Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer
It’s 5.30 pm and the screech of Daniel’s van tyres roll around the corner up to my drive. I’ve been getting ready for the past half hour, and feeling pretty happy with what I’m wearing. A modern skirt, a floral top with the buttons high up my chest and my favourite pair of cherry doc martins that make me feel slightly alternative but still feminine. I have my hair half-up and half-down with a little bit of fringe showing. I’m barely wearing makeup but it feels good to have a reason to dress up. The only thing bugging me is that I’m sitting with that same gnawing feeling as last week. I haven’t done my homework, and I’m hoping I don’t asked any questions.
This is briefly forgotten as Daniel, freckly, gangly and dressed in a non-brand name t-shirt and shorts bounds into the house with an air of familiarity and starts chatting about computers with my younger brother. Dan and Leon have always had plenty in common. Leon has even joined Dan’s university Ultimate Frisbee team, but he’s still a bit too young to come along with us tonight, even though I suspect Dan wishes he could for a bit of extra male company.
Dan and I hop in his van and make general talk. Growing up together, we have the familiarity of close cousins. We chat about our part time jobs, we chat about uni and we talk about the songs we’ve been listening to on the radio. Dan started learning guitar about a year before and he’s become pretty good. Sometimes when he is practicing chords we try out a few songs together. Lately we’ve been working on “More than Words” by Extreme and we think we are on our way. We have the harmonies ok, the tender quieter parts and we (well I) know how to belt out the really intense chorus with feeling. (“That III already knowww”) If we keep learning more songs- who knows where it could lead? Probably singing in front of a group near a campfire. That would be cool.
25 minutes and a few heartfelt renditions later, we pull into the massive carpark of our Saturday night destination. Other young people – university age and older are starting to file in, stopping outside for light conversation and gabbling as teens do. A few of us are in couples – not many though. Most of us are single.
Dan and I pretty much separate as soon as we arrive. We aren’t a couple. And that needs to stay clear. He goes off and finds a group of guys chatting and catching up, equally gangly as him. As for me, I start to seek out the small group of girls that I know will chat with me for the night. I stay close, so I make sure to have some people to sit with.
Sitting down now, the church hasn’t made any change to it’s layout to accommodate the weekly young adults meeting. We are in pews, and there isn’t much of an attempt to make the environment inviting to young people. Still, we are here. I make sure as I look around that I am one hundred percent surrounded by girls. There is no way I want to be seen to be sitting near a boy. Not next to me, not in front of me or behind me or at any cross-angle that could be interpreted that I have strategically positioned myself near the opposite sex. I want to attract absolutely no attention whatsoever. So far, so good for tonight.
The girls on either side of me are dressed in a similar way. Perhaps our collective style could be considered ‘the practical, modest teens of the 90’s’. We are holding similar bibles with our modern well-worn covers filled with notes, lining and evidence of previous journaling. There is no way that you want to have a squeaky clean bible in this setting. Bibles should be well-thumbed through, have underlining, highlighting and notes in margins. A new bible? That is cause for a good five minute conversation about which one we chose, why we chose it, who gave it to us, why we love it and so on. We all know that we’ve chosen The New King James Version though. Choosing anything else would be a dilution of the true word. We have our notebooks, our pens, our notes from last week, and our homework.
Casting glances beside me, I try to assess the depth to the level of commitment my peers have given to last week’s assignment. Did they do dot points? Did they write in essay form? Did they answer each question with a good meaty paragraph, considered, precise but not too indulgent? It was hard to tell. They weren’t giving over much, but I suspected that everyone had done their homework in the room in some form of earnest commitment to God that I probably didn’t have. I scanned over last week’s questions and looked at the scribbled pen notes I’d made underneath them less than two hours earlier. I started mentally preparing the life-relevant points I would have to make during our sharing time.
