The Boy Who Called God "She" Read Online Free PDF

home I have to eat dinner with my parents and just for something to say besides pass the beans I tell them, “There’s this new kid in my school who calls God She.”
    Mom and Dad both look at me like I just flashed them.
    “She,” I say it again for them. “Her. God. Like, the big mama in the sky.”
    “Is this girl some sort of radical feminist, Derek?” my dad wants to know.
    “Girl? What girl?”
    “It’s a boy doing this?” Mom goes, all shocked.
    “No duh, Mom.” Like, how many other genders are there? Don’t answer that.
    She ignores the sarcasm. “He must be some kind of sissy.”
    Dad says, “I hope Reverend Weltzer told him to put a cork in it.”
    I just shrug. I don’t want to agree with my mom or my dad even though I kind of do agree.
    I don’t have to say anything because somebody knocks at the door. It’s Brent. I go out on the sidewalk with him and have a smoke. Me ’n Brent talk about some stuff and then he says, “What about that nerd Julian? How can any human being get that stupid?”
    Actually, I can’t believe anyone can be that stupid. “You think maybe he’s tugging on Weltzer’s chain?” If he was, I wish I’d thought of it first.
    “Nah. He’s as serious as a heart attack, man.”
    “So what’s his problem?”
    “I don’t know. Weltzer should tell him to stuff it where the sun don’t shine.”
    The next day me ’n Brent see Julian in the lobby before school. He has his hair in a Statue of Liberty with each spike a different color. Brent shoves him up against a pillar and I grab his book bag and dump his papers and stuff all over the floor. This time he doesn’t even say Hey. He just looks at us. See, he’s not so stupid. He’s learning.
    He doesn’t seem to be learning real fast in Religion, though. Weltzer starts class with about sixteen reasons from the Bible why God is a He, and up goes Julian’s hand. “But that was back then ,” he says.
    Weltzer says, all preacherish and really getting into it, “But Jesus is still here for us today! Christ arose from the dead. He—”
    “God’s alive, right?”
    “Yes! Exactly!”
    “So when you’re alive, you grow, you change? Like it was Yahweh in the Old Testament and in the New Testament it’s Jesus and everything’s changed?”
    Weltzer starts to turn colors. It’s interesting. His nose gets white and same around the mouth and eyes but the rest of his face gets pink like those Styrofoam tomatoes they slice for sandwiches in the cafeteria. He says between his teeth, “But then Jesus said his ministry was conclusive. He said, I am the Way—”
    “But if God is alive, She can change Her mind anytime She wants, can’t She?”
    Girls are giggling, Brent is laughing out loud, and me, I’m snickering but I’m listening to every word. I’ve never paid so much attention in class before.
    Weltzer says edgy like a knife, “Julian, it is not consistent with Christian tradition to refer to our Lord by a female pronoun.”
    “But what if She’s tired of being locked in the Bible?”
    “Julian—”
    Julian says, real soft, “You don’t want to listen. When I talk to Her, She listens.”
    The whole class bursts out laughing and I’m watching Julian and I see his neck get red. Weltzer gets red too, pissed off, like we’re laughing at him. He barks, “In this school we refer to the deity as He.”
    That loser Julian just doesn’t know when to give up. He says, “But if She’s alive… I mean, I’m alive, so I change. Like, I changed my hair today. What if She—”
    Weltzer tells him, “Julian, report to the office.”
    “Huh? Why?”
    “Your hair is in violation of the dress code. Go.”
    That’s a crock. Weltzer just doesn’t want to argue anymore about God being a guy. He’s probably expecting an argument about the hair, but this is weird, Julian doesn’t say a thing. He just gets up and walks out looking like he’s been hit, and that’s weird too, because he didn’t look that way when