How to become an anchoritic courtesan, part two

You are fascinated by religion from a very young age.  Your parents do not go to church, or say grace or do anything religious at home, but your mother insists that you go to church, first with your older sister to the Lutheran church where she was confirmed, and later to the little Episcopal church only a block up the street.  Your mother is full of stories of the days when she used to sing in the choir of a church very like yours, and she comes to every church supper and bazaar although not to the services.

The beauty of church, the silk vestments, the candles and incense, the language of the Prayerbook, the music of the hymns, makes a deep impression on you, one that will last a lifetime.  When you discover a Bible at home, not a child’s Bible with a few words and many pictures but a proper Revised Standard Version, you read it with the same curiosity you bring to books about Hinduism and Greek mythology and ancient Egypt and the Mayas.  And you discover in it more poetry, more memorable language–language that makes your face grow hot, makes you shift guiltily in your seat, the kind of language that you never expected to find in The Bible.

O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!
For your love is better than wine….

As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
He brought me to the banqueting house,
and his banner over me was love.

How graceful are your feet in sandals,
O queenly maiden!
Your rounded thighs are like jewels,
the work of a master hand.
Your navel is a rounded bowl
that never lacks mixed wine.
Your belly is a heap of wheat,
encircled with lilies.
Your two breasts are like two fawns,
twins of a gazelle.

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
jealousy is cruel as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.

The word “erotic” is not yet in your vocabulary, nor do you connect these shocking words with the paintings of a blond-haired, blue-eyed, half-naked Jesus in your child’s Bible, Jesus being baptized, Jesus on the cross, his muscular arms and chest and belly exposed, and the curious feelings those pictures evoke from you, the sense that there is maybe something vaguely wrong with those feelings.

The connection comes a few years later, as you listen to one of the seven Good Friday sermons your rector offers, on the Seven Last Words of Christ.  What dear old Father F. said then fades from your memory, but not your reaction: The thought that Jesus could be like your boyfriend.  You are only twelve or thirteen, and the notion of “boyfriend” barely has any sexual ideas attached, yet the thrill is there, the same thrill that attended your discovery of the Song of Solomon, the erotic secret hidden in the heart of the Scriptures.  The connection between the erotic and the spiritual has been made, and it will never go away.

Add a comment December 2, 2009

How to become an Anchoritic Courtesan, part one

You know as a little girl, in kindergarten, in first grade, that you have feelings in your body that don’t have a name.  Your grandmother calls the place between your legs, the place where some of those feelings live, your suzie.  That is not your name for it, but you don’t have another one.

Once when your mother sees you scratching between your legs, because it’s itchy, she says, “Soap and water will cure that, you know.”  “It itches,” you respond, indignant.  Her words and your indignation will stay with you for four decades.

Like many children,you have an imaginary friend.  His name is Jim, and he has brown hair and brown eyes.  He is quiet and serious, doesn’t talk much, and lets you lead the way on the adventures you have together in places only you can see.

Your friends are mostly boys, although you are not a tomboy.  You don’t think of yourself as being different from other girls, it’s just that the boys like Batman and Star Trek and Lost in Space, just like you.  You also like some, though not all of the boys in ways that have to do with those feelings you don’t have a name for.  There is one boy in particular in first grade that you think about a lot away from school, when you are falling asleep.  Later, you will watch the blond boy and the Chinese boy who are friends, always side by side, and think how handsome they are and have a crush on them both at the same time, together.

It takes a while for you to wonder if you do have feelings that other girls don’t have, that women don’t have.  You already know that you are different from the average; you’ve been advanced from first grade to second, and you’re in the third grade reading group.  It’s not the last time you’ll be allowed to jump ahead in school and then wonder where you are in the rest of your life.

Add a comment November 18, 2009