It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
Last year I attended a nice godly Catholic middle school. It was boys only and the teachers were men too. Across the street was the girls' school. When the last bell would ring and I would walk to my home both schools would let out the students. The boys would rush out of my school and the girls in their nice uniforms would skip out of theirs. They would have book bags and long hair and would talk about things that I could not hear from the distance. Sometimes they would come down the same street that I would walk down and then I could hear them.
I would try to keep my eyes to myself. I know that Jesus does not want me to look at a girl with an impure glance. Often the girls would walk in front of me and during those times it was important for me to look at the sun or the trees or the sidewalk or something.
When I think about how it would hurt a girl's human dignity to degrade her in such a way mentally, by looking at her with an impure glance, I panic when my mind's eye engages and I see the clawing, skinny devils limp sadistically around a girl, flaying her alive with blood-spattered cat o' nine-tails as the air begins to smell metallic, and I see the hope drain from the girl's eyes as she pierces me with her gaze, whimpering "Why... why would you do this to me?"
So it was a bad time if I would look at a girl with an impure glance.
Well Wednesday after classes the whole school would walk down the sidewalk to the chapel to Mass every week, the girls and the boys together. It came around one Wednesday and it was pretty warm outside for a spring afternoon. My school uniform was scratchy in the heat but I did not want to be ungrateful about it by making a show of discomfort.
I saw the new flowers budding and I felt a twinge of gratitude for the colors. Jesus did not have to make the colors but He did anyway out of great love. I took a deep breath of the new spring air then and for a moment I felt clear-eyed. I realized I could never be grateful enough to Jesus for all of the good things on the earth that He made. It was the joy of the fully submitted will I was feeling, and a great peace came to me and rested in my heart. I tried to look at the sun like I do sometimes when I want to imagine seeing Jesus in Heaven, but the sun was behind us and it would have seemed strange to turn around.
Well as we walked there were a couple of nice girls behind me. I mean there were a lot of guys and girls around and there was a lot of chatting and it was all a bit of a flittering sound. But my ears were tuned in to the girls behind me. It was hard to hear more than a few words at a time but the sound of a girl's voice is like the mellow tinkling of bells.
Because girls were nearby the thought of dating flashed into my mind. I did not have a good or clear idea of what dating means really or how you start dating a girl. I guessed you would just make friends with a girl and then if you were really good friends you would eventually start dating. I didn't know how to make friends with a girl though especially since I didn't have any classes together with girls.
That is how my thoughts were occupied when we came around the bend of the sidewalk and saw the old beautiful chapel. It was a good deal of years old, built in frontier times I think, and made of red brick. The bronze arched doors that sat atop twelve stone steps were engraved with the Ten Commandments, and the big cross on the steeple could be seen for miles.
I got excited with anticipation and awe because I made myself think about what a miracle a church is and how lucky humans are to have a place on the earth where we can meet Jesus and talk to Him in prayer and be united with Him by the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist. I felt light, and I could not keep from smiling a little. It probably looked a little weird. But my joy was the foolishness of the Gospel, and so I was proud of it.
As we walked up the steps of the old brick chapel, I finally heard a few clear and distinct words from the girls behind me.
"I think it's a sticky, clearish-whitish stuff," one said to the other in a hushed giggle.
.
I felt anemic the rest of the day and there was a cloud of horror fogging my mind. I ate some chinese dinner and then puked a lot that night. When I puked, a lot of mushrooms came up through my nose. For a long time I could not get to sleep so I stayed awake praying and then I had some terrible nightmares and woke up crying in the morning. It was a really bad time ok.
.
Anyway that was last year. At the end of the year I graduated from middle school and I had to start to go to high school. So this year I enrolled at Canterlot High across town. I was not used to public schools but there were no parochial high schools around town.
I was afraid of being put into public school because I have heard the stories. I asked my dad if I could please be homeschooled instead. I was afraid of the temptations, and I like it in our cozy apartment. We have crucifixes on the walls and I can read the Bible all that I want. But my dad said "Son you need to learn to socialize more with other kids" so I ended up at Canterlot High.
"Not everyone is Catholic like us, son" my dad said, "There are all kinds of people in this world and you need to be able to get along with all of them."
The first morning of the new school year I walked down to the bus stop and it was a little scary because I was not sure that I was at the right place. I worried as the minutes ticked by. I did not want my first day at a new school to be a big failure. I had a book bag full of nice new notebooks and loose paper and nice sharp pencils and an expensive graphing calculator. I was grateful for the calculator because I know my family is not rich and I was embarrassed to tell them I would need something so expensive but they did not begrudge the money and I was so glad that I would not look like a pathetic poor fool.
I tried to pray to Jesus for a little courage. I asked Him not to let me be affected by the new environment. I knew that public school children had a reputation for being a little different to say the least and I was somewhat worried that I would become corrupted by the exposure to temptations. I had asked Jesus to change my dad's mind and to put me into homeschool after all but Jesus did not grant me that request, so I had made up my mind to make the best of the situation and give my best effort for learning.
Well the bus pulled up to the stop and I boarded it. There were not many kids on board so I picked an empty seat and sat alone. So far so good!
I pressed my face against the cold window and watched the houses blur past. It was like a time lapse sequence in a movie. An incomprehensible number of people, all living true lives, somehow out of my notice, laid sleeping in houses I would never enter. I could never love so many people the way they deserved; I could never pray hard enough to help them all.
