Chapter 10
This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
—John 15:12
Charles is hard to shake when Prayer Meeting ends. I think he’s expecting me to feel vulnerable, or weepy, or something. But I don’t. I feel an odd mixture of happiness, wonder, and—yes—humility. Charles starts in the direction of our room, expecting me to go with him, I guess, because when I hang back he looks at me.
“You aren’t ready to go back?” I shake my head. “Shall we go to the chapel and pray together?” I smile and shake my head. “Do you want to go to the library?”
Hmm…that might work. But before I can decide he asks, “Do you want to be alone?” That’s it. Nod. “Okay. Are you going to the room?” I shake my head; I don’t want him going someplace like the library and come back to the empty room before my circle meeting is over to find that I’m not there.
He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. “I understand. I’ll see you later, then.” He starts to turn away, but then, almost panicky, he looks at me again. “You’re not going to the chapel alone, are you?”
Is he worried I’ll pull a Ray on him? I smile and shake my head. I feel almost guilty; he’s trying to be so accommodating, and I’m trying to escape to a secret meeting I can’t tell him about. I hug my Bible to my chest, lower my head like I’m deep in thought, and walk slowly along the hall, doing my best to look contemplative but not inviting. Nate walks by without acknowledging me in any way, and I follow, doing my best not to attract attention.
This seems to work, because by the time I start down the hallway that leads to the laundry room, there’s no one in sight. Except Nate, who’s waiting for me at the door. We go in, and like last time, he takes the key and locks the door from the inside, then goes with me to the corner where there are five kids sitting on the floor.
He says, “Anyone else coming that we know of?”
Jessica—Jessica!—says no. I look around the semicircle, which is how they’re arranged on the floor, to see who else is here. Jessica is on my left, and next to her is Dawn, and then Dave. There’s another girl and one other guy I don’t recognize. The girl is holding a pad of paper and a pen out to me, so I take them. She smiles. Nate stands between me and Jessica.
His tones hushed, he says, “Taylor, you know Jessica, Dawn, and Dave already. This is Danielle, and this is Jamie. There are only two other members. I’m sure you’ll meet them soon.”
I start scrawling immediately. “Are you Charles’s Danielle?” I hold it toward the girl who’d given me the pad and pen.
She smiles. “In a way, I guess. I know what you mean.”
Nate sits on my left and pulls me to the floor with him, so Jamie is on my right. “Taylor, is there anything you want to write about why you’re in SafeZone again?”
I think for a minute. Then I write, “Is there anything you need to know that you don’t?”
Nate turns to the group. “For those of you who aren’t in our prayer group, Taylor made a public apology last night, introducing his points with scriptural references. And, it seems, we are not the only ones to have recognized his leadership potential.” He looks at me. “Taylor, am I right in assuming Mrs. Harnett thought you’d overextended yourself?”
I nod and write, “Too bold. Need to be harnessed.”
A few kids chuckle. Dawn looks disgusted, and I love her for it. I smile at her, and then I notice she’s holding hands with Jessica. Ah. So. Who else is gay, I wonder? Or, who isn’t? Before I can dwell on this question, Nate opens the meeting.
“Welcome to the circle, Taylor. You’ve accepted a sacred trust in joining. It means you must maintain total secrecy about the group and who its members are. Do you understand this?” Nod. “Do you agree to undertake this trust?” Nod twice. “Does anyone here have any questions for Taylor, or want to express any concerns?”
To Nate, Dave says, “What about Charles?”
“What about him?”
“He watched Ray like a hawk. What if Taylor can’t manage him?”
Nate turns to me. “Taylor, we all know lying is a sin. But if you had to, could you lie to Charles to maintain the circle’s secrecy?”
Nod. I write, “I had to do that already. I hated doing it, but it was necessary.”
“What do you think Charles would do if he found out about us?”
I write, “Not sure. Our room was tossed this afternoon, and I wrote to him so we could talk about it. He let me destroy the paper, as long as I did it out of his sight.”
There’s a silence so big I almost fall into it. Then Nate says, “Your room was searched?” Nod. “Do you think they found anything?”
Shake. I write, “Nothing to find.” I hold it up and look right at Nate’s face.
Nate asks, “Do you think they expected to find anything?”
Well, if he needed to ask that, then no; he would have been their source of information. I shake my head and write, “I think it was supposed to be a humbling experience.”
A few kids are nodding; I’m glad this makes sense to them, too.
“Okay,” Nate says, “so Charles is willing to bend a little. But do you think knowing about this group would be too much for him?”
I think for a second and then nod.
Nate looks around the circle. “Let all of us be alert. If Taylor needs help with Charles, we’ll do what we can.” And to me, “Taylor, we’ll need to rely on you for good judgment. If you’re planning to come to a meeting and it will make him too suspicious, you may need to sacrifice attending for the good of the group. Are you willing to do that?”
I nod, and then I write, “I understand how serious it is.”
Nate looks at Dave. “Any other concerns?” Dave shakes his head. “Anyone else?” No stones are cast. “Very well. Then let’s begin the meeting.”
