In the Bible, David and Jonathan fell in love. This is the David who killed Goliath with a slingshot and a stone; a youngest son, the boy who fought the champion of the Philistines and won against all odds, and who later became King of all Israel. Jonathan was the son of Saul, king and leader of the army David fought for. The first time David and Jonathan met was also the first time David and Saul met. David was still holding Goliath’s severed head by the hair when he was brought to them.
“Who are you?” Saul asked him.
“I’m the son of Jesse,” David replied, “your servant.”
Meanwhile, in the tent, Jonathan looked at David, who must have been dusty and probably had some of the giant’s blood spattered on him or dripping on his shoes and the floor. His hair would have been grimy and windswept, his cheeks flushed from his first kill, his lips chapped. And Jonathan fell for him at once; he loved him as his own soul. More than this—his soul was knit with the soul of David.
Later, alone, Jonathan may have reached forward tentatively to wipe sweat off the other boy’s face. David may have looked up, and their eyes may have locked for the first time. I wonder if David knew then, too, or if it took him longer to figure it out. I also wonder what the first words they ever exchanged were. Did Jonathan tell David that he loved him? Did he want to? Or did he hold back? Did he want to grab his hands, kiss him, sing a song? Who knew that a prince could fall for a shepherd boy anyway? What could Jonathan say to capture his heart too?
Most Christians read their story as pure friendship; others, as a love story. It all depends on your perspective and on what you are willing to erase. Millennia after they lived, a traditional hymn, often sung as a children’s song, would be written about David:
Little David was a shepherd boy
He killed Goliath and he shouted for joy
Little David, play on your harp
Hallelu, hallelu, little David, play on your harp, hallelu
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The first message I ever received from my eventual love was over Instagram. Our heterosexual best friends (mine a man, hers a woman) had recently started dating and set us up. We had similar backgrounds—both grew up Mormon but came out as lesbian—so they thought we might become friends. She messaged me first to get my email: “Hey there! Don’t mind me – just a lesbian in the Midwest sliding into your dms. So, I was told that you might be interested in being penpals of some sort…”
I was excited at the prospect of a new friend, one who also had lived at the intersection between Mormon and gay, had known that impossible dichotomy. Each time I met someone like me, I felt a small seed of hope grow as I relearned that we do exist, and not only in scriptural or historical stories. The written accounts I studied were often part conjecture anyway, reading between the lines to find a glimpse of self-recognition. This is me, and this is me, too.
So, I gave her my email address and within the hour received an introductory email with the subject line, “A Letter from a Stranger, to a Stranger.” I reread it several times, feeling a thin tendril from somewhere in the universe reaching out and whispering, pay attention. Even with this quiet prompting, I took on average four or five days to respond to each email she sent me. She took no time at all. We shared about our families, sent descriptive tattoo tours, talked about our political opinions and love languages and friendships and what books we liked, and discussed our relationships with spirituality. After a few emails, she was no longer a stranger to me, so I changed the subject of our email thread to, “A Letter from a Friend, to a Friend.”
When she found out I was a writer, she asked to read some of my recent work. In response to the pieces I sent her, she wrote a long journal entry which was, essentially, a love confession. I imagine her typing at her computer on her jean couch I’d sit on someday, mind swimming, thoughts scattered, and imagining me too. She didn’t tell me about this confession initially, and when she did, I begged her to share it with me. After some time, she acquiesced.
Can a person be made of magnets? Or am I just upstream, floating down? Are you the source of the draw, or is it the energy of the universe carrying me?
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Over a hundred years before we met, two other Mormon women fell in love. When May met Louie, May at once was “fascinated by [her] blue eyes and lovely golden hair.” May was nineteen, and Louie was thirty-three. They were instantly friends, and I believe May fell quickly in love with Louie, whether she was aware of her own feelings or not.
Just three years prior, Louie had been made the very first president of the children’s Primary organization in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She served as Primary president for forth-five years, completely transforming it in the process. Despite her great accomplishments, Louie had a lifelong unidentified chronic illness. May and Louie became close during one bout of her illness, as she became a sort of nurse for the older woman. When Louie’s polygamist husband went out of town on business for an extended period of time, he asked May if she would stay with Louie at their home. May never moved out.
