The Shulamite

Nessa was thirteen years old when she was baptized by her handsome youth pastor in a country club swimming pool. That afternoon, she bought her very own Teen Study Bible that included bright colored articles about abstinence and honoring your parents. Nessa took it with her wherever she went, including Ruby Tuesday’s after church on Sundays. For some reason it made her father feel like he couldn’t have a beer with his meal.

Her boyfriend Stephen lived on the other side of the Internet in Oregon. He was the one who lead her to accept Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior one night after they had cyber sex in a private chatroom. Stephen loved Jesus so much, sometimes he’d cry when they talked on the phone late at night after Nessa’s parents went to bed. She didn’t care that he was so much older than her. She was really mature for her age. He was praying about whether or not to get his GED, but if that didn’t pan out, he’d keep making swords.

Shortly after being baptized, Nessa made a habit of playing Christian worship songs while lying on the floor in her bedroom, staring at the ceiling as she imagined dancing on the beach with Jesus. She loved the sound of the CD beginning to spin, and the words would push the tears out of her eyes. She would do this for hours because she wasn’t allowed to go out, and Stephen wasn’t around. Jesus was her best friend, her only friend. He wanted to give her the desires of her heart, and she wanted to give them to Him.

One night, she read Song of Solomon from the Old Testament. The introduction in her Bible said it was a love story about King Solomon and a beautiful woman, but it was really a metaphor for our relationship with Jesus. Nessa figured she should start thinking of Jesus not only as her Lord and Savior, but as her lover, too. Sometimes, she would lie in bed late at night after using up her calling card to phone Stephen, feeling a little turned on, thinking about how perfect Jesus is. He would know how to hold her, how to touch her, how to kiss her. He would say all the right things and treat her right. But then she would cry a little because she knew that Jesus loves everyone else just as much, and He would never be just hers.

It was awkward having a boyfriend who lived so far away. Nessa envied the couples holding hands on the way to class, the quick peck on the lips. When she felt alone, she would remind herself that Jesus is always with her in her heart. She would pray for freedom from a covetous spirit, for wisdom and discernment to be a good girlfriend, and one day a wife. Stephen told her they were already married in God’s eyes. That’s why it was okay that they had phone sex. Nessa was really grateful that Stephen knew so much about pleasing the Lord and doing what was right in God’s eyes.

When she masturbated thinking about Jesus, Nessa felt conflicted. Stephen was spiritually her husband, but so was Jesus. Should she feel bad? Should she tell Stephen? Was Jesus mad at her? She imagined being Mary Magdalene, sitting at His feet and listening to Him tell her everything about God the Father. She imagined His piercing blue eyes and long brown hair falling over the shoulders of His crisp, white tunic. Nessa imagined kissing His feet, then Jesus reaching down and caressing her face. She imagined Him whispering in her ear, “Come to me. My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

But then she knew it was becoming a problem when all she could think about was sex whenever the pastor preached on Sundays. Nessa’s palms would sweat as she bit her lips and tried to push the thoughts out. It was so hard not to think about sex all the time. Stephen was always talking about how excited he was to have sex with her one day, and boys at school would tell her it was so hot that she was still a virgin. Nessa had been reading Genesis over and over again because somebody was always “knowing” somebody else and women were seducing their fathers or getting raped by men from other tribes. Faith was no escape from the onslaught of careening hormones, whether they belonged to her or someone else.

Nessa told Misty, one of the leaders in her youth group, about having phone sex with Stephen. Misty was really upset and told Nessa to confess it to Jesus, but they never talked about it again after that. On a mission’s trip, Nessa was fond of her counselor Lauren, and told her about her sexual thoughts. Lauren sat and prayed with her, saying Jesus forgives her for everything. When Nessa told one of the pastors at her church about masturbating while thinking of Jesus, he said there is no condemnation under the blood of Christ, then kissed her on the mouth. She didn’t tell Stephen about that.

One night, Nessa dreamt about heaven. She sat at a farm table covered with bread, cheese, and fruit as Jesus served her wine. Out the window she could see a beautiful vineyard and sprawling green hills. She no longer felt the sinfulness of her sexuality, and she was finally with her beloved. How many nights had she asked Jesus for this? When He sat down next to her, she took His hand and turned to Him, her knee touching His.

“I know this is a dream, but can I stay?” she begged.

“No, Nessa. Your time isn’t finished.”

When she woke up, she went to the bathroom and sat down to pee, resting her chin in her hands. Nessa saw her razor sitting on the bathtub ledge and realized she would have to take heaven by force.

Written by: Natasha Akery
Photograph by: Rob Gregory

Faith

Nessa prays in the woods, without faith, without any sense of proximity to God the Father. She grew up hearing that when we don’t have words to pray, the Holy Spirit would intercede on our behalf, but she feels nothing and cannot fabricate a spiritual sensation. Sealing her prayer with Jesus’ name feels like sending email straight to a spam folder. Nessa sighs, tilting back her head and studying the canopy above. She breathes in wilderness, closing her eyes as she imagines rooting down into the earth, becoming a tree, becoming old, being still.

