146

 "Doug was, of course, wroth about my getting the apartment.  He had lost his power over me and now he was having tantrums, and I just told him to get over it, got some furniture, and moved in just when my mother was admitted to hospital with a broken hip and stage four lung cancer.  We still met regularly for prayer, the four of us, at the apartment, but not every day.  Doug was still baulking about the amount of time that I was spending with my dying mother when I really ought to be spending more time in the work and supporting him, then Doreen started to agree with him.  I left, telling them how ashamed of them I was.  So, my routine was greatly simplified.  In the mornings I would take a long walk to meet with Doreen and Dianne in Shiloh House where we prayed and chatted together.  They both became amazingly supportive.  Then I would walk into East Vancouver, starting with the house where I lived for five years before moving downtown during the eighties, and from there I would retrace the various walking routes I had taken to St. James and downtown.  This was important for me because I had so lost my sense of myself while living with Doug, that now I was step by step recovering me by revisiting my familiar old patterns from just a few years ago.  It was actually very effective.  After returning downtown, I would go to the hospital over the bridge to spend time with Mom.  I tried to see her every day, or almost every day.

"I was also spending the evenings in street ministry, with the various punks and sex workers who had befriended me, often spending hours together chatting in coffee shops. They were also surprisingly supportive and warm towards me as I was caring for my mom.  

"Mom died January 9, 1991.  The next day, Jason, who was a rent boy,  came over and we hung out for a while.  He just wanted to see that I was okay.  Doug actually visited, ostensibly for the same reason, but Jason and I were on our way out for coffee.  Then, just a couple of weeks later, he tried to turn the apartment into a love nest for him and his ex lover, Francisco.  and that was when everyone knew that the time had arrived for Doug to leave the Community of the Transfiguration..."

The Peacock 145

 "Since I now had the apartment in the West End, Doug, believing that God had called him to minister in the Downtown Eastside, he took a room in one of the most rundown and sleaziest of the SRO hotels around Hastings and Main, and that's where he deigned to live.  This left the farmhouse in Richmond somewhat unoccupied, so we would all take turns taking personal retreats there, given that the two women were also really occupied in their hospitality house in Mount Pleasant.  At least I was finally getting solitude, because for the two years anyway, I simply could not shake him.  Doug had to be with me everywhere.  And the tension really was mounting, because I could tell that he was also needing time alone, but said he was terrified of being alone too much because he didn't want to have to face his own shadow.  He also was violent on occasion and once, in August 1990 or so, he really beat me up badly, over a small argument about the correct way to address a senior priest at St. James.  Fortunately, I wasn't badly injured and there were no bruises or anything, but he left me in a traumatized heap, and for a long time I just lay on the floor weeping.  Then my mother called.  The cancer had returned and now it looked really grave for her, and I really had to hold it together in order to be supportive to her, though she must have sensed there was something seriously wrong, and that was also likely why she phoned me.

"That evening, Doreen and Dianne came over to talk to us, because Doug had just returned from a day on the lam.  They were nervous that I would call the police, and I really wanted to, but they were so afraid of their darling Dougly having to leave our community, especially Dianne who really wanted desperately his dick inside her pussy...Okay, I know I'm being crude, but this is really difficult for me, so bear with me, okay?

"Anyway, in early October, I knew that I had to get that apartment, and fortunately we were at the time awash in funds, so I could afford it.  I would get distance from that monster, be closer to Mom, and have time to start to recover because I already knew that I was traumatized..."

The Peacock 144

 "It seemed I could not get rid of him.  He just abused...everything.  And he simply refused to just go.  He was violent, controlling, manipulative, a truly oppressive presence, made all the more toxic because he was so charismatic and so handsome and absolutely sexy.  People were always eating out of his hand, and he was just such a master controller.  Worse, one of the women in the community was in love with him, and entertained fantasies of curing him of his homosexuality."

"No shit! say I.

"Lots of shit sitting here in this toilet, kiddo!" says Aaron.

"He had this lover, Francisco, a Nicaraguan whom he never could quite entirely shake.  Francisco hated me with a total lack of finesse or decorum.  He wanted to see me dead.  As far as he was concerned, I had stolen from him his dear darling Dougly.  But Doug wanted to leave Francisco, and Doug wanted to join me in Christian community, or so I thought, but to this day, I still don't know his real motives, he was such a player of games and manipulator of persons.

"Anyway, while my mother lay dying in the hospital, I got an apartment in the West End, so I could be near the hospital.  The others in the community also wanted to use the apartment as a kind of rest station for the work downtown, and  very reluctantly agreed, and stupidly had keys cut for all of them. And I still had to put up with Doug's scolding and disapproval that I was spending more time with my mother, who was due to die in three months, rather than with his exalted self.  A real asshole, through and through."

"You will find that he hasn't changed much."

"And he is the leader of this community."

"Is there a story here?" say I smiling.

"Oh, do shut up, darling Christopher!" says Carl, laughing quite out loud, and I can only join him in laughing,   Aaron alone is neither laughing, nor even smiling...

The Peacock 143

 "By the way, does he know I´m here, Doug, I mean."  

"I haven't talked with him in a couple of days", Carl says.  He is likely back in holy seclusion."

"Holy seclusion?" say I.  

"One of his many control methods", Carl says.  "He doesn't like strangers coming here, and so he is indisposed.  His way of showing his displeasure."

"Does he even know that you and I know each other?"

"I thought I'd surprise him."

Aaron glares sad and shocked and in apparent great discomfort.

"Griffin?" he says faintly.

"He wants you both to reconcile, I suppose."

"How did he end up here, anyway?"

"First, tell us how he left your community."

