A Vision of God

It all started on my younger brother Joseph's 18th Birthday. At the time, there was no way of knowing it was the start of anything, but in retrospect, it is clear that is when it started. But I guess I need to go back a little bit farther for that to make any sense.

My name is Anna Thrush and I grew up under very strange circumstances. Since before I was born (and I was 20 at the time this story unfolds), my parents had been members of a strange religious cult. Now, at the time I had no idea that we were the members of a strange religious cult. When you are born into something, it just seems normal. It was only later in life that I realized how different it was for the rest of the world.

I guess I can't just skip ahead; you need to understand some of the ways in which my community was so strange. We called ourselves "The Light and The Way," and we were ostensibly Christian. We read the Bible and celebrated Christmas and all that (although our Christmas was much more subdued than the strange carnival that you 'regular' Christians call Christmas).

Anyway, what really sets us apart from other Christians isn't so much about the Bible or anything like that. I mean, the church leaders SAID that all of the rules were in the Bible, but I've never seen any evidence that that is true. No, what really set us apart was the strict way in which we live our lives, especially women.

For a woman, from the time you are born until you are married you are supposed to stay in your parents' home or on their property at all times. In fact, every person in our community has big privacy hedges around the outside of their property to prevent people from outside of the Light and the Way from seeing women. Now that seems so strange, but growing up that was just the way life was. My parents owned about 25 acres of land in a secluded area in Idaho. And I stayed on that property.

Despite our seclusion, both women and men were encouraged to dress modestly. Every day I wore a big, billowy dress that went down to the floor and a bonnet. Both had very dull colors. I wore no makeup and had only one pair of shoes.I later learned later that I would be considered an attractive girl. At that age I was around 5'2 and 115lbs, but I had no idea what that meant in relation to other people. I had medium-sized breasts (although I didn't know that either) and flared hips. My hair was very long and chestnut in color and my eyes were green. For what it is worth, men wore long black pants and long-sleeved white shirts every day. My brother was taller than me, around 5'9 and stocky in build. He had a square chin, short cropped brown hair, and blue eyes.

In addition to our simplicity of dress and modesty about appearance, we were fanatical about personal hygiene. We brushed our teeth three times a day, we shampooed our hair every other day, and showered every day. For religious fanatics, that is pretty good. From the time I was a little girl I was encouraged to wear deodorant and my mother told me from the time I first got my period that I was required to wax off all of the hair below my head once a week. Apparently, one of the prophets of our religion had taken the homely saying "cleanliness is godliness" to be a literal truth and our church had continued that tradition thereafter. I would later learn that rule only applied to women.

Of course, I was homeschooled. My mother provided the lessons and they were almost exclusively on the Bible. I learned to write well (or so I have been told), but my math never progressed much beyond arithmetic. Science was rarely discussed. For what it is worth, my brother got largely the same education that I did. So, despite the various weird things the church did to keep women down, education wasn't one of them.

But there were very unpleasant aspects about being a woman. The only time women leave their homes was on Sunday, for Church. For church, my father would put my mother and I in a car with the windows blacked out and we would go into the Women's Entrance to the church. There we would worship with the other women, the only man in the room being the Women's Preacher, John Davis. All my life he was an old man with a prodigious gut. There would be about 100 women in the church and the four or five hours we spent there would be the extent of my socializing for the week. After church, one by one mothers and daughters would leave the Church and get back into their black-windowed cars. It was set up in such a way that when we got outside, my father was already there.

The long and the short of all of this was that women never saw a man that was not their father or their brother (Except the preacher). According to the teachings of the church it was sinful for non-family members to see an unmarried woman. Even married women had very little contact with men other than their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. By the time I left the community I had only ever met three men in my life. My father, my brother, and the Women's Preacher.

