Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics--And How I Learned to Love Women by Frank Schaeffer Page B
Authors: Frank Schaeffer
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Hudson one better; she planned to marry “an Oriental.”
Cynthia suffered from bad breath; at least she thought she did. I thought her breath was fine. Nevertheless, she brushed her teeth six or seven times a day and I used her imagined affliction to avoid learning to read. I pretended to be sickened as we bent our heads together over the page. Then she would excuse herself and go brush her teeth—again.
I’d never say anything, just pull away and take a deep breath as if about to charge through a smoke-filled room, then read out loud till my breath ran out, then lean way back and take another gasp of air. With any luck, when she went down the hall to brush her teeth, she would get distracted by Mom, who needed help in the kitchen making lunch for thirty guests. Cynthia wouldn’t come back for a while, and I could just stare out the window. Of course, this was when there were no Japanese, Chinese, or Koreans around. If there
were, then Cynthia was fully occupied and homeschool was indefinitely postponed while she gave the current Oriental Bible studies.
Would God answer earnest, sweet, pretty Cynthia’s prayer and provide her a husband so she could return with him to some far-distant land as a missionary with access to the “indigenous people”? I would daydream about Cynthia’s future husband out there somewhere, if only he’d marry Cynthia before “the change.”
Mom would comment, “Poor Cynthia, you know time is really running out for her! I just pray that the Lord brings her someone . . . before the change!”
There was so much to worry about: God finding the man in time, God preserving a few good eggs in Cynthia’s aging insides, the man being “God’s choice for Cynthia,” and keeping the lost millions from getting sick and dying before Cynthia could get there and do her stuff and save them. All sorts of clocks were ticking: biological, spiritual, eternal . . . and she’d have to learn the language first! Between the babies, learning the language, finding a man—and this didn’t even address the issue of the funds to get out there—how could God do it all before the change?
The quest for Cynthia’s husband and the state of her withering ovaries became a major obsession of my childhood.
“Have you found anyone yet?” I would ask.
“No, but there are two Koreans coming up next weekend from the University of Lausanne,” Cynthia said.
Cynthia picked up the reading book and thrust it in front of me.
“But tell me,” I added hurriedly, “how do you know that the Lord wants you to marry one of them?”
“I don’t know who the Lord will lead me to, but I have a very special heart for them. And there are signs.”
“What signs?”
“Well, for one thing I’m naturally good at languages. I’ve been learning Japanese and Chinese.”
“But now it looks like it may be a Korean.”
“Never mind that.”
“Or two of them.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Okay, what other signs?”
“Well, by God’s grace I’m small. I couldn’t marry one if I was towering over the poor little chap, now, could I?”
“If they’re really short, they can stand on a box to kiss you.”
“That is quite enough! Now open your book and read from: ‘Kate has a ball to share with Jack. . . .’ ”
“I just want to know one other thing. Are you going to have children with them?”
“Of course, if the Lord wills.”
“Mom said it will have to be soon because of the change.”
Cynthia, always slightly pink, sometimes blushed as only pale Englishwomen do, turning strawberry-red. And I was cruel the way only little boys can be cruel, especially one who knows far too much about female anatomy and uses this knowledge to distract his tutor from doing her job.
With three older sisters and a mother who liked to talk “frankly” about sex to her children, I had been swimming in a sea of female secrets and absorbing titillating inside knowledge since I could remember. Mom skipped the birds and bees
Cynthia suffered from bad breath; at least she thought she did. I thought her breath was fine. Nevertheless, she brushed her teeth six or seven times a day and I used her imagined affliction to avoid learning to read. I pretended to be sickened as we bent our heads together over the page. Then she would excuse herself and go brush her teeth—again.
I’d never say anything, just pull away and take a deep breath as if about to charge through a smoke-filled room, then read out loud till my breath ran out, then lean way back and take another gasp of air. With any luck, when she went down the hall to brush her teeth, she would get distracted by Mom, who needed help in the kitchen making lunch for thirty guests. Cynthia wouldn’t come back for a while, and I could just stare out the window. Of course, this was when there were no Japanese, Chinese, or Koreans around. If there
were, then Cynthia was fully occupied and homeschool was indefinitely postponed while she gave the current Oriental Bible studies.
Would God answer earnest, sweet, pretty Cynthia’s prayer and provide her a husband so she could return with him to some far-distant land as a missionary with access to the “indigenous people”? I would daydream about Cynthia’s future husband out there somewhere, if only he’d marry Cynthia before “the change.”
Mom would comment, “Poor Cynthia, you know time is really running out for her! I just pray that the Lord brings her someone . . . before the change!”
There was so much to worry about: God finding the man in time, God preserving a few good eggs in Cynthia’s aging insides, the man being “God’s choice for Cynthia,” and keeping the lost millions from getting sick and dying before Cynthia could get there and do her stuff and save them. All sorts of clocks were ticking: biological, spiritual, eternal . . . and she’d have to learn the language first! Between the babies, learning the language, finding a man—and this didn’t even address the issue of the funds to get out there—how could God do it all before the change?
The quest for Cynthia’s husband and the state of her withering ovaries became a major obsession of my childhood.
“Have you found anyone yet?” I would ask.
“No, but there are two Koreans coming up next weekend from the University of Lausanne,” Cynthia said.
Cynthia picked up the reading book and thrust it in front of me.
“But tell me,” I added hurriedly, “how do you know that the Lord wants you to marry one of them?”
“I don’t know who the Lord will lead me to, but I have a very special heart for them. And there are signs.”
“What signs?”
“Well, for one thing I’m naturally good at languages. I’ve been learning Japanese and Chinese.”
“But now it looks like it may be a Korean.”
“Never mind that.”
“Or two of them.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Okay, what other signs?”
“Well, by God’s grace I’m small. I couldn’t marry one if I was towering over the poor little chap, now, could I?”
“If they’re really short, they can stand on a box to kiss you.”
“That is quite enough! Now open your book and read from: ‘Kate has a ball to share with Jack. . . .’ ”
“I just want to know one other thing. Are you going to have children with them?”
“Of course, if the Lord wills.”
“Mom said it will have to be soon because of the change.”
Cynthia, always slightly pink, sometimes blushed as only pale Englishwomen do, turning strawberry-red. And I was cruel the way only little boys can be cruel, especially one who knows far too much about female anatomy and uses this knowledge to distract his tutor from doing her job.
With three older sisters and a mother who liked to talk “frankly” about sex to her children, I had been swimming in a sea of female secrets and absorbing titillating inside knowledge since I could remember. Mom skipped the birds and bees