God and Girl–Chapter 17

God and Girl is my first novel, written in 2015. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

After several weeks of prodding and pushing from Dad, I finally agreed to meet with a counselor.  I didn’t want to, but I was tired of Dad’s insistence at every turn.

I just walked out of Dr. Mathison’s office.  Mom was waiting for me in the reception area.  I told her, I just mouthed the words to her, that I would never come back here.

On our long drive home, Mom didn’t say or ask anything about my counseling session.  And, I didn’t offer anything other than to say that “Dr. Mathison is a complete jerk.  He is a know-it-all and makes you feel like you are an idiot and a lost Christian.  He is a talking head, mouthing Dad’s archaic language.”

Dr. Mathison is supposed to be a psychologist and Christian counselor, top in his field.  Looking at his ego wall in his office before he came in, I noticed that he had degrees from Yale, Duke, and Regent Universities.  He obtained his doctorate from Regent.

He had been evasive in his responses to my questions—of course I knew he was the one who would ask most of the questions. In frustration, I had finally told him that I believed in evolution, most of the Bible, and that if I had to bet, that homosexuality is genetic.  He questioned why I felt this way and his response was basically that you cannot believe everything you read, and that science and religion were in many respects in conflict and that science and the science community was losing its way because of the many atheistic scientists.  He said all science comes from the Bible.  His prescription for me was to keep a journal of my feelings and actions related to my homosexuality, and to spend time daily reading and studying the Bible and praying.

We stopped just outside Birmingham and ate dinner.  It was nearly 7:00 when we arrived home.  Dad was waiting on us in the den, obviously wanting to chat.  I went straight to my room.  I so wanted to be with Ellen, but tomorrow is a school day, so I’ll have to be satisfied with talking to her on the phone.

I turned on Pandora and my Adele station, and lay across my bed.  My thoughts were popping in and out of my head totally at random.  I got up and sat at my desk and took out my notepad.

Degrees, degrees,

all over his wall.

Yale, Duke, Regent,

He went, he studied, he earned degrees and more degrees.

All the reading,

All the writing,

All the lectures,

All the cramming,

All the testing,

All the experience,

Degrees, degrees.

All he could do to help me,

(do I need help?)

Read and study the Bible.

And pray.”

Okay, I hold my Bible.

Let’s read Genesis.

There’s Adam and Eve,

Just came out of nowhere,

Oh sorry, God created them,

Did he also create Lucy?

Did he create the Neanderthals?

Did he create Naledi?

If Genesis has it wrong,

what about the Gospels?

Seems Dad and Dr. M and 

Millions of other Bible literalists

Find all my questions irrelevant, Damning heresy.

No wonder I need counseling.

The world, at least most of my world,

is deaf, dumb, and blind,

But I probably am too,

In one or more, maybe many, ways,

But, at least I am committed to the truth,

Finding the truth,

Not burying my head in the sand,

And buying a story or stories,

That seem to be collapsing.

But Dad and his ilk

Will believe the Bible 

No matter if Jesus was found,

Dead.

Of course, to them, it wouldn’t be Jesus,

Not their Jesus, or He would just be sleeping.

Evidence is Satan’s production,

Faith isn’t natural,

It’s supernatural,

And therefore, cannot be tested by science.

Always, the Creationist’s best argument.

Is it wrong to ask questions?

No, it is the only way to learn.

God, if you are there, here, everywhere,

Why not speak to me?

Why not show yourself to me?

at least in a cloud, in the rain,

In a storm, in a rainbow.

Oh yes, I can hear it now,

‘God is speaking to you, but you cannot hear,

You are letting your sinful lifestyle deafen you.’

And the Bible says,

‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for,

the evidence of things not seen.’ 

Oh, sorry, I forgot.

You are making yourself known, really known,

was limited to Bible story days.

I was just about to call Ellen when my cell vibrated.  I didn’t recognize the number but answered anyway.  It was Erin from our youth group.  

“Ruthie, this is Erin Chandler.  I’m in your youth group at church.”

“Erin, I think I know who you are.  What’s up?”  I said.

“I really need someone to talk to and didn’t know who to call.  I don’t want to talk to my parents right now.  I thought of you.” Erin said.

“I can talk with you if you want. When?” I said.

“How about tomorrow after school?  We could meet at the gym and sit up in the bleachers away from everybody.  Okay?”  Erin said.

