Kissing Freedom

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At age fourteen, after I had been gleefully encouraged for two years to become a "member" of the church, I finally succumbed to the wonderful pressures of the Nazi-like Mennonites. It was, of course, my desire to join. This was not simply a matter of everyone at church staring longingly at me for not yet indoctrinating myself into their beautiful bath of simple and saturated love for hypocritical rules and holy worship. Nor was it the daily ritual of my sweet, caring parents making mention of my continuing lapse of good judgment by not taking the leap of faith from youth into the abyss of the Mennonite church. And by daily, I mean that they called and texted me almost hourly with mention of it. The news was rife with states recognizing gay marriage, and with each headline, another text reminded this ginger boy his eternal after was resting in the balance if he stayed in the society of the unwashed rather than bathing with the Mennonites. The daily play in the yard, with my intellectual equals, those innocent children of age fourteen, most of whom had the insight to sign-up for the brilliance of the church in their twelfth year, did not make my life hard. Here I was, a man of fourteen, worldly enough to know the importance of getting in line for eternal salvation, yet avoiding the formal commitment ceremony with God. The love, and dedication to the generous brainwashing is complete at that age, and you understand that if you do not join the church, you are going to hell. At twelve, you do not know any better and do not question it. I waited until I was fourteen, just to be certain. What a rebel I was. I even withstood the playground discussion of the other children, even the ones who were so much littler than I, the dreaded twelve-year-olds, as they determined the course of my life by deciding if speaking to me, tossing a ball to me, or interacting with me at all was acceptable, since I was still an unwashed heathen, woefully delayed in my church-membering-maturation. As a young person-and by young I mean anyone who was still living with their parents, otherwise referred to as not yet married off-we were forbidden to date anyone. Hard to believe that still happens in today's society, but it does. There was little point anyway, since God is the one who decides the person we are intended to marry, and church elders and parents interpret his message on this point. I often wondered if it was at the moment you conceive or the moment your child is born when this gift for interpreting God's word enters your body. Anyway, not dating was an easy enough rule for my brain to follow at age fourteen, though my eyes and my loins often refused to pay attention to rules. In eighth grade, my final year of school, I received those "talking to's" all the time. I heard the lectures on a way too regular basis because I was being, "too familiar with the girls." At age fourteen, I was much better at chatting with the girls than any of the other boys, probably because I listened to myself as much as I listened to anyone else. I did not want to waste my time with the wonderfully feisty boys. I wanted to have lunch at the girls' table, sit next to the girls in class, or talk to the girls out in the yard. There were only twenty-six kids in my school and my class was only four. Three girls and I made up the entire class. So every time I was chastised for not spending more time with the boys, I simply feigned my desire to be with peers my own age. It usually worked. We all want to spend all our time with fourteen-year-old girls, don't we? I had learned how to give the answers required to get things to go my way. I was fourteen. I thought I was so darn clever.