The Peacock 21

 This has been a long session in the reception room.  Not boring, but so much information to digest.  We had not expected any of this.  Or I hadn't.  Father Griffin certainly didn't warn me about any of this.  Like Carol, I find this all very troubling, confusing, almost offensive.  I never would have imagined.  But that had also been almost twenty years ago, and people do change, or there is always the promise that we could change.  Father Griffin himself took me under his wing when I told him that I was caring for the dying.  He himself has had a lot of pastoral experience with the moribund.  I have never known anyone so kind and receptive.  And perceptive.  Very unusual for an Anglican priest.  And so very different from the Father Griffin I first met when I was just seventeen.

Carl continues, "This community began in the sixties.  It was at it's very beginning multi-denominational.  But my mother's church had a particular defining influence.  Mom is a Syriac Catholic, but from a very obscure sect that has remained virtually unchanged since it was founded by St. Thomas.  I mean St. Thomas the Apostle, who walked with Jesus.  They were a very inclusive order, and somehow were simultaneously in communion with the Roman and the Eastern Orthodox communions, and this also gave them permission to share the sacraments with all faithful people, even protestants.  This is not a particularly austere, nor strict, nor ascetic group.  But they live simply, in a spirit of prayer and hospitality to all strangers.  In this community there seems always a palpable presence of holiness, joy and love.  Just being there, for  Melissa and me had itself a healing effect.

"As we sat with the three directors and with Robert, very little was said before he broke down in tears, and to us he confessed.  Everything.  His sexual relationship with the banker, and how they were for a while both enjoying the services of rent boys like me, until Robert entered seminary and began to distance himself.  But not entirely.  He still had the house, and sometimes his partner, who lived there full time.  Also, the conversion of Robert did not extend to his boyfriend, and he simply treated him like an embarrassing uncle.  What he didn't want was exposure and scandal.  This is very problematic with Anglicans, among many other church people.   In their private lives they have license to do whatever the hell they want, as long as nobody finds out.  But in this community, transparency was always the feature of the day.  No one ever coerced it, but by entering that kind of atmosphere, suddenly one wants to be a better person, and find themselves yearning for beauty, for love, to give love, one comes to this place yearning for the Absolute...