"You don't really want to know, do you?"

Tell us anyway, Aaron", Carl says smiling, "I think you need to get something off your chest."

Aaron has returned to colouring more of  that intense brilliant red on the breast of the resplendent quetzal he has been recreating on this page of his sketchbook.  The bird has taken on its own life.   He is truly a talented artist.  he looks up at us, sighs, and sets the pencil crayon on the bench next to him...

The Peacock 142

 "Yes, that would have had it's complications", says Carl.  "How did your mother handle this?" 

"I think she figured out pretty fast that she was up against none other than the Living God Himself, so she just got out of my way and let me continue in my path towards Jesus. A lot of things were at play.  By the end of February we had revival meetings at Richmond High School, where a number of young people came to the Lord, and this formed a very new and very precious fellowship with me and kids I had never known in school before.  We had a late snow that weekend, and two girls in my grade at school both wanted to accept Jesus, following a talk we had together, so I ran to the coffee shop in the mall, I think in the Hudson's Bay, and got one of the brothers, Jacque, a Metis, to come and pray with us.  So we knelt outside the Richmond Art Gallery and Cultural Centre, in the snow, all of us in tears of joy as both girls accepted Christ.

"Jacques, by the way, and I, came into contact gain some twenty-five years later.  A gay man, he later came out and disappeared from the Christian radar.  When I last saw him he was dying from AIDS and I was helping care for him.  We had a very beautiful visit."

"What was going on your life then?" asks Carl.

"We were still in community.  I had returned to doing home support work, part time, because there was some discussion in the community about working outside the ministry.  Doug had been against it, and because of his loud voice, Doreen and Dianne basically caved to him, and he was clearly against anyone getting a job.  But only because he lacked the confidence, himself, to work for a living, and would not suffer anyone to cause him to feel inferior.  But Doug left us in 1991, just following my mother's death.  Actually, he was kicked out.  And after I returned from Europe, a few months later, I took employment taking care of people, especially people living with, and dying, from AIDS..."

The Peacock 141

 "And you were just", I say, "Fourteen?"

"Less than one month from my fifteenth birthday."

"That is just really amazing", Carl says.  "We actually experienced something very similar in my mom's community in Switzerland.  But your experience sounds truly amazing!"

"What exactly happened?" Aaron asks.

"I'll let you know soon enough.  You are still telling your story."

"Do you still speak in tongues?" I ask.

"Every day."

"What does it sound like?"

"Later", and Aaron betrays an embarrassed smile.

"When we are praying together", says Carl.

"Thanks, Carl", says Aaron.

"So, brother Aaron", Carl says, "Do continue your narrative, please."

"Why, nothing would please me more, brother Carl, and brother Christopher.  "Well, a couple of days later, after school, Mom and I were seated at the kitchen table, and I told her about my experience.  She was totally lost for words.  She asked me if this was for real.  So, I did give her a little demo, and as she heard me speaking in an unknown tongue it really spooked the shit out of her and she told me to stop immediately.  Now, I think that I probably should have continued, because there might have been for my dear mother an imminent deliverance from satanic bondage, but, I don't think I would have been quite ready yet to help facilitate an exorcism, especially with my dear old mother..."

The Peacock 140

 "There was a strong sense of God's love and grace present in the room.  I was already able to discern this presence, something so beautiful, and so powerful and so full of love, peace and joy.  They were praying, swaying together, many praying in tongues.  I suppose you would already be familiar with the gift of tongues and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  The Jesus People Army, as we called ourselves, were strongly influenced by and affiliated with the Pentecostal Church.  And it was our belief then, back in the day, as it is still my belief to this very day, that God wants to make himself intimately and clearly present to us in our lives and experience, even completely filling us with his Spirit and empowering us with gifts to serve him more powerfully and to live our lives more effectively and full of grace.  This has been my own daily experience as a Christian, from that auspicious night, until this very day.  It was a young blond guy who received the Spirit and he was weeping with joy and speaking in tongues and people were hugging and holding him, and yes, we were very demonstrably affectionate, all of us, and we were always hugging one another, holding hands, cuddling, comforting one another, all like darling and affectionate little children.

"Then my turn came up.  I didn't feel ready, but one girl, a sweet teenager just two years my senior named Laurie, told me, you really need this, please let us pray for you.  So I consented, They all put there hands on me and prayed, and I could feel something trying to burst open in me.  It felt like a huge struggle.  Now I realise it was a kind of spiritual and emotional birth I was undergoing.  And then, it just burst open in me.  Never in my life had I felt so flooded and overwhelmed by such joy and love unspeakable and full of glory.  I will never forget that night, and then my tongue was moving as I was already acquiring the prayer language that God was giving me.  Oh, the power and the glory that filled and infused me, and that fills and infuses me still, every day as I walk with Jesus!"

The Peacock 139

 "Sven was a third year psychology student at UBC, age twenty-three, presentably handsome, and he picked me up hitchhiking the following Friday night on my way into Vancouver for an evening at the Shepherd's Call. He took me downtown instead where we went for coffee in a diner where I had already had coffee a couple of times with new friends from the Jesus People.  Sven then drove me to the Shepherd's Call.  I didn't invite hm, neither did he invite himself, because I already was aware that I was doing something wrong.  

"We soon started a brief affair, and an illegal one, given that I was still fourteen and legally a child.  Had police been involved, he likely would have ended up in prison for a while.  By the end of the month it was all over, for me anyway.  He tried to have sex with me, and it was traumatizing me, so I ended it.  The following Saturday, I sought out my friends from the Jesus' People in a diner, the Black Angus on Robson, downtown.  I told them what had happened, and I was weeping. They received me with open arms and I spent the rest of the day with them.  I was invited for dinner but I declined, not wanting to create further problems with Mom.  I remember walking along Broadway west from Main Street with a lady in her late twenties, named Patricia, and having the most amazing conversation as we walked towards the Shepherd's Call together, just a block and a half west of Granville.

