothing more, thus, we as a society, both conservatives and liberals, have completely ignored the needs of women.

People who’ve known me for quite some time have asked me about my views in this area because they’ve seen me as a person of faith. They must figure that anyone who claims Christianity would surely believe abortion is morally wrong, and when they find out that I am largely pro-choice, they are mystified. One such person asked me if I was of the camp that says, “Well, women will keep having abortions, regardless of the law, so we might as well make them safe and legal.” I responded by telling her that to think this way, for me, would be grossly simplistic.

Allow me to explain.

Everyone’s heard the argument. One camp might say that if a girl finds herself pregnant, she got herself into that mess, so she can’t punish her baby for the choices she’s made. The rebuttal for this, of course, is that, sure, she might have “gotten herself into that mess,” but what is she supposed to do about it now? Of the same people who pat her on the back for not having an abortion, so too do they keep touting her irresponsibility in the first place. Beyond this, the woman is considered a leech on the system, a “welfare junky,” as it were because she is making the government (i.e. taxpayers) pay for “her problem.” You see the merry-go-round. There is no easy response, but I will say this: teaching social responsibility does not equate to kicking someone when she’s already down. To be pro-life—truly pro-life—one must come along side of women, without judgment, and value life even after a child is born, because in our day and age, it’s not just about considering a pregnancy or terminating; it’s about eighteen years of responsibility and, more often than not, ridicule. Because this is what many single mothers hear: “You are irresponsible,” “You are a drain on the system,” “You can’t buy your child popsicles with your food stamps, even though your child is just a kid like mine,” “Your child’s healthcare is not a right, but a privilege.”

Believe me, mothers who’ve had unplanned pregnancies hear every spoken and unspoken implication. I know this because I am one of those mothers, and I felt this even though I chose the morally “correct” choice of keeping my child.

But this argument does not get us anywhere as a society, because we are dealing with entirely different paradigms of thought, and both of them are pointing at the other and saying, “You are definitely wrong.”

The point which I want to address, and that I believe is largely ignored, comes from a rather raw personal experience of mine. It’s an experience that if I thought too hard about, it would deeply depress me. Choosing life is not that easy.

It was late Saturday afternoon on June 26^th, 1999. My parents, after deliberating with neurosurgeons, chose to not have my brother, Chad, undergo a surgery that would have created the space in his skull for his brain to swell. You see, Chad had been in a freak car accident and had suffered a severe brain injury. He and his co-worker had been traveling on a dirt road and came upon a bridge. As they crossed the bridge, one of the vehicle’s front tires rolled along an improperly secured plank. As the tire reached the end of the plank, the plank plunged down, causing the other end of the plank to come up and catch the axle of the vehicle. The plank caused the vehicle to twist and contort and stop cold, throwing Chad through the side window. It wouldn’t have mattered how fast they were going. He and his co-worker could have been going 80 mph or the estimated 35. The results would have been the same: fatality to the one who was not wearing his seatbelt. Chad was resuscitated on the scene and by Saturday afternoon had spent two full days in a coma at Rapid City Regional Hospital. The reason why my parents chose to forgo the surgery was because, though it increased his chances for survival, there was the potential for it to dramatically decrease the quality of life. Chad would have been a proverbial vegetable. My parents chose instead to wait out the swelling, hoping for the chance that the swelling wouldn’t render him braindead.

In the wee hours of the morning, after spending the whole night in Chad’s ICU room, I remember my parents shaking my younger brother, John, and me awake. They told us to say our goodbyes. Chad was braindead.

You may wonder what this story has to do with abortion. And I’ll tell you that it has everything to do with abortion.

We live in a time and place with immense advances in medical technology. Doctors can do amazing things. They can easily save lives with the cut of a scalpel or with the administering of a drug. But with these advancements of modern medicine, comes incredible moral ambiguity. We call this “ethics.” The ability to save lives that in past times was impossible comes to us as a double-edged sword. One cannot simply say that to not choose something is taking the moral high ground, because making no choice is certainly a choice. Forget about quality of life. My parents making no choice to perform a risky surgery, they were indeed making the choice for Chad to potentially die. I’m not saying that it wasn’t the ethical choice. I’m not even saying it wasn’t the moral choice. I am merely pointing to the level of ambiguity we are faced with as our modern society, choices that would otherwise need not be made.

In 2010, a nun was excommunicated from a catholic hospital allowing a woman to have an abortion. The woman’s chance of dying was nearly 100 percent, and she had already had four young children at home. You can’t tell me that making no choice for abortion is taking the moral high ground. In this case, to make no choice for the pregnancy to be terminated would be most definitely making the choice for the mother to die. American women in past times had to deal with pregnancy from rape or grave illness no matter what. Because of advancements of medical technology, what then is the more ethical choice? Women in many other countries still must deal with wartime rape and subsequent pregnancy. American women in past times, if diagnosed with cancer or had childbirth complications, had no choice but to die and leave other children motherless. Now, we can save a woman’s life in those circumstances. Are we meddling with fate? Are we interfering with natural forces at work? In some cases, not choosing to perform an emergency C-section is indeed making the choice for a woman to die. In some cases, choosing not to undergo chemotherapy because of a pregnancy is making the choice for at least one, and sometimes both the mother and child to die.

“You never know why a woman chooses abortion,” Linda had said. In common cases of abortion, I would pose this question: what support have we given mothers in order to choose to have their babies? If one is of the school of thought that society is not responsible for the choices of others, then that person should agree wholeheartedly with a woman’s choice to abort, because she’s not asking you to be responsible for her choices. Until support is given to struggling mothers and potential mothers in our country, people of this camp should bow out of limiting reproductive freedoms. People in this camp tend to think these women are selfish and evil, but the truth is, you love and cherish a woman somewhere who’s had an abortion. She's just has never told you because she fears your judgment. Chances are, she’s a phenomenal mother and your stereotypes will be deeply challenged. Second, I urge all who believe that extreme cases don’t happen, to step out of your bubble, with eyes wide open, and take in all the shades of grey. Choosing life is not that easy.

Makeup: A Hostage for Laser Treatment

One of those surveys that go around asks this question: if you were stranded on a desert island, what makeup item could you not live without? It’s an absurd question really, one that begs another question: why would you even wear makeup on a desert island in the first place? But for the sake of this blog, let’s just entertain the idea, shall we?

