Becky stood there in silence.

"Becky, I asked you a question. Now where did you get this?" Her little sausage-link fingers held the sticker close to Becky's face. Becky smelled the cheap plastic and ink, the aged smell of mold from residing in the bottom corner of her closet. The sticker had a pink background with white lettering that read GAY BY GOD. "I don't know where it came from," Becky said in an almost whispered tone. "Lukas must've dropped it or something. I've never seen it." Becky hoped this lie would work; the last time she was allowed to see Lukas he had been questioning his "sexual orientation."

"You mean to tell me Lukas accidentally dropped this in the back of your closet?"

Apparently, the lie wasn't working.  Becky tried to come up with an alternative plan as quickly as she could, but lying like this was never her strong suit. If she had to lie, she had to create the lie well in advance, thinking of all the possible arguments one could make against the fabrication, then alter the lie accordingly. She had no choice. It was time to tell the truth. "I got it at Equality Forum last month."

Becky's mother nodded. "What is Equality Forum?"

"It's a festival they have every year."

"Really? Where do they put on this festival?"

"Philadelphia."

"Philadelphia! Becky, how could you! You went all the way to Philadelphia without me knowing!  What if something happened to you!  What if the police called me! Do you know how irresponsible that was!" After this outburst she paused. She calmed herself, her large frame taking in slow, deep breaths, her large and flattened lumps of breast rising and falling. She asked her daughter to sit on the couch.  

"Now we've had this conversation before, Becky.  You need help, and whatever people you met at that festival need help. They are twisting God's Word to suit their own needs. Satan is leading them, not God, because they truly don't know God's love. You know God loves you, right Becky?"

Becky slowly nodded. The adrenaline still ran through her blood, being absorbed into all of her organs, all of her muscles, keeping her acutely aware of everything, of every fiber that made up the fabric of the couch, of the remnants of antimicrobial Febreze that hung in the air. 

"Something has to be done, Becky. I don't know what. I was hoping for some divine intervention in this. I know that God will speak to one of us about this soon."

Aunt Datherine stopped her ten year old station wagon in front of the small brick church. Becky slowly got out of the car. "I'll see you this evening." Becky nodded. She walked around the side of the church to the basement entrance. It was a cold morning. There was a heavy fog that had resulted from intense rains the night before. Becky didn't want to go today.She didn't want to see anyone. She didn't want to speak to anyone. The cold and moisture soaked through her clothes and skin, soaked into her skeleton and soul. She felt heavy today, each simple movement being laborious, an inexplicable ache in the centers of her muscles.She slowly made her way down the flight of cement steps, opened the door, and entered. 

The old, yellowed linoleum floor was no protection against the bitter cold that ran up Becky's legs. She was surrounded by the four familiar walls of dark wood paneling, with a few tiny windows at the very top. Everyone, including today's speaker were waiting for her.   

"Very nice to see you Becky. Come sit with us," Brenda said, smiling and presenting the only empty chair in the same manner one of those obnoxiously beautiful women on The Price Is Right present brand new living room sets during the Showcase Showdown. The speaker then stood in front of the girls and began.

She had bleached blonde hair that curled upwards at her shoulders, lightly tanned skin, and long, pink fingernails. She wore a conservative business suit colored in various pastels. Her name was now Christine. It had been simply Chris before Christ saved her life, and she had been an ex-lesbian for the past three years and counting. She admitted to still having lesbian tendencies, but these became weaker as her faith in Jesus Christ grew. She then gave her testimonial, or the moment she gave her life to God. 

"I was living," she told them, "if you can call it living, on the streets of Philadelphia. I lived with my lover in filth, with only a few articles of clothing and an acoustic guitar. We would set up at a street corner by Suburban Station  and sing for a short period--she was a very good with the guitar and my voice is all right--until we had enough money for another hit. Crystal meth was our drug of choice; we would snort it, smoke it, inject it, whatever worked. I loved it so much at the time; it made me feel like I was on top of the world instead of under the ground, hanging out with other bums in some subway station. In fact, 'on top of the world' is insufficient; meth made me feel omnipotent; it made me feel like I was God. Of course that wasn't true, and He would show me this only a month or so after I had fallen into this dangerous lifestyle.

It took a lot of coaxing to get Cindy to the Equality Forum; she said it was too male-centered of an event, that lesbians were overlooked at it. But, in the end, Becky got her way, and the two drove from Becky's house in North Jersey to Philadelphia in Cindy's little 1990 Toyota Corolla. 