"The following weekend, in the basement of the Shepherd's Call.  There were people seated on the concrete floor, in a circle, having a prayer meeting.  A friend of my brother's, who had recently accepted Jesus, was present.  That was the evening I was baptized in the Holy Spirit..."

The Peacock 138

 Aaron continues: "This was the start of rather a messy month, I'm afraid.  I spent New Year´s Day with the Jesus' People.  They were doing a baptism at English Bay. no it was not the Polar Bear Swim, that was happening further down the beach, and yes, it was cold.  I didn't feel ready yet to get baptised, and it was just as well.  Later, they took me to the new coffee house, the Shepherd's Call, which was scheduled to open very soon.  Rick and Lorne gave me a ride home.  Mom was there.  She was not happy to meet them, was rude and hostile, and Rick was also there, giving her support.  I was of course outnumbered, and I think that she would have preferred that I go on smoking pot and drinking beer instead of serving the Lord.  She forbade me from ever seeing the Jesus People again, and I was on my way downtown to see them at the Shepherd's call coffee House, on their opening night.

"I had never been to a coffeehouse before, much less a Christian coffeehouse.  I was probably the youngest visitor, and for me it was rather exhilarating to be hanging out with bona fide adults, even if they weren't the kinds of folks that Mom approved of.  There were singers, I remember a young woman with a guitar, a sweet soprano voice singing about Jesus.  It was lovely.  The people were warm, kind and inviting.  I felt at home there.

"Mom wasn't bothering to ask me about where I was going, since she was working Friday and Saturday nights late, catering for banquets and usually spending the night with her boyfriend.  Rick my brother was out drinking and using drugs with his friends or off with his girlfriend.  They couldn't keep track of me, and I was getting around by hitchhiking.  Then, the following Friday night, I met Sven, and if there was ever evidence that Satan was out to derail my new faith in Christ then it couldn't have come in a more charming package..."

The Peacock 137

 "There's more, if this isn't too boring for you", Aaron says.  He was intermediately colouring for a while, but has completely left off his art in order to talk about his life and past.  The bird drawing now rests over his knee like an incredibly coloured  sleeping cat.

"Do continue", says Carl, "We still have around forty minutes, and we aren't exactly busy right now, are we?"

"Okay.  First of all, I believe there was a sense of divine purpose to all this.  When I got off the bus downtown that night, I got quite lost trying to find the Fountain Chapel, and walked over the Cambie Bridge instead of the Georgia Viaduct, finding my way to the house where the Jesus's People all lived.  There was no one home of course, so I sat in a chair on the verandah.  One of them came home to pick up some buns, a French Canadian named Michel, and he drove me with him to the church.  So, it was foreordained.  After the service, the Cockney Jesus and another fellow drove me home to Richmond.

It was already 1:30 am, Mom was away overnight working at a banquet with her boyfriend, so I invited them into the split level house we lived in in a subdivision.  Then my big brother, Rick, came in with a friend of his.  It didn't go very well.  They were both rude, mocking and sarcastic towards my two friends, both of whom were older and considerably more life experienced, but to them they were just a couple of dumb Jesus' freaks who had brainwashed Rick's darling little brother, namely, me.  They were admirably good natured and kind to both those undeserving twits.  After they left, my brother seemed to be struggling with his own encroaching epiphany experience.  He simply said that there was now a strong, sweet fragrance of flowers in the house.  I didn't smell anything,  I believe that that was how the Holy Spirit was making himself present for my brother, who just rejected it all anyway.  So sad..."  

The Peacock 136

"I was invited to their watchnight, or New year's Eve service at the Fountain Chapel, the black church in Strathcona that invited us to use their premises.  Only in this past year have I learned more about that church, by the way. It is in one of Vancouver's oldest, if not very oldest, residential neighbourhoods, just past Chinatown. Apparently it was the first black church in Vancouver, founded by none other than the grandmother of Jimi Hendrix. Yes, THAT Jimi Hendrix. When I was briefly attending there with the Jesus' People, I visited sometimes during the day, where I met the pastor, named Sister Ann Walker. I remember a kind, humble, somewhat shy African woman, middle aged, and towards me very warm and engaging. She wanted to know if I had the gift of tongues and tried to explain to me the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. it didn't quite make sense to me, but I remember how welcome and accepted I felt by this woman, and that she was the first black person I had ever had a conversation with. Did I mention that I was still only fourteen and this was 1971?

During my first visit there New Years Eve for the Watchnight service, as midnight drew near, we were all on our knees in prayer and I started weeping.  I cannot remember why, but I sensed something very beautiful was happening inside of me and all I could do was consent to it.  People all around me were all emotional and crying out to God, and so was I and suddenly I was weeping. I didn't know why I was weeping, but it felt good, so very very good, and now I know that I was releasing to God all the tears I had stored up over the years and now offering them up to him, and I was truly cleansed by the experience..."

