“Anna, what’s wrong?” he asked, but I could tell from the way he spoke that he knew.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I just… I can’t imagine life without you.”
“Neither can I,” he said distantly. And for a long while we just sat in the bed, holding one another. I looked out my brother’s window and saw the first hints of dawn. My brother looked as well.
“I always thought of the rising sun as the face of God,” I said, not realizing why. The sun burned terribly, the judgment of God was upon us.
“Me too,” Joseph said, “Until today. Today I met God,” he said.
“What do you mean,” I said, trying to dry eyes.
“You know what I mean,” he said and I did. And all of the confusion I felt about faith and God and sin and pleasure, they all sort of jumbled up in my mind. But there was one point that was completely clear to me then.
“Joseph, I know that God loves us perfectly. And the only time I ever feel anything as perfectly as I know God loves me is when I think of you. How can anything that makes me feel that way be a sin?” I asked. For a long while he was silent.
“You’re right Anna. It can’t be a sin” he said. Suddenly, a smile appeared on his face.
“What?” I asked, wondering what he was happy about. But Joseph didn’t speak. Suddenly he was up out of bed, moving to his closet. He was grabbing clothes at a tremendous pace, “Joseph what is going on?” I asked.
“I won’t lose you,” Joseph said, “I pushed you away once, but you came back to me. This was supposed to happen. God wants us together.” He said excitedly. I had no idea what he was talking about.
“God wants what? Joseph what are you doing?”
“We are leaving,” Joseph said and I felt more confused than ever. Leaving? What did that mean?
“I don’t…” I started, but Joseph was full bore.
“I know my way to the city now, and I know there are other cities beyond. I don’t know what people do out there, but I will learn. We will make money and buy a house of our own and we will live together and be in love.” He said, his words jumbling together. Then I realized what he was suggesting. We would outcast ourselves from our society. We would leave everything we ever knew. To save everything we’d ever loved. The same crazy smile I’d seen on Joseph’s face crossed my own. I slipped out of his room, rushed to mine, and quickly gathered my belongings. I was about to see the world! And I’d do it with Joseph, my brother and my lover.
We snuck out quickly, probably only an hour before my father woke to take me to Pastor Davis house. We stole my father’s truck, but promised to leave it where the market was held each week so that Father could find it. And we pulled out of our home and onto to road. In a few moments I saw sights I’d never seen before. I reached across the truck and took my brother’s hand. He smiled at me.
And as we made our way into the world, together, all I could think was that people like parents suppress themselves because they believe that anything good sews the seeds of excess. But God does not want us miserable and scared. Love is the only true rule that God demands we follow and compliance with that rule means the conquest of sin. There can never be an excess of love. By opening our hearts to the world, and more importantly to each other, we’d met the God that our neighbors could only conceive of as a menacing abstraction. And when we met him, God rewarded our love with freedom (and sex, good God what amazing sex!).
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