Becky was amazed with Cindy's coordination as she drove: Cindy smoked her cigarette, moved the stick shift as the traffic slowed and sped up, and drank her bottle of Pepsi. She wore a tight baseball tee that clung to her chest and smooth muscles, dark blue jeans with a man's purple necktie pulled through the belt loops and knotted, and her favorite piece of clothing, an old, dark blue baseball cap. The timid bass line of Madonna's "Like A Prayer" shook the geriatric speakers when Cindy turned it down to inform Becky that they were almost in Philadelphia. "We're going over the Ben Franklin." As they crossed over the Delaware River Cindy told Becky of the time when the bridge had no cement divider, only red and green lights to guide opposing lanes of traffic out of head on collisions. Becky didn't find this interesting, but she nodded and made periodic eye contact with Cindy in the rear view mirror anyway. Becky realized she had conducted this ritual of pretended interest with half a dozen or so of their conversations by now. And she didn't mind it at all. 

Before Becky realized it, they were in Olde City, and found a parking garage. Cindy got out of the car while Becky checked herself quickly in the rearview mirror. She ran her thin fingers through her hair. She hated how stringy it was, and the fact that it was always oily no matter how much she washed it. She hated her pasty white skin, but she did like her blue eyes. She felt awkward in her thin frame, but at least she wasn't heavy like her mother. 

"You're gorgeous--Can we go please?"

Becky smiled and got out of the car.

They walked down Market Street, Becky following Cindy's lead. Becky never quite knew where she was, especially in cities, and always found herself following another. As they walked hand in hand, Becky felt the old cobblestones under her feet, became absorbed in the history. She made Cindy stop so she could read the plaque posted at Franklin's Court, then forced Cindy to wait a few minutes as she passed through the small brick tunnel into the green courtyard lined with benches. She saw the entrance to the underground museum but didn't approach it; they had no time and it probably wasn't open now anyway. She turned and hurried back to meet Cindy. They continued down Market and took a left on 2nd Street. Christ Church was a small building that could be easily missed, but the commotion that now engulfed it could not.   

Becky's mother had chosen this particular reparative therapy center for a few reasons. First, and most important, God spoke to her when she read the brochure. He told her this was the right place to fix her daughter.Second, it was close to Becky's Aunt Datherine, so Becky would always have a pair of born again eyes on her. Finally, the center segregated their groups by sex. She felt Becky needed this sort of same-sex environment in order to face her demons honestly. The center was called "Never Walk In Darkness," citing a piece of John 8:12. Becky's mother always liked that passage. During the first few days, Brenda, the moderator, explained lesbianism:

"It is much more complicated than male homosexuality--as are most things with the female gender." At this point she smiled, eliciting a faint, nervous laughter from one or two of the girls. Becky looked around the room as Brenda continued. There were only three other girls, all about her age.

 "A man's gender confusion can be traced back to what we like to call a 'smother mother' and/or absent father, while gender confusion in us girls is created by a significant deprivation of mother love--no smother mothers for us--and both a deprivation of father love and what we like to call a 'default attachment and identification' with our fathers. See? I told you we are more complicated than men." She smiled, but this time there was no laughter. 

Becky wondered how true this was. She always saw men as being more complicated; that's why she liked women. Women were easier to read, easier to understand, easier to be with.  

"I know this is a lot of information at once," Brenda concluded, "but it will become easier as our journey together continues."

An old black wrought iron gate divided the side courtyard of the church and a small park. On the park's side of this fence were the protestors, holding up signs that said "God Hates Fags" and chanting "The Bible says Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" Cindy turned back to Becky. "That Adam and Steve one is my favorite, how 'bout you? Very creative. Who would've thought God spoke to them in rhyme?"

They passed through a small gate, moved through the courtyard, and entered the church. As Becky and Cindy passed the large church organ with pipes that rose to the ceiling, Becky noticed the long middle aisle of beautiful dark tile with surrounding sections of white pews that led up to the magnificent altar. A series of small box windows were situated behind the altar and a large chandelier hung from the concave ceiling. There were no seats left in the first floor of pews, so the two were escorted to the second floor. 

This was not really a floor, but more of a platform containing more pews that lined the two opposing walls leading to the altar. From Becky's vantage point, she could see more people pouring in through the side entrance. There were fags in straight-legged two hundred dollar designer jeans, tight button down shirts, short, cropped hair with bleach tips that were frozen into place with massive amounts of gel, and a tan so perfect it was either from a booth or the best bronzing lotion AmEx could buy. She recognized one of them; it was Lukas. His bony arm was wrapped around a fit, older man. She wanted to stand and wave to him; it had been so long since they had seen each other. But that would bring her unwanted attention from the strangers sitting around her. So she stayed in her seat and kept people watching.

Dykes with brown mullets entered, dressed in oversized flannels and Walmart jeans, who would be off to the local lesbian bar after this for the all you can eat buffet and two dollar drinks. Becky turned her attention to the pews below and saw what Cindy had told her were "bears," or slightly overweight, older looking men in strange, black leather outfits. Their body hair escaped these outfits in numerous bushes, and a few had grown their mustaches over their top lips. In a pew opposite Becky and Cindy sat a queen wearing a green T-shirt that read "It's Not Easy Being Easy." Becky thought of what might happen if any of these people tried to enter the church she grew up in. She shuddered and quickly laid the thought to rest. 