The Peacock 135

 "It started with the Shepherd's Call, the Jesus' People coffee house.  I first visited New Year's Day 1971.  Just three days before, I had accepted Jesus into my heart.  It all happened very quickly and precipitously.  I was downtown four days after Christmas, spending my Christmas money when I encountered a man with long shoulder length hair and a beard who reminded me of Jesus speaking with a Cockney British accent.  He was selling a Christian newspaper, the Goad, for donations.  He asked me if I believed in Jesus and we began to talk on the street corner, till, no longer able to tolerate the cold, I suggested we go into a coffee shop nearby, where we continued for the next two or three hours.  I had never met someone like this before.  He was simultaneously joyful, kind, grounded, spiritual and totally authentic.  I was invited back to the house where he lived with several other Christian young men that evening for dinner.  I accepted.  While sitting with them in their living room after dinner, I felt almost overwhelmed with this warm wave of wellbeing, peace and joy.  It was like being pleasantly stoned on the best pot I could have ever smoked.   I was told they were all going up to one of the bedrooms to talk more privately, and was invited to join them, which I did. 

"Even though I was just fourteen, I was not naive, but already streetwise.  But I knew intuitively that these people could be trusted.  In fact, it seemed imperative that I go with them.  When we had sat and made ourselves comfortable on the beds or parts of the floor, they started to pray together.  Then someone, Richard, the Cockney Jesus, I think, asked me if I wanted to be saved.  I wasn't sure what he meant.  Then he asked if I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart and I said, yes, not really having a clue what I might be getting myself into, but it was too late already.  I knew that I had to do this, so I gave my consent.  I got on my knees.  Those friendly kind young men, some of whom had already suffered more than their share of life blows, now dedicated to the service of the one who will not reject us, prayed for me, and asked Jesus to come into my heart.  I consented.  I can't say that I felt really different, but I knew that something had changed, that something new had just started for me.  I rode the bus home to Richmond that night, a long ride, and watched the rain illuminated by the street lights on the window into something so lovely to behold.  I had never seen something so simple or so beautiful,  But already my eyes were being opened in a new way..."

I was invited to their watchnight, or New year's Eve service at the Fountain Chapel, the black church in Strathcona that invited us to use their premises.  As midnight drew near, we were all on our knees in prayer and I started weeping.  I cannot remember why, but I sensed something very beautiful was happening inside of me and all I could do was consent to it. 

The Peacock 134

 "You raised him from the dead", Carl says.

"To this day, I still don't know what happened, only that it seemed remarkable."

"They became afraid of you."

"What do you mean?" says Aaron.

"Do you remember the people imploring Jesus to leave their region once he had delivered the man from many demons? People can't live with that kind of wonder.  It is too frightening, too threatening for them.  Most Christians don't want the miraculous, nor any reminder that they are not completely in control of their lives.  If you are going to really know God, and I can't say that that has yet happened for me, then you have to be prepared to give up control, and that for people is very frightening."

"It's something I prefer not to give much thought to," says Aaron, sighing wearily.

"Can't say I blame you.  It is very costly having your kind of calling, Aaron."

"All I've ever wanted was a normal life."

"But God has had a different calling for you.  To walk with him.  Aaron, your beginnings in the Christian faith were rather, shall we say, different from the ordinary?"

"That's something I've always wondered about you", I say.  "I mean, we hardly knew each other in St. James, but things were said, and I wasn't sure about what to make of then.  And yes, I did hear about how you both raised Father Wright from the dead."

"They were actually saying that?"

"I guess it was all inferred, rather.  But Aaron", I say, suddenly overwhelmed by curiosity, "How did you become a Christian?"

"How much time do we have?"

"It's 9:00, now, says Carl.  "We have an hour before coffee break."

The Peacock133

 "One rainy afternoon, we were hanging out at Persons With AIDS, or, PWA with some of our friends there.  Then suddenly we sensed that God was telling us both to get over to St. James for the Tuesday evening service at 6.  Doug and I often got, simultaneously, such strong promptings in the Spirit, and always it turned out that God was leading us.  There didn't seem to be enough time when, one of the members offered us a ride, so we did arrive just in time.  Lloyd, the elder priest, who also liked us, was celebrant.  

"Everything began in good order.  Then, I think it was during the reading of the Gospel, when something extraordinary happened.  Father Wright suddenly passed out in front of the altar.  Doug was just ahead of me as he rushed over to catch him before he fell, and eased him to the floor.  Then I arrived and we both began to pray over him.  His eyes were wide open, but he had lost consciousness and was hyperventilating terribly.  We were both sure he was, in Doug's words, down for the count, that he was about to die.  But I placed my hand on his forehead, prayed silently, then his eyes closed.   Then he opened them, and with our assistance got up.  He announced that mass was cancelled.  One of the old ladies there was weeping wildly.

"But you know, even though we were instruments of God's Grace, helping save the life of their worthy and beloved curate, no one seemed particularly grateful.  In fact, they only became even more fearful, suspicious and hateful of us.  Such Christian love indeed!"

The Peacock 132

 "It happened before Doreen and Dianne came into the picture.  It was still winter.  I had recently left my position with St. James Social Services Society.  That was rather a sad and ugly affair.  My boss didn't seem to approve of my arrangements with Doug.  You see, some months earlier, before he got rid of his car, he was driving me to work, and we would often give each other an innocent hug before I got out of the car.  So, Maureen, my boss at the time, takes me aside and suggests that we were seen, it didn't look good, and could we please do that in an ally somewhere out of plain view.  Naturally I was insulted and called her both on her homophobia and her hypocrisy, given that one of her best friends at church was a biracial white and native gay man, who was esteemed in the parish and also quite a gay sexual predator himself, known to be a gay sexual predator, proud of being a gay sexual predator, seemed not at all about to conceal being a gay sexual predator, and seemed right proud of being a gay sexual predator.  Very much like Griffin back in the day, I'm afraid.  

"Anyway, she made just a couple of weeks before, some lame excuses and lies about my work performance, but clearly wanted to get rid of me, since I was no longer popular in the parish, and in fact had already cultivated some powerful enemies.  So, I resigned, there went our income, since Doug refused to get a job, and I had to accept a somewhat reduced income of Unemployment Insurance.  