I have just about the saddest eyes in the world. The outer edges tip down and the only way for them to turn up and look halfway normal is to smile, but I can’t go around smiling all day for no apparent reason; that would be weird. People might assume that the counselor’s wife needs to be committed. To top off the sad tilt, I’ve got eyelashes that insist they must be golden blonde. They’re a lighter color than the hair on my head, and this is why I’m convinced that the God had absolutely no consideration for esthetics when he molded my face. He broke the mold, and not because he’d truly outdone himself, but because he knew he couldn’t make the same mistake twice.

As if the sad eyes weren’t unfortunate enough, I developed rosacea in my late teens, and it’s gotten worse with age. Rosacea is a chronic skin condition where the superficial blood vessels of the face are dilated. This dilation causes significant redness, sensitivity, puffiness, and scarring. Have I mentioned that my sad eyes are blue? Well, they are. My sad eyes with blue irises, surrounded by the white sclera, and then enhanced by chronic redness of rosacea makes me look almost as patriotic as an American flag.

Thank the good Lord for the smarty-pants chemists of the makeup industry! All of these reasons and more is why I love make up. Foundation is what keeps the grocery checkers at bay—because if I don’t wear makeup, I get at least three comments in a ten-minute shopping trip about how sunburnt I look. “Thank you for your sunblock advice,” I’ll say, “but this is just my glowing complexion.” I like watching their faces drop. It gives me satisfaction, even when I know it shouldn’t.

If I were stranded on a desert island and could only have one makeup item with me, I’d choose foundation. No, wait, mascara—because if my eyelashes pop, maybe people won’t notice the redness so much, but thanks to the honesty of grocery checkers, I know this wouldn’t be the case. Who am I kidding? I’d smuggle all the makeup items to that said desert island. Eye shadow, shimmering lip gloss, the works.

So, I’m going through an existential dilemma, I think. That, and I’ve been contemplating moving into a commune. No joke. I’ll tell you about it later... Anyway, I’m having a hard time imagining a housemate, who’s in dire need to pee, knocking on the bathroom door and my response is, “Excuse me, I cannot be bothered right now, otherwise I’ll get my lip liner crooked.” My point is, what is there to life when all I do is consume more than what is necessary? And what does it say about me when my daily consumptions include a twenty-dollar, water-resistant, blackest-black tube of vitamin-enriched mascara? And what does it say about me when this month’s biggest disappointment is that my favorite makeup company discontinued my beloved full-coverage foundation? Bring on the unsolicited sunblock advice!

So I’m giving up makeup. Slowly. It’s now been five days since I’ve worn eye makeup. I’m kind of chicken to give up foundation just yet though. Not until I go through all these vain laser treatments for rosacea. I’ll give up foundation after the redness is gone. I know, you are now stifling the urge to judge me, aren’t you? That’s okay. I judge myself too. I can’t quite seem to make the full plunge yet.

Stay tuned for my next existential dilemma: should I give up shampoo or not?

The Rise of Christianity, the Fall of Ancient Feminism

The argument is an old one, and yet has somehow kept its vigor, even in the 21^st century. What affect did Christianity have on gender roles in western society? Some people assert that the rise of Christianity effectively stomped out any ability for women to be considered equal for, arguably, millenniums afterward. Others might say that the writers of the Christian scriptures were the feminists of their day, affording each woman the hope and knowledge of spiritual equality to men in her own rite. So, which is it? Is the answer really that difficult to discern? And if so, why is it that these “spiritual” rights have not afforded women their “physical” and civil liberties too?

Liberties of Ancient Roman Women

To begin, an examination of the role of women in ancient Rome must be done. Little is known about women in the very early days of Rome. They must have had some measure of equality because they worked with their husbands on family farms. Historians know that farmers were the proverbial "backbone" of early Rome. They were hard-working farmers who had no time for leisure. After the Punic wars, in which Rome inherited almost a million slaves, the political structures of society changed as farmers moved into cities and fought for the professional army. Rome became a great empire at this point and women were granted citizenship, allowed to inherit and retain property, have wills, appear in court and have the equal testimony of a man, and even sit at the dinner table with the men in the household. There were limits to these relative freedoms, however, but citizenship, business and land-owning liberties speak volumes as to her worth in first-century Roman society.  

Marriage and Sexuality

One must divorce him or herself from the idea of modern marriage to consider the societal functionalities of ancient Roman marriages. Nobility’s marriages were often arranged, and it was a matter of social standing rather than for love. Women were usually linked with their families of origin, except in just a few circumstances. Women did not take their husbands' names and inherited wealth through their fathers, and that wealth was equal to that of their brothers. Sure, the liberties of women did depend largely on wealth and social status, but a few women did run their own businesses. 

Adultery for the ancient Romans did not have the same definition as today. One could participate in sex with slaves or prostitutes, or virtually anyone of lower social standing to them. This was true for both men and women. Loyalty was important to a Roman marriage, but loyalty did not necessarily mean faithful. Women, in reality, did have less liberty than men in this department, but it was not a matter of morality like one would think; it was a matter of paternity. If a woman were to get pregnant from an extramarital affair, then paternity and inheritance to the child could not be certain, and this could interrupt the status quo.  

Women and Roman Law

Women did have considerable influence in Roman society in spite of the fact that they did not have the right to vote. They had so much influence in fact, that it is arguable that they may have been on the verge of being given the right to vote until spread of Christianity. The influence of women in the political realm, though collateral, should not be understated. Women often participated in political discussion in a wide variety of places, yet were expected to be subject to their husbands in the public eye. Consider that though women may not have been on the verge of total equality, they may have been getting close to voting rights by the time of the Christianization of Rome.

Fall of Rome, Rise of Christianity, and Decline of Women’s Rights

Rome didn’t fall in a day, as they say, and perhaps it was no coincidence that Christianity gained popularity during those first few centuries AD. Rome, as mentioned, originally built on the backs of the middle class (the small farmers), became increasingly elitist. Eventually, politics were completely monopolized by the elite, and the middle class became disenchanted with the sovereignty of Rome. The patriotism in Rome began to wane. Many decided not to fight for the military and the number of soldiers dwindled. Perhaps it was understandable that Christianity gained popularity. The original precepts of Christianity did not distinguish between the poor or the rich, male or female, slave or free, but held all in the same regard. Thus began the exchange of the enchantment with Rome with the enchantment with Christianity.

