Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:03:12 -0500
From: montrealormolu@aol.com
Subject: The Glance - chapter 15

The Bishop got home later than he'd intended. When he walked in his front
door, it was obvious to his wife that the meeting had been difficult.

"Do you want a glass of wine," she asked.

"Yes," he answered.

She brought it to him as he sat down in the family room, tired, wrung out
from all the emotion of that afternoon. Shr brought herself one, too, and
sat beside him on the couch.

"Can I rub your feet?"

"No, not yet. I'm still too tired."

"Tell me about it, if you want."

"It was a meeting of the gay and lesbian clergy of the diocese. They wanted
to introduce themselves to me. Of course, I knew them all. I've been here
for twenty years, but now they were being open about who they were, and it
was pretty tough. There were the obvious ones I would have guessed about,
and a lot of others I would never have known. And there were the ones I
wondered about, too. I'm sure there are still some others who were too
scared to come to the meeting, or who just couldn't break away from their
parish responsibilities, but there were a lot of people there. It was
tough. These were men and women I've known for many years, good priests,
people I've served with, people I've looked up to, and they've hidden all
these years. It was just heart-breaking."

"Were you surprised?"

"Oh sure. As I said, there were some I would never have guessed. But, it
was the pain that was most surprising, shocking really. Can you imagine the
irony, 'You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free' and yet
these people have had to hide all these years ... preaching and teaching
about truth and authenticity and too scared to reveal themselves. I
listened after they dropped the bomb-shell as they told me stories, one
after another, of what it had been like during seminary, or during the
early years in the parish; how lonely it was. And the younger ones told me
how difficult it was to 'go back into the closet' as they put it because
they wanted to serve the Church. It was just heart=breaking. These are good
people, people we've driven to desperation. And now, they want out..." his
voice trailed off.

"What are you going to do," she asked.

"I don't know. I can't stand by and just let them continue to suffer. And I
know that when they come out into the open, I'm going to have a royal mess
on my hands. I don't know. How can I minister to everyone, how can I lead
this diocese through this?"

She reached out and took his hand, "Mike, I've stood by you all these
years. You know what we've gone through and I've been there. I think that's
been pretty helpful for you."

He interrupted urgently, "Of course it has. I couldn't have done it without
you."

"Mike, who have they got? Who is there to hold their hands? Who holds them
at night when they cry about the parishioner who died, or the couple who is
breaking up, or the teenager who committed suicide? Who is there to laugh
with them and celebrate when the new baby is baptized, or that young couple
comes in for marriage, or the person suddenly comes to know Christ and gets
turned on? Who is there for them?"

The questions hung in the air between them, as they held hands. Tears began
running down both their faces as their memories went back over the years,
and they remembered the bad times and the good times. They knew how
important that support had been, for both of them. The enormity of the
isolation under which their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters had been
forced to operate began to become real for both of them.

"Mike, you're the bishop. You've been a strong support for gays and
lesbians for years now. I guess the chickens have come to roost. Now
they're looking to you for support. These people are your parish now'
you're their pastor. What else can you do but support them, help them,
pastor them, and try to lead the rest of the diocese forwards as well?"

"I guess there's not much choice, is there. 'The buck stops here,' doesn't
it? I've got to figure out a way to be true to them, to be their pastor,
and to continue to be a pastor to everyone else, too."

He smiled wryly, "You realize there are going to be some pretty annoyed
people out there, don't you? The phone is going to be pretty busy. Are you
ready for that?"

"Yes. We're in this together. I'll handle the homefront and the telephone
here, you take care of the office and the diocese." Her voice had firmed
up, she knew where her priorities lay.

"Yes, sir," he laughed. "Oh, I'm already sorry for whoever gets you on the
phone!"

They cuddled on the couch, slowly drinking their wine, each lost in their
own thoughts, but already turned towards solving the situation which had
been handed to them.