"Well, Doug and I were taking the bus downtown every day for "the Work".  We would walk the streets downtown in prayer, visit Stanley Park to build, rebuild and pray over the cairns in the areas of gay male sexual activity and alleged devil worship, and then spend more time downtown, in cafes and also at the Persons With Aids society, where my friend Ken had made us both members, and much to the consternation of their own power elite, since they distrusted and hated Christians.  But we still also made a number of friends, people whom we supported and helped care for until their inevitable and untimely deaths..."

The Peacock 131

 "Our relationship with St. James was very complicated.  David the rector and Robert Griffin both hated us and with a vengeance, especially Robert.  Because we weren't ready to endorse same sex unions we were of course not exactly on their friends list, but even then they still wouldn't like us anyway because they advocated a kind of sexual licentiousness that is very contrary to Christian teaching, and we weren't about to give them the lie on that one.  The other two clergy actually really seemed to like us, especially Stephen, the same Stephen who rescued you, Chris, from the clutches of Father Griffin."

"What is your position now on same-sex unions?" asks Carl.

"Marriage is marriage is marriage.  But to one and the same spouse.  And only the same spouse. That's all I have to say.  Otherwise, it just ain't Christian."

"Aw, can't even flirt a bit?" says Carl, coyly.

"Not in front of hubby or wifey."  And now Aaron is chuckling rather drily.

"I think I feel the same", say I.  "But what about Father Griffin?"

"An absolute puritan now," says Aaron.  "He and Doug are on the absolute same page.  They don't believe that any gay Christian should be sexually involved with anybody, not even with their own left or right hand.  Talk about taking a one hundred and eighty, but that's what Robert has done.  And both their minds are not only nailed shut, they are hermetically sealed.

"How very sad", say I.  "I expect I'll be meeting them both here sooner or later."

"I wouldn't be in a hurry", says Carl.  "I wouldn't be at all in a hurry.  But Aaron, do tell us more about your story..."

130

" Doreen and Dianne spent the following autumn with us joining us in our outings downtown, visiting the bars, the cafés and the clubs and the street corners with us.  For them, they were discovering Christ in people and places where we are not ordinarily expected to encounter him.  They both seemed to shine in those places and many were attracted to their maternal warmth and sense of unconditional love.  We were together and praying together almost every day.  Doreen sold her condo that winter and the equity she donated to our community.  Then with Dianne they rented a house in the Mount Pleasant area where they set up a ministry of hospitality.

That was when I remembered a dream I had had some time ago, I think a year before I found the house in Richmond.  In that dream I saw an old rambling yellow house with an old fashioned bathtub outside it. That was exactly the house on Ferndale, and the previous owners had turned an antique bathtub into a planter that was just outside the house.  Then I went driving with some friends and we ended up at a grey house, the exact house that Doreen and Dianne were now renting in Mount Pleasant.  Unfortunately, not all fairy tales have happy endings..."

129

 "At the same time, there were two women in the church in Richmond who took a particular interest in our work and community.  They were both older, mid-forties and early sixties, respectively.  The younger, Dianne, was a real piece of work, a tall, rather attractive woman with wild hair and a natural messiness of character.  But she seemed like a particularly caring and compassionate woman with a real desire for God.  Doreen, the older woman was her close friend.  She was more like your traditional white middle class Anglican church lady, and she was the church secretary.  An enormously kind woman with an unusually intense desire to serve and love Christ.

"They began, over the summer, to visit us frequently.  There support could not have come at a better time.  We were close to starvation, behind in the rent and my mother's lung cancer had just returned to her with a vengeance. And Ken had just died in the same week, from AIDS.  Doug and I were also fighting.  He was a nitpicking control freak with a violent temper and was also very possessive of me.  He was suffocating me.  Yet we had already come so far with this work of community, I couldn't just kick him out or walk away.  He was too strong for me.  

"The two ladies helped keep us in food, and helped with some of the bills and the rent, so that by the fall, just when we had been delivered our eviction notice, we suddenly had the rent ready..."

The Peacock 128

 "We called it a Salad-bration, and a number of folks from the church came over that afternoon, along with various other friends.  Many pitched in and it was really a delightful time.  We had had a previous dinner in the house some months ago in January, when a good number of our friends who were living with AIDS came over for a potluck.  People were taking notice of what we were doing, and we were like two activist monastics working in the community with AIDS sufferers, male and female and trans sex workers and various gay men and women, often marginalized by their own community.  But we didn't get the kind of recognition we would have needed, and I think that it was because we were so hard to categorize or pigeon hole.  Even when we had almost nothing left, we would take street beggars for a bite to eat.  We were agreed that it wasn't our money but God's, that our lives were not our own, but God's, and this really empowered our work and ministry.

The Salad-bration, unfortunately earned us a powerful enemy at St. Alban's, the church in Richmond.  There was a woman there who thought herself very important and absolutely essential to the work of God.  Apparently there is one of those in every Anglican parish.  We first met her at the noonday eucharists at the  cathedral downtown.  She took a real interest in us when it became clear that we were also going to be a presence in Richmond  We apparently gravely insulted her, and I'm still not sure how.  We mentioned how she reminded us of a friend of ours, who also was a guest at the party.  She took one look at him and apparently took grave offense that she would remind us of him, perhaps because they were both rather fat, unattractive and self-important, but at least our male friend had a sense of humour  .  She spent the rest of the time sitting inside her husband's car in a profound sulk.  It can take but one tear in the thread to unravel the entire tapestry..."

