The Brute Fact
The late summer wind had a bite in the shade, but the sun felt warm on my skin as I rounded the corner of my home and caught sight of our pretty neighbor girl. She was a pastor’s daughter. Her dad co-pastored a church my father had planted. Outside of our family, she was the person I knew best, and she was always nice to me.
The school year was approaching, and this year I was finally going to be a schoolboy! She smiled as I told her I was reading books on my own and was really excited to get on with my education at the community school. Her hair shone in the afternoon sun as she looked deep into my eyes, “Do you want me to show you what school is all about?” Of course, I did!
But what she showed me after draping a blanket over our laps had nothing to do with school, except that it was a form of learning. A sensation like electric shock, pleasure, connection, yet violation, betrayal. It was unexpected and unwelcome, but it awakened a desire for more. It felt like love. I wanted more.
Sometime the following Spring, overcoming the feelings of fear, I approached her and asked for a repeat performance. After all, it felt like love, and my family was not demonstrative or affectionate. She resisted my advances, but told me about an abandoned house she and her friends frequented after school, where I would be welcome any time.
I knew before I ever approached her that I was way out of bounds, and foolish as I was, I didn’t trust her. She’d promised to teach me about school and opened me up to something completely different. I’d shared my aspirations and dreams, and she’d used them to control me.
I am not safe. I’d let someone past my defenses and into my most private world. I’ll never let this happen again.
Perhaps this story of boundaries crossed, of a dangerous place, would be enough to shape the story of anyone. But there was more to come.
As a boy and teenager, I disconnected from my emotions and my body. I saw myself and my mind as two different things. I would explode into a white-hot rage when my boundaries were crossed, and when I was alone, a deep sadness and sense of worthlessness were my companion.
I could make no meaning of what had been done to me. It was a brute fact, and it colored everything else. It changed the world in ways I still don’t understand nearly fifty years later.
Physical intimacy was not love (or was it?), but I wasn’t sure what love was, how to give, how to receive. I became a clown, locked in my inner world, connecting by acting up, but always alone. Yet in my loneliness, I felt a presence with me. Someone was there, and that person cared, my life mattered to Him.