It’s easy for me to picture the scene as it may have unfolded. Louie, forehead sweaty, lying on her bed, golden hair damp and tousled. May, sitting on the edge of the bed, sponging away her fever with a cold wet cloth, speaking soothing words. Hands holding hands, stroking her cheek. The lover and the loved.
At some point, the two began sharing a bedroom, and then a bed. Several Mormon historians insist rather virulently that this was no more than a platonic friendship. Of course, there’s no way to prove that theirs was a romantic or sexual relationship; no hard evidence exists. No evidence of something, though, is not the same thing as evidence of nothing. Other historians suggest that it may have been something more: romantic love, even. The first time I read their story, six or seven years ago now, I felt hope that maybe there is more room in heaven than I was once taught. I think often about sapphic women through history, both in and out of Mormonism—we have always existed, and we have always loved other women.
At one point in Louie and May’s relationship, while traveling to Springville, Utah together, Louie asked May to join the Primary as a worker. She would eventually become her first counselor in the Primary organization. At the time, though, May laughed and said she wouldn’t know where to start. When Louie said that she believed this was a calling for May, she replied thusly: “I would like to think that I would always be with you.”
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David and Jonathan, too, had always planned, or at least hoped, to be together. This was not their lot in life, though. While David became a fierce warrior for Saul, Saul soon grew jealous. He heard his people speaking of the thousands that he himself had slain, but of David’s tens of thousands. Saul’s jealousy grew to paranoia and threat, and he soon decided that David had to go. Some Biblical historians suggest that Saul may have thought David and Jonathan were too close; he may have thought they were lovers; and this may have contributed to his hatred and fear of David, his servant, the shepherd boy, playing on his harp and singing praises to God.
When Jonathan found out about his father’s plan to kill his David, he helped to orchestrate David’s escape, thus defying his father.
“What did I do? Why does your father want to kill me?” David asked. He had fled at Jonathan’s word. I imagine him out of breath, dirty, afraid. Little David, the shepherd, appearing again as the young man who had killed a giant. He had killed tens of thousands since then. But he was frightened now.
“I won’t let it happen,” Jonathan said in return. “He’ll tell me of his plans, and I’ll warn you. It won’t happen.” Another boy, now grown up into a man. Perhaps both a little broader, a little taller, a little stronger. I don’t know why, but I picture Jonathan blond and David with dark hair. I can’t get the image out of my head: two boys, one light-haired, one dark-haired; one gentle, one hard; one a son, one a killer; one a prince, one a king; one lover, one loved.
“Your father knows that we’re together, though,” David said. “He knows how we feel about each other. He won’t tell you because he won’t want to hurt you. But he will still try to kill me. I feel it. I know it.”
Jonathan may have paused, or he may have replied instantly. He probably looked into his lover’s eyes, the shepherd boy turned warrior, and knew there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for him. He said, “Whatever you want, I’ll do it.” And so, they made their plan. They came up with signals and key phrases and escape routes.
“Come,” Jonathan said. “Let’s go into the field.” And they went. Hand in hand, breaths coming out fast and hot, at once elated and terrified. One last night together, before Saul either killed David or Jonathan helped him escape.
In their field, they professed their love for each other again. Jonathan made a covenant, and he asked David to make the same covenant. Just as it was the first time he had laid eyes on the other boy, Jonathan knew with certainty—he loved him as he loved his own soul.
“Tomorrow is the new moon,” Jonathan said, noting the near darkness, ideal for covertness. “I’ll miss you.” He could just make out the contours of David’s face in the wan moonlight. There was not much more to say, after all this. One more night, and then David would be dead, or he would have fled. I picture them lying side by side in their field with a sliver of a moon above them. Eyes looking into eyes, hands stroking hands, body tracing body. Another song about David, more soulful than the children’s verse, says:
Well, baby, I’ve been here before
I’ve seen this room and I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
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For some reason, it had always been difficult for me to write happy love songs. Heartbreak was easier. It was easy to compose, When I ask you if you’ll leave me, please say you won’t. Please tell me you love me, even though you don’t. It was easy to write songs for old loves of mine who didn’t deserve my music or my words. I occasionally wrote a rare (and fictional) happy love song, but I always shelved them away. I’d spent my teenage years and early twenties in a near constant state of heartbreak simply from yearning for love in a religion that denied me that possibility. The dull ache in my heart had become a familiar feeling, like an old friend, almost.