The Peacock127

 "Doug's fake rentboy charm did get a lot of the ladies interested in what we were doing.  At that time we were wrestling with the most absolute poverty.  Doug still refused to find any kind of income.  He would neither seek employment nor get welfare.  To him, what we were doing was work and God would have to provide. The fact of the matter was that Doug hated working, at least in the real job sense, had never done well at it, and would simply just as soon lay there and let the whole world wipe his toned ass for him.  

"We were often behind in rent.  We didn't even have money for bus fare or laundry, so we washed our clothes by hand in the the sink and hung them to dry in the kitchen.  We walked everywhere, even downtown which was only a stroll of ten miles or so, because we felt called by God to continue our presence downtown, especially with people dying from AIDS, as well as at St. James Church, where we also felt a growing call of presence, and where none of those high Anglican hypocrites lifted so much as a single manicured finger to help us, that's how much we were loved there.  Various people, mostly from the church in Richmond, and some friends, helped us with food, sometimes a bit of money, sometimes a good bit of money for rent and heating oil.  But that was a rarity. Still, the rescues always seemed to come at the eleventh hour.  Because food was sometimes hard to source, in the spring, I was picking various wild herbs and plants for food.  We managed to get a lot of bulk food very cheap at the local Save-On.  One of our friends with AIDS had been a particularly close friend of mine over the years, since I was twenty or so.  We visited him often in his apartment in the West End where we helped out in various ways.  He was becoming very weak.  In June, 89, he invited us to dinner at his home.  There was no telling when he would die.  That was the same day as my brother's wedding.  Ken was more important, and also much more a brother to me than the sibling who used to daily beat me up and then when we became adults shunned and ignored me.  I don't think he ever forgave me for boycotting his wedding, especially to have dinner with a homosexual dying from AIDS, and Ken actually did pass away just two months after he had us over for dinner.

"Meanwhile, there were the ladies in the Richmond parish, and the big salad buffet we held in our garden that summer..."

The Peacock 126

 "One of the first things I did when I moved to the house in Richmond, was start attending the local Anglican parish church.  I had had more than my fill of St. James, and the hypocrisy of clergy and parishioners became unendurable, so I left.   I found the simple and very suburban and ordinary parish of St. Alban's to be a breath of fresh air.  Plus, I had a family connection there, as my uncle and his family attended for many years and my cousin was a boy soprano in their choir, but way back in the day.  People there were friendly and welcoming, and I think also open to a sense of community, at least as far as Anglicans are willing or able to do community. They had a small chapel in the back where I often felt a very deep and tranquil sense of holy presence.  It was there that I would attend some of the weekday eucharists at noon, should I have some break time from work.  

"In the spring, as my mother was struggling with cancer, I had some paid time off and every day for a week I attended the week day services.  I began to chat more with some of the people there.  I met with the rector, and we seemed to connect really well.  When Doug moved in, he began attending St. Albans with me.  Being a very handsome and manly man, especially for a fag, the ladies of the parish seemed particularly taken by him, especially because he was very warm, friendly and outgoing.  Though a lot of it, for him was just theatre and acting.  He was actually pretty smarmy, rather like a rent boy that didn't know when to retire.  He also became our PR and would in eloquent terms broadcast to all and sundry about the wonderful work of God we were doing supporting AIDs sufferers in downtown Vancouver.  We became an overnight sensation..."

The Peacock 125

 "Anyway, even if I was being monitored and harrassed by satanists, and even if Doug was originally with me as one of their plants, things were very quickly turned around for him.  I only allowed him into my life because I strongly sensed him to be a seeker, and that regardless of the work of evil in his life, that God had marked him as his own.  We very quickly acquired a daily discipline of morning, afternoon and evening prayer.  From his enterprise as a Coke dealer, he had substantial savings that he sunk into the house and our work together.  I was still getting income from work, but while looking after Doug, as well as our growing presence in the gay bars and coffee shops downtown and in the West End, it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to focus on my work.  In fact they were getting very concerned about me and a few months later, in February of eighty-nine we agreed, my boss and I, that I should resign.  This was presenting Doug and me with rather a challenging situation, given that soon his own money would be running out.  I soon was getting employment insurance, but after rent and a few basic expenses we were left with nothing.

"But", I say, "What did Doug do to pull his weight?  Wasn't he at least on basic welfare?"

"Not even.  He refused to look for work, parsing that the work of ministry and prayer were vastly more important, and he also refused to go on welfare, since he seemed so sure that God would provide.  And God was indeed providing.  Through my monthly EI check, and even that wasn't enough to keep us going.  This, of course, was creating problems.  We were sometimes behind in the rent.  And we had to struggle and be increasingly creative when it came to feeding ourselves.  Fortunately that wasn't too difficult, as I have always been a wiz at budgeting.  But still things kept getting worse and worse.  Fortunately, people from the local Anglican church parish began to take interest in our work and ministry..."

The Peacock 124

.So, you could well guess that this little community, which became known as the Community of the Transfiguration, got off to a very rocky start.  Almost from the very beginning there were problems between us, Doug and me.  We were in love with each other, but I was even then asexual and he insisted that he wasn't sexually attracted to me.  In fact, he was never shy to declare that I was really very ugly.  I unfortunately came to believe him, unless I happened to see myself in a mirror, and you guys, upon seeing me, might also guess that in the case of dear Douglas, well let's just say that methinks the lady doth protest too much.

"But Doug insisted on staying with me in the house, and I was so in love with him that of course he could do almost whatever the hell he wanted with me.  And to complicate matters, he seemed very eager to get physically close to me, to cuddle, caress and massage me.  By the way, Carl, did you happen to know that in his younger days that Doug also worked as a rent boy?"

