Confess your sin…

It was midweek service and a new group of college students walked in.  One of the girls was Alice.  She studied psychology at the local university and was a star athlete on the rowing team.  I was a student in the discipleship program. A one-year program our church created for young people out of high school. I didn’t have a lot of free time outside the program, but Alice and I made a point of spending any spare time we had, with each other.

Jeez, it’s like you two are dating…

My classmate Michael teased me one day when Alice came to pick me up after play rehearsal.  We were joined at the hip.  Unlike many of my classmates, I got away to do regular things, thanks to Alice and her car.  The program tuition cost provided a meager stipend that barely covered a week’s worth of gas, which impinged on extra-curricular driving around.

We mostly went hiking, hung out at her place or conversed on my basement bedroom waterbed about God’s will for our lives and whether or not we thought had the character to carry out His purpose.  She taught me how to stop pasta from boiling over by blowing on it or waving the wooden spoon over it.  And then there were the playful wrestling matches spurred on by teasing after switching gears from endless introspection.  One time she pinned me down on my bed, looked straight at me, and said

I feel sorry for your future children.  They’re going to starve.

I pushed her off and questioned what she meant.  She was referring to my flat chest.  If it weren’t for my prominent nipples, I could have gotten away without a bra.  The only reason two bumps presented themselves on my chest were on account of heavily padded bras.  As night dimmed my bedroom, we fell back laughing on to the warm waterbed, the entire sides of our bodies glued together from shoulders down to our intertwined legs. The darkness held our growing affection for each other.  We didn’t move, only gently breathed so as not to agitate the magic.  Then my bedroom door jarred open and a shard of light pierced our cocoon.  The silouhette of my house mom stood in front of us as we sprung apart from each other. 

What are you girls doing?  It’s so dark in here.  Rebecca, dinner is ready.

Alice made the excuse that she had to get going.  Dinner with my house parents that night altered between heavy blocks of silence and obvious attempts to say “normal” things about my friendship with Alice.

I grew up on a ranch two hours south of the city where I was attending the discipleship program.  In spite of my preference for urban dwelling, it did amuse me to throw a city kid into the rough and tumble of ranch life, and Alice was always game for adventure.  We arrived early in the morning, saddled up horses, and made our way down to the five thousand acres of range land.  The range looked like the set of a spaghetti western and provided the backdrop to some of my most idyllic memories.  I put Alice on an old mare, and lead her down steep narrow trails, through stony streams, around sweet-smelling sagebrush and past grazing cattle. 

Watch out for rattle snakes!

I yelled back to her while laughing. 

We arrived at a water hole, and hitched the horses under shady trees at the water's edge, giving them enough slack to drink and feed on tall grass.  The best feature of this water hole was an underwater passage by way of plunging into a waterfall.  If you were brave and trusted the natural propulsion, it pushed you down the passage, and then shot you back up to the surface a couple feet away.  After some failed attempts, we gave up the idea to play Huck Finn.  A raft was constructed and we floated down the connecting river stream losing track of all time while baking in the hot sun.  It wasn’t until suddenly having to pass under a barbed wire fence that we finally noticed it had gotten late and that I was due back to my houseparent’s in three hours time.  We used adrenaline and logs to push-paddle our way back up-stream, ditched the raft, and in bare feet danced our way through the thorny muddy riverbank.  Reaching the horses, we snapped up our clothes, yanked jeans over wet bodies, and rode those horses like we stole them.  Taking full advantage of a horse’s sense for home, we were grateful they were ready to be as done with us as we were with them. I felt badly about riding them hard and putting them away wet, but we couldn't lose too much time brushing and hosing down two horses.  Skipping this step ultimately saved me from missing curfew and getting Monday Club.  Monday Club was the disciplinary action for any infractions such as not being able to recite your Bible verses, not completing homework, not journaling, or breaking moral code.  It meant working at a pastor’s house on your one day off.  No thanks! 

When my year in the discipleship program was up I returned to my rural home church.  The program trained disciples to serve their home churches and bring change to their local communities.  Alice felt God calling her to quit university and join the discipleship program.  Our year together was gone, but the plan was for me to visit her as often as possible. 