And then I met her, first a stranger, then a friend, and then more. Our emails became increasingly intimate, each one a shout across a thousand miles. I moved forward, as they say, cautiously optimistic. We’d already said the words I love you, perhaps foolishly (though aren’t fools always the ones in love?), and made plans for her to visit. I wondered, would she really love me in person, and would I really love her too?
There were many early moments when I knew both were true. Loading laundry into the dryer on FaceTime, struggling not to call her the love of my life when we hadn’t met in person yet; in my grandparents basement on vacation when we fell asleep on the phone nightly, having talked until three or four in the morning; the first time our hands touched when I picked her up from the airport; every time our hands touched when I picked her up from the airport every time after that.
On one of those first in-person visits, I played piano and sang to her. We used my electric piano in my little apartment instead of my mom’s grand piano in her big house; I didn’t want anyone to hear but her. Voice slightly trembling, I took a breath. I had never, not once, sung for a love interest before. As I did, she sat on my couch, her knees inches from the piano bench. I looked over at her as often as I could while playing just to get a glimpse of her smile, which I still think is the best smile in the world.
When I sang this particular song to her, it was one of the rare happy love songs written during a period of heartbreak, and I realized it had been about her all along. You’re not what I was looking for, when I looked around me. And then, you found me. When the song finished, she leaned toward me and kissed me, her hands soft on my cheeks. Her eyes were gentle. She brushed the hair away from my face and told me she loved me for at least the thousandth time.
I wonder, who will write about our story in a hundred years? Will someone someday read this and know she was beautiful and good and kind? Will they picture us at a piano bench and know we were in love? What will they be willing to erase? Will they recognize our relationship for what it is? Could they insist we were only friends? Would they dare?
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After Louie married her husband at sixteen (he was twenty-six), she soon discovered that she was infertile. As polygamy was common in late nineteenth century Mormonism, she encouraged him to marry others so that he could have children and she foster children. The other reason she encouraged him to marry again was because she was lonely. She wanted the companionship of a woman. This is detailed in an article about Louie, published in 1919 in The Children’s Friend—a magazine she founded for use in the Primary in 1902 and which May oversaw with help from the Primary General Board and other church members. According to this article, when Louie met a girl named Lizzie Mineer, she “fell in love with” her and encouraged Joseph to take her as a second wife. Later, he married another woman, Elizabeth Liddell, with whom Louie also “opened her home and shared her love.”
Joseph never married May, though, and May never married anyone else. She was Louie’s own. When Elizabeth died, Louie and May raised her children as their own. Their children’s journals detail the close, loving relationship between their two adoptive mothers.
The Children’s Friend published another article in the same volume, this one about Louie and May together, which honored their service and their friendship. The article stated that their friendship had “ripened into love” and that “never were more ardent lovers than these two.” It even called them “the David and Jonathan of the Primary.” The nickname stuck. For four decades, they worked, lived, and loved together. What nickname could be more fitting?
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The plan that David and Jonathan had concocted worked. Saul was going to try to kill David, once and for all; Jonathan knew it.
Jonathan warned David with their signals and their secret codes. But David did not run instantly. Instead, he came out of his hiding place to say goodbye to Jonathan. By this time, David was a prince in his own right, no longer a mere shepherd boy. He would later become king, years after Saul’s death. But in this moment, he knew none of this. He ran forward and bowed to Jonathan three times low to the earth, submitting himself to the other man whom he loved so much. They fell on each other. They kissed. They wept. And then it was time for David to leave.
“Go in peace,” Jonathan said, stroking the time-roughened cheek of his beloved. “The Lord has sealed us together and we’ve covenanted to love each other forever. We both know this is true and always will be. Nothing and no one can take that away.”
