Date: Sun, 9 Oct 2022 16:42:49 +0000 (UTC)
From: Samuel Stefanik <churchphilips@yahoo.com>
Subject: From Whence I Came.  Chapter 14

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morning?  I don't.  Good whatever-time-you're-reading!  I hope you enjoy
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If you're younger than 18 or find these kinds of stories offensive, please
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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: From Whence I Came
The second installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips

14

Adultery & The Sin of Pride

I woke up extra early, so early that it was still dark out.  My mental
wheels started turning, the cogs crashing and grinding as they tried to
process all that had happened over the past few days.  I knew that getting
back to sleep would be impossible.  I gave up on sleep and decided to get
up.  I crept into the bathroom and got in the shower.  Shawn and I had a
bath the night before, but that had been more about having a place to enjoy
the afterglow than getting clean.

As I washed, I thought about Bem and his fantasy.  I understood the desire
to be warm and safe and to not have to make any decisions or deal with the
greater world.  As I'd previously reflected on the old me over the years
I'd spent with Shawn, I realized that the entirety of my alcoholism was due
to the desire to escape.  That seemed to be what Bem wanted.  He wanted to
escape the stress of his life into the perceived safety of Shawn and my
relationship.

"Why?" I asked myself aloud as I shampooed my hair. "What could he have to
run away from?  He's rich, he's got a great gig managing Divided Light,
he's got friends and endless sex partners...why would he want to escape
from that?  He talked about noise and people in pain.  Is he in pain?  Does
he hear people in pain inside his head?  Does he hear voices?"

I stopped talking to myself aloud as I rinsed the shampoo suds from my long
hair, but the wheels in my head didn't slow.  They kept turning and
clashing and trying to reason out what was bothering my friend.  I didn't
get anywhere with my musings.  I needed more information and the only place
that it could come from was the very place I couldn't get it.  I was not
going to ask Bem to tell me his troubles for fear of driving him away from
me.  He and I didn't have secrets from each other, or at least, I didn't
have any secrets from him.  I hope he trusted me as much as I trusted him.
I figured, when he was ready to talk, we'd talk.  Until then, all I could
do was be there for him.

I dried off, dressed, then went downstairs to find something to do and to
avoid waking Shawn and Bem.  I found Mary on the couch in the living room,
sitting in front of a blank TV screen.  She was dressed for the day.  Her
white top and modest black jeans were back, and her hair was up in the
severe bun again.  She looked terrible though, obviously exhausted and pale
with dark bags under her eyes.  "What's up?"  I asked.  "Couldn't sleep?"

She dragged tired eyes to look at mine.  "I've been awake all night.  When
it got near dawn I decided to get up.  How about you?"

"I'm usually an early riser but this is extreme even for me.  I woke up and
started thinking.  I knew I'd never get back to sleep."

"Plans?"  She asked.

"We're short on breakfast stuff.  We're short on everything, really.  I was
gonna run over to the Zenith.  It should be opening about now.  You want to
come along?"

Mary looked away.  She made me wait for an answer while she stared out of
the bay window and toward the sun that had just peaked over the horizon.
"Sure." She said finally.

We drove downtown and found ourselves the only ones in the store.  Mary and
I walked the aisles in silence except for the uneven click-clack of her low
heels on the tile floor.  Her silence frustrated me.  I didn't understand
why she'd bothered to come along if she wasn't going to talk to me.  I'd
hoped to use the time with just Mary and me to figure out where I stood
with her.  I tried to start conversation with a question that had been on
my mind since Mary first stormed into Joe's living room the day we arrived.
"Do you hate me, Mary?"

Mary dithered over the boxes of cereal in the breakfast aisle.  She made me
wait for an answer.  She selected a box of cereal, then put it back.  She
picked out another, then put it back.  She moved away from the cereal
shelves empty-handed and started her answer when she'd gotten several paces
ahead of me.

"I don't know how to feel.  You're my brother, but you really haven't been
since Mom and Dad died.  Even before that we hardly saw each other, we
never really got along, then you left without a word.  I know from the
story you told us that you didn't have a choice, but I didn't know that at
the time.  I worried you'd killed yourself."

