Outside

James Porter goes all fictional on us…

John wearily opened his eyes. Bright sunlight streamed through the cracks in the Venetian blinds and onto his face. Pain seared through his head. He pulled the bed covers tightly over his head. He felt a dull headache, exacerbated by the glimpse of sunlight. He closed his eyes again. He felt warmer, more comfortable. He could fall back to sleep. There was no need to get up. It was Saturday, wasn’t it? Wait… he had told Paula. His brain kicked into gear. By now everyone would know. How would they react? Would they even talk to him? He wrapped the covers even more tightly around himself.

John woke again. He glanced at the alarm clock, sitting on the bedside table. Twelve o’clock. He heard the jingle of the doorbell. Great, someone to see me, he thought. He sat up on the side of the bed, willing himself to actually get up. The doorbell sounded again. “I’m coming,” he muttered, under his breath as he pulled on his bathrobe.

He looked through the eye-hole in the door of his apartment. It was Amelia. He opened the door and watched as she walked, a little too slowly, into the room.

“I guess you heard,” started John.
“Yeah, Paula told me. Eh… I want you to know that it’s okay… it’s a valid lifestyle choice… I don’t think of you any differently.” Amelia’s words sounded unnaturally quick and uneasy to John.
“Really?” asked John sceptically.
“Well you’ll have to give me time to get used to it.”
“Of course.”
“So how long have you…”
“A couple of months.”
“Oh…”

The doorbell sounded again. John didn’t bother looking but just opened the door. He saw Paula standing in the hallway.

“Come in,” he said.
He moved to the side as she entered the room.
“No hug?” she asked.
“I’m sorry…” They embraced briefly.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah… I’m fine… just a little nervous about how people will react.”
“I’m sure people will be fine.”
“Perhaps,” replied John, unconvinced by her upbeat assessment.
“So do you… you know… meet with other guys and…”
“Yeah, usually a few times a week.”
“Oh…”

John welcomed his third visitor of the day into the apartment. It was Alex, a friend since his school days.

“Hi,” he said as he sat down on John’s sofa.
“Hey,” replied John, sitting down beside him.
“So how are people treating you?”
“Since…”
“You told them.”
“I suppose it has been a little awkward, but most people have been okay with it.”
“I still find it a little hard to believe. I mean you. I would never have guessed that you would… I mean, “John a Christian?” I’d never have guessed.”
“Neither would I a few months ago.” John paused then continued, “I must congratulate you. You’re the first person to say the ‘C’ word.”
Alex laughed then glanced at his watch. “Three o’clock… I said I’d meet Graham. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon. Sorry I couldn’t stay for longer.”
“Goodbye.” John smiled as he watched Alex get up. Perhaps things were going to be okay.

Alex was about to leave when John noticed his head swivel slightly. “What’s this?” Alex asked, pointing to a magazine on the coffee table.

“Christis,” replied John, “It’s a Christian magazine… my brother sent it to me. He goes to York University.”

“Mind if I borrow it?”

“Go ahead.”

James Porter

I fought the urge to write some sort of analysis of ‘Outside’, preferring to leave it up to the reader. However, I have cracked. With one hour to go before the final deadline for Christis I am sitting at my computer, ignoring my stomach’s “Get something to eat now!” message. I apologise in advance for any parts of this that are poorly explained; I am trying to write it in one sitting in about half an hour.

I’ll start with inspiration for the story. It came from a discussion I had at the start of my first year when someone (a non- Christian) told me that “it was okay that I was a Christian”. My sarcastic reply would have been “thanks,” but I kept that to myself. I think the person who said this thought he was being progressive when saying this. What has happened to society that someone considers himself to be progressive to say such a thing? I leave that question for the reader.

Recently while conversing with a friend by email he stated the following (punctuation and grammar his, not mine!):

“I am not going to lower myself to your standards and try and convert you to my way of thinking!!”

My response was to point out that the Christian way of thinking or beliefs included the idea of converting people. I let him see the hypocrisy of maintaining a liberal view that people should have freedom of religion combined with the rejection of the idea that Christians should be able to preach to people. I also pointed out that his statement “I am not going to lower myself” was essentially groundless and implied a sort of moral superiority that he maintained was wrong for Christians to have.

Anyway, back to the story. As I am sure was clear I was trying to give the impression that John — the central character — was gay, to implicitly compare the way in which society views homosexuals and Christians and how these views have changed over the last few years. In writing the story I played on expectations and prejudices in order to tell the story. John wakes up with a headache; you think hangover, drinking etc. Your opinion is lowered and you accept the pretence that I present more easily. At least that was the idea.

The language the characters use was awkward. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that I was trying to write a story on one page. I had to leave things out. There was little room for detail. The second was purposeful. The characters were meant to come across as uncomfortable. Actually now that I think about it there was a third — I couldn’t explicitly state a lot of stuff without giving the ending away.

I suppose there are many things you can take from the story. While people in society become increasingly uncomfortable with Christianity or any serious religion, we also see (especially evangelical) Christianity becoming increasingly uncomfortable with homosexuality and other moral issues. As an ‘evangelical’ Christian I look for answers to that issue from a certain perspective. Disappointingly few evangelical authors are willing to tackle such an issue. There are a few exceptions such as Philip Yancey, who are willing to consider the subject. It seems to be an area that Christians could use to emphasise the loving, forgiving nature of God. That doing something that is wrong doesn’t matter if you accept God. That God loves you so much that even though he may hate your behaviour (not the person as some people would have you believe) he will save you.

Ultimately it is not the issue that matters most. I had to explain to someone recently, someone who went to Church as a child, who studied GCSE RE and who lives in a ‘Christian’ country that the central part of Christianity is the acceptance of God (in the person of Jesus). Is there not something going wrong that I had to do this?

I’m sure I have left many things out of this but Microsoft Word tells me I have spent 30 minutes writing this and I have to go soon. I leave you with this example of Jesus’ actions:

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” John 8:4–7

Surely this offers the Biblical solution to those who would try to trap Christians with their attitude to homosexuality. It is wrong, but we should offer forgiveness and love anyway. We are in no place to judge people as we are all sinners. Jesus has set us an example of how we should act.

James Porter