“You’re a Christian, though, right? You think it’s an ‘abomination’?”
“You’re quoting the Old Testament.”
“The Bible. And in your church you believe that God wrote the Bible?”
“Men wrote the Bible, but they were inspired by God.”
“So everything in it must be true, because God doesn’t make mistakes?”
“I suppose. More or less.”
“Well, if God doesn’t want there to be gay people, and he went ahead and made them anyway, that seems like a pretty big mistake to me. One or the other has to be a mistake. They can’t both be true.”
“That’s a good point. I think the church’s position is that God made people with free will and they make their own choices.”
“You think it’s a choice?”
“I think that’s the church’s position.”
“You’re the minister. What do you say?”
“I don’t know.”
They continued riding for a moment in silence. Finally, Ian asked, “Are you married?”
“I was.”
“So you’ve been in love, then, right? I mean, have you ever just looked at someone and felt like you were struck by lightning?”
Paul felt his heart race. Could Ian possibly know? “Yes,” he said.
“Did you have a choice?”
Paul pulled into the church parking lot. He turned off the car and looked straight into Ian’s eyes. “No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
They held each other’s gaze. Could the look have really been as long and significant as it felt to Paul?
Ian turned away and looked out the window at his own car. “I actually got it in a parking space. Pretty impressive.”
“Do you usually drive when you’ve had that much to drink?” Paul asked.
Ian wrinkled his forehead, but he didn’t answer the question directly. “I really need to stop,” he said softly. “Sorry if I was…. Well, I mean, thanks again for everything.” He started to pull the door handle.
“Wait!” Paul said, with a bit more urgency than he’d intended. He couldn’t leave things the way they were, with Ian thinking Paul disapproved of him.
“I think, it seems like maybe we got off on a bad foot,” he began. “I just hope you’ll… please keep my number. Because, I’d just rather you call me. I’d rather, if you were in a situation. Sometimes it helps to talk to somebody who’s not part of your normal life. I mean, I’m not working on commission. I’m not trying to save a certain number of souls to win a trip to Tahiti.” What on Earth was his mouth doing? “Maybe you’re kind of embarrassed about how you were yesterday, but it’s okay. You don’t have anything to be ashamed of. I think you’re very smart. A lot of people, they are too intimidated to talk to a minister like that.”
“You’re just a person, right?”
“Just like you. Keep my number. It’s my cell. It’s not the church. If anything goes wrong, you can reach me day or night. You can call me at two in the morning if you need to.”
“Sure,” Ian said as he got out of the car. “Thanks.”
Paul could tell Ian never planned to come back and he would not call.
As the days passed, Paul thought about Ian, but the thoughts took on a different character. It was not longing and desire but worry and concern that occupied him. He wondered why God would have made him aware of the young man and his troubles if He was not going to give Paul the power to do anything about it.
Ian was a beautiful, precious young man desperately in need of rescue. It pained Paul to have seen it. He was filled with a desire to act—to do something, but what could he do? If he saw someone being abused, he could not stand by and watch it happen. He would have to intervene. But in this case, the abuser and the abused lived in the same body.