Mary stopped and wheeled on me; her tone deepened to become accusatory.
She even pointed at me.  "Your will was all about Joe, like I didn't exist.
That was a slap in the face.  Now you're back, married to a MAN!  I don't
know what to do with that.  My faith tells me it's wrong, but you're
happier than I ever remember you being, you look good, and your husband is
nice."

Mary's pointing hand went to her healed cheek and her speech shifted to be
about Shawn. "He fixed my face, with MAGIC!" Mary stopped speaking for a
beat, seemingly stunned by what she'd said, then she went on in a lower
tone. "I don't know how to feel.  I'm mixed up.  I don't think I hate you."
She turned away and strode along the aisle.

I grabbed a box of granola bars from the shelf and threw them in the cart
like I hated them.  I knew I was taking my anger out on the bars, but
better them than my sister.  I didn't like her answer, but when I thought
about it, I realized it was more than I'd expected from her.  "We can start
with that, I guess." I muttered to myself.

Mary and I shopped a little more, in more silence, and were in the dairy
section when Mary suddenly became animated.  We'd been trying to decide
between two percent and skim milk.  Mary threw the gallon of skim back on
the shelf, snatched the two percent from my hand and put it back, then
grabbed two gallons of whole milk and plopped them in the seat of the cart.
She lunged at a bag of individually-wrapped mozzarella cheese sticks, tore
it open, took a stick out, tore it open, and snapped her teeth through it.
She pointed the bitten end of the cheese stick at me like it was the end of
a Billy-club.

"I don't," Mary paused to roll the bite of cheese into her cheek so she
could talk without choking on it, "I don't know who I think I am to judge
anyone.  My marriage is a mess.  Do you know my husband isn't the father of
my kids?  I seduced a delivery driver that came to the house.  The twins
are his daughters."  Mary paused again to chew the cheese in her mouth and
to snap another bite off the stick.  My brain screamed in surprise, both
that my sister had an affair, and that she admitted it to me of all people.

"I never told him," she admitted under her breath, her eyes downcast, "and
he was killed on his route one day, about three months after we...you know.
I kept my mouth shut and let my sterile husband take the credit for my
girls."

Mary looked up and shouted at me.  She brandished what was left of the
cheese stick at me like she planned to strike me with it. "You helped me
after I said horrible, hateful things to you and Shawn!  You should've
lined up behind Ezekiel to slap me instead!"

Mary's self-loathing anger boomed along the aisle and echoed through the
empty store.  I grabbed her shoulders and put my face even with hers.  She
took another bite of the cheese stick and chewed while I held her.  She
wouldn't even look at me.

"HEY!  HEY!" I shouted in her face. "It's fine.  I forgive you.  Stop
beating yourself up.  Who cares where your kids came from as long as you
have them, and they love you?  As for Shawn and me, we don't judge you.  Me
and you, we've missed out on a lot with each other, but we're family and I
love you."

"Do you?" She asked.

"Do I what?" I asked back.  I'd said a lot and didn't know which part she
was questioning.

"Do you love me?  It's OK if you don't.  I haven't given you much reason
to."

I was shocked at how much of myself I heard in my sister's voice.  She
sounded sad and self-loathing, miserable but somehow still hanging in there
and living.  My heart went out to her.  That seemed to be happening a lot
lately.  I pushed Mary's chin off her chest to force her to meet my eyes.
"You're my sister and I love you." I repeated.

My reassurance seemed to calm her.  She ate the last bite of her cheese
stick and held the bag up to me.  I took one and struggled with the
wrapper.  Mary pushed the cart down the aisle, talking as she went.  "I'm
sorry for dumping all that on you.  It meant a lot that you came to check
on me last night.  I was proud to see how angry you were.  It made me think
you still loved me after everything.  I really thought you were going to
kill Ezekiel when Bem took me upstairs."

"I really wanted to, Mary." I admitted and finally won my battle with the
cheese wrapper. "When I saw him hit you, for just an instant, I thought I
was going to.  It took all my self-control not to erase him like that piece
of hard candy.  I didn't do it for two reasons; I'm not a killer, and you
never would have forgiven me."

I caught up with Mary and she poked my side so I would look down at her as
I chomped into my cheese stick.  "Could you really do that, erase a whole
person?" She asked and sounded like she didn't believe me.

I admit to feeling challenged when I answered her.  "I'll tell you a
secret." I leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Erasing the man that hurt my
sister would have been like swatting a mosquito, but without the blood
stain."