With that, Jonathan would have stood, would have turned, would have walked back into the city, leaving David in their field, in the dark, alone.
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Early on a Thursday morning in June, a year and a half into dating, my love and I go to breakfast at Mildred’s, as they have the best breakfast burritos (for her) and breakfast hash (for me). As we sit to wait for our food, I see that she’s texting her friend, Amber, and I ask what it’s about.
“She’s just going through some family stuff,” she replies.
“Oh, yeah? What is it?” I ask.
“It’s kind of personal to her. I don’t think she’d want me to share it,” she says. I’m a bit disgruntled, I have to admit. Why won’t she just tell me? Still, I’m not threatened by Amber and know there must be a really good reason. I also know I’ll try to wheedle it out of her again later.
She heads to the bathroom just then, phone in hand. I wait. When we are finished eating, she takes my hand and we head outside. It’s a somewhat hot day, and more muggy than hot. I wipe sweat from my forehead with the back of my free hand.
While we move toward the car, she asks, “Did you still want to walk past the little shops?”
“Oh, yeah, I do!” I reply. I’d almost forgotten. A block away from Mildred’s, there is a narrow street lined with brick buildings covered in ivy and graffiti. The street is quiet. We’d gotten up early, around 7:00, so that we could have breakfast together before she had to go to work.
“Hang on, I need to check for my wallet,” she says and swings her small backpack around to the front. This is a regular step whenever we go anywhere. While she rummages through her bag, I talk idly about our weekend plans, noticing the quaintness of this section of the city. We’ve paused near a window box on a brick building. Pink flowers spill from the dark soil against the industrial backsplash.
Then, she says, “I have a secret.”
“You do? What’s the secret?” I ask.
“I’m not going into work today.”
I stare at her, not quite processing yet. My blue eyes against her brown, or hazel, or green. Her short blonde hair swept sideways by the breeze.
“Why not?” I ask. When I say this, movement catches my eye, about 100 feet back. Amber has just moved out from behind a car, phone in front of her, as if she’s taking a picture. There is a split second where I know what is about to happen before it happens. My heart swells and my face changes from pleasantly puzzled to overjoyed, which Amber catches on film. Then, my love is on one knee, smiling up at me, a small white box in her outstretched hand.
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I can’t say for certain whether Louie and May were lesbians or whether their relationship was actually romantic, whether they were lovers. I think the evidence is there. I think it’s possible, even plausible. I like to think that in earlier times, Mormons were more lenient than they are now, more welcoming of those who loved differently than them, and ample historical evidence proves this is true. I like to think that when they called Louie and May “the David and Jonathan of the Primary,” they meant it. How could one possibly ignore such a love story, after all?
I hope that wherever Louie and May are now, they’re still together, as May had hoped; that she would always be with Louie. I hope their souls knit together and that God honored that covenant between them, that if he honors covenants between lovers at all, theirs was one of these.
Even if theirs was not a sexual relationship, it certainly was a queer one. Two women, two soft bodies side by side at night, two blue eyes looking into two brown, or hazel, or green. A light smile plays on the lips of the lover. Her beloved answers back with a smile of her own. The lover and the loved, the companion and her companion.
In my own relationship, I do believe that our souls are knit together. Or at the very least, I hope so. The church I grew up in would say this is a lie, but God and I have an agreement. I have my own set of spiritual beliefs now independent from Mormonism, though of course and inevitably influenced by the religion I grew up in. I hope that if God honors covenants between lovers at all, ours will be one of these, too. Like May once said of Louie, I would like to think I will always be with my love. I think that a good God wouldn’t separate any two people who are loved as much as we are. And I imagine God is good.
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The last time David and Jonathan met, Saul was at it again, trying to murder his former champion, his son’s lover. Now, though, Jonathan knew more than he did before. David was hiding in the woods, and Jonathan came to meet him.