There’s quiet while everyone seems to focus. Finally Nate speaks again.
“What must not fail?”
In unison, they say, “Understanding that the path to God is love.”
Nate asks, “Where must we start?”
In unison again, “From where we are and from who we are.”
“What must we do?”
In unison: “Establish and maintain loving connection in everything we do.”
Then Nate says, “This must seem like a church service to you, Taylor. In fact, it is a church service. After Jesus died, people would meet in small groups, in secret places, to talk about what he’d said and what it meant to their lives. That’s what we’re doing.”
He looks at the group. “Does anyone have a struggle they want to bring to the circle?”
“Yeah, I do,” Dawn says. “I don’t like that Taylor was put into SafeZone again. He was a terrific example last night of exactly what we should be doing, and he gets slapped down because he was brave enough to do it. I’m struggling to feel love through that. I’m angry.”
I smile at her; thanks.
Nate says, “Taylor, are you angry?”
I blink. Am I? I write, “I was.”
“And now?”
I write, “I guess it’s changed. The way everyone acted tonight, I felt love there. Anger faded.”
“So what do you feel now?”
I look at Nate, and I look at Dawn. I write, “Humble.” It surprises me.
“Do you feel love?” Nod. “Giving, or getting?”
I write, “Both.”
Nate looks at Dawn. “Does that help you at all?”
“It will. I need to let it set a while.”
Nate says, “Anyone else?” Silence. Then, “I have a topic tonight that Taylor will be able to get his teeth into. Is everyone okay with that, or does anyone have something they really need to suggest?” No one says anything, so he goes on. “Great. Here it is. Lots of times we hear someone say that because Jesus never said anything about homosexual love, it’s not the sin that Moses a
nd St. Paul would have us believe. Let’s look at it from the other viewpoint: Why didn’t Jesus say anything about it? If he knew everything God knows, why didn’t he mention it in some other way either?”
Well, this is heavy stuff. No one speaks for a minute, and then Jamie says, “Well, first of all, I believe God is in all of us, really. Jesus was enlightened, and maybe he knew everything God knows and I don’t, but God is in all of us.”
Nate responds, “Great job pinpointing that assumption. What other assumptions are in what I just said?”
Assumptions?
Jessica goes next. “You’re assuming that everything Jesus said is in the New Testament. But there were lots of other writings.”
Dave: “You’re assuming that what’s in the New Testament is correct and complete, when we know lots of stuff has been changed since the originals were written down.”
I write, “You’re assuming it’s not a sin.”
Nate grabs my pad and holds it up. “Do you see what Taylor has written? You’re all right. Those are all assumptions. But look at this one.” He turns the pad slowly so they can all see it. “Is it a sin?”
“No,” from Jamie and Dawn simultaneously.
Dave asks, “What is sin?”
Jessica: “It’s the opposite of loving connection. Anything that stops love or makes it difficult to love.”
Nate gives me the pad back and says, “It means missing the mark, literally. And what’s our mark?”
Two or three voices at once say, “That which must not fail.”
“So,” Nate continues, “sin is anything that prevents us from getting to God, and we believe that path is love. Or sin could be something we do that prevents someone else from loving, which really prevents both parties. And do we always know what that is?” Silence. “Did Mrs. Harnett sin when she put Taylor back into SafeZone? She made him angry, which made him and others like Dawn struggle with love, but then he found even more. Did she know that would happen? If she did, was it not sin? And if she didn’t, was it sin?”
Danielle has been very quiet, but here she says, “She thought she was doing it out of love.”
Nate looks around the group. “It can be pretty difficult to tell sin, can’t it? We know that Leviticus declares it would be sin for us to wear clothing with mixed fibers or to plant different kinds of plants together. And we eat things the ancient laws say we shouldn’t, and Danielle’s father could have sold her as a slave to someone from Canada because she’s a girl and Canada is a different nation from ours. Today, we’d think that was sin, wouldn’t we?”
Everyone agrees with that, of course. Jamie is persistent. “Homosexuality is not a sin.”
Nate: “If you had lived two thousand years ago and you’d refused to marry a woman and have kids because you’re gay, Danielle’s children would have to take care of you when you got old. No pension plans. No social security. No retirement homes. Would she love you for that? Would her kids? Or would you be endangering the community by setting that example? If seven percent or more of the people in a community deliberately didn’t have kids, what then?”
Dawn says, “Then why didn’t Jesus say anything about it?”
Jamie: “Because it isn’t a sin.”
Nate: “What could Jesus say? Even if God loves gays, and even if Jesus knew that, if he’d said it to people two thousand years ago they would have thought he was crazy, because it would have made no sense given where they were. Given what their lives were like. Jamie said a minute ago that he’s not enlightened. Not many people are. Not many people were when Jesus was here, either. So he might tell them things that cut into their hearts about love, but he couldn’t say things that made no sense at all. Who were his original disciples? What did most of them do before they became disciples?”
Danielle: “They were fishermen.”
Nate: “And how many times does Jesus talk to them using fishing examples?”