Mary cringed, and I worried I'd said too much, then she smiled.  "That's
cool."

Mary was quiet another moment like she was thinking something out.
"Church, I'm sorry I called you a sinner."

"And a sodomite?"  I prompted and hoped I wasn't getting greedy.

I'd confused her.  "But you are one of them, aren't you?" She asked.

"Yes," I admitted and almost choked when I swallowed some cheese that I
hadn't chewed all the way, "but you don't have to call me one.  What's the
difference between a devout person and a zealot?  Connotation."

Mary nodded with understanding.  "I'm sorry I called you a sinner and a
sodomite."

"Apology accepted."  I hugged her sideways and finished my cheese stick as
we walked toward the checkout.

A very small version of my sister's voice asked, "do you think Shawn can
forgive me?"

I knew Shawn's forgiving nature meant that he would readily forgive Mary if
she presented him with a real apology, but I wasn't going to let her off
the hook by admitting that.  I didn't want to torture her, but I thought
she needed to sweat a little as a lesson against the verbal brutality she'd
directed toward my husband and me.  "You'll have to ask him.  Shawn is a
caring person.  He understands family bullshit.  If you give him a genuine
apology, he'll most likely respond with genuine forgiveness."

Conversation died as we went through the check-out line and picked back up
as we crossed the parking lot toward the car.  Mary brought Shawn up again.
"He's really amazing.  What he did for my face, I keep touching it to
remind myself.  He really loves you, doesn't he?  You love him to."

"More than anything I've ever loved." I readily admitted.

"Isn't he," she started to ask something, then shook her head, "never
mind."

"What?" I pressed.

Mary sighed and asked her question. "Isn't he young for you?"

I smiled at my memory of when I'd asked Shawn the same question.  I gave
Mary some of the reasoning Shawn had used then.  "Twenty years isn't much
when you can live to three-hundred.  On Solum, twenty years is nothing.
Shawn and I have met couples who are fifty years apart.  Some people say
that even a hundred years is OK.  I don't know about that, but to each his
own."

Mary shook her head. "Will you live that long now?" She asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know.  I hope so.  Every minute I get to spend with
him is a good minute.  I want as many of them as I can get."

Mary raised her shoulders in a shrug to match mine. "It sounds so strange,
but after last night," she touched her cheek again, "I believe everything
you've told me."

I didn't see where her statement needed a response, so I left it alone and
unloaded the cart into the car trunk.  As I did it, I noticed Bem's
Domination Dominion bags.  They'd slid across the trunk floor with the logo
side down.  I'd forgotten about the damn things.  I thanked the god I
didn't believe in for the small favor of them being logo side down, and I
piled the groceries on top of them.

Mary stayed quiet until we got in the car and were idling toward the
parking lot exit.  She got my attention with a poke to the side.  "The way
he talked about you last night, the way you looked at each other when you
danced, that kiss, it wasn't just passion or lust.  That might have been
the most beautiful kiss I've ever seen.  I didn't know tenderness like that
was possible.  Congratulations, Church, you've made me jealous of two gay
men."  Mary's face brightened for a moment, then it dropped again.

I thought she deserved to know the truth about how I felt about Shawn.  I
hoped it would give her some hope that real love was possible.  "Mary, he
saved me.  I didn't believe love existed, but he showed me it does.  He
rescued me.  Shawn shined his love into my life, and I bloomed."

"That's the most romantic thing I've ever heard."  She sighed.  "I didn't
know you had it in you."

"He's great in the sack to." I added.

"OH!"  She hit my shoulder with an openhanded jab.  I'd forgotten Mary was
a hitter.  "You always did that stuff to embarrass me."  She tried to look
indignant but failed.  She couldn't suppress her laughter.  Snickering
built into hysterics for the both of us.  "I knew the brother I remembered
was in there somewhere!"  Mary said with another shot to my shoulder.

* * * *

We got to the house and made too much noise dragging the grocery bags in.
Joe was up and dressed already.  He was wearing dress pants, a nice
buttoned-down shirt, shiny black shoes, and was tying a necktie in his
reflection on the clear plastic that was the surface of the microwave door.

"What's the occasion?"  I asked.