Not only had freemen begun to question the authority of Rome, but younger women had begun to rebel against social norms by stepping out of their traditional roles, even where motherhood was concerned. Roman women were expected to bear children, but it was uncommon for Roman women to have more than a couple of kids. Women often chose not to breastfeed their infants but purchase breast milk, and for those who could afford it, full-time wet-nurses were hired to live in the home and care for infants.

One of the rights that ancient Roman women had that modern western women are still struggling to regain, is reproductive freedom. There is evidence of herbal birth controls that were high in estrogen. If the women ingested these herbs, ovulation could be suppressed, and thus, pregnancy would not occur. Spermicides, both male and female condoms, and vinegar douches were also common. Abortions were not considered a crime, because it was believed that one is not fully human until after birth. Reproductive rights might help account for the small size of most Roman families.

Christianity was still not a driving force in Rome even at just before the conversion of Constantine; however, once Constantine declared Christianity as the official religion of Rome, Christianity took on a highly political livelihood. Historians aren't so sure that the “conversion” of Constantine in the third century might not have been a political ploy, as it is common knowledge that Constantine was certainly not exclusive with his own Christianity. Perhaps he only declared Christianity to be the religion of Rome for purposes of unifying a decaying empire.

As was clear with civilizations past, successfully functioning societies need "unifying agents." In early Rome that unifying agent would have been patriotism, but in later Rome, because patriotism waned, there needed to be something else. Unifying a dying society through Christian teachings would beget control. It is admittedly speculative, but perhaps Rome thought it needed to get back to its "roots." In other words, progression may have been seen as a destructive ideal. And for the wayward women who had begun to rebel against social norms, it's possible that those who were in control of society thought that if laws governed the liberties of women, then maybe women would desire traditional gender roles, and thus restore Rome back to its original splendor. 

It should be noted that the rise of Christian principles were arguably to blame for women not having any kind of consideration or a voice at all. For instance, the once growing practice of obstetrics became obsolete by the Middle Ages. The church began to control every aspect of the lives of Christianity's observers, and women were oppressed. They no longer were protected by civil laws, people’s laws, or even natural laws. They were, in a sense, raped of all liberties and influence in society. The use of contraceptives was punishable, requiring penances lasting two to fifteen years, for it was considered as grave as the sin of murder. If any woman enjoyed sex, she was said to be prone to witchcraft. And so it was, that in a relatively short period of time, women had lost all the influence they once had at the height of the Roman Empire.

As a result of Christendom, women wouldn’t again gain much, if any, measurable headway in women’s liberties for the better part of two millenniums. And even today, there is still pressure to marry Christianity to politics. What is truly the liberation of women? For some sects of Christianity, spiritual equality will never translate to physical equality to men. For those sects, women are to be greatly respected and revered, but only within their God-given roles of obedience to their husbands and their dedication to motherhood.

A Universal Alternative

The sanctuary was packed, the simple pine casket sat at the front just before the altar. I was glad that the lid was closed now. The hairpiece the mortician had given him replaced the missing swatch of his natural strawberry blond hair—where the bandage had been. If only someone would have told her that he had a cowlick there, then maybe it would have looked more natural. His hair would have never laid that perfect.

The eulogy had already been given, and the pastor asked for friends and family to come forward if they wished and share something they remembered about the boy in the casket. Life should never be cut short in such a horrific way. This was the thought that no one mentioned that day, and especially not in large sanctuary brimming with people who loved him—or at least the idea of him. They couldn’t dwell on this sorrow; they had to find a way to lift their spirits, to elevate the boy to inspire their hope. So the people came forward: his two best friends, a childhood friend, a family friend, and then, someone who didn’t really know him at all. She rattled on and on (and on and on) about his personhood, his kindness, his compassion. His deity. The girl must have needed the boy. She needed the boy to be something that he rationally wasn’t in order to deal with her own mortality, or perhaps to deal with her discomfort that mortality exists at all.

People deify the dead. “He always told the truth,” said his father. “He was incapable of lying.” Others named their children after him and taught them of the dead boy's legacy. People deified him in other ways too. A cousin of the boy (a fundamentalist Christian) deified him because he was a virgin. "He will be a perfect organ donor," she said. "Doctors don't have to worry about any infectious diseases with him." She somehow linked the purity of his metaphysical soul with the purity of his physical body. No negative thing about him was ever spoken. Not then, not ever.

In the Book of the Dead, there is a prayer to the Egyptian God, Osiris. The prayer outlines Osiris’ role within Egyptian spirituality. Osiris was the martyred savior to the Egyptians and, in fact, paralleled the story of Jesus, born of a virgin, death and resurrection, etc. And then there’s Dionysus and Mithras, who were also redeemers to the people who worshiped them, not to mention countless other gods that parallel Christianity. The gods were the givers of immortality. Like the girl who deified the boy, the people needed the gods. They needed the gods to be something that the gods rationally weren’t in order to deal with their own mortality, or perhaps to deal with their own discomfort that mortality exists at all.

That is the accusation, isn’t it? That modern civilizations, like past civilizations, use religion as a crutch, because it is uncomfortable with its own mortality? It is somehow assumed that religious people are weaker than non-religious people because religious people need to come up with myth in order to cope with existence, or rather, non-existence. Religious people just can’t seem to accept that there is nothing.

But it isn’t nothing, otherwise society wouldn’t have dreamed up something. That is a curious question, isn’t it? And really, according to the philosophical applications of quantum mechanics, one can’t simply say there is nothing without accepting an implied boundary by which he can measure nothingness and that is, well, something.

I wonder if those who argue religions, be it for or against, aren’t taking their thoughts far enough. To the Christian, he accepts framework for his beliefs within the boundaries he’s created. He’s accepted Jesus, not Osiris, not Dionysus, not Mithras, as his redeemer. Why Jesus? Why when there are more gods to fit the mold of the prophesied savior? Why can this be the only way? And for the atheist, he accepts the framework of his beliefs within the boundaries he’s created to measure the nothingness. Why can this be the only way?

There might be a deeper question, a question that seems to blow apart our constructs, and this question makes us uncomfortable enough to develop the boundaries around the framework of our beliefs: why?

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Someone told me recently that she used to think she was agnostic, but more and more, she has come to identify more with atheism. She cannot believe in a supreme being, much less the Abrahamic God; however, she admits, there is a flaw in her reasoning. No matter how she chooses to draw distinctions between what she believes and doesn’t believe, she can’t bring herself to assert that human beings aren’t spiritual. Spirituality, it would seem, is an experience independent of belief. I would assert that one could even experience what some would call divine in the absence of it.