I was sound asleep one Monday morning after spending the weekend with Alice.  We shared her double bed at her house parent’s and fell asleep both nights holding hands with our bodies pressed together.  During a late-morning dream, Alice was reaching her hand to gently caress my face, when the touch transferred to a light tap on my shoulder as I heard someone whispering my name.  Eileen was nudging my shoulder to wake me.  Eileen was my new house mom and the youth pastor of my home church.  Newly trained disciples rarely ever went back to live with their parents, but were given a housing assignment. When I opened my eyes, I noticed my journal cradled in Eileen’s arm.

Sorry to wake you Rebecca, but there's something I need to talk to you about.

First of all, I just want to say that normally I would never interfere with your privacy, but I was asked to find your journal and have a look.  We have something serious we need to talk to you about, and we need to go to Spokane and meet with The Fellowship leaders today to talk about it.

    Something in my gut told me what this was about, but I asked anyway. 

It's about your relationship with Alice, honey.

I could have spent another night with Alice had I known I’d be back in the morning anyway. Somewhere, I was in the process of a failure.  I failed at being in the will of God.  I knew I’d transgressed.

An intimidating collection of leadership were assembled, but Alice was nowhere to be seen.  In addition to Eileen were both discipleship program directors, and an associate pastor.  I was a little surprised to see the associate pastor.  He looked out of place.  He was the kind one.  He was actually cool, and everyone felt safe with him. I had the distinct feeling of being trapped. They started out by asking me questions about my relationship with Alice.  They knew I had just come back from the weekend with her.  They interrogated me on information they already had, but they wanted to hear me confess it.  They assessed my relationship with Alice was co-dependant. Collectively, we were always to be aware of co-dependence.  I had witnessed other people being relieved of their codependance from friendships, inappropriate crushes, and family relationships alike. 

But even more dangerous, Rachel...

The woman director said.

What, there's more? 

...You and Alice are on a very dangerous road to lesbianism...

A road to….huh? 

What a ridiculous word!  If I didn't know better and if it wasn't so damn heavy in that room, I would have laughed out loud.  She sounded absurd.  As if that word...lesbianism, is a repugnant behavioral contamination.  I’ll admit, I was shocked. Surely I was not someone capable of...homosexuality?!

I stopped listening at some point as I tried to work out if Alice had been interrogated too.  What did she confess? Was she as baffled as I?  Did they requisition her journal too?  Make her feel just as shameful?  My brain was on a high speed train of questions and possible answers when I was abruptly shocked by the sight of my ring in someone's open palm.

Rachel, we know you exchanged rings with Alice.  It is important to break this bond.  Here is your ring back.  We would like you to please give us the ring she gave to you.

W hen and how did they get that ring? Last night after I left?  This morning before I arrived?  How did they know about it?!

I felt like a stupid child who had stolen candy in the store, and now your parents, the cashier, and the security guy wanted you to hand it over.  I was being slapped on the wrist. No, I was being punched in the gut.  I was on the verge of tears, but couldn't let them think that I was crying over something bad I had done.  I needed to take responsibility and be repentant, not cry about it. 

Rachel, in order to find healing, you and Alice must break off your relationship.  You won't be able to spend time together or see each other anymore.  We don't want you to talk to her when you see her at meetings.  She's in the discipleship program and she needs to focus on her relationship with God.

I went away from that meeting with so many unanswered questions.  My mind was a mess with them.  Since my youth I had trusted Eileen as a sister.  She patiently taught me how to drive a stick shift, she was cool.  We laughed and spent cozy winter nights with hot chocolate, listening to Christmas music on vinyls. She was a part of our family.  She was a confidante.  Not any longer, though.  My trust had been violently broken.   My hurt turned to anger and mistrust.  I would from this day forward be judged by her.  Sitting in the passenger seat next to her on the way home began a tug of war relationship between a pragmatic requirement for guidance and approval, and the fear of ever showing my true self again.

               It wasn't long until I saw Alice.  I spotted her when I was trying to be casual about looking for somewhere to sit before an inter-church youth rally.  I was actually looking for her, thinking of excuses to roam about the building, appearing to have reason to visit the bathrooms, be out in the hallways, pass through different wings of the church, make paths through every inch of the sanctuary, until - Oh!  There she is!  I craned my neck to view her passing through an opening off the sanctuary.  She connected with my eyes, and gave a nearly imperceptible blip of recognition, showing a sympathetic half-smile, as if she had someone behind her back prodding "Move along, nothing to see here..." I couldn't blame her.  It's not like she wanted to ignore me.  We were instructed to not interact, and were always under the eyes.  But still,  she could have given me more.  I wanted her to rebel and whisper something to me.  Sign language, sneak off somewhere we couldn't be seen for two seconds - anything!  I was dying to know what her meeting with them was like.  I had to know how she was feeling.  Did she still like me and want to be my friend?  Or was she being obedient and was she truly repentant?  Did she realize our friendship was wrong and diligently move on from it?  I mean, when we're allowed to talk again, where will we pick up? Did her heart bleed like mine? 