* * * * *

John sat cuddled with Chuck on his living room couch. They, too, were
sipping wine together. Chuck had his arms around John, supporting him with
his body, John's head tucked back against Chuck's shoulder. It was one of
their favorite positions, close, cuddled, warm, safe. Right now, John
needed to feel safe. It had been a tough evening. All the emotion had taken
its toll of him, not too mention his own personal emotions. He felt
exhausted, drained.

"It was overwhelming, Chuck. All those other priests gathered together and
facing the Bishop. We were so scared. We could all have lost our jobs, and
then where would we be?"

"But John, haven't you told me how liberal and caring this bishop is? Do
you really believe that he would have fired you all on the spot?"

"No, of course not. Intellectually you're absolutely right, but deep down
in my guts I was really scared. I'm still scared."

"It's OK, John. I'm here. It took a lot of courage to do what you people
did. It was kind of like facing the principal, wasn't it?"

"Yes! That's an awful lot of how it felt. Facing the principal, even when
you knew you hadn't done anything wrong, but you just weren't sure if he
knew that."

"So, what comes next?"

"I'm not sure. I guess I need to figure out how to tell the parish...,"
John trailed off into silence, his eyes focused on the distance as his
fingers played with the wine glass.

"John, why do you need to tell the parish?"

John's fingers stopped their twirling. He looked down at the wine glass,
and then turned his head to look back at Chuck. Chuck craned his head
around and looked at Jim, waiting. After a few moments, Jim began to speak.

"Chuck, you're absolutely right. Why do I 'need' to tell the parish? Well,
let me explain. First, I need to live my life with integrity and
honesty. Hiding who I am isn't honest and doesn't have integrity. Second,
I'm in love with you. I want to celebrate that. I want others to celebrate
that with us, and I can't do that if I'm hiding. Third, well, third, I want
you to move in with me, and we can't do that if I'm still hiding. It'll
just be too complicated and too nerve-wracking."

"John, I'm in love with you, too. But you already know that. I love you."
He leaned down and kissed John, hard, tongues reaching out to each other
and playing. "Yes, I love you. It sounded to me as if you were, dare I say
it, proposing to me. Are you?"

John got up, put down the wine glass, and turned around. He pulled Chuck up
so that they were both standing together. "Chuck, will you move in with me?
Will you come and share your life with me?"

"Absolutely yes! Now, let's go celebrate, or is that consumate?" And he
leaned down and scooped John up into his arms and carried him off to the
bedroom, to consumate their celebration.

* * * * *

Jeff walked around his home, picking up trash and putting it into a garbage
bag. He shook his head at all the mess still left around the room. He had a
rythmn, first the paper garbage, then he would pick up all the glasses and
take them to the dishwasher and fill the top shelf, then the dishes to be
scraped into the 'insinkerator' and then stacked on the lower shelf of the
dishwasher. Once the dishwasher was loaded, he would start it up, and then
as it cycled through he would go back and finish cleaning up. He hummed
quietly to himself, some of the old hymns that he had grown up
with. Somehow they were comforting. It had been a tough evening.. He loved
to entertain but he wasn't sure that he wanted to do this again any time
soon. There had been just too much emotion flowing, literally, around that
room.

He felt good, though. It had been good to get all those people together in
one room. It was amusing how some of them hadn't even known about each
other. Gaydar! Ha! Sure, it sometimes worked when you were cruising, but
infallible, absolutely not! Not even the pope was infallible, at least not
from an Anglican point of view. Yeah, yeah, he thought to himself, so
that's an in-joke for Anglicans. He thought it might have been the first
time that some of the guys realized that some of the women were lesbian. So
that had been good, too. It began to create a network, a sort of
coalition. And they were going to need all the support they could get.

The Bishop had taken it well. He had hoped that he would, but it had been a
risk. It might have just been too much for the guy -- all those people
being gay. Who would have thought? Well, he did, of course, 'cause he knew
all these people. Would the Bishop support them now? He thought some of
them might begin to make noise about coming out to their parishes. Oh boy,
that was going to be tough. If the Bishop was supportive maybe they could
find a way to do it together...he needed to think, how could they
coordinate this, how make it effective. Oh, he did love it when a plan came
together, and he hoped this one would.