I wonder if our society, in spite of all the ways we draw hard and fast distinctions between ourselves, can remember that we are perhaps more alike than we care to admit. Perhaps we can all agree that there is something that drives every one of our beliefs. Some of us would say it’s nothing. Some of us would flip a card. Some of us would seat ourselves in lotus. Some of us would give it a name. And some of us, sadly, will ignore this idea altogether. 

Out-of-the-Closet Support

I have a confession to make. I have been living in fear for the past year thinking about what people of this church would think if I came out about it. And before that, I lived in fear for the year I attended a more conservative evangelical church. And before then, well, I didn’t really go to church.

I have struggled with myself about this issue. I have wrestled with science about this issue. I have wrestled with the Bible about this issue. I have wrestled with God about this issue. Some of my Christian counterparts have made me feel dirty for thinking about what I sometimes think about, because I know that the tendencies that I have within myself to support, and even be attracted to, people of this lifestyle are incompatible with Christianity—or at least, so they say.

Many of you may know me by now. My name is Michaelia Kendall, and I am a gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender rights supporter, both politically and in our churches.

It was something of a transformative process that landed me in this position. I didn’t start out this way. From my early understandings of homosexuality, much like my family of origin, I remember denying that it existed. “God doesn’t really create people that way. People who say that they are gay are lying just to attract attention, I would have said. I thought that much like my younger cousin would blow things out of proportion just to create drama, so too did people who claimed homosexuality as their sexual orientation.

In my teenage years, I’d come to accept that gay people do, in fact, exist, but that didn’t mean they could experience the kind of marital love that straight people do. In other words, I thought that if if God wanted me to support homosexuality, God would have said so.  

By the time I was a young adult, I had experienced so much destruction in the church of my youth, my faith, and its people, I had come to throw out those components of scripture that I didn’t like. I could see how the scriptures speaking against homosexuality could be just as painful for gay people as other scriptures had been for me. I didn’t care to justify homosexuality by scripture, and to be honest, I’m not sure that I cared about a scriptural basis for anything.

But life went on, and healing began to take place. I decided to revisit this hot-button issue that some Christians claim is life-giving if scripture is followed, even while massive amounts of people lay slain in its wake. I’ve come to realize that I cannot expect Christians to try to see through my lens if I am not willing to see through theirs. Fast forward to today, and I am trying to reconcile my faith to an understanding of scripture where gay people may eventually be wholly accepted in their churches. I think the church is doing a tremendous disservice to Christian gay people out there, and even to the Christians (like me) who support them. Many people in churches have given gay Christians no real home. They’ve tried to convince gay people and their supporters, that real Christians believe that homosexuality is wrong.

Fifteen years ago, a young man was kicked out of my church youth group just for admitting his bi-sexuality; however, I don’t think, had the same thing happened today, that kicking the boy out of the church would have been the first response of the church leaders. And while I do think the people of this church would do everything in their power to change that boy’s sexual orientation, I don’t think it would have been because they hated him, or because they didn’t desire him to succeed in life, or that they wanted to oppress him. I believe they would sincerely think that they are reconciling the young man to God. Could there be a more noble cause?

According to a young man named Matthew Vines, in his speech, “Don’t Blame the Bible for You’re Bad Views on Homosexuality,” Christians who believe that homosexuality is wrong do so by using primarily 6 verses of the Bible to validate their stance—3 in the Old Testament, 3 in the New. They say that if something was an abomination in Leviticus, then surely it still is today. They say that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of homosexuality. They say that the New Testament’s mentions of homosexuality are proof that God still wants us to follow the old letter of the Law. Matthew makes a compelling argument for these passages, one by one. And while I have only enough time for a soapbox sermon, I’d like to examine the basic gist of his arguments against the common theology.

First, some Christians might say that homosexuality is wrong because it deviates from God’s original plan in Genesis: one man, one woman. He says that when scripture says that God made man a suitable partner, and that when this is interpreted to ‘woman is the only suitable partner for man’, it’s a straw-man fallacy at best. For some men, suitable partners are not women but other gay men. And for some women, suitable partners are not men, but other lesbian women.

Second, Sodom and Gomorrah was not destroyed for its homosexuality, that’s a gross oversimplification of this ancient story. In fact, this idea didn’t present itself in scriptural interpretation until the Middle Ages. This is not just a Matthew Vines assertion; this is a widely accepted Biblical scholar assertion, and is validated by Sodom and Gomorrah’s mention 20 more times in subsequent books, but only one of those instances relates Sodom’s sins to being sexual in general, but not to homosexuality specifically. The homosexual component of this story refers to gang rape of men by men. Rape has nothing to do with attraction, but has everything to do with wanting to dominate, humiliate, and inflict pain on another human being. Male rape, especially for that time in history, was used frequently for these purposes.

Ezekiel refers back to Sodom and Gomorrah, saying this: Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. To assume that Sodom’s sins were sexual in nature is a mistake, and according to Rabbi Gold of Jacksonville, FL, “In short, they were prideful, materialistic, protective of their individual material wealth, slovenly fat, and dismissive of the poor and needy.” The people of these cities were inhospitable to outsiders, cruel to the poor, and socially irresponsible. Using rape to humiliate their opponents is only a small piece of their sins, and it has nothing to do with a loving, committed, homosexual relationship.

Matthew Vines would say that the mentions of homosexuality in the New Testament were due to a mistranslation of the original text, and the King James Version of the Bible does not use the word homosexual, but rather, effeminate, which could refer to any number of things. It could even refer to men taking a passive role in sexual relations and women taking an active role. In other words, it was a cultural difference, just as it had been with the women who wore head coverings and males being the only gender allowed to pastor churches. Also, there might also be a misinterpretation of the texts in that we assume that they’re speaking specifically of general homosexual acts  and not to promiscuity in general, which may or may not be limited to premarital sex, extramarital sex, incest, prostitution, and homosexuality.

Concerning the Old Testament, as is true for Matthew Vines, some Christian gay rights supporters may look at the Old Testament texts and say that they are irrelevant to the Christian because Jesus fulfilled the Old Law. They say that love is the predominating teaching of Christ, so we should just stick to the idea of love.

The problem is that many Christians seem to observe both Old Testament and New Testament teachings, or at least in part. These types of Christians are highly offended at the notion that they hate gay men and women. I think most Christians really do want to welcome gay people in their churches, but they’re ill-equipped to do so—because their hands and their theologies are tied. Most Christians who make up churches today have not been to the point in their faiths where they are willing to throw out scripture as I have been willing to do, for the sake of reconciling my faith to some of my gay and lesbian family and friends. I am not trying to discount a Biblical understanding; I am merely trying to honestly convey the peculiar places my faith has taken me.

