“First Song of Isaiah” (Jack Noble White)

By Juliana Harvard

I almost never left home before nine-thirty on a Sunday morning. But here it was, not yet eight o’clock, as I eased the front door shut behind me, careful to not wake my husband Denny and the two children who slept, blissfully oblivious to Mom’s secret quest. On any other Sunday, I would have been rushing about inside the house, jingling keys and muttering to myself about what piano music I would need that morning to play at the Westside Methodist Church where I accompanied the choir and played hymns in between Sunday school and church service. This morning the sheet music was already in a flat black vinyl portfolio, sliding across the red leather of the passenger seat as I settled in behind the steering wheel. I released the handbrake and let the car roll backward down the steep driveway and onto the street before I started the engine. I was definitely not headed toward the Methodist church just a mile from our suburban tract home in west Fort Worth.

As my car crept up the entrance ramp to Interstate 20, an eight-lane thoroughfare quite unpopulated at this early hour, the warming May sun had not yet broken through an eerie gray dawn. An unseasonal chill swirled around my body in the unheated vehicle as I remembered the shock of first discovering the existence of an entire cyberspace community on America Online that I would have had only dared to imagine in my wildest fantasies. Denny had not been particularly amused to learn that his wife was interacting with Internet faggots and dykes, and he had threatened to disconnect the modem in the computer. So I logged on only in the late night hours, long after Denny and the kids were asleep.

I had been stunned but fascinated the first time I had seen “MCC” on the Internet, nearly five months ago now. “Metropolitan Community Church,” explained the invisible voices behind the e-mail and computer bulletin board messages. The very idea of a church for homosexuals had seemed so incredulous, even when I finally located a Yellow Pages listing for a local congregation called Agape on the far east side of the city. How could such deviants of society dare to pretend to worship God?

With almost no traffic now, it was easy to spot the Anglin Drive exit. I clutched the wheel tighter as it began to slip in my clammy palms. My breath caught for a moment, suspended in eternity, as my pounding heart pushed hot blood into my cheeks. The first time I had pulled off the main highway onto that hidden access road behind the thick pink bricks that lined this part of the freeway, my best friend Megan had driven her car. It had been dark already that Saturday night when Megan and I were driving back from a Master Guide seminar in another Adventist church south of Fort Worth. Appealing to Megan’s strong curiosity about the bizarre, I had convinced her to actually look for and find the Agape church.

Megan had been visibly nervous as she slowed down and turned furtively into the bumpy parking lot surrounding a modest brick building. “Welcome Home!” announced the plastic-lettered sign at the entrance. A half dozen strange-looking men stood near the door of the church. Seized by a paralyzing fear, Megan and I had both locked our car doors, and Megan drove quickly around the church and out the exit on the other side. Little did we realize then that, of all the places we could have been on a Saturday night in the Metroplex, this was one of the very safest for us. We hadn’t known that the last Saturday night of the month was the Gay Men’s Potluck at Agape MCC.

A few weeks after that Saturday night adventure with Megan, I had taken my son Adam to his algebra tutoring session on a Wednesday afternoon at the Hamilton Learning Center in east Fort Worth. Instead of waiting in the car for that hour as I usually did, I had decided to drive over to that clandestine place that Megan and I had so stealthily discovered under the cloak of darkness. I had had no idea what to expect in the daytime. Perhaps it would be like a Satanist church; after all, many of my church friends believed that homosexuality was a kind of demon possession.

The double glass doors of the church had been locked, but I saw a huge, soft woman sitting behind an old military surplus desk inside. She was big-boned and matronly, with very short salt-and-pepper hair and a warm smile as she unlocked one door from the inside. “I’m Jonee, Reverend Hunter’s secretary. What can I do for you?” she offered, smiling at me, a terrified suburban homemaker standing outside.

“Oh, well, I, er, just recently found out about your church here,” I stammered. “I’d like to know more about, um, when your services are.”

Then I heard myself mumbling something about church music, whereupon Jonee brightened. “Oh, you’d love to meet our music director, Jonathan Eldrige. He’s in the sanctuary now. Would you like to go in?” She started across the foyer, expecting me to follow, which I did. I wondered, “Could this motherly woman possibly be gay? She’s assertive, but she’s not brassy and crude as lesbians are.”

The empty chancel was simply decorated, with bright cloth banners across the front and cloth wall hangings along the side, which I would learn later were panels for a very large quilt created as a memoriam for people who had died of AIDS. On one side of the rostrum stood a flagpole in a brass stand, from which hung a flag made of six colors in rainbow-color order from red to purple. On the other side, by the organ console, a clean-cut, obviously professional but very young man greeted Jonee.

“Jonathan, this is—” Jonee began, then turned to me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Oh, uh, Julie,” I spoke quickly, caught off guard too fast to make up a name.