"I'm going to mass today.  I want you to come with me, both of you,
everybody."  Joe said as he put the finishing touches on his Windsor knot.

I refused with a clipped, "no," and opened the refrigerator to put the cold
stuff away.

Joe was instantly exasperated.  "You have nothing to thank God for?" He
demanded.

I glared at him over the open refrigerator door.  "No, I don't, just like I
don't have anything to thank Santa Clause for.  I'm not going to mass,
don't push me."  I went back to putting the cold stuff away.

"You really have abandoned your faith, turned your back on God."

I slammed the refrigerator shut and crowded my brother with my anger front
and center.  "Damnit Joe!  I don't need this nonsense."

Joe's anger flared back at me.  He gripped his cane and the color rose in
his neck.  "I'm having a flashback to when I was ten and had to watch you
have this same fight with Dad, right here in this house.  Dad was right
that time.  Everyone needs to believe in something outside of themselves.
Why do you resist that?"

"I'M NOT GOING TO MASS!"  I screamed in my brother's face.

"WHAT'S GOING ON?"  Shawn cried from somewhere.  I stepped out of the
kitchen to see him standing in the upper floor hallway, right at the top of
the steps.  I guessed, from the way he was dressed, that our argument must
have caught him in the middle of getting ready for the day.  He had on tan
shorts, a tank-top undershirt, and socks but no shoes.  "Why are you
fighting?" He asked.

I leaned on the edge of the wall that supported the hall closet door with
my arms crossed over my chest in a display of defiance.  "Joe insists I go
to mass with him.  He wants us all to go."

Shawn came down the steps, went passed me, through the living room and into
the dining room.  He waved for me to follow.  "Come on, come outside." His
voice carried a hint of exasperation but was otherwise firm and even. "You
and me, back yard, right now." Shawn went through the dining room and
sunroom.  He struggled a moment when he tried to open the wrong set of
sliding doors.  Frustration spiked inside him as he stepped back to look
for the right set.  He found it, opened the door, and waited next to it.

I shoved off the wall, passed through the house, and went outside.  Shawn
sat me on the yard swing and sat next to me.  He opened the conversation.
"I know this is hard for you and I know why.  I know all about the issues
around your family's religion.  The trouble is, we're staying in your
brother's house, accepting his hospitality, and trying to avoid conflict.
Can you stand it for an hour?  It will make Joe happy and will take the
pressure off our situation.  If you can't, I'll go in there myself and tell
Joe we won't go, but I'd like you to try.  Please."

"Why can't he just leave it alone?"  I pleaded with the wrong person.

"You know the answer to that.  Joe would be failing in his duty as a
Christian if he didn't at least attempt to restore your faith.  You helped
him.  He wants to help you."

"It's not helping, it's hurting." I crossed my arms and felt myself sulk.

"I know that." Exasperation was in Shawn's voice again and radiating
through our link. "Don't you think I know that?  I'm asking if you can
endure it for an hour."

My mind reeled over the years of conflict that I experienced in that house.
I remembered the last argument I'd had with my father when I was twenty and
moving out.  He said I was messing up my life leaving home, working in
construction, not going to college for a white-collar job.  My normally
taciturn father spent the week before I left preaching my mistakes to me at
every opportunity.  The last straw, the final blow up was when the truck
was packed, and I was getting ready to leave.  My father's parting words
were a proverb, "Remember, son, `He that troubleth his own house shall
inherit the wind and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.'"

I exploded.  The repressed anger of years spilled out like a volcanic
eruption.  "I'M TROUBLING THIS HOUSE?"  I raged.  "WHAT ABOUT YOU?  Can't
you make a FUCKING point without a bible verse?  Why was it always the
church and God before us?  Did you ever give a damn or are we here just
because God told Adam to be fruitful and multiply?  DAMN YOU!"

My father didn't say a word in reply, not even his expression changed.  He
cleared his throat with a violent a-HEM and checked his watch like he had
somewhere to be.  I gave up on my attempt to reach him, on my attempt to be
acknowledged.  I gave up on any satisfaction I ever thought I'd get from
the wreckage of the relationship between me and my parents.  I gave up on
my home.  I got in the rented truck and drove away, leaving my father
standing in the driveway.  I didn't speak to him or my mother until I
showed up at Mary's high school graduation two years later.