I do not think I’m alone. There is a growing population of people of my generation and some of the generations preceding mine who have experienced an immense amount of pain at the hands of the church and its theologies. There are Christians out there who will never be a part of a church again because of trauma that they’ve suffered. There are Christians out there who will never recommend that their friends and family attend church or befriend Christians. There are even Christians out there who will not claim Christianity 6 ½ days out of the week. That’s why I’d like to raise the challenge for Christians to at least try to reconsider their certainty in their interpretations of scripture.

To those Christians who need the scriptural validation in order to support homosexuality, I am speaking to you.

This whole soapbox got me thinking. Because some Christians still observe some of the Old Law, then what of the person of Jewish faith who is, theoretically, still bound by it? You see, in my limited experience of people in the Jewish tradition in America, many of them seem to be much more free in their thinking on homosexuality than Christians.  Even the Conservative Movement Jews recently voted “yes” on same-sex marriages. Why is this, especially if people who don’t have Christ are still bound to the Old Law? So I asked a Reformed Jewish man, “What is your take on Leviticus 18:22, Thou shall not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is an abomination?” He responded by sending me a couple of links for my consideration, and though both of them are only blog entries, my friend made clear that, for one of the entries, the “linguistic analysis in the article is a classic example of rabbinic exegesis, namely, that a close reading of the Hebrew text is necessary.  Conservative and reformed commentators will use textual and modern context in addition; Orthodox rabbis reject of course modern science and psychology usually, as do conservative commentators of all faiths.”

Why I was particularly fascinated with the Jewish argument is because, if we are speaking of the pre-Judaism culture of the past, who better to ask about Leviticus than the people who have always been the trustees of these ancient texts? What I understand is that the Rabbis handle these texts with a care and a reverence that has been preceded by their ancestor’s back to their faith’s—and our faith’s—beginnings. The blog called, Libertarian Jew, in the post, “Parsha Acharei Mot--Does Leviticus 18:22 Condemn Homosexuality?” reads, “Translations are inherently limiting.  When going from a Semitic language to a Germanic language, much gets lost in translation […].  The second issue is that when you put a text in man's hand, even if the text is claimed to have divine status, interpretation is inevitable.  This is a scary notion for the other two Abrahamic faiths.  In Judaism, however, interpretations have existed for quite some time.”

The Libertarian Jew asserts that mentions of Old Testament homosexuality may have pertained to dominating homosexual acts because the text seems to imply that it is something done to somebody, rather than something being done with somebody—a point which I encourage you to read in the blog post itself. He also says that Christians are often caught up by the translation to the word, abomination. The original text’s translation to English indicated something that causes disgust, abhorrence, or hatred, but really, according to the Libertarian Jew, this word would be more accurately translated to ‘taboo,’ and perhaps simply social taboo more than anything, hence other Old Law verses: it is a ‘taboo’ for Egyptians to eat at the table with Israelites. It is ‘taboo’ to eat shrimp. It is ‘taboo’ to marry one’s sister or to two sisters, something that 2 out of 3 patriarchs did. It was also ‘taboo’ to use incorrect weights and measures. Some people of the Jewish tradition assert that it might have only been taboo to be a homosexual man or woman in an agrarian culture, simply because it frustrates the ability to procreate in a society where children were a necessary component for survival and wealth.

The fact that the Torah is silent about lesbian sexual relations should be noted. It isn’t, nor has it ever been, common for women to use rape or domination as a control or a shame tactic. This, for some people of the Jewish tradition, indicates even more strongly that the Torah does not restrict consensual, loving, non-violent, homosexual acts, but only those that are used for prostitution purposes or to dominate and humiliate another human being. This is why it is crucial to keep the ancient texts of Sodom and Gomorrah within context of the culture and the time.

I wonder if Christians who assert that they have more freedom from than bondage to the Old Testament texts and traditions, and even those Christians who see some of the Old Testament teachings as applicable to our modern society, might take a lesson from Reformed, Renewal, and Reconstructionist Jews, and even some Conservative Movement Jews. What’s fascinating to me is that of the 3 Abrahamic religions and all the subgroups within them, there is a myriad of interpretations of even one single text among them. I think that it’s fair to say that when a text leaves the hands of its author, when its original language has evolved over time into a modern version of that same language, then when it is translated to a number of different languages, and then therefore interpreted by an array of scholars and lay-readers, things can never be certain. I think Christians of our time need to understand this and take great care in assuming any measure of certainty with the ancient texts they consider sacred.

I would assert that one’s experience and role within society makes his or her interpretation of the Bible drastically different from another’s. During a time when slaveholders used the Bible to validate their keeping of slaves, slaves experienced Christianity and the Bible much differently. A person who is impoverished will most definitely experience Christianity and the Bible much differently than those who are wealthy, for the first shall be last and the last shall be first. I, as a woman, read the Bible much differently than my male counterparts, for there are neither Jew nor Greek, bondman nor freeman, male nor female for those who are in Christ.  Who’s to say that straight, male scholars and clergymen hold the keys to the correct interpretation of scripture concerning homosexuality?

  I conclude my soapbox today by leaving you with the words of the Libertarian Jew, because I couldn’t have said it better myself. “Whatever the case may be [in how one interprets ancient texts], the last thing that one can argue is that [any one] verse is a blanket prohibition against any form of homosexuality whatsoever. I find that the beauty of studying Torah is that even in a verse as controversial as [Leviticus 18:22], one can find multiple forms of interpretation, thereby bringing multiple ways to bring this verse alive. However you decide to read […], may it be done so in the goodness of Torah, as well as in the dignity of your fellow man.”

Chapter 1

We sit facing one another in four plastic lawn chairs in my parents’ front yard.  Even my favorite scent of freshly-cut grass does little ease the fear that my father will yell and cause a scene, his arms flailing as they do, his ice blue eyes blazing fire. He wipes the sweat from his sunburnt brow, evidence of the labor he’d already put in on his backyard construction project. The shade of the north-facing front yard is nearly unbearable in the afternoon heat of early August and the hot breeze does not cool us. There is privacy from neither the passing cars on the street nor our neighbor who waters his array of colorful potted plants on his front porch.  

