FOTD, Pumpkin Pie 10, Cherry Vanilla 2: God Is Love
Title: God Is Love
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: FOTD (harrowing: extremely disturbing or distressing; grievous.), pumpkin pie 10 (torture), cherry vanilla 2 (there's something in the air), My Treat (Someone has a cruuuuuuush.), caramel (since Gina has children), cherry (essay/memoir), malt (Summer challenge 376: "It's not about making sense. It's about believing in something. And letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It's about faith. You don't fix faith. It fixes you." - Firefly (Shepherd Book)).
Word Count: 1029
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Gina writes on love, faith, and why no form of love is ever wrong.
Notes: Soapbox story. Like whoa.
WARNING for blatant homophobia.
Excerpted from God Is Love: Collected Essays on Religion and Sexuality
When I was sixteen years old, I fell in love. I thought it was love, at any rate. From an adult perspective it was nothing more than puppy love, a slightly more intense version of the crushes we all suffer from as we grow into maturity. It was no less serious for this fundamental instability, though, and I felt the results no less acutely.
Her name was not Helen, but we will call her that nevertheless. Like her mythical namesake she was beautiful, with blonde curling hair tied back just so with a red ribbon, and blue eyes. Like her namesake, everyone wanted her, and I was no exception-- why should I be? I was only just beginning to realize my own vulnerability.
Finally, like her namesake, Helen was not innocent in what happened, but neither, it must be said, was she entirely guilty.
I grew up just outside of Syracuse, in a community composed almost entirely of Catholic people of Irish and Italian roots. There was always someone at Mass, every day of the week, every Mass that was held. The whole town turned out for Sunday services, and Easter and Christmas saw the church so packed latecomers had to stand at the back.
What I remember most about the religion of my childhood is the joy it sparked in me. Alleluia, Christ is risen, he is risen indeed! I never suffered from that infamous Catholic guilt, nor did I see the crucified Christ with terror- instead I looked upon that pain-wracked face with love and gratitude, for was He not dying to wash me clean, to atone for my sins? He seemed to look down on me with benevolence and love. In His eyes I felt precious, beloved, forgiven for the minor sins I committed daily. For God my loving father so loved me and my family that He sent His only Son to die for us. What greater love was there?
God, to me, was love, in its purest and most heartfelt form. How could I feel unwanted or unhappy in the presence of such boundless affection?
I attended, like every other girl in my neighborhood, the local Catholic high school. Our teachers were nuns, our uniforms smothering and unflattering-- I have never understood the 'Catholic schoolgirl' fetish, having been one. It was unpleasant, but no more so than any other high school, until I fell in love with Helen and everything became unbearable.
I never told anyone how I loved her. I confined myself to glances stolen in class, quiet daydreams, and once, at the height of my bravery, an anonymous note slipped into her locker. I don't remember what I wrote-- something schmaltzy and silly that I thought original, no doubt-- but I remember with painful, heart-searing clarity the result.
Something in the note gave away my gender, if not my identity. For weeks afterwards, Helen and her friends would reread the note, pantomiming shudders of horror the whole way. The nuns questioned us all, in stern voices that belied the worry on their faces. The health teacher, Sister Elizabeth, told us all it was just a phase, and a dreadful sin, and if anyone had "homosexual feelings"-- I could hear the quotes dropping around the words; they felt like bricks in my stomach-- we were to report to confession immediately, to be cleansed.
I have been through horrible things in my life, things I never want to think about again. Those few weeks are easily one of the worst.
Young love is always painful. How much worse when everyone around you is telling you that it is evil? When the benevolent gaze of the crucified Christ turns judgmental and angry, how do you manage?
They were wrong. I know that now. "The greatest of these is love," says Corinthians 13:13, and I love my wife so deeply I cannot imagine it to be a sin. Had I been a man, my love for her would be the greatest and highest virtue anyone could aspire to. Why is it then a sin, merely because I am a woman? Love is love is love, the greatest virtue; to love someone else is to catch a glimpse of the divine. I love my wife, I loved my girlfriends, I thought I loved Helen, and none of that is wrong.
But I was young then, and I was a good girl. The difficulty with good girls is that we follow the rules, but we so rarely make those rules-- we come to regard everyone as potential authority, and we fear the consequences of breaking any rule, no matter how small. This rule seemed anything but small. Every time I saw Helen, after that note, I felt sick and small and frightened.
At some point during those horrible weeks, a boy in my English class asked me out, and I accepted. I wish I hadn't-- he was a good boy who has grown into a good man, and he deserved better than a frightened girl trying to pretend she was something she wasn't. I accepted him because those girls and these people had convinced me that my love was wrong-- that I was wrong, and that nothing would ever be right again unless I could drag myself back to the straight and narrow. So I tried, and when I hurt the boy, as I so inevitably did, I could only be endlessly grateful that he never told anyone why.
Here is what I know now, after a lifetime of love and experience and growing strength. Love is not wrong. Love is never wrong. God is love, and He never scorned me for loving where I did. I know now that it was never God who failed me, and when people ask me why I still consider myself Catholic, that is what I tell them. God has sent me my wife, my children, my friends and my family.
It is not God who turns His face from me. It was never God who told me I was wrong.
My children, my beautiful, wonderful children, are not yet old enough to explore and understand their own sexualities (or lack thereof). I hope that when they are, the world has changed enough that no one ever tells them they are wrong.
I very much fear that it hasn't.
Gina Caravecchio is a senior editor at Lilac Press. She lives in New York City with her wife, their two children, and their ridiculously spoiled cat.