Obviously, in a repressed society like this, sex was not discussed. I must've been curious about it at one point in my life, I mean where did I come from? But my parents only had two children so I didn't see babies much. Even in Church, there were only occasionally pregnant women. It just did not come up. I knew that according to tradition, at some point after my 20th Birthday but before my 21st, my father would take me by myself to church. A man would be there, probably ten to fifteen years older than me, and he would be my husband. I would know his mother and his sisters, but it would be the first time I'd ever see him. And then we'd make a family. I really didn't know how, but that was what would happen (The only animals we kept on our farm were birds, mostly chickens, and so I'd never even seen animals have sex). It was always a nagging fear that I would marry someone who was awful, although I could not really make strong opinions about what that would mean. But it was a distant fear.

Life for my younger brother was largely the same. He only left the farm for church, he only saw men, and the only women he knew were my mother and me. He was my only companion growing up and while in other circumstances we might fight, it was not an option for us. We had to be friends because otherwise we'd be totally alone. I still have fond memories of playing the barn growing up and making silly faces at one another. Despite all of these oddities of my childhood, I was pretty happy.

But things in our community changed for boys when they reached 18. The men would drive into the city every week to sell our farm produce at markets. This was how we made extra money, by selling hand-made butter and things to others. The bulk of our money (and the money of everyone in our community), I would later learn, came from leasing mineral deposits. We just sort of played farmer while we collected the royalties that actually paid the bills. Not that it seemed that way; life was an unceasing list of chores and farm routine.

That is what made my brother's 18th Birthday so exciting, and how it began the most important change in my life. Joseph and my father woke up very early and met up with the other men to drive to the city. I was still sleeping by the time they left. But that entire day was a blur. I got up, ate breakfast with my mother, tended the chickens, weeded the vegetable garden, and did some sewing. These were all normal activities. But I wasn't really thinking about them, I was just thinking about Joseph's trip from the farm. My Father never told me what the rest of the world was like. Joseph had already sworn to our Father that he wouldn't tell me anything either. But he'd also sworn to me in secrecy that he would share everything that he learned.

It was already dark when they arrived home that evening, which was normal on market days. Mother had the supper ready and we all sat at the table and bowed our heads in prayer. I looked at Joseph and he had sort of a glazed look on his face. I tried to get his attention, but he didn't seem to notice anything. At dinner, my father did most of the talking. As usual, his conversation was little more than an inventory of the items sold and money collected. My Mother nodded and made all of the appropriate noises of appreciation.

Finally, dinner was done. Mother and Father went to the sitting room to talk. Joseph and I always cleaned out my father's truck after marketday, taking all of the unsold items back to the barn to await the next trip. This was the opportunity I'd been waiting for. I washed up quickly and rushed outside. Joseph came more slowly, he still had that look.

"Well how was it?" I asked excitedly as soon as he was within talking distance. I couldn't let Mother and Father hear me, even outside I spoke softly. At first he just shook his head. But I kept asking him a million questions and finally he spoke.

"Anna, it was just... so much. There is just so much," he said. That didn't really explain anything to me, it just made me more anxious to learn.

"Did you see other people?" I asked and he just gave me the most serene smile I'd ever seen, "What?"

"I saw hundreds of people... thousands," he said. He went on to describe all of the strange sights he'd seen. People wearing garish clothing, tall buildings, and cars in many colors, long buses filled with people, and a thousand other things. I couldn't even picture these oddities in my mind.

"I don't believe it," I said.

"I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it," he said. And I was so jealous at that moment. My little brother got to see all of the excitement of a city and I was still here, just waiting to pick up the leftovers. "I wish you could've been there," he said, and my jealously faded into a gentle longing.

"And Anna, women," he said conspiratorially, "I've never seen so many women in my life. Some of them looked like women here but there were young women dressed... provocatively. It was positively sinful. And they'd walk right up to me and ask for butter." He said. Suddenly, the tang of jealousy was back, stronger now, but different. But I couldn't imagine what it meant.

"What did Father say," I asked.