I never got to hear her side of the story and no one gave us permission to talk again.The friend I loved was gone from my life.

If you’ve sinned, come forward…

As I moved forward from that moment, I learned that what I had with Alice was about friendship.  It was about a soul-connection.  It was about love.  Isn’t that what we all want?   Love?  Love is not a respecter of gender.  That’s not what it’s about.  It wasn’t even co-dependence.  That’s the word used for relationships regarded as unhealthy and unnatural.  What’s more human and more natural than love?  We love our friends, don’t we?  Some friendships happen to grow in to a deeper love.  Twenty years after that incident I was able to recognize that I was in love.  What other force makes you crazy about a person, feel alive, think about them, want to spend every moment with them, want to share your heart, your fears, your excitement?  Tenderness, enjoyment, connection, understanding, romance.  My religious leaders said I was co-dependent, confused, unnatural, lesbian, wrong.  Those words support a very specific set of morals that disallow any deviation from their own rules.  Those words in fact, reject love and truth so they may impose their own standard. 

I don’t regret that I had this relationship; not for one second.  I’m thankful for it.  What I resent, is that a group of people thought it was their right to end it.  People who had nothing to do with the relationship, were not even a component of it, and quite frankly, of whom it was none of their damn business.  I was quite literally told who I was and wasn’t allowed to be a friend with; who I was and wasn’t allowed to love.  Physical measures were taken to enforce their singular decision on my behalf.  Once I walked out of that interrogation room, Alice and I were never to talk to or see each other again.  And we really never have.  I never got to hear her side of the story and the friend I loved was gone from my life.

Take away the religious system and its enforcers, and what is left are just two people finding love, and I daresay, on my behalf, falling in love.  I only just had this revelation.  I’ve had three “relationships” in my life:  Alice, a short-lived courtship, and my husband.  All of them started out as strong friendships, because that is what I personally value.  There are only two of those relationships for which I can say I experienced those butterflies that one does when they fall in love.  I felt that way with my husband, and I felt that way with Alice.  Alice and I didn’t get very far, however, because we never “broke-up”; someone else did that for us.  I will never know how far it would have gone or how long it would have lasted, but it was genuine and it was very dear to me.  Ironically, where my relationship with Alice was called off by a group of leaders, the courtship I experienced was artificially created by that same group.  That too was not called off by me, but by the young man, and at least he was an actual member of the relationship.  My relationship, thankfully, with my husband, was begun by me, without a single representative or shred of input from the outside sources that had commanded my life up until that point.  Even though the familiar convention did its best to thwart us at the start, this relationship will happily continue!  I thank God for my husband and I love him and the life we share.  Most likely, if my life had not unfolded the way it did, I never would have met him.  In addition, I am also grateful to learn that for me, gender does not dictate love.  Love is about the person with whom I connect, and I consider myself fortunate to have this capacity.

Looking back over my teenage and young adult life, I lived in submission to an organization that counseled strongly concerning relationships with the opposite sex. The feminine was largely held responsible where male temptation was concerned, resulting in much negativity and anxiety about attraction to and otherwise infatuation with members of the opposite sex.  No such thing as dating.  Friends only, or marriage.  No legitimate in-between.  What the hell were we supposed to do with that?!  So if a girl found herself in the regrettable situation of a crush, those feelings were to be quickly conquered and/or given over to God.  But for the love of our religious practice and all that his holy, don’t act on them!  And by the way, go home and change your clothes because you dress like a slut, and the men can’t handle it.  To be fair, the word “slut” was avoided and replaced with nicer things like Jezebel. I do not digress.  Obviously, if we’re not allowed to chase after and otherwise entrap boys with our feminine charm, then doesn’t one just give up and become a lesbian?  Apparently, that well-plotted revenge didn’t work either.