Main Story: In the Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: FOTD (harrowing: extremely disturbing or distressing; grievous.), pumpkin pie 10 (torture), cherry vanilla 2 (there's something in the air), My Treat (Someone has a cruuuuuuush.), caramel (since Gina has children), cherry (essay/memoir), malt (Summer challenge 376: "It's not about making sense. It's about believing in something. And letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It's about faith. You don't fix faith. It fixes you." - Firefly (Shepherd Book)).
Word Count: 1029
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Gina writes on love, faith, and why no form of love is ever wrong.
Notes: Soapbox story. Like whoa.
WARNING for blatant homophobia.
Excerpted from God Is Love: Collected Essays on Religion and Sexuality
When I was sixteen years old, I fell in love. I thought it was love, at any rate. From an adult perspective it was nothing more than puppy love, a slightly more intense version of the crushes we all suffer from as we grow into maturity. It was no less serious for this fundamental instability, though, and I felt the results no less acutely.
Her name was not Helen, but we will call her that nevertheless. Like her mythical namesake she was beautiful, with blonde curling hair tied back just so with a red ribbon, and blue eyes. Like her namesake, everyone wanted her, and I was no exception-- why should I be? I was only just beginning to realize my own vulnerability.
Finally, like her namesake, Helen was not innocent in what happened, but neither, it must be said, was she entirely guilty.
I grew up just outside of Syracuse, in a community composed almost entirely of Catholic people of Irish and Italian roots. There was always someone at Mass, every day of the week, every Mass that was held. The whole town turned out for Sunday services, and Easter and Christmas saw the church so packed latecomers had to stand at the back.
What I remember most about the religion of my childhood is the joy it sparked in me. Alleluia, Christ is risen, he is risen indeed! I never suffered from that infamous Catholic guilt, nor did I see the crucified Christ with terror- instead I looked upon that pain-wracked face with love and gratitude, for was He not dying to wash me clean, to atone for my sins? He seemed to look down on me with benevolence and love. In His eyes I felt precious, beloved, forgiven for the minor sins I committed daily. For God my loving father so loved me and my family that He sent His only Son to die for us. What greater love was there?
God, to me, was love, in its purest and most heartfelt form. How could I feel unwanted or unhappy in the presence of such boundless affection?
I attended, like every other girl in my neighborhood, the local Catholic high school. Our teachers were nuns, our uniforms smothering and unflattering-- I have never understood the 'Catholic schoolgirl' fetish, having been one. It was unpleasant, but no more so than any other high school, until I fell in love with Helen and everything became unbearable.
I never told anyone how I loved her. I confined myself to glances stolen in class, quiet daydreams, and once, at the height of my bravery, an anonymous note slipped into her locker. I don't remember what I wrote-- something schmaltzy and silly that I thought original, no doubt-- but I remember with painful, heart-searing clarity the result.
Something in the note gave away my gender, if not my identity. For weeks afterwards, Helen and her friends would reread the note, pantomiming shudders of horror the whole way. The nuns questioned us all, in stern voices that belied the worry on their faces. The health teacher, Sister Elizabeth, told us all it was just a phase, and a dreadful sin, and if anyone had "homosexual feelings"-- I could hear the quotes dropping around the words; they felt like bricks in my stomach-- we were to report to confession immediately, to be cleansed.
I have been through horrible things in my life, things I never want to think about again. Those few weeks are easily one of the worst.
Young love is always painful. How much worse when everyone around you is telling you that it is evil? When the benevolent gaze of the crucified Christ turns judgmental and angry, how do you manage?
They were wrong. I know that now. "The greatest of these is love," says Corinthians 13:13, and I love my wife so deeply I cannot imagine it to be a sin. Had I been a man, my love for her would be the greatest and highest virtue anyone could aspire to. Why is it then a sin, merely because I am a woman? Love is love is love, the greatest virtue; to love someone else is to catch a glimpse of the divine. I love my wife, I loved my girlfriends, I thought I loved Helen, and none of that is wrong.
But I was young then, and I was a good girl. The difficulty with good girls is that we follow the rules, but we so rarely make those rules-- we come to regard everyone as potential authority, and we fear the consequences of breaking any rule, no matter how small. This rule seemed anything but small. Every time I saw Helen, after that note, I felt sick and small and frightened.
At some point during those horrible weeks, a boy in my English class asked me out, and I accepted. I wish I hadn't-- he was a good boy who has grown into a good man, and he deserved better than a frightened girl trying to pretend she was something she wasn't. I accepted him because those girls and these people had convinced me that my love was wrong-- that I was wrong, and that nothing would ever be right again unless I could drag myself back to the straight and narrow. So I tried, and when I hurt the boy, as I so inevitably did, I could only be endlessly grateful that he never told anyone why.
Here is what I know now, after a lifetime of love and experience and growing strength. Love is not wrong. Love is never wrong. God is love, and He never scorned me for loving where I did. I know now that it was never God who failed me, and when people ask me why I still consider myself Catholic, that is what I tell them. God has sent me my wife, my children, my friends and my family.
It is not God who turns His face from me. It was never God who told me I was wrong.
My children, my beautiful, wonderful children, are not yet old enough to explore and understand their own sexualities (or lack thereof). I hope that when they are, the world has changed enough that no one ever tells them they are wrong.
I very much fear that it hasn't.
Gina Caravecchio is a senior editor at Lilac Press. She lives in New York City with her wife, their two children, and their ridiculously spoiled cat.