"He told me that we are not supposed to comment about it, but to just provide the items they asked for and leave them alone," he explained, "But it was so strange. Men were walking holding hands with women. Outside, just in the middle of the street. I'd heard rumors about these things at Church, but to see it was... I thought doing that in public would cause you to burst into flames or something," Joseph explained and I laughed. We both thought about sin for a moment, wondered what it meant that he'd seen so much in the city.

"Joseph, I am so jealous," I said finally, after thinking about all he had experienced, and he smiled sheepishly, "I can't wait until next week!"

"Neither can I," explained Joseph, "There was just so much that about halfway through the day I just sort of felt fuzzy and numb. I couldn't take in anymore. I am sure I missed things."

"Well try to remember everything, I want to hear about it," I pleaded.

"That is a good idea!" he said suddenly, moving items out of the truck more quickly than before.

"What?"

"If I am trying to remember and document everything for you, it will keep me focused. When I go to town I will come back and we will go through everything together from beginning to end. Then we can work together and make sense of things," he explained, "You are always better at understanding complicated things. So I will be the eyes and you will be the brain." I felt sort of touched that he thought of me that way.

"I think that is a good idea, glad I thought of it" I said happily. The truck was completely empty now, like it had never left. I looked over at my younger brother and smiled.

"Thank you for letting me know everything, I know you could get in a lot of trouble if anyone finds out," I said, suddenly realizing the risk Joseph was taking for me. He could be shunned for telling me these things. I, of course, was liable for punishment too, but likely only a beating.

"Anna," he said as though completely surprised by my concern, "You are my sister and my best friend, really my only friend, what is an experience if I can't share it with you?" He said and I felt my heart swell. I reached over and grabbed Joseph's hand, squeezing it once. Then we went back into the house and did the dishes.

* * * * *

In the next few weeks, Joseph and I settled into a routine. All week we would be excited and anxious as market day approached. Then Joseph would go off to the city to sell goods with my father. All that day would be nervous agony for me. I couldn't wait for him to get home and tell me everything. In the evening he would return and we would share an interminable dinner with Mother and Father. Then, we'd go out to the barn to clean out the truck and Joseph would describe the world to me.

Joseph would describe, in minute detail, his trip to town and everything that he saw that day. We would skip over nothing, so much so that our conversations were long and detailed. Through Joseph I first heard about cell-phones and pet dogs, iPods and tattoos, television and earrings. It was all so strange and wonderful. We would talk about all of the things that Joseph saw and try to fit them into our world, to make them make sense. We were like children again, discovering the world and having fun.

It was one day, about a month after Joseph's birthday, that our exploration of the world began to change us as well. We have already finished cleaning the truck and we were sitting in the front seat. Joseph was by the steering wheel and I was in the passenger's seat. Joseph was finishing up his explanation of the day, going over many of the details. But he seemed more reticent than usual. Finally, I had to ask.

"Joseph, what is bothering you?" I asked and he looked surprised.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You just seem very distant today, did something bad happen?" I asked, leaning onto the dashboard of the car. At first, my brother looked like he was about to deny that anything was amiss, and then he looked around conspiratorially.

"Okay, I saw something different today," he explained, his eyes wide.

'What?" I asked excitedly, I was always interested in new things.

"Well..." he said, it was clear that it was something big.

"Come on, just tell me!" I said, actually bouncing up and down in the seat. Joseph laughed at me and put up his hands.

"Okay, okay," he said, "Well we were selling items like usual and this man and this woman came up. I say they were a man and a woman, but they were actually pretty young, like your age. Anyway, after they paid the woman whispered something into the man's ear and he laughed. Then he turned towards her and..."

"What?" I asked in suspense, leaning forward.

"He put his lips against her lips..." he said. I don't know what I was expecting but it certainly wasn't that. I furrowed my eyebrow and tried to figure out what it could mean. My brother seemed lost in thought as well.

"Just pressed their lips together?" I asked.

"Yeah," he explained, "And they didn't do or say anything else after that. They just walked away." It was becoming stranger. We'd read the Bible before, we even knew the word "kiss" but we had no idea what it meant. If we were ever to ask we were told not to ask questions.