That memory didn't get me any closer to an answer for Shawn.  I felt his
frustration with the situation and his desire to understand and to help.  I
groped for something to say, and my thoughts spun back over my entire young
life.  All the events blended into one experience.  I told Shawn things he
already knew.

"My father was a self-righteous, small-minded, zealot.  My mother was
exactly the same.  In the twenty years I lived here, neither of them ever
told me they loved me or was proud of me.  All they ever did was criticize
and quote The Bible.  They sent us to Bible study to learn to love our
neighbors and our enemies alike, but they could never love their family.
Because my parents and the faith were so entwined, my hatred for the one
spilled onto the other.  Going to mass is like going to visit my folks."

"Your parents are dead."  Shawn reminded me like that simple fact could
erase the years of torture.  "They can't judge you anymore.  This is not
about your relationship with them, it's about you and your brother.  You
have to bury the past."

"It's not that simple and you know it."

Shawn coaxed me to uncross my arms and took my hand, like he always did
when I was overwhelmed.  He used his calmest voice as he soothed and
persuaded me.  "I know, but I'm with you and Bem is with you.  You don't
have to face it alone.  Please, try.  Get dressed and drive us there.  If
you can't go in, you don't have to.  If you do go in, and you need to
leave, I'll leave with you.  It will mean a lot to your brother.  I think
it will mean more to him than it will hurt you."

Shawn had me.  He was right and he knew that I would see he was right.  His
reasoning left me with only two choices; I could either accept his logic
and go, or I could be a complete child and flatly refuse.  "Alright, I'll
go."  I relented but still didn't like the idea.  I rationalized the
decision to myself and him at the same time.  "I guess I can go to mass
once every twenty-six years."

We went back into the house, and I apologized to Joe for getting excited.
He accepted, a little smugly I thought, and we all went through our normal
morning routine of eating breakfast and getting ready to go.  Joe decreed
we'd go to ten-thirty mass and would leave, `not get in the car, but leave'
at a quarter to ten.

We left the house right on time as Joe instructed.  I drove the five men
while Mary took Joe's smaller German sedan with her daughters.  I dropped
Andy and Joe at the rear entrance of the church, where there were fewer
steps for Joe to negotiate, and drove the remaining three of us around to
the parking lot.  I found a spot and parked but went no farther.  I sat
with my hands welded to the wheel while I looked at the cross-shaped
Lincoln emblem on the center of the steering wheel horn button.  I was
silent and motionless long enough for Shawn to get worried.

"I don't like this."  I broke my silence.  "I haven't been inside that
building in a very long time, but it still intimidates me."

"It's just a building, Church.  It can't hurt you."  Shawn stated the
logical like it was all that mattered.

"It's not the building." I argued as I pried my hands from the wheel and
slid them nervously around the frayed vinyl wrapping. "It's the tearing
open of old injuries, the rubbing raw of long-closed emotional scars.  It
was in that building that I learned fear.  I was taught by small-minded men
to be afraid of the wrath of an imaginary being.  Inside that pile of
bricks, the biblical message to love my fellow man was warped into
prejudice and narrowed to a specific type of straight-jacketed love.  Any
other love and all passion were prohibited.  That's not the home of a
benevolent God, it's a house haunted by the angry spirits of an unhappy
past and I dread it."

I looked at my hands and realized they were welded to the wheel again.  My
hands gripped it so tightly, my knuckles were white.  Shawn put his hand on
top of mine and tried to massage it open.  "You're not a defenseless child
anymore.  You're a powerful man with friends...a world saver, a hero.
We'll go in together.  You don't have to be afraid with us there."

"Yeah!"  Bem shouted from the back seat and punched the air.  "And if we
see any small-minded men or angry spirits, we'll kick their asses!"

I laughed and instantly felt better for having Shawn and Bem with me.
"Thanks, Bem, don't get carried away."  I settled and sat for another
minute while I fiddled with my bracelet.  "Seriously though, thank you
both.  I wouldn't go in there without you."

We got out of the car and crossed the parking lot.  Bem pulled on my sleeve
as we got close to the building.  He seemed worried about something. "Are
we going to see Mary's husband here?"

"No, he works at another church, one town over.  Same religion, different
congregation."