As the bus ran its route I saw a lot of kids. A lot of boys who came out of very nice houses looked angry or depressed. I wondered why. Houses like those usually have internet too with nice computers. The kids were wearing stylish and clean clothes and some of them even smelled like cologne. I was puzzled as to why they were so upset.
There were also quite a few girls. Mostly they looked very sharp and hard to talk to. A lot of them were taller than me. I was really intimidated by the girls with nicely done makeup who carried purses and had their hair styled attractively. It signaled to me that those girls were immeasurably far above me on the imaginary social ladder. I wondered how you would get to be that high in the first place, and how you would ever make friends with people who were that high to begin with.
In short, everyone around me was glowing.
As the other kids incrementally boarded the school bus, I watched them sit together in their established groups of friends—all away from me. I know I did not have any right to expect anything from such total strangers but I was still a little envious of them. I tried to quietly smell myself to make sure I did not smell bad or something.
Then at one bus stop I saw her. For the first time in my life, I saw Pinkie Pie.
I don't know why it happens but sometimes a girl just has a face that resonates with something inside, and you just fall madly in love immediately. I mean maybe I shouldn't call it love, maybe I should just call it a crush. But it is really amazing, both the speed and the intensity of the feeling are overwhelming. I think it is really strange, if you think about it, that a feeling like this should exist at all. If you have ever experienced the rushing and overwhelming kind of crush I am talking about, then you will know what I mean; but if not, maybe you will think I am just romanticizing it and being over dramatic.
It is fine if you do not believe me. I know what happened.
Anyway I guess I was staring blankly at Pinkie Pie's face. She had some friends around her and she was laughing and talking with them. They took their seats but Pinkie waved to them and came further back on the bus, towards me.
I was hoping with a secret, stupid hope that she would sit next to me. It was an impossibly stupid hope but it was also one of those things where I could not have changed my mind if I tried. I know that when Jesus wants to teach me about the holy virtue of humility, often times He will let me fall into a stupid state of mind that I cannot change, so that I have no choice but to feel the stupid feeling and also to feel embarrassed about it. And learning a little more about myself in the process.
Now, if you did not believe me before, I really don't expect you to believe me about the next thing. Look: sometimes serendipitous things really happen.
I know that I am telling a story right now and so it could be fiction or fact or any mixture in between, and you have nothing but my word for any of it. Well I swear to you right now, with my right hand on the Bible, with the Lord Jesus as my witness, that this is how it really happened: Pinkie Pie looked me in the eyes, smiled, and sat down next to me.
Oh! Jesus—
"Hi!" Pinkie's loose, flowing neon curls fell tenderly down her neck—which was covered in minuscule, downy white hairs—and reached down to her delicate shoulders, wrapping them in a cozy embrace. A light scent of citrus, rose, and honey surrounded her. If she was wearing any makeup, I did not notice it. "I'm Pinkie Pie. Mind if I sit next to you?"
"I—sure, go ahead." I fumbled, tossing my book bag on the floor and sitting up straight. "I'm Raw. Raw Cringe."
"Awesome!" said Pinkie. "Great to meet you, RC. Are you a freshman? I don't think I've seen you around before." Pinkie's eyes were a deep, hypnotic blue. When she spoke to me, she looked me straight in the eye, and never turned away while I was speaking.
For a moment I glanced down and noticed her pink skirt, and below that, her bare legs. I closed my eyes, took a breath, and returned my gaze to her eyes. "Yeah, I'm a freshman. I went to a Catholic middle school until this year..."
I was slowly getting angry with myself. I was conscious of the fact that Pinkie Pie had boobs, and I was angry with myself for being conscious of that fact. I was also panicked by the fact that I was experiencing sudden, pre-rational urges to look at her boobs. But thankfully, miraculously, all of these: the consciousness and the anger, the panic and the urge—all were ultimately drowned beneath the torrential flow of the moments of life before me, moments which ran through my mind like stills across a projector.
Analyses and examinations of conscience would come later. For the present, there was only the present.
Pinkie's eyes widened, and her jaw slackened as a calm smile jumped out. "You're a Christian?" she asked excitedly. She began digging through her book bag. "Oh yes," I said as I watched her dig out a Bible. "Me too!" she said and opened her Bible to the Gospel of Luke. She asked "Will you read with me?" and I said "Sure," then I asked "Are there not many Christians at Canterlot High?" and Pinkie scooted over closer to me so that our legs were parallel and she said "Not really" and laid her head a little on my shoulder and rested the Bible on one of each of our legs and I felt her hair on the skin of my arm and we read the Gospel of Luke together until the bus pulled in to the school.
I nudged Pinkie. "Hey, we're here."
Pinkie awoke from her reverie, shut her Bible, and hurried to grab her stuff. "Whoa! I got lost there for a second," she said. She giggled as she stood up. "Here," she said, and pulled something out from her book bag, handing it to me. "Thanks for reading with me. We'll do it again sometime, okay?"
"Yeah," I said, "I'd like that."
Pinkie peeled off to join the friends she had boarded the bus with. "Heeeey! Wait for me!" I watched her go, savoring the sight, knowing already that I would miss her terribly once she was gone.
I looked down at the package she had handed me. It was a moist, oversized fudge cookie, shaped like a heart and wrapped in cling wrap.
As I grabbed up my own bag to leave the bus, I thought about dating again. I wasn't sure how it had happened, but I had just taken the first step toward dating by making friends with a very nice girl. I said a prayer of gratitude to Jesus, and headed to find out what the rest of the school day would have in store for me.