"Did you ask father about it?" I asked.

"Yes," Joseph said and winced, "he just told me it was a sin and that I should pray that God forgives me for witnessing it." He said. I knew that Joseph took my father's warning seriously. But even then, I knew my father was a little too strict.

"Oh don't worry about him," I said, "God has bigger things to worry about than people touching their lips." I said and Joseph seemed to relax a bit.

"Yeah, I guess you are right," he said, "But I still wish I knew what they were doing."

"Did it seem like they liked it?" I asked, "Or like it was a chore or something."

"Oh they liked it, they smiled and everything," Joseph said. There was no doubt. I was very curious about this practice. Why would they do something so unnecessary? What did it do for them? Suddenly, I had an idea.

"Do you want to try it?" I asked.

"What?!" Joseph said, taken aback. I giggled.

"Come on, aren't you curious?" I asked and he seemed to consider that. He leaned against the steering wheel and rubbed his chin.

"But if seeing it is a sin, then doing it must certainly be a sin," he countered. It was a good point. I was as afraid of sin as the next person in my community. But, at the same time, I knew the Bible talked often of God's mercy and his forgiveness. Perhaps a little sin, if you regretted it later, was okay. I wanted to know what it felt to press my lips to another person's. It sounded exotic and fun.

Thinking about this, for some reason, was having an effect on me. I couldn't explain it but my heart was beating hard and my palms felt sweaty. Something was happening to my body I couldn't control. I felt so many strange emotions. They were scary, but they felt good. I looked at Joseph, he was clearly feeling something similar. There was a bead of sweat on his forehead and he looked flushed.

"Just once maybe," he said cautiously. We didn't really know what we were doing. I got up on my knees on the seat in the truck. It was a bench seat so I just sort of leaned over. Joseph was sitting in the driver's seat and he turned his head so he was looking at me. He looked a little nervous.

"It is okay," I said, "everything will be fine." He might be worldlier now, but I was still the older sister. He let out a sigh and nodded his head. I kept inching my lips forward, closer to his. I looked at his lips and wondered if he were thinking of mine, pink and thick. I wanted my lips to touch his, to feel his skin against mine...

"Close your eyes," he said suddenly, and I stopped. My mouth was just inches from Joseph's now.

"Huh?"

"The people I saw, they closed their eyes," he explained. That didn't make a lot of sense to me, how would you know where to put your lips? Maybe it was just practice. I shrugged my shoulders and closed my eyes. I tilted my head to the side and pushed my lips forwards, against my brother's.

I felt the soft press of his lips against mine. It was just slightly damp skin against slightly damp skin. But it was so much more. I felt every nerve on my body light up. I could smell more, taste more, and feel more. My entire body trembled. My heart pounded in my chest and my head felt light. For some reason, my nipples hardened, scratching against the hard fabric of my dress. And, most unnerving of all, my private area felt strange. But I didn't worry about any of that, I melted into the kiss, just letting my lips move softly and gently against my brother's. I'd never felt so transcendent. I moaned a little as we kissed, I didn't even know why.

Then, after a long while, we broke our kiss. I sat back in the truck, against the door, and opened my eyes. Joseph was looking at me. He had a silly smile on his face as well and we both laughed a little nervously. We didn't know what any of the feelings we had meant, but we knew they were different. And we were sure, because of how lovely the effect of those emotions were, that they must be sinful. But it was hard to feel nervous.

"Wow, that was amazing," I said and my brother nodded.

"I can see why those people did it," he said. We were having trouble making eye contact for some reason. For a long minute we seemed to be too awkward to speak. Finally, I couldn't take it any longer.

"Well, I guess we are done cleaning," I said and opened up the passenger side door.

"Yeah," my brother said sheepishly, opening his own. And then an urge struck me. I'd can't explain it, but I quickly leaned over and kissed my brother once on the cheek. He smiled at me and I blushed deeply and smiled back. Then we both ran to the house, flush with strange new emotions and blind sexual energy.