Bem nodded his understanding as we climbed the steps to the entrance.  The
three of us entered the church on Joseph's side near the alter.  I opened
and held the heavy, brass bound, white-painted door with the stained-glass
pattern set into the top half of it.  Bem and Shawn passed through in front
of me.  As I went in and let the door close behind us, the scent of the
church hit me like a right hook to the jaw.

Bitter memories, sparked by the forgotten odor, flooded to my mind.  Fire
and brimstone masses from years past reared like specters and brought with
them the dread of a religion that hated my kind.  The memories poured in
like water through a breached levee...Sundays spent in Bible study,
Wednesdays at Catechism class.  The lessons taught by prim acid-faced women
and disapproving old men.  All the ceremony and chanted platitudes forced
on impressionable children too young to understand, but plenty old enough
to fear.

I felt apprehension from Shawn.  He seemed to struggle with the memories as
well, even though they weren't his.  He reached out to clasp my hand.  I
held it for a moment and took comfort in its tight warmth.  I dropped his
hand when I remembered where we were.  I shook my head at Shawn and tried
to convey without words that this was not the place for a display of
affection between men.  He nodded his understanding, and we found our
seats.  As I sat, I slipped my left hand in my pocket and closed it on my
watch.  The ritual action didn't make me feel any better, but it gave me
something to hold onto that wasn't Shawn.

The priest entered in the normal ritualized way.  He was not the man I
remembered.  `The old man who held that position in my youth must be long
dead,' I assumed.  This man was in his later middle age.  He was a big man,
tall and broad, but heavy set, like a boxer or a football player gone to
seed.  He had dark hair streaked with grey and a very expressive face.  His
face had a prominent jaw and strong, square features that were softened by
a lot of sagging skin.  The extra skin exaggerated the priest's smiles,
deepened his frowns, and waggled as he spoke to add emphasis to his words
and gestures.

His expressions helped to hold my attention as he said the mass.  The
service was largely as I remembered, many of the hymns I knew by heart.
Shawn had no problem keeping up, and he even helped Bem the couple times
that he faltered with the ritual.  The bulk of the ceremony was simple
routine, memorized and unchanged.  I felt myself fortifying my mental
defenses as the time for the homily drew near.  This was where the former
priest would have unleashed the fire and brimstone.  It turned out that I
didn't need the fortifications.

Instead of hellfire and damnation, the priest, who's name I then knew to be
Father Miller, preached empathy and compassion for our fellow human beings.
He reinterpreted the Good Samaritan story and expanded its meaning.  Father
Miller said that, if a Samaritan could show compassion to a Jew, a
Samaritan who had good reason to loath the Jews who looked down on the
Samaritans and treated them poorly, then all of us should have compassion
for each other, no matter who or what they are.

It was a kind, paternal sermon about accepting people as a package, their
strengths and weaknesses, their successes and failings.  Father Miller
spoke of appreciating what each individual brings to the human experience
even if they don't share in the faith.  "Samaritan or Jew, black or white,
man or woman, young or old, liberal or conservative, heterosexual or
homosexual; all are people created by God and loved by him.  And if God
loves all people, shouldn't we show each other the same love?" The priest
reasoned.

His mention of homosexuals shocked me.  The priest of my youth never
mentioned them except as part of an epithet damning them...us...me.  To
hear this priest tell his congregation to embrace those who the old priest
said should be hated...it made me wonder what else the man preached.  I
enjoyed the sermon.  It felt like a conversation instead of a set of
marching orders.  It was a very refreshing change from what I remembered.

When the service ended, and the recessional played, I stood to leave.  Joe
put his hand up and stopped me.  I sat back down to wait with the others
until the church was empty and Father Miller was making his way back up the
central aisle.  The priest stopped next to my brother and greeted him like
an old friend.  "It's good to see you, Joe.  You seem better.  You're
moving better than I remember.  Big group with you today; family, friends,
or both?"

Joe stood, prompting all of us to rise, and moved carefully into the aisle.
"I'm trying an unorthodox treatment that seems to be helping.  I came to be
thankful and brought the people important to me.  I'd like you to meet
everyone."  Joe introduced the group as we filed from the pew.  The way he
trotted us out to the priest made me feel like a game show contestant.  Joe
introduced each person to Father Miller.  He gave each person a name and
identified their relationship.  Joe disappointed me when he reached me and