"He has never mentioned it to me.  Pity, because I think that is something we both need to know about each other."

"How well do you know each other?"

"Not very well, really.  Robert and he seem to be very good friends.  I haven't mentioned this yet, but it was Robert's idea that Doug's little community take up residence with us here."

"Oh, the dickens you say!" Aaron says, laughing out loud, "This all just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser!"

The Peacock 123

 "I might go without saying that I was living under a climate of siege in this idyllic and bucolic farmhouse.  With the dead birds, the desecration, the odd behaviour of that visiting stranger, the vicious aggressive black dogs and menacing neighbours, why of course, a typical suburban dreamscape.  I only wish.  It got even more complicated when Doug appeared on the scene,.  That's right, kids, the same Douglas who is the unelected grand poobah of your resident Christian community right here.  I only wish I could say that he has changed and grown since those days more than thirty years ago.  If Douglas has grown, and if everything that Carl has said about him is true, and I believe you, Carl, then he has only grown worse.

"I won't go into a lot of detail about how he arrived in my house, but I'll say this much.  I met him when he was bartending in the lounge of the Heritage House (formerly and latterly called the Lotus) near the entrance to Chinatown on Pender Street.  Let's just say that he charmed his way into my heart and into my home.  I very foolishly let him in and he wreaked havoc.  I have no doubt that he was somehow associated with that satanic network that held that place hostage.  If fact, I actually caught him in a lie.  Shortly after he moved in with me, and that itself was a very messy business given his violently jealous Nicaraguan boyfriend.  It is only a shame that I didn't yet speak Spanish in those days.

"He said he felt called to live with me and serve God with me, and I think that eventually he meant it.  After he actually did commit his life to Jesus and then received the gift of the Holy Spirit.  But before that happened, he would disappear on summer evening solitary bike rides.  He said that he was part of a satanic coven and they were performing rituals and curses together.  When I pressed him about it, he denied it, said he was only joking, but I think he was telling the truth.  But also, it turned out that his younger brother was living just five houses away with his girlfriend, who later was accused by his brother of still being involved in satanism, which to me suggested that they were trying to put it behind them.

"But my suspicion has been that these people, since my problems with the punk satanists two years ago, had been watching me carefully.  Jeremy was part of their network, perhaps also Duff and his sister, and certainly Doug had been chosen to move in with me and destroy me.  Why else would his brother, also apparently involved in the same cult, be living just down the street!  I was being watched, observed and monitored. But instead of destroying me, he met Jesus, and himself became a true and, and despite his many annoying characteristics, a very dedicated follower of Jesus Christ.

The Peacock 122

 "I erected a cross in the very back of the property, under the birch trees, in the corner on the border with the adjoining property, where lived the man who verbally abused me.   It was a very simple structure, simply made of two tree branches that I tied together with string.  That cross was frequently being desecrated, sometimes entirely dismantled.  Almost always, when the cross was assaulted, there would have been left on the trails nearby yet more carcasses of desiccated birds, and sometimes white feathers that had been liberally sprinkled there.  There was a rather odd man living three properties over, an elderly man who appeared to have mental health concerns.  Only once did he try to engage me in conversation.  He had wandered over to the edge of my rented property, was leaning on the fence (I imagine I might have just caught him in the act of trying to trespass), and he actually tried to get me in a quarrel about why I ought to buy the property.  Discerning that he was rather daft, and possibly suffering from dementia, I simply left him in peace.

"It also turned out, that that same elderly man, Dutch, I think, kept a brace of white pigeons that he often let fly around the neighbourhood.  To this day, I wonder if that was the source of the white feathers that were frequently being scattered on my trails, and if he or the nasty man next door were responsible for desecrating the cross, and perhaps for distributing the dried bird carcasses. I will never find out.  I do know this.  Every time I made such a discovery on the property, it was always preceded by a dreadful and horrible sense afflicting me that something was suddenly dreadfully wrong.  I had only to go out in the back to discover the evidence."

The Peacock121

 "We visited briefly at the kitchen table inside, but Jeremy particularly wanted to see the grounds.  So I took him on a tour.  He wasn't particularly forthcoming about himself.  In fact, I recall him as kind of a blank, or an empty space.  He was medium height, slim, young, blonde hair and blue eyes, pale complexion, no compelling features whatsoever.  He was dressed in a pale yellow button down shirt and bluejeans.  I didn't hear exactly what he did for a living, he simply alluded to sales and marketing and that he was in Vancouver on business, from Winnipeg.  He seemed to just want information.  I was quite open and frank with him.

"As we were touring the property together I directed him to a small cairn of twelve stones I had erected under a copse of four cedar trees.  I was in the habit of building cairns, as kind of a sacred marking, making a place holy and under the Lord Jesus Christ.  I had four such cairns in the gay cruising section of the forest in Stanley Park in Vancouver.  

"Jeremy suddenly took out a knife...I wasn't sure what he was going to do with it at first, and yes I also wondered if it was meant for me.  But he had picked up a small stick and with the knife began to carve wood shavings onto the cairn.  I asked him what he was doing.  He didn't answer.  I asked why he was doing it. He still didn't answer.  Then he excused himself and left

Whenever I visited the cairns in Stanley Park, they had often been desecrated, dismantled, or a fresh pile of wood shavings, exactly like the ones that Jeremy left, would be on top of or surrounding the stones.  To this day, I never saw him again, nor have I received any explanation for the wood shavings. But knowing that the gay cruising ground in Stanley Park, where the cairns were, was also a site for satanic rituals, I still didn't have to guess very hard as to what was going on..."

The Peacock 120

 "That all sounds very compelling", says Carl. "But you never found out who was behind any of this?"