“He won’t find you, not this time,” Jonathan said. “You are going to be the next king of Israel.” I see him leaning against a tree, staring at the haggard and worn face of his covenanted love. I’m sure he still felt fear for his beloved, and complicated feelings about his own father trying to kill David. He forged on, though, and said, “I’ll be by your side when you are king.” Perhaps he looked up a bit shyly, thinking the words he didn’t know how to say. King. Lover. Helpmeet. Husband.
Only this dream never happened. This was the final meeting of David and Jonathan. Saul took a stand against the Philistines on the hill that he would die on, covered in blood that was not his own. He and Jonathan were both killed.
When David heard that Saul and Jonathan had been killed in battle, devastated, he composed a song to honor and mourn them both, despite any differences he had with Saul. Of Jonathan, he sang, “Your love was the best part of my life.” He sang that he loved Jonathan and Jonathan loved him, more than he could love or be loved by any woman.
Little David, play on your harp
Hallelu, hallelu, little David, play on your harp, hallelu
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Partly as an engagement present, my lover paid for my most recent tattoo. On my upper left arm, I got a small lit match in black and gray, and beside the match, “you burn me.” This comes from a Sappho poem fragment. I have a small bust of Sappho, the original lesbian from Lesbos, the one who invented yearning, in my bedroom. Her face turns down demurely, exposing the long, elegant line of her neck. I have loved this particular fragment for a long time, as it at once embodies what I thought love ought to be as well as what love genuinely is at times. It reminds me of the other queer lovers throughout history, the tragic ones and the joyful ones and the erased ones. It reminds me that we deserve to be seen.
I read back my love’s journaled confession of love somewhat regularly. It reminds me that she loved me almost instantly and with absolute certainty, well before she told me so, and well before I knew myself. In it, she pleads with God to let me know that I am loved—that I have set her on fire—that her soul is mine, if I want it. And I do. My Jonathan, my May, my lover, my wife, the one who loved me, my companion, the one whose soul is knit with mine.
Sometimes, I picture us old, eighty, ninety. I have snowy white hair and she has silvery gray. Many decades have passed of working, living, and loving beside each other. Maybe someone calls us the David and Jonathan of our community, when they pass us walking. Our joints are weary and our eyes are cloudy. I see our hands clasped together while we read; I see our paper-thin skin covered in wrinkles and aged tattoos; I see smile lines and skin spots from too many moments in the sun. And, later, in a blinding, golden oblivion I can only pretend to imagine, where the air smells of milk and honey and lilac—I see us together there too.
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Bibliography
The Bible: Authorized king James Version. Oxford England: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. “Jonathan.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Accessed October 25, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jonathan.
Buckley, Jeff. “Hallelujah.” Genius. Accessed 24 October, 2023. https://genius.com/Jeff-buckley-hallelujah-lyrics
“Little David, Play on Your Harp.” Hymnary.org. Accessed 24 October, 2023. https://hymnary.org/text/little_david_was_a_shepherd_boy
“Louie Felt: General Primary President, Co-Founder of ‘The Children’s Friend.’” Latter Gay Stories Podcast, May 17, 2019. https://lattergaystories.org/louiefelt/.
Mitton, George L, and Rhett S James. “A Response to D. Michael Quinn’s Homosexual Distortion of Latter-Day Saint History.” Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989-2011 10, no. 1 (1998).
Oman, Susan Staker. “Nurturing LDS Primaries: Louie Felt and May Anderson, 1880-1940.” Utah Historical Quarterly 49, no. 3 (1981). https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume49_1981_number3/s/133094.
Peterson, Janet. “Louie B. Felt: Dedicating Her Life to Children.” Ensign, July 2014. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2014/07/louie-b-felt-dedicating-her-life-to-children?lang=eng.
“Prominent Men and Women of the Church: Louie B. Felt.” The Children’s Friend 18, no. 10 (October 1919): 404-416. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101067665313&seq=457
RoseAnn Benson. “Sarah Louisa Bouton Felt: Thousands Called Her Mother.” BYU Studies, September 3, 2021. https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/sarah-louisa-bouton-felt-thousands-called-her-mother/.
“The Story Hour: Mary and May.” The Children’s Friend 18, no. 10 (October 1919): 418-422. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101067665313&seq=472
