I went to the park the other day with Allie like I do most days. I was having a phone conversation when I arrived so I sat on the ground a ways away from the picnic table where the others were sitting. There is a girl that frequents the park with her puppy, and every time the group sees her, they groan and disperse to try and avoid her. You see, she’s young and insecure and tries to overcompensate by talking. This girl, I’ll call her Stephanie, came and sat by me on the ground. Immediately she started talking about this and that. I looked at her and something came over me. I asked “can I ask you something without offending you?” She looked nervous and nodded her head. “you’re pregnant aren’t you?” Her mouth pursed, “is it obvious?” she asked. “No”, I replied. Then she started telling me how she was going to have an abortion but her roommate stole the $400 she needed to have it done in the first trimester, but now she was going to have to drive to Georgia to have it done since she’s in her second trimester and no one will do it in Alabama that far along. I told her that I had always believed in a woman’s right to choose, much to the dismay of my friends. And the weirdest thing happened: right after I said it, I had the most intense desire to be pregnant- to have a baby growing inside me. I swear for second I could feel what it was like. For anyone who knows me, you know that this is quite a departure from my usual sentiments about pregnancy. I shook my head as if to shake the thought and continued our conversation until it was time to go.
A couple years ago, I was spending time with a girlfriend of mine who’d become very intimate with her boyfriend of a few months. She was very excited about the relationship; the two had even talked of marriage. The girl, a virgin, began delving into some of the physical aspects of their relationship as we were walking around shopping. Although she claimed to have never had intercourse with this young man, I could see where the relationship was going. I looked at her in the face and said “I’ll be right back”. I returned a moment later and we got into the check out line. The lady began to ring up my merchandise and the girl caught site of a pack of condoms- what I had gone to retrieve. I took them out of my plastic bag and put them in her purse. “Do not take those out and don’t let him see them, but if anything happens, make him put one on”. She looked at me, slightly frustrated, slightly relieved, and smiled.
I’m pretty aware that I’m an offensive person. I have a lot of ‘unsavory’ qualities. I probably pretty rarely "do the right thing"- whatever that means. But every once in a while I feel like some of my more offensive qualities actually affect someone in a good way. Maybe a way that doesn’t look quite right, but it's honest and real and it feels right. It feels right to look at someone like the girl from the park and just listen, and not be thinking about all of the scripture verses I should be sharing with her, or how I should be trying to change her mind about having an abortion. It felt good to not try and fix her, but to give her space and trust that God really does know what he's doing.
A couple years ago, I was spending time with a girlfriend of mine who’d become very intimate with her boyfriend of a few months. She was very excited about the relationship; the two had even talked of marriage. The girl, a virgin, began delving into some of the physical aspects of their relationship as we were walking around shopping. Although she claimed to have never had intercourse with this young man, I could see where the relationship was going. I looked at her in the face and said “I’ll be right back”. I returned a moment later and we got into the check out line. The lady began to ring up my merchandise and the girl caught site of a pack of condoms- what I had gone to retrieve. I took them out of my plastic bag and put them in her purse. “Do not take those out and don’t let him see them, but if anything happens, make him put one on”. She looked at me, slightly frustrated, slightly relieved, and smiled.
I’m pretty aware that I’m an offensive person. I have a lot of ‘unsavory’ qualities. I probably pretty rarely "do the right thing"- whatever that means. But every once in a while I feel like some of my more offensive qualities actually affect someone in a good way. Maybe a way that doesn’t look quite right, but it's honest and real and it feels right. It feels right to look at someone like the girl from the park and just listen, and not be thinking about all of the scripture verses I should be sharing with her, or how I should be trying to change her mind about having an abortion. It felt good to not try and fix her, but to give her space and trust that God really does know what he's doing.
And to the other girl, some would say that I did the wrong thing, that I was promoting pre-marital sex, or even enabling it. I felt like maybe my actions enabled her to be more responsible with her sexuality, and that if they did end up having sex that she wouldn't end up pregnant or worse... but who really knows what’s right?
The thing is I could be totally wrong about all of this, and I guess I'm ok with that. But all I know for now is: every once in a while it feels ok to be in this dirty skin of mine.
Highlights for me: Monkey, Perfect Blue Buildings, Long December, and Mr. Jones (which they did slowly like on Storytellers-as an encore).