“How about at 3:00 tomorrow?  I’ll be waiting just inside the front door at the high school gym.”  I said.

“Sounds good.  Thanks, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”  Erin said and hung up.

I was puzzled.  What would Erin need to talk about, and why me?  Erin is in the sixth grade, a quiet, polite young lady.  She has never given any signs that she is a trouble-maker.  As far as I know, she comes from a good family and home.  Her parents are very active in church, our church.  

I finally lay down and went to sleep.  The next day was normal.  We had a substitute teacher in History and watched a movie about some war between Turkey and Spain back in the 15th century.  Ellen and I sat in the back of the room and exchanged notes.  It’s great to be able to draft romance poems out of thin air, short though they be. One of the ones I gave Ellen I had borrowed from Tyler Gregson, a haiku,

‘You will never feel.

Not for a single moment.

That I don’t love you.’

Ellen loved it. But one of hers to me was even better, because she wrote it. It was a spin off Gregson’s, even though she kind of botched the 5, 7, 5 syllable requirements:

“You will always feel.

In every single moment

now and always

That I love you.”

The movie ended, and the bell rang, too soon, much too soon, for both.

Could there be any possible way that I could have a better life and world than the one I have with my wonderful, adorable Ellen?  ‘If loving you is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.’ I seem to remember Mr. Ingram’s song was about a married man falling in love with a single lady. But, that’s not important to my thought, other than I sure am glad I’m not married to someone else.  Ha.  

Erin was waiting on me when I walked in the gym.  We walked inside and up, way up, into the bleachers and sat down.

“Thanks for meeting me.  I have a problem.  I told Jimmy I would go with him to the school dance next Friday night, but I don’t really like him, and I told him I would go because I believed no one else would ask me.  But, Stan asked me yesterday afternoon right after school.  I told him I would go.  I haven’t told Jimmy yet.  I feel so bad about lying to him.  I feel like I have let God down and that I have ruined my witness here at school. What should I do?” Erin said.

And, here I was thinking Erin had gotten herself pregnant.  I guess a sixth grader can get pregnant.  And, that she was wanting an abortion and wanted me to go with her and not tell her mom, and even for me to pay for it.  Or, something bad like that.  But, her problem seems so simple, given my life.  She is revealing herself to be a wonderful Christian.  Dad would be very proud of her.

“Have you thought of just going to Jimmy and telling him the truth?  Maybe say something like, ‘Jimmy, thanks for asking me to the dance, but I have decided to go with Stan.  I’m sorry I told you I would go but I have changed my mind. Maybe next time.’” I said.

“I know that is what I should do but it seems so hard to be truthful sometimes, but I do want to do the right thing.”  Erin said.

“I suggest you go talk to Jimmy as soon as you can.  You will say the right words and you will get through this.”

“Okay Ruthie.  I really do appreciate you meeting me and giving me good advice.”  Erin said, standing up and shaking my hand. “I’ll go try to find Jimmy.”  

As Erin walked down the stairs, I said, “Erin, be sure and pray.”

When she turned and gave me a thumb up, I sat back down. I almost fell over.  Now, I was a counselor?  And now, I was advising folks to pray?  Maybe, I should have advised her to keep her first promise to Jimmy and tell Stan the truth.  Maybe, I should have told her that she should tell both Jimmy and Stan the truth and not go with either of them, not go to the dance at all, that she should leave boys along, that she would just wind up hurt or worse, believing she was pregnant or even worse, pregnant.  It seems the more I thought about it, the more I realized that even a so-called simple little situation like Erin’s isn’t so simple.  The truth is kind of hard to find.  Maybe we must discover our own truth the very best we can.

Erin was sincere in her desire to do the right thing. Had I gotten to the point I was missing points, relevant points.  All my life until Ellen, I was like Erin, thinking God and the Bible were truth, and that prayer was real and valuable.  Maybe the words from my mouth, advising Erin to pray, were an attempt by my inner but jailed thoughts and truths to make a valiant effort to escape to the light and make themselves known-real and valuable.

This time with Erin had clearly revealed to me that I was a long way from finding truth, the real thing, or even discovering my version of the truth, if it was different.  One thing I knew, this journey I was on wasn’t going to be easy.  Yet, I was determined I had no choice, whether we engage in life or simply crawl in a cave, we are pursuing truth in our own individual way.