"Oh, but there's more", says Aaron, looking now very wise and rather menacing.  "I had been living there just a few months, and life was not getting much easier.  Just a couple of weeks after I moved to that house, my mother was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.  Back then, the survival rate was still very low, between five and ten percent, so I was dedicating a lot of energy and time to supporting her, while working and while maintaining the house and land, since there was a lot of work involved in upkeep and maintenance.  There was something very sad, broken and malevolent about that place, yet it seemed like God's choice for starting a new Christian community.  But the problems were only just beginning.

"On my way home from work in the Downtown Eastside every day, I had the custom of walking through Gastown along Water Street and stopping in the Waterfront Station.  Vancouver's first Starbucks was located there, just before it mutated and metastasized into the monster chain of international coffee houses that completely cornered the market and all but destroyed local café cultures.  I was sitting there nursing a cup of dark roast from somewhere in Africa or Indonesia, when a young man stopped by to start chatting with me.  He said his name was Jeremy and he was visiting on business from Winnipeg.  He said he was twenty-six years old.  I told him a little bit about where I lived, and suddenly he invited himself out with me that same day.  Since I was not one to forbid hospitality, I invited him to bus out with me that same day.

"I still have no idea who he was, or why he wanted to talk to me, or what compelled him to want to see where I lived, but to this day, I believe that he had been observing me, and was part of a network that had me under observation, and that he had his own reason for wanting to see where I lived..."

The Peacock 119

 "Then there were the dogs.  There were two dogs, both black labs living a half mile from each other, or which is to say, one on the corner of Ferndale and Garden City Way, and the other on the other end, almost at Number 4 Road.  Both dogs were vicious and aggressive as well as untethered and unsupervised.  That's right, guys.  In order to negotiate a friendly neighbourhood block walk, almost every other day, I had to somehow get around a vicious black dog that would attack me if I turned my back on it. The owners were next to impossible to locate.  I am very fortunate that I was never bitten.  And neither of those dogs was about to make friends with me.  Then, later on, after Doug moved in with me, a Doberman Pinscher was added to the place on Garden City.  Very friendly and gentle as a pup, but then she matured and became every bit as vicious and frightening as her adoptive black lab mother.  

"You could say that between my lovely next door neighbour, and the lovely neighbourhood doggies, that even very early in my tenancy, I was coming to feel under siege.  Then there were the dead birds that would appear on the property.  At first I wondered if they were the work of cats or raccoons, or whatever.  But then I began taking a closer look.  These just weren't random dead birds.  They were the desiccated skins of birds, usually starlings,  that had already been killed.  Someone was placing them there, on the paths I had made in the back. I never encountered that person.  I also found it interesting that, just before discovering any one of the desiccated bird carcasses, I would have a sense of siege, impending attack and doom, and I found myself going into deep and fervent prayer.  Then I would go out into the back, and there was yet another dead bird, but just the dried skin, head, beak and nothing else.  I knew something was afoot, something diabolical and vile..."

The Peacock118

 Following two years of living downtown, it was quite a refreshing novelty living in the country.  But not too far away from anything.  Stores and the mall were just a twenty minute walk away, and the bus downtown just five minutes, so it wasn't at all difficult to keep going to work every day and also to stay in contact with the street ministry and friends downtown.  I was living on a wooded acre, with lots of birch and cedar trees, and I managed to cut a maze of trails in the back, making it very enjoyable for contemplative walking.  I lived on a huge square block of country roads, and every day I did a walk around this block, about thirty minutes in all, followed by a walk in my homemade labyrinth in the back.

But it was not a paradise.  It was nice having all this extra living space, more than I had ever had before to myself, despite the humble conditions of my little cottage.  The place had four bedrooms, including a sun room that I had converted to my personal bedroom years later, when Doreen and Dianne moved in with me.  More about them later.  As I said, it was a rambling house, with lots of windows.  It was lovely waking early every morning to the sound of birds, especially songbirds and a rooster crowing nearby. But not all was right and lovely here.

I hadn't been there three days, when I had an unpleasant run-in with my new neighbour.  The power was out, and I wasn't yet sure if I just needed to change a fuse in the house or if it was in the neighbourhood.  My neighbour was doing some work on his house with a power saw.  Not knowing if that would affect his saw or not, I meekly asked him if he was encountering any problems with the power and electricity, because mine was out and I wasn't yet sure why.  Instead of offering a helpful comment or a gesture of sympathy, he began shouting and swearing at me, and how dare I accuse him of shorting the power in my house.  I was so shocked, I didn't say anything, I simply shook my head and walked quietly away.  I never spoke another word to that man...."

The Peacock 117

 "Something you need to know before I go on", says Aaron.  "Years before, in 1976, when I was twenty, I had just returned from six months in Toronto where I had gone with my lover Keith.  Later, there is quite a story there but we don't want to get sidetracked.  I had ended the relationship because I wanted to faithfully follow Jesus, and there simply wasn't room in my life for Jesus and Keith.  Unless I was prepared to share my life in Jesus, not only with Keith, but with many many others, and with the proviso that I wouldn't be sleeping with any of them.  But here I digress.  It was March, very early spring and I was taking a long walk in Richmond.  I somehow found myself on Ferndale Road, and I was in a state of deep and concentrated prayer.  

"Suddenly, I was so overwhelmed by a sense of God's presence that there, on the side of the road, I sank to my knees, right in front of that same house.  I had a vision of a crystal prism and the light was shining through it and it was dazzling, and I heard God speak in my heart that that was a vision of the kind of life to which he was calling me.  And now, almost twelve years later, here I was, settling in for my first night in that same house..."