When she was sixteen years old, an older woman at church sat next to her and said that she had a word from the Lord for Nessa.

“God only hears the prayers of the repentant,” the woman began, smug.

Nessa felt a sense of grief and hatred. Suddenly, there was an image of a baby in her mind.

“God wants you to know you weren’t alone when you had the miscarriage,” Nessa blurted out.

The older woman’s lips parted as she stared, knuckles turning white.

“God wants you to know he heard your cries, even though you hated him.”

The woman stood up and walked away.

Nessa always knew too much about people she didn’t know at all. Youth pastors and mentors would try to convince her that it was a gift, but she found it to be a burden. It seemed rude that God would tell her other people’s secrets like a teenage gossip. What good was her gift when all it did was make people uncomfortable?

Nessa opens her eyes and unzips her backpack, pulling out dozens of journals, flipping through one or two of them and scanning her handwriting. Over a decade of prayers are scattered across these pages, prayers for other people and prayers for herself. But the most heartbreaking secret that they kept was self-hatred, the number one lesson she learned growing up an evangelical. We are sinners. We don’t have an ounce of goodness in us because we chose our will over God’s will in the Garden of Eden. When Nessa would write, “Please, speak to me, Lord,” and receive no answer, she assumed it was because of her wretchedness. There must be some sin that keeps God from hearing her prayer. There must be something wrong with her.


“Your pride keeps you from repenting of your sins,” a woman told her once in bible study, her voice seething with the sweet undertones of jealousy. “Because you have a gift, you forget that you are a sinner like everyone else.”

She tosses the journals within a ring of stones on the forest floor, and covers them with pine needles. Nessa pulls a matchbook and mini bottle of vodka from her jacket pocket, spilling the liquor over the pile, then lighting a match. She places the flame in a space underneath, and smells the chemicals leach from the paper. The smoke is very black. Like her sins? Like her shortcomings? Like the void that Jesus had so much trouble filling?

“A prophet is not without honor, except in his own hometown,” Jesus said to his disciples. In one story, he visits his home in Galilee, but everyone mocks him. He was just the son of a carpenter after all, with questionable parentage. Who was he to think he knew the secrets of the universe and the will of God? Who was he to strut around thinking he could heal the sick and raise the dead? And he couldn’t do much good there because no one believed in him. His own people did not believe in him.

But sometimes people will believe in you, then use you. Nessa remembers the meetings behind closed doors with men who should have given her guidance. Instead, she was the all too eager student devouring every word and directive. She let them kiss her, and tell her that their flesh was weak. She let them touch her, and tell her this is why women cannot lead. She let them shame her, and tell her that it was her fault. The victim is always the one to blame if she doesn’t cry out in time. She’s to blame even if no one ever teaches her what the red flags look like in the first place.

As her journals take to flame, she remembers the darker years when she shut people out. She remembers begging God to take away her gift, demanding that he speak to her, to show her why she never fit in. She remembers weeping, rocking back and forth in the corner of her closet on so many nights, feeling like Jesus, feeling like Joel and Elijah and all the prophets who had a message to tell, and no one to listen. She remembers disconnecting from the present, dissociating from her existence. She remembers asking for death, and eventually trying to take it for herself. In strips of red across her skin and fantasies behind her eyes as she looked in gun cases, Nessa danced around the act of suicide. Could she convince herself to do it? Could she seduce herself to cave in as she had unknowingly done to all those awful men with so many highlighted verses in their Bibles?

Then, one day, it was over. She stopped praying. She stopped reading her bible. She stopped looking for a church that would accept her. She stopped trying to fit in. When people ask her where she is going to church, she stops saying, “Nowhere right now,” and says, “Nowhere.” Nessa stopped listening to people who had a word from the Lord for her. But it wasn’t because she was angry. It was because she was tired of being in a relationship with something that made her feel like shit her whole life. Like the boyfriend you make up because everyone else has one; he won’t satisfy.

Nessa watches the pages curl in torment. She loses faith in God, and gains faith in herself.

Written by: Natasha Akery
Photograph by: Blake Bronstad

In the Darkness

 
Her mother named her Desire, then gave her up for adoption. Charlotte and Ben argued about the name as they signed the paperwork. Charlotte wanted to call her Evelyn after her sister, but Ben said they should respect the mother’s wishes.

“It’s the one thing she has from her mom,” Ben said.

“I’m her mom now,” Charlotte pleaded, but Desire stuck.

Desire grew up with no false assumptions about her birth. Her adoptive parents repeated the story constantly—how her real mother was struggling with the sin of addiction, and how Jesus brought Desire to their home to be a beacon of light in the darkness.