Mom’s face is pinched with her worry, her posture unsettled. I think that I might reach for Nathan’s hand to offer him my support, but think better of it. Displays of affection, even between two people in love, is discouraged by my upbringing.

Nathan speaks with a hope and a confidence unlike my own. “Mr. and Mrs. Kaufman, I love Liz more than anything.” He glances at me and feel the warmth of his smile. “I know I speak for us both when I say that I never thought we’d become so serious so quickly.”

A couple of boys race their bicycles down the street, laughing jovially, and for the momentary distraction, I am thankful. Dad’s chest begins to heave. He is already angry, though he says nothing.

Nathan continues, “Now that Liz is moving away—too far for us to even see one another on weekends—we want to come up with an alternative.”

A wasp buzzes around Mom’s face. She shifts to the front of her seat and shoos it away with a gesture that radiates her displeasure. “Distance is good.”

Nathan meets her eyes. There is a change in his manner, and in that moment, I know now that he knows what I know: this meeting is not a good idea. He presses on anyway. “There is no easy way to say this, but Liz and I would like to ask both of your permission to get married before she leaves for Wisconsin in three weeks.”

Silence trails Nathan’s words. I feel Mom’s tension without even looking at her, and Dad, whose temperament has never been easy, stands, his sudden force knocking the plastic lawn chair to the ground behind him. Mom scrambles to pick it back up.

“How dare you do this to me!” he yells, his eyes now flashing that familiar blaze.

Our neighbor is now frozen with mouth agape, watering can hovering over a pot of scarlet geraniums. My fears are realized.

Dad towers overs me, his face only inches from mine. The whiskey on his breath turns the scent of the grass rancid in my nostrils. He yells again. This time, his arms begin to flail. “You know I am in the middle of building my garage. I don’t have time for a wedding right now!” Nathan reaches an arm across to cover me the way Mom’s used to when I road passenger in the car and she had to make a sudden stop.

I take Nathan’s hand and squeeze, realizing that he doesn’t know that my father has never raised a hand to us. His fits of rage only ever ended with his words. Even our neighbor knows this, or at least I think he does. I glance again in his direction and am relieved when he is no longer there. “Nathan’s parents have a beautiful yard.” I say. “We don’t want a big wedding, just a few immediate family members will do. The construction won’t be an issue.”

Nathan tugs gently on my hand, seeming to implore me to let the issue go. Clearly, my parents don’t want us to marry. But I can’t leave yet. I have to stick it out. If I succumb to Dad’s rage, it’ll only give him what he wants—what Mom wants too.

“Do you know how many people love you, Elizabeth? You are selfish to even think of crossing your grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins off your list!”

“A wedding is about two people. It doesn’t have to be about other people. I’m sure Liz’s family—and mine—will understand,” Nathan offers.

“If you two are in such an all-fired-up hurry to get married, then Liz should just stay home. To hell with school.”

Mom tugs at Dad’s shirt, halting his pace. He glares at her but finally sits. She studies Nathan first, her eyes unblinking, her jaw set. Then she studies me. She makes me feel ashamed, and I wonder if I should be. I’d always thought the world would rejoice with me when I finally fell in love, but loving Nathan had changed me, and I know it is the change that must alarm Mom the most. Finally, she folds her hands neatly on her lap. “No.”

My breathing becomes labored at her words. Maybe the next thing she’ll say is that Nathan and I can no longer be together. I’ll have to obey because God has given her authority over me, but she doesn’t say this, though she must have known that a reason must be given. “Nathan, you are very wrong about marriage being about two people. In the Bible, weddings are week-long celebrations. A family’s presence and approval is crucial to a Godly marriage.” She gives Dad a sidelong glance. He doesn’t seem to notice, only stares past us, his resignation to the conversation at hand painfully obvious. “If Glenn and I had known your relationship with Elizabeth would progress so quickly, we would have never allowed for her to date you. She has so much life ahead of her before she gets married. Her passion for God cannot be replaced by her passion for you. God’s calling on her life can easily be destroyed by a relationship like this.”

I follow Dad’s directionless gaze. I wish I had his authority—the authority to change Mom’s mind, but I don’t. I am only a young woman and I am only their child. If I had his authority, I wouldn’t run away from confrontation. I wouldn’t squander what God had given me.

“I would never try to get in the way of Liz’s path,” Nathan murmurs, and as he says it, he tugs on my hand again. “Let’s go, Liz.”

We stack our chairs, scooting them next to the house, and when Nathan and I walk away, I slip my arm around his waist without a care as to if it makes Mom uncomfortable. A tear slips down my cheek. I feel stuck, like following God is a trap and a cross that I must bear, and the resentment toward my own faith begins to grow. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Why are they so against us?”

“I’m sorry,” I say again, my voice now breaking.

We turn back at the sound of Mom’s voice. Dad is already gone, running away as he always does, until he is summoned once again to be the spiritual leader, if only he weren’t such a coward. “If you really do love her,” she calls to Nathan, “then you would let her go.”

#

I met Nathan Sage the previous July on my first day of training as a cashier at the local Borders bookstore. Noticing his height first, I thought it a nice compliment to mine, his broad shoulders, his olive coloring, and cropped dark hair, a nice contrast to my fair complexion and highlighted blonde hair. His smile was easy, his handshake firm. I liked him immediately.

He told me he was a bookseller in the poetry section near to the registers and that I may call on him for assistance any time. When he gestured to the shelves behind him, the aroma of his musk cologne wafted from his body and I knew instantly that I could never tire of his scent. He paid me special attention that I was quick to explain away. He helped me if he saw a line of customers forming to check out, bagging their book selections while being careful to include a complimentary cream-colored Borders book mark. On the third day, after the line of customers had dwindled, he stayed to chat for longer than he had before. He depressed a button on the register’s printer and expelled a good six inches of receipt paper and began doodling with a royal blue Bic pen, his strokes long and fluid.

“I like to draw too,” he said, nodding to my vinyl name badge holder extending from my Borders logo ribbon necklace. I had sketched a picture of a man playing the guitar and slid it on the opposite side of my name in the pouch. As he said this, I admired the casual way he leaned his hip against the laminated wood counter, and the way his plain maroon t-shirt and relaxed-fit stonewashed jeans accentuates his already-pleasing features.

I didn’t answer him right away, but instead was taken aback that he has noticed anything about me at all.

“You must be married or something,” he remarked.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you are unimpressed by my attention.”

His tone held a hint of self-mockery and it put me at ease, so I smiled in a way that exuded a cleverness that I didn’t normally possess “Oh. I’m a little young to be married.”

