Lily White

A Summer Romance

“He needs to accept Jesus as his savior. That’s what the Bible says.”

I really had a thing for this girl. We stood there at the foot of my father’s long gravel driveway in the summertime heat and debated with one another. She had the most amazing skin.

“So, my father is going to hell because he doesn’t agree with you?”

“It’s not me. It’s in the Bible.”

Dating in Virginia in the 1980’s was a bit risky for an agnostic boy living in the country. The Bible Belt was a real thing. So too was the “Christ-haunted South” of Flannery O’Connor’s vision. Bible thumping, Republican voting, sexually repressive Christianity was the most common expression of the faith. Jerry Falwell was in his prime. The Moral Majority held power. And other Christian perspectives were effectively silenced.

I met Sandy (name changed to protect the innocent) during the summer. She sauntered into the room where some of us were talking at a party and I was smitten. To this day, a summer romance still captures my imagination. She was radiant and Southern to the core. She had that soft drawl many Richmonders have. And her skin glowed. She said it was “lily white” like the brand of self-rising flour. To this day, I cannot help but think of her when I make biscuits. She changed me.

She was a really good kisser, too. At the ripe old age of 20, my disappointments were manifold. I was really going to miss kissing her, but it was in that moment that I realized I would never hold such a theological position. Salvation had to be more than “accepting Jesus.” It had to be more forgiving, more loving, more relentless.

For me, being agnostic meant saying “I don’t know” a lot. It meant resting in a kind of spiritual apathy. But I felt she was attacking my father with her beliefs. So, in that moment, I picked sides. I chose my father.

From that summer onward, I made it my mission to choose a Christianity that denied such fundamentalism. I would turn my agnostic apathy into a Christian virtue: love.