Desire, unaware of metaphor or of the silent darkness that is infertility, looked around for the dark wherever she went. She saw it down open manholes and on moonless nights. She saw it in her adoptive grandmother’s basement as it appeared in her nightmares. And then, in fourth grade, her Sunday school teacher Mr. George said it was time to address the darkness head on. It was time for street evangelism.

After church, the fourth graders climbed into the fifteen-passenger van with Eagle Vista Fellowship painted on the side, armed with paper tracts.

“Does everyone have their buddy?” Mr. George asked, twisting from behind the steering wheel.

Everyone did. Desire’s buddy was Brittany, who had won a medal last month for memorizing the most Bible verses. Brittany, whose blonde hair was so long she could sit on it. Brittany, whom Charlotte said had been blessed with a generous spirit, since her little brother had Down’s and was God’s special gift in difficult packaging.

93.8 THE FISH was playing a jangling praise song, and Brittany lifted her tinny voice to sing along with Mr. George. They were headed towards the part of town where Ben and Charlotte delivered meals on wheels to the needy. The front porches were crowded with junk. Some houses had broken windows or dangling shutters.

“This is it!” called Mr. George. “Stay with your buddy, and remember to pray over each house, even if the people don’t want to talk.”

Brittany ran ahead, calling for Desire to catch up. She had already scampered onto the first porch and pressed her pinky into the doorbell by the time Desire made it into the yard. Brittany rang the bell three times, but no one came. At the end of the driveway, the girls held hands as Brittany prayed over the house. Desire always kept her eyes open during prayers to see who else was peeking. Brittany wasn’t peeking. Desire looked at the sky, where she imagined God was glaring down at her for not speaking to him more sincerely with her heart. She saw a giant bird lope through the air and land on a telephone pole.

“Amen,” Brittany said.

“Look at that bird,” Desire said. “I think it’s a buzzard.”

“It’s not!” Brittany said, still speaking in her praying voice. “It’s an Eagle! For Eagle Vista! It’s a sign Jesus is blessing our work here today. We have a lot of people to reach. Why don’t you go down this side of the street, and I’ll take that side? Then we can bless twice as many houses!”

Desire, more from watching Scooby Doo cartoons than from listening to Mr. George, knew they shouldn’t split up, but she also wasn’t sure how much more of Brittany’s praying she could take in one afternoon.

“Okay, but don’t go to the next street until I catch up,” she said.

Desire shuffled her tracts as she waited on the next porch. An old lady peeked through the curtains and glared. At another house, a man thought she was selling Girl Scout cookies, but didn’t want to talk about God. Finally, at 665 Winthrop Street, someone took a tract.

The woman at the door was pale, and so skinny you could pour water into her collarbones and it would stay there. Her greasy, red hair was slicked back, and her eyes were glassy. Desire didn’t want to look at her face, so she looked at her feet.

“I like your anklet,” Desire said.

The woman laughed. “I blinged it out the best I could! Still keeps me on the porch.”

On the black plastic, a little green light blinked among stick-on rhinestones.

“What’s this paper all about?” the woman asked.

“Jesus wants to love you,” Desire said.

“About time somebody did,” the woman said. “What’s your name, church girl?”

“Desire.”

“That’s some name.”

“I’m adopted.”

“For real? Your parents told you that already? Damn.”

“Yeah. You shouldn’t say that word.”

The woman laughed again. “You come up on my porch and tell me what I can’t say?”

Desire backed down the steps into the yard.

“Do you want me to pray with you?” Desire asked, following the script she’d practiced with Brittany.

“Why not.”

Desire looked over her shoulder for Brittany, but didn’t see her anywhere. The bird flapped its wings on the pole, its feathers like long black fingers.

“Well, you gonna pray?” the lady asked.

“Um, dear Jesus, please bless—sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Charlotte,” the woman said.

Desire stared at her, straight in the eyes this time. At that moment, Desire felt Jesus was trying to tell her something: this was her real mom.

“Don’t you remember me?” Desire asked.

“No. Should I? Your church group come here before?” the woman said.

“Did you have a baby nine years ago?”

“Hey crazy, I don’t have kids!” the woman laughed.

From behind her, Desire heard a sound like the screeching of a screen door. She whipped around expecting to see Brittany leaving a house, but the noise was coming from the buzzard, swooping down into the yard.

Where was Brittany? And why didn’t her mom remember? Was Jesus not speaking to her after all?

“Can you help me find my friend?” Desire asked. “And scare off that bird? He’s freaky.”

“They’ll be after me if I leave the house.”

Desire suddenly felt sweaty. Her mother, or Jesus, one, was abandoning her again, and there were people in this neighborhood who would get you if you went outdoors. And she had abandoned blonde-haired, generous-spirited Brittany alone in this land of darkness.

“Please help me?”

“Sorry,” Charlotte said, retreating back into her house. “You’re on your own.”




Photograph By: Emily Blincoe
Written By: Dot Dannenberg