I’m trying to follow this, but they’re going round and round. It’s hard to take it all in. Plus I’m not used to this kind of freedom, of being in a group where you can just say “Homosexuality is not a sin” and not have someone jump down your throat. To try and clarify things for myself, I write, “Homosexuality was a sin.”
Almost as soon as I’ve lifted my pen, Nate grabs the pad again. “Look!” he says in a hoarse whisper. “Look! This is key.” And again he holds it out and turns so everyone can read it. “Where must we start?”
Danielle says, “From where we are and from who we are.”
“Where are we, in terms of time?”
“The twenty-first century.”
“Where were we when Jesus was crucified?”
“The first century.”
Nate lowers his arms and says, “A lot of things have changed in two thousand years. Do we have retirement funds today? Will it make any difference to Danielle’s children if Taylor and Jamie live right next door to her and don’t have kids? And is that different from how things were when St. Paul was writing?”
Dave says, “That was then. This is now.”
Nate: “Exactly! Is it possible that homosexuality could reasonably have been considered sinful then because of what it would have meant to the rest of the community, whereas today things are different?”
Jessica: “It’s possible…Like the shellfish and the mixed fibers…And the slavery!”
Nate turns to me. “Taylor, did you want to come to this program?”
I shake my head vigorously.
He hands me my pad. “Why were you sent?”
I write, “Because I’m gay. They want me to change.”
To the group Nate says, “We’ve changed our minds about a lot of things that were once sacred laws because they don’t apply in our time. If people could see that homosexuality was a sin but isn’t any longer, would Taylor have been sent here?”
A few voices say, “No.”
“Would Ray have died like that?”
“No.”
“Would there be less hate in the world, and more love?”
“Yes!”
“What must we do?”
“Establish and maintain loving connection in everything we do.”
“Why? What must not fail?”
“Understanding that the path to God is love.”
Nate takes my pad and pen and sets them down, and then he takes my hand and Jessica’s. All around the circle, kids take each other’s hands, and they bow their heads. So I do, too.
There’s no sound. No words.
I’ve never felt anything like this in my life. There’s something like an electric current passing around the circle through our hands, and we are one. All one person. Some gay, some not; some boys, some girls; some forceful like Dawn, and some gentle like Danielle; some obstinate like Jamie, and some brilliant like Nate; all one. And that great feeling I’d had on Monday night after Charles had begged forgiveness? That was real, but it was only a shadow of this.
We can’t stay any longer and still get back to our rooms in time, but what a high to leave on. They decide the next meeting isn’t until Sunday night, and it makes me sad to think that maybe not all these same kids will be there. Maybe I won’t even be there.
Nate walks with me to the door, his arm around my shoulders. “Taylor, I can’t promise that every meeting will be like this one. I’ve been saving that topic for a special occasion, and you were it. Mostly we get high on the chance to be open about God, like they did in the first century. In secret meetings. Outside the rule book, outside the program. And that’s a great high, too.” He slaps my back. “I’ll, uh, deal with the paper you used tonight, by the way.”
I smile and nod; thanks.
Everyone is leaving one at a time, silently. Nate hangs back, I suppose to lock the door, and I head back alone toward my room. As I round a corner I see Danielle not far ahead of me, so I slow down; it would be better not to overtake her. She turns to look around her, sees me, waves, and moves on.
And I see th
at she’s pregnant.
Charles is at his desk, hunched over a pad of paper. Writing a letter, it looks like. And for the first time I remember that I’m allowed to write home once a week. Maybe this weekend; I haven’t been here quite a week yet, after all, impossible though that seems.
He can’t ask me where I’ve been—or, he can’t expect an answer—so we just nod at each other. It looks as though he’s trying to shield whatever he’s writing so I won’t see what it is. What do I care? I practically throw myself on my bed and lean against the wall, hands behind my head, and watch my roommate. Charles the honest. Charles the true. Charles the tender. Imagine him always asking Danielle to accompany him, and she’s pregnant. And not by him.
This has been one of the two most amazing evenings of my life, and I can’t talk about it. The other, of course, was the first time I was with Will. Come to think of it, I didn’t do much talking about that one, either.
I can’t talk, but I can feel. And the thing that makes both that evening and this one so wonderful is love.
Chapter 11
Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all miracle workers? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with various languages? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the best gifts. Moreover, I show a most excellent way to you.
—Corinthians 12:29
The next time I get a chance to talk is during my noon meeting with Harnett. She’s got my third MI, which has almost nothing in it. Just that I was angry about being in SafeZone and about having my room searched. I have no idea whether she’s planning to take the sticker off or make me do more time, and I’m in a strange mood ’cause it looked like there might just maybe have been someone Nate talked to at break today, but I couldn’t be sure.
I shut the door and sit when she says to. Then she says, “Have you spoken since our meeting yesterday?” I shake my head. “Were you tempted?”
Was I? Sure, I was angry when I realized I couldn’t speak at the circle, but that’s different. Finally I shrug; it’s a compromise.
Thinking Straight Page 20
