The Boy Who Didn't Know

Dad was in a tight corner.

His nine-year-old son was riding with him in his Volkswagen square-back, and the car radio was on. A news report provoked this question: "What’s rape?"

He could have responded clinically. He could have talked about how a man forcefully enters a woman, the injuries that such force often causes, and its mental after-effects, including shame and fear. He could have talked about the fact that some women are so scared that they submit meekly; that some women fight back; and that some women who fight back are cruelly injured. He could have pointed out that rape victims are not always women, and that they are not always adults.

But that would have given me too much to think about.

Instead, with a formality that suggested unease, he said that rape takes place when a man "forces his affection on a woman." I didn’t understand the concept of forcing one’s affection on somebody. Affection seemed to be a purely good thing, so I was baffled that it would have to be forced on someone. That issue cast a shadow across my mind, but I was young and perhaps could not express my confusion, or even entirely understand it, so I went back to being quiet. No doubt Dad was relieved.

Way to go, Dad.

1. Dad’s explanation as allegory.

Dad told me as much truth as I could take in or should have known. His story told me that rape involved a man and a woman, and that it was unwanted by the woman. He did not at that time introduce me to the idea of violent sexual piercing, but he made the idea of emotional seizure stand for physical seizure, and he implied its twisted-ness. There was a lot of important stuff in his quick, short answer.

2. Better not to know.

The beauty of his answer was that it said so much but did not tell me things that a child should not know about. His answer did not shake me.

There are things adults should not see or know about, too. I know an ex-deputy sheriff who broke because of what he found when he searched a home because its family had not been heard from and their neighbors were worried.

3. What cannot be described.

And these are things in the natural world that could be described if it were right to do so. The supernatural combines things that should not be described with things that cannot be described.

Literally cannot be described. As an analogy, take The Lord of the Rings. In the books, Frodo Baggins offers the elfen queen Galadriel the ring of power. She shows to him what she would be with its power, under its power. Tolkien does not describe her in that state, except through her own similes:

In place of the Dark Lord, you will set up a Queen, and I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night. Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain...all shall love me and despair!

Director Peter Jackson tried to show what Tolkien described. As a movie-goer, I wish he had contented himself with showing Frodo’s awed reaction to the beautiful and terrible Queen.

4. Genesis as allegory.

Genesis chapters 2 & 3 describe the fall of man. The story is simple, but I can’t chart all of its implications. I take that as an understatement because I wonder if the story of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden is a brilliant allegory for events too complex and perhaps too terrible for a biblical chapter or a human mind.

I suspect that Genesis 2 & 3 tell us, compactly, as much as we should know, and, with much reflection, as much as we can know. One day, our minds may be made perfect to bear the weight of glory. Then, I trust, we’ll be able to see clearly what we now see only in dim reflection, and this will include our history as God and his angels know it.

Those who mock this part of Genesis miss the point, I think. What they are reading is truth in another form, a different kind of truth than what they expect. But it’s still true. My father did not lie to me about rape; but he did not tell me more than he should have.

5. Prayer.

Lord, as you say, if a child asks for a fish, his parent won’t give him a snake. If he asks for an egg, the parent won’t give him a scorpion. But a good parent won’t give him a scorpion if he asks for a scorpion, either. You are like a good parent. Please give us the understanding we need, and, in the time being, the trust to be content with what we need. Amen.