“Oh yeah? How old are you?”

“Much younger than you, I’m sure.”

A shift manager passed us by with a boxful of colorful Travelflex book lights and glanced at Nathan. “You done shelving your books?”

“Yep.”

“How about your seller recommendations?”

“Yep.”

She looked down at the box in hand and then back to Nathan. “Here then.” She heaved the box onto the counter. “Put these away next, would you?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He took the box and began to unpack it, clipping a few book lights onto the displays surrounding the registers. “I bet you’re around twenty-three?”

“Nope.”

“Younger then?”

“Definitely younger.”

He then took the box of lights to the other side of the counter to the big book light display adjacent to it. He proceeded to clip them onto the display stand, bending the flexible necks every which way in order to demonstrate their versatility in every reading situation. “Well, I know you have to be at least eighteen to work here, but you can’t be that young.”

I didn’t answer, only smiled.

“You’re eighteen?” It was more of an accusation than a question. “Now I feel old. Where’d you go to school?”

“You can’t laugh.”

“What kind of response is that?”

I took some lights out of the box and began to clip them on the backside of the display as well. “I’ll be stereotyped once you know.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I was homeschooled.”

He glanced at me from the other side of the display. “Whoa, really? Like creepy-religious and socially-awkward kind of homeschooled?”

I laughed. “Is there any other kind?”

“Dunno. You’re the first I’ve met.”

“And?”

His eyes twinkled. “So far you’re okay.”

“So how old are you then?”

“Twenty-five next month—more than two dozen years, some would say a quarter of a century old.”

“I can see your flair for melodramatics is intact.”

“Anyway, about drawing,” he said. “I do impressionism mostly. I’ve got a couple of paintings hung in the café of our store. Looks like your meal break is at seven when I get off.” He grabbed the last book light—a vibrant purple one—and clipped it on one of the few remaining places to display it. “I like talking to you.” He glanced over his shoulder and dropped his voice to a whisper and winks. “But I’m afraid I’ll get in trouble if I stick around here too long. Care to meet me in the café at seven?”

#

At seven, we helped ourselves to the coffee at the café counter and moseyed into the dining area. He carried a white paperback book. Just inside its entrance, Nathan turned and gestured toward the wall that was now behind us. “These are my paintings.”

A large impressionistic painting on a canvas hung on the terracotta-colored wall, portraying the upper body of an armless woman wearing a crimson-colored dress. The tag posted next to it on the wall read, Venus of Kasey. To the right of the painting hung two smaller paintings, both entitled, Gilgamesh. In one, Gilgamesh tromped through tall grass, in the other, he fought a lion. I stood there gazing at the paintings, their proportions inexact, neither realistic nor cartoonish. The colors popped with reds, yellows, and greens, drawing me in with their vibrant qualities. I’d seen very little art like his. Good paintings, as I knew them, should resemble photographs.

He watched me for several moments. “What do you think?”

I shook my head, not realizing I was at a loss for words. “They’re great.”

He watched me for several more moments “That one,” he pointed to the large painting, “is about a friend and her outlook on beauty. The other two are about Gilgamesh going to fight Fierce Habuba. Are you familiar?”

“A little bit. I read some of the epic in high school.”

The corner of his mouth turned up in a wry smile. “Which wasn’t that long ago.”

I chuckled. “Right, it wasn’t that long ago.” I turned to the condiment table with the creamer and the sugars and offered Nathan the carafe of half-and-half. When he took it, I set to work tearing open a few raw sugar packets and poured them into my coffee.

“You know, you’d make a beautiful painting.”

I tensed, not entirely sure if he meant it the way he’d said it. “I can’t paint.”

“I meant that I could paint you.” He poured some half-and-half into his coffee as if what he said was no big deal.

I turned to look at him, but regretted it at once when I felt the color rise in my cheeks. “Uh,” I stammered. “I’m sure you’ve got better options.”

He motioned toward a small unoccupied table in the center of the café. The café was usually busy this time of night. In the far corner, several tables were moved together to accommodate a group of eight or so silver-haired ladies. They knobby fingers each worked a set of knitting needles and yarn with time-honored skill as they chatted loudly amongst themselves. There was a study group of college students who were bantering back and forth about how to do a Power Point presentation. I realized how unfortunate it must be for them to be in school in July when most students at their school must be working and playing at the lake.

When we sat, Nathan set his book on the table and I was finally able to clearly see the title. “Henry Bergeson, Creative Evolution. What’s it about?” A change of subject—anything—would be better than art.

He took a sip of his coffee. “It’s about the duration of the mind. Why? Do you like philosophy?”

“I don’t know much about it to say either way.”

I sat back in my chair and picked at the edge of the cardboard coffee sleeve, not knowing what to say next. I knew how to talk about art, but not his type of art. I knew how to talk about philosophy, but only my Christian philosophy.

“So, Liz, you know that I like art and philosophy, but what are you interested in?”

I didn’t expect him to focus on me. I was content to simply listen to him talk about himself. He was not like the men I knew. The men I knew would parade their salvation stories and their Christian theologies like a resume for courtship, yet Nathan Sage sat across the café table, waiting for me to fill him in about me, and suddenly, I become acutely aware of my attraction to him.

Nathan’s life was a mystery to me, so I thought cautiously about how to answer his question. What am I interested in? My life functioned differently from most people, especially those who didn’t identify themselves as evangelical Christians, but figuring that genuine friendship required my honesty, I took the plunge.  “God. Music. And the joining of the two.”

“Really? You do church music, like hymns and stuff?

“Not exactly.” I looked past him out the café window. The sun dipped low in the western sky, casting long shadows from the cars in the parking lot and its bordering trees. Everything the light touched glowed a brilliant orange. I’d never had to explain to someone what contemporary worship music was. I’d never thought twice about being expressive in worship, raising my hands, and singing with eyes closed, but my attraction to Nathan caused me to censor myself. “I play contemporary worship music, you know, the kinds with guitars, drums, bass, and keyboard. My church even has a set of congas. I’ve been leading my youth group’s worship band for the last year, but I’ve done church music since I was a little kid.”

“You mean like those commercials for the W.O.W. worship CDs, the ones where people are singing with their hands in the air and tears are streaming down their faces?”

I looked down at my hands. When he said it, it sounded like silliness, like it is more put on than real. “I suppose that’s a fair assumption, though for me, it means more than it might seem.”

