The Peacock 939

 "How did he get to be a deacon?"

"Yes", says Carl, "Tell me.  How did he?"

"Anglican church, you know?"

"What is it with Anglicans!"

"Besides that they have brought religious hypocrisy to its unprecedented apogee, I don't know what else to say.  You tell me."

"How did your father cope around those clowns?"

"Often he didn't. Or not very well.  He even went through a period of silent binge drinking.  On my insistence he went and got professional help and joined an AA program.  That was just after Kenny died.  The pressure was too much for both of us.  Somehow it didn't really affect our relationship.  I think because we always seemed to know when to leave each other alone.  And it was a difficult time for the church.  There were open discussions about homosexuality and same sex marriage, which, I think only on a theological basis, Dad couldn't really accept.  And then in 2002 came that big split in the church when the bishop of the day declared as holy writ the so-called same sex blessings.  Dad went for six months with the rebel parishes, but then he returned and was reinstated at St John's, not entirely repentant, but silently and grudgingly accepting the inevitable.  Honestly, he was not homophobic, but very traditional, and very evangelical in some of his thinking.  But that was okay, because on the balance of everything, his love and kindness and compassion for others, for the less fortunate, the drug addicts, the mentally ill and the homeless, really put all that entire brood of vipers to shame...