“Julie’s interested in our music program here at Agape,” Jonee told Jonathan. Then, to me, “I need to get back to the phone now. We’ll see you later?”

I nodded politely, then turned back toward Jonathan. We talked easily and pleasantly. I learned Jonathan was a graduate music student at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. He directed the Agape church choirs and handbell ringers, and occasionally even played the organ.

“Cindy would like to be able to pay an organist,” he lamented. “But the church just can’t do that yet.”

“Who’s Cindy?” I wondered aloud. Jonathan had referred in passing to his “spouse” without giving a name or gender.

“Oh, Reverend Cindy Hunter—she’s the pastor of Agape,” Jonathan informed me.

“Then who is your ‘spouse’?” I asked next, hoping I didn’t sound foolish.

“David Adams,” he beamed. “He’s also a music major at TCU.”

“David and Jonathan!” I smiled wryly, thinking of the Bible story about the two young best friends, whose love for each other, according to the book of Second Kings, was “more wonderful than that of women.”

Jonathan grinned proudly. “Yeah, it’s kind of special!” Then, “You must come to our Good Friday service,” he insisted. “We’re performing the Fauré Requiem with the Agape chancel choir and a small orchestra that I’ve put together with student performers from the University. My conducting of it is my senior class project this semester.”

“It sounds fabulous!” I truly wanted to attend. But in a gay church? How could I explain that to Denny and the kids?

That night, I had logged on to the internet as soon as Denny was asleep. “I’m thinking of attending a service at a local MCC. What should I wear?” I asked my faceless cyber-friends.

“It depends on the congregation,” a lesbian from Utah wrote back, “but they’re generally quite casual. I usually wear jeans, sometimes with boots, and a blazer. Let me know how you like the service!”

The combination of jeans and a blazer had been a new concept to me. In church, though? I knew I’d never be caught in anything other than high heels and a big-flowered print dress in the Methodist Church! But this was a concert, not “church” church, as I had known it all my life. Still, in compromise, I had worn a denim jumper and soft-knit collared shirt.

It had been easier than I had expected to casually tell Denny and the kids that I was going to a “boring” (to them) concert that Friday night in a “community church” on the other side of town. It had been dark, of course. No one had seemed to see me enter or leave. And, in comforting anonymity, I truly enjoyed the Fauré Requiem.

But today, this Sunday morning, was different. It was daytime again, and men and women stood outside the Agape church as I drove my car into the parking lot that was already nearly full. The women wore jeans and blazers and boots, and some were smoking cigarillos. The men, most of them slender and bald, waved graceful hands as they chattered, moving elegantly about the back patio. But all I could think was, “Yikes, there are people here! What if someone sees me?” I drove deliberately to the far end of the lot on the north side of the building, heading in toward a leaning eucalyptus tree that shaded a corner of the property and dangled its long leafy fingers lazily over the top of the car. “Take it easy,” I reprimanded myself, gently closing the car door as if to make sure no one would notice me.

I had already calculated that I could attend the MCC 9:00 a.m. worship service, leave at 10:00, and get back to Westside Methodist for their choir warm-up rehearsal at 10:30. Quietly, unobtrusively, I slipped into the sanctuary, sat on the side-aisle end of a back pew, and signed the attendance roster with the name of my Internet alter-ego Jewel Diamond. With my identity thus disguised, I could become part of the worship ritual, including taking of communion at the altar, being prayed for and served by gay men and women. The surroundings seemed no different from any of the mainstream churches that I had ever attended, except that the couples in the congregation were of the same gender. They sang the same hymns, except for using “inclusive language” that avoided the use of masculine and feminine pronouns and the use of gender-specific nouns like “lord,” “king,” and “father.” I wasn’t sure I could ever say The Lord’s Prayer to “Our Parent, Who art in heaven.” So far, no celestial lightning had struck me for blasphemy.

I listened warily to Rev. Cindy Hunter’s sermon, as the round-faced woman with a fresh buzz cut, and obviously wearing jeans under her white clerical robe, spoke out against “The Lie” of fundamentalist Christian churches that God does not love gays and lesbians. For an agonizing moment, I want desperately to believe Cindy Hunter’s words.

Then the service ended, as I expected, right at ten o’clock, leaving the necessary half-hour for me to drive across town to Westside Methodist. As I entered the glass-walled foyer, I was mildly dismayed to see that the menacing gray clouds had spilled large drops of water onto the warm asphalt outside. But as I approached my car in the parking lot, I suddenly was filled with helpless hysteria as I saw that the left rear tire was flat! “Oh, my God,” I panicked, “what am I going to do?! I certainly can’t call Denny—even if I could, I’d never get to Westside in time. I don’t know anyone here. I can’t ask any kind of favor from these…these total strangers.”