"I was lying in an underground tunnel down in Suburban Station--you see Center City has this underground tunnel system that you can use to get to key places in the city--anyway, this is where we were sleeping, or trying to sleep." As she spoke she suspended her tanned right hand at the left of her painted lip with the thumb and index finger extended. "The smell of urine saturated our surroundings; I didn't know if the repugnant odor I could smell was me, my girlfriend, or the homeless man lying across the tunnel from us. I was now as we called it ‘tweaking,' or needing more meth. But there was none to be found. This is when God spoke to me. He said, ‘Christine, look around you. Do you see this depravity? Can you smell it, taste it, feel the desperation you are in?' I didn't know how to react. I simply sat, with my girlfriend's greasy, matted hair and unwashed face in my lap, and listened. He said ‘Christine, this is all because you are living in darkness. You are living in darkness with this other woman, living in darkness every time you consume that drug. I do not want my children to live in darkness. I want them to live in the Light with Me. But in order to do that my child, in order to see the Truth, you must shed these things that you keep you in darkness.'"

Ambivalent feelings surged from Becky's abdomen, infecting the rest of her body. She rejected what Christine was saying as nonsense, but deeply feared that this same fate waited for her. Is this what happened to your life when you went against God's wishes? 

"At that moment," Christine continued, "I felt a high unlike any meth high I had ever had before." She became more focused on her audience now, her voice becoming more acute, her eyes more fixed and penetrating. Her hands were now resting on the podium. "It was a thousand times greater, a thousand times stronger, and from that moment on, I gave my life to Jesus Christ."

After a few men in long robes spoke, Malcolm Lazin, Equality Forum's executive director, introduced the next speaker as Reverend Beth Stroud, stressing her title, to which the eclectic crowd applauded. Becky didn't understand this.Cindy turned and explained in a short whisper that Reverend Beth Stroud had recently been defrocked for being a lesbian. Becky nodded. She watched this woman, unassuming in stature, with curly brown hair and small, wire-rimmed glasses, stand at the altar and smile. She thanked everyone for their outpouring of love and support. She told the audience about her life as a pastor in the closet and arrived at a freeing conclusion. "I was living as if the word of God was chained," she told them. "But the word of God is not chained."

 This statement resonated with Becky. As Reverend Stroud continued, Becky remembered pieces of her religious upbringing. Memories of a small white church in the Jersey suburbs where the congregation sat with their Bibles in uncomfortable wooden pews as the stark white preacher, bald except for a few black strands that he combed from back to front, would scream and shout until his entire head and face had turned a deep red, and a silhouette of the small saliva bits that shot from his mouth could be seen against the bright lights that hung above the altar. He would scream and shout about the evils of pornography and homosexuality. He would tell his congregation that some of the other religions in town, like the Episcopalians around the corner or the Presbyterians down the street, were practicing "feel good Christianity" and would burn for it. 

She remembered her little sister talking about when she became "born again," the moment when Christ spoke to her and changed her life forever. "Why aren't you born again yet?" she used to ask Becky. 

"I don't know."

"Perhaps there is something wrong with you. Perhaps Jesus knows this, so he won't talk to you," she would say with that smug look on her little twelve-year-old face. She had been born again when she was nine. Becky always wondered how that was possible, to know something so life changing at such a young age. Could she really know? Sometimes she even questioned her mother's conversion at thirty. How could either ever really know Jesus was speaking to her?

"Perhaps," Becky would say, partially to end the conversation, partially because she kind of agreed.    

She remembered every Good Friday, when her mother would take her and her sister to the church's Passion Play, which always brought people in from all over town. She never remembered much of the play, but remembered that after it ended, the preacher would tell the audience to close its eyes, and ask all who'd given themselves over to Christ that night to raise their hands. In the fifteen years plus she had been going, she wondered if anyone ever actually raised that hand. She always wanted to open her eyes and peek, but never did. 

Becky wondered if this preacher, if her mother, if the congregation that jumped up and down and shouted things like "Hallelujah!" as the preacher shouted about sin, if all of these people were keeping God's word chained. And if so, was it God's word, or was it those people, that kept her chained?

"After much soul searching with God's divine guidance, I figured out what caused my gender deficit." By now the speaker had finished her written speech and took a chair with the other girls already in their routine circle. Brenda had asked the speaker what her ‘gender deficit' was, a term the girls had learned a few days before. A girl's gender deficit happens early, they learned, and creates confusion regarding gender roles which then leads to same-sex attraction. "God decided it was best to take my mother early in my life; I was only four when she died of cancer. My father had to become both parents and, being the oldest, I became very close with him. I never witnessed how a man and a woman should act, how God intended them to act, because my father had to take on both roles. So when I thought I was a lesbian, I was really looking for my mother."