The band hadn’t started yet, and I looked over at Chelsea, one of our leader’s daughters who is the same age as me. She is sitting gracefully with a couple of friends, her clothes framing her petite figure beautifully, her modest demeanour naturally attracting admiration from boys. Not withstanding her status already elevated as a leader’s daughter and the pressure that must accompany that title, she wears the role with grace, and is truly a girl-next-door beauty worth admiring for her talents and intellect. Friendliness aside, I know we’ll never be great friends. Tainted previously from a couple of falls from grace in my earlier teen years, I still carry a quiet reputation. I can arouse suspicion of my motives in seconds. A furtive glance, eye contact held a little too long, a conversation with a little too much smile. It’s not worth it, to be accepted here is to understand this and accept my place.
The music strikes up, and the youth leader with his thick black beard and black-rimmed glasses takes to the microphone. His name is Dave. Dave is a far too casual and too friendly a name for a man of Dave’s intensity. He can’t be that old, early thirties at best. And as he welcomes the group and starts the first song, his eyes move around the room, taking in each young person there. Assessing the earnestness of our singing, clocking the choice of our clothes. Analyzing the state of our souls.
Usually I don’t mind joining in song. In fact it is the one true enjoyment that growing up in a strict church has afforded me all these years until university age. I hold my melody well, be sure to manage my volume as to not stand out, and add little harmony inflections to demonstrate my devotion and earnestness. But Dave’s eyes, his intense stare is difficult to avoid. I try my best to keep check on where he is looking while simultaneously being ready to appear earnest and devoted in my singing. The worst thing that could happen is that our eyes could meet. If they do, and on previous Saturday nights they have, I know exactly what his cold, hard look means when delivered to me. It means he sees my soul, and that God thinks that my soul is pretty much shit. And my soul is shit because I live like a sinful, unworthy young woman. And I live like a sinful unworthy young woman, because that’s who I am and who my family is, and it is plain to see, and Dave thinks I should know it. So he tells me with his eyes.
And why does Dave know this? In short, Dave knows this because God has deemed our relatively small Australia–wide Christian movement of maybe five thousand people to have a special ‘dispensation’ from God through our leaders who can show the true way of living as Christians. This is why we have been blessed to sing our own unique songs written by Chelsea’s Dad (a composer) among others and why our leaders have been blessed with the direct word of God to write in their own dissertations to pass down to their congregation. David has had a few of his own dispensations that have resulted in dissertations. The last one, which was the subject of last week’s assignment, I remember now, sits uncompleted in my Bible cover.
The mood of the music has now transitioned from an optimistic call to gather and worship, to one of an earnest and solemn reflection of our hearts. Our voices are lower and quieter as we start to assess our internal state of affairs. Have I sinned against you lately God? Am I all you want me to be? Can I ever be worthy of your love? Head bowed, I answer within myself, Yes, No, No. Around me are the murmurs of young people speaking in tongues, indecipherably in admission of their wrongs, seeking forgiveness, listening for some kind of affirmation that can come only from God – or someone who has the authority to speak as if God speaks through him.
Dave sees his chance “Lord Heavenly Father, you are so great. You are so great and we are so unworthy of your love.” “Yes Lord” We young people nod our heads and murmur. 20 minutes of verbal prostration passes. God, presumably exhausted by our sorrowful admissions of doing ‘something’ wrong finally speaks through Dave who lets us all sit down. God has said what he needs to say through song. But he’s not finished yet with us through Dave’s sermon.
While Dave delivers his sermon to us with remarkably similar themes to what God had to say to us during worship time, I glance over at Dave’s wife, Naylene. Naylene is plain. Plainer than an averagely plain woman because it is clear that she had taken quite a bit of care to become as plain as she actually is. She has made sure to not die her hair or fashion it into anything that could be considered distracting. She has made sure to select her palate in pleasant, but subtle tones. Almost no flesh shows on her chest or legs. I start to wonder whether she’s self-conscious about her feminine figure. I settle on the probability that her look is part and parcel with being acceptable as a youth pastor’s wife. Looking around the room. Naylene is one of 4 young married women who have modeled of purity and devotion, considered eligible to marry. These ladies might be my peers one day, should I ever get married. Should I ever be approved to date a boy.
Considering this prospect of dating, I maintain my earnest listening face, and flick to the passage of the bible as Dave instructs us to do so. I start a mental calculation of the boys in Young Adults in Brisbane around my age, and begin to narrow down those who may or may not be allowed to date me in the future. How long in the future? I’ve only very recently reformed myself from a bout of high school rebellion of an on and off again relationship with a gorgeous Seventh Day Adventist Samoan boy. 9 months of reformation versus 2 years of guilty sexual transgression. My maths calculated I’d be waiting to date for at least 4 years, and that the majority of my peers would be allowed first. My reforming was going to take a while.
Eliminating the sweet guys, the older guys the boys who lived in other regions. (Could I date someone from Toowoomba?) I reduced the number of suitable prospects throughout the sermon. Dave had by now cleverly tied in last week’s assignment to the current sermon and was asking different young adults to provide the answers. I was so distracted with my calculation by then, that I could only hope he wasn’t going to select me this time. Just as Dave made his final point, and asked us to stand to worship God and really say sorry properly to God this time, I realized I only had one true candidate for marriage. It would have to be someone in this room – that was no question – and it was very likely going to have to be Daniel.
Poor Daniel. He had to already bear the brunt of being the guy who grew up with me. His embarrassed looks when mentioning my hot Samoan ex-boyfriend were enough to know there could never be a physical attraction. He would always have to carry the stigma of the tainted girl should we be arranged to marry. I couldn’t do it to the guy. Or myself. For the first time that night, I imagined what it would be like when I inevitably became a mother.
I imagined my future daughter. She’d be spirited like me I’m sure. Brimming with enthusiasm. I bet she’ll be creative too. I bet she’ll want to be an actress and do drama and sing and dance. I bet she will want to travel too. I bet she’ll want to spend a good deal of her life living overseas, soaking up experiences, living life. She might be interested in social justice. She might even want to be a Baptist.
Imagining my beautiful daughter, I started to imagine myself as a mother. All things going well, all things become accepted and being allowed to marry, I would be like Naylene. I stole another look at Naylene. Standing in her pew, centre front, full view of her husband. She was completely accepting of her role as wife, submitted fully to her husband and her female elders and bearer of the next generation of our church family. Naylene wasn’t going to live overseas and have an exotic life. Naylene wasn’t going to audition for acting school.
Returning my thoughts to my daughter-to-be, I made my decision. I didn’t want her life filled with Naylenes. She doesn’t deserve a life filled with the judgment of God handed down by Dave and the future Daves to come. There are far more enjoyable ways to spend a Saturday night as an 18 year old than being morally berated in a church service. I briefly acknowledged the cost of the decision I was making, which I was always aware of. For her freedom, I will be cut off. For her future choices, I will lose the contact of peers and families that I had grown up with my whole life. For the sake of her freedom, and mine, I’ll shame my immediate family, who will be unfairly question and kept at distance once it is realized my family won’t be shunning me too.
don’t have to think too much about the costs. They’ve always hovered nearby me. I doubt anyone will be surprised that I’m the one who will have turned out to be ‘fallen’. I move through the social part of the evening in banal conversation and stuff a couple of pieces of Woolworths cake into my mouth before Dan and I slam his van doors and warm up the engine for the drive home. We try another couple harmonies of More Than Words and I know it’s not just me- we sound pretty good. Dan jokes that we should try out the song at our next Young Adults Camp Retreat. I give him a smile, but don’t answer him. As his van pulls out of my drive I think how great it has been to have a friend like Daniel and try to imagine what my next months’ worth of Saturday nights could look like and who I might spend them with. I can’t. It’s blank. It will be up to me to figure that out. And that’s a really, really good thing.