Visions of unspeakable horror in untold dimensions filled my mind as I rushed back inside to find a phone—for what, I didn’t know yet. I met Jonathan Eldrige in the foyer. He was the only person I knew or who knew me.

“Oh, Jonathan!” I gasped. “I have a flat tire, and I have to be at Westside Methodist in 30 minutes. Can I—is there a phone I can use?”

“Sure,” said Jonathan, motioning for me to follow him to the reception desk where Jonee usually sat during the week. “Where’s your car?”

“The burgundy ’85 Dodge Lancer on the north side of the church,” I said, unable to control my frenzy. “I don’t know what to do!”

Numbly, my fingers dialed Megan’s number. Megan lived only a few miles from here, but would she rescue me in my helpless plight? Megan, the good church lady, was not a morning person, and probably wasn’t even awake yet.

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Megan finally said, after listening with sleepy ears to me. “I’ll try to get there.”

“Well, you remember where the place is, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes,” Megan assured, with a yawn. “Don’t worry.” But even if Megan could take me to Westside on time, there would be the not-so-minor matter of going back to Agape MCC and getting the tire changed without Denny knowing about it. And how could I possibly drive Adam and Ashley to Debbie Basham’s birthday party at 2:00 o’clock that afternoon at the Fort Worth Zoo?!

A quick flash of blinding lightening slashed through the glass doors of the church lobby, followed almost instantly by a deafening crack as thunder shook the frame of the brick structure. By now the rain was pouring down in sheets from the angry black sky. “I never should have come here today,” I reproached myself, dropping the phone receiver in its cradle. “I know this is God’s punishment for my sacrilege.” I left the reception desk and started outside to wait for Megan when I heard my name.

“Juli,” Jonathan called to me, “I asked David if he would change your tire. Is your jack in the trunk? Do you have a spare tire?”

Taken a bit by surprise, I said, “Oh—oh, thank you! Yes… yes, I think so.”

Despite the torrential rain, David was already out by my car, surveying the situation. I rushed over to him, thanked him profusely, and unlocked the trunk. By now, a small crowd had gathered under the canvas shelter over the back porch to stare at this strange car, new to the Agape parking lot, as heavy water drops battered its metallic surface and bounced off furiously in all directions.

I turned at the sound of an amused chuckle coming from a big-breasted white-haired lady who stood arm in arm with another older woman whom I presumed was her domestic partner. “Well, well,” the elderly lesbian chirped in her soft Texas drawl, “I never thought I’d ever see David Adams changing a tire!”

Indeed, David did not look comfortable with a tire iron in his hand, but he would do anything for his sweet Jonathan. As I watched, David was joined by an attractive woman named Ruth whom I had seen leading the dance liturgy during the service. Ruth did know what she was doing, and “helped” David change the tire, easily and quickly, even in the plain cotton button-front dress that she was wearing. Just as they were finishing, Megan drove into the parking lot.

I guessed correctly that Megan didn’t really want to be seen here, and I rushed over to her car, explained briefly what had happened, and said we would talk later. Megan was fine with that and drove out of the parking lot as quickly as possible.

Then I turned to look at my on-the-spot benefactors, their clothes and hair dripping, soaked by the summer storm. Their genuine evidence of human love and compassion overwhelmed me. I hugged Jonathan, shook hands with David, and nodded and smiled at Ruth whose smooth, strong hands were covered with wheel grease. “I—I don’t know what to say,” I stuttered. “Thanks—thank you all so much!”

Across rain-slicked pavement at 45 mph on a wobbly spare tire, I rolled into the Westside Methodist parking lot just one minute before the choir was to process into the sanctuary singing the opening hymn. I had missed the warm-up rehearsal, but I was there to play for the service. I took a deep breath and sat down at the piano.

Soon the Westside Methodist choir, totally unaware of its significance in my quest, stood and sang the anthem for that day from the Song of Isaiah: “Surely it is God who saves me, I will trust in him and not be afraid, for the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense, and he will be my Savior.” A sparkle of light fused with color caught my vision, as sunlight peeked in suddenly through the amber and indigo pieces of the round stained glass window high above the south balcony. I sighed involuntarily, a long deep breath that shuddered somewhere deep inside me. Without a doubt, I knew it was okay with God that I was gay. But would it be okay with the church? Only time could reveal what lay ahead.

The rest of the day followed easily in its course. I told Denny that I had discovered the flat tire “in the parking lot of the church” and that “some church members” had changed it for me. I drove Ashley and Adam in Denny’s truck to the zoo for Debbie’s party, then came home and took the Dodge Lancer to Western Auto. Despite Denny’s general annoyance at having to buy a new tire, I ignored his tirade.

At long last, a rainbow had broken through the clouds.

Juliana Harvard writes first of coming to terms with God about her lesbian orientation. Her marriage, her children, her church, and her subsequent relationships are for later chapters.