"I urge you to begin with knowing how much you have in common with one another as people God loves, as people Christ has redeemed, as sincere believers seeking to be disciples." Becky couldn't believe these large and epiphanic words came from this petite stature at the altar. "Present yourselves to God," Reverend Stroud continued, "and one another as workers who have no need to be ashamed, and together you will discern and proclaim the word of truth." Could Reverend Stroud be correct? God didn't want Becky to be ashamed? Was this the real God?

 Everyone applauded Reverend Stroud and Malcolm concluded the afternoon. Cindy and Becky waited in a line as everyone slowly exited through the same side door they entered from.

 In the courtyard, Becky saw the same protestors behind the wrought iron gate again. But there was something different now. A counter-protest had started. Men and women had clasped hands in a long chain, obscuring Becky's view of the protestors and obscuring the chants by singing "Jesus Loves Me" as loudly as they could. Emotion swelled up in Becky from her abdomen in waves, pushing tears into her eyes, and escaping from the tip of her head into the atmosphere. She had to pull herself away, toward the side of the brick church, to try and deal with it.

Cindy asked what was wrong but Becky couldn't tell her. She sobbed for a moment, then composed herself. She wasn't crying from isolation, or pain, or shame, the reasons she had grown accustomed to crying for. This emotion that swelled inside her, it was an intense felicity that almost scared her. She wondered if, perhaps, Jesus was finally speaking to her.

She wanted to stay here in this moment, stay in Philadelphia, stay with Cindy. No one knew who she was here. There was no fear of someone recognizing her and telling her mother that poor Becky had gone astray, had been seduced into sin with some woman, and needed to be saved. She could start new here, in the tradition of the Europeans who had built this city hundreds of years before her. Here she'd be free to create a new identity on her own terms.

There was a sharp tap at the window. Then another. Then a third. Becky slowly pulled the comforter from her body and rose to investigate. As she drew closer to the small box window surrounded by light pink curtains, the old baseball cap came into view. Becky opened the window. 

"I'm breaking you out," Cindy whispered. "Well, come on. You want to get out of here, don't you?"  The whisper became slightly louder. The raised volume scared Becky. Who knows how angry Aunt Datherine might get if she was woken at this hour? But she didn't reprimand Cindy. 

Becky nodded. "I need to get my clothes," she whispered.

"We don't have time for that."

"Just a few outfits." Becky turned her back toward Cindy. She would need her suitcase. But moving it would make too much noise. What about her laundry bag? She could empty out the dirty clothes and put a few clean outfits in it. But what about getting the clean outfits? She'd have to open the old dresser that she was keeping her underwear and bras in, and slide the door open to that closet for the rest of the clothing. This might make too much noise. Especially the closet. Its doors had a tendency to fall off the guides. 

"You have to make a decision, Becky. Are you coming?"

Becky didn't want to say yes, but she didn't want to say no, either. So, as silently as she could, she pulled back the pink curtains and, with the help of Cindy, fit her body through the small window.

Becky felt safe as Cindy pulled away from the house. She felt safe as they drove through the dark forests of West Jersey. She always felt safe in transition; it was the final arrival that made her anxious. They were going west, heading back to Cindy's house, right outside Philadelphia. Perhaps they were going to use the Ben Franklin; perhaps Becky would hear that story about the dividers again.

She felt the touch of Cindy's hand on her shoulder, and when Becky turned her head, Cindy's outstretched, muscular arm came into view. 

"Are you all right?"

Becky didn't respond.

"You don't have to worry from now on, Becky. You can live with me. My mother said it was okay. I can't imagine what you've just been through."

Becky nodded.

Cindy leaned in and kissed Becky's cheek. She turned up the CD player, then intertwined her olive fingers in Becky's white ones. It was one of the newer Madonna albums. The inspiration had been techno or so Cindy had told Becky. Becky was never allowed to listen to Madonna, or techno for that matter. 

Becky looked at Cindy. Her muscles were tight and toned, and her posture was commanding in her backwards baseball cap and football jersey. She could pass for one of those straight jocks who had always ignored Becky throughout her high school years.

There was no use in saying anything now. She would wait until the morning. She would wait until everything had settled. She would wait until there was no longer this hectic transition. Then she would tell her mother. Maybe she wouldn't tell her mother. Maybe she would just disappear and start new with Cindy. But that would be decided tomorrow. For now, she could finally get some sleep.

--Equality Forum 2005, used with the kind permission of Malcolm Lazin

--Excerpts from the sermon "Expanding the Conversation," by Irene Elizabeth Stroud, are used with permission of the author.

--Christ Church Philadelphia, is used with kind permission.