“Oh, I’m sure it does. It sounds very real to you.”

I shook my head. “Boy, if that isn’t patronizing, I don’t know what is.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I actually had a few friends in college who went to churches like that. I’ve never known anyone to be a part of the music though.” With that, he leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest and studied me. “So you’re a creepy-religious, socially-awkward, worship-leading homeschooler?”

“I feel self-conscious now.”

“Sorry, but you are just so fascinating. We can talk about something else though, if you’d like. Am I making you uncomfortable?”

I shrugged. “Too much talk of me and you’ll be bored, I figure.”

He laughed. “Trust me, I’ve never once been bored while talking to you.”

I looked down at my coffee, trying to hide my embarrassment. Why was he making me feel this way? I noticed the knitting ladies packing up their needles and yarn into their embroidered canvas totes and wondered how close it’s getting to the end of my meal break. I wanted to stay and leave simultaneously, but ideas for a smooth getaway escaped me. “So, tell me about you. Is this churchy stuff pretty foreign to you?”

“Oh, no.” He waved his hands around as if he couldn’t help but talk with them. “I grew up Episcopal, was an acolyte for a while there.”

“An acolyte?”

“Yep. An acolyte lights candles and does some of the ceremonial stuff in services.”

I brightened, realizing that we may indeed have a common ground. “So you’re a Christian too?”

“Yeah…” he said slowly, frowning.

I hadn’t meant to sound as eager as I did. “I mean, of course you’re Episcopal.” I smiled, hoping to put him at ease. “I guess what I mean is that lots of people believe in God, go to church and stuff, but that doesn’t mean they’ve made a decision for Christ.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

I let out a nervous laugh, knowing I’d gotten myself into a precarious conversation. “Never mind.”

“No, what do you mean?”

“Decision for Christ, like prayed the Sinner’s Prayer.”

“The what?”

“The Sinner’s Prayer, you know, the prayer you pray when you make a decision to truly follow God.

Nathan finished his coffee and set his paper cup aside. “Yeah, I’ve prayed something like that before.”

“Really?”

“Sure I have. Sort of like a deal with God, right?”

“Well, not exact—”

“Like, because you got me out of this or that, God, I promise to be faithful to you forever?”

“No, it’s different than a deal. I don’t believe God makes deals.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “Then by all means, enlighten me.”

“The moment people become Christians is the moment they pray and ask God to forgive them and give them life, to save them, and vow to follow after him.”

Nathan looked at me for a long moment, noticeably puzzled. “Okay. But I’m curious how that’s different than striking a deal with God.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but couldn’t think of a response. “I suppose it’s no different.”

Nathan reached over to touch my hand. “Hey, so we view things differently. There’s nothing wrong with that. The point is not how we believe, but that we simply believe, right?”

I smiled and let it wane, still well aware of his hand on mine. He didn’t fit my definition of a Christian. He no doubt loved the idea of God, but I wondered if loving an idea was enough. The café was nearly empty now. The tables were all in need of a good wiping and the chairs in need of straightening. I withdrew my hand to check my watch. “My break is over in a few minutes. I’d better go clock in.”

“Thanks for spending your break with me. I enjoyed myself.”

“We’ll have to do this again sometime.” I stood to leave, and as I do, I felt him watch me go, my stomach doing a flip. I closed my eyes briefly, exhaled, and kept walking.

                                                    #

I had no illusions that Nathan Sage would actually write. Even though I’d never dated, I wasn’t born yesterday. His asking for my information was the polite thing to do. Nothing more. Besides, no one ever wrote letters anymore, especially not hand-written ones. How prosaic.

I had never gotten in the habit of checking the mail. Usually, if anything was for me, Mom put it on my bed for me to find whenever I might return home. I don’t know why I decided to check the mailbox at 11:30 on a Saturday night after a closing shift at Borders. Wishful thinking, I supposed. Just being in the place where I met him made me think about him constantly. His name was still on a locker in the break room, not to mention that before he left, he recommended me for his bookseller position. It was a bit of a pay raise and I was given his poetry section to shelve and make displays for. I often wondered who his favorite poets were as I shelved the books. He told me once that he likes the beat poets, and I knew after a bit of time on the internet that Jack Kerouac introduced the beat generation. Scanning the shelves, I found Kerouac’s, Scattered Poems, and flipped through its pages. The poems confused me. Do you like these poems, Nathan? I wondered. I saw a Maya Angelou book, a bestseller, obvious from the amount of copies on the shelf, and read a couple of her poems. They seemed too nice and too easy. I decided that she was not Nathan’s favorite and set the book back in its place.

 After parking my pickup in the driveway, I walked out to the mailbox. The moon was full and the neighborhood shone a silvery blue. Nights of early fall were not often still, but this one was, and the crickets’ songs were still lively before the frost. When I opened the black metal box, I saw the outline of his letter amongst the bills and junk mail. Mom must’ve forgotten to check the mail that day, which is a relief. She didn’t need to know about the letter.

Taking only the letter, I left the other mail, and hurried inside. Careful to wake nobody, I stealthily made my way to my room and closed the door and switched on my bedside lamp. It cast a soft yellow glow throughout the room. I set the letter on my bookshelf headboard and stared at it as I changed into my pajamas. The Bruce Springsteen stamp offered a little personality to the plain business-sized security envelope. I tore it open as I slipped into bed. He’d written his letter on a single sheet of ruled notebook paper. It was full of scribbled out words and misspellings.

Dear Liz,

Leaving Rapid was like the look of a stranger. Life is full of change, I guess. Like the job? At Borders I mean? I have been thinking of you in my nowhere paradise. Out here I can lose myself in my thoughts. Learning art is beautiful—like you, of course. I still wish to paint you. I wonder if I would do you justice though.

I was told yesterday “If you want to make God laugh then make a plan.” So I won’t. Though, if I were to, I would like to make some plans with you—however brief. Thank you for our conversations. I will be home the 6^th of September for the weekend of my sister’s wedding. I am wondering if we might spend a little time together?

If I’m too old to hang with then just say so, though I would like to see you again. If you want, send me a letter of your thoughts.

Be well.

Stay beautiful.

Nathan

I switched off my lamp and lay there in the darkness, taking a few moments to process his letter, my pulse nearly audible in the stillness of the night. I switched the light back on and traced the lines of his letters with my finger. It is like he drew his words rather than wrote them.

Later that night, I as I laid awake for what seems like hours, just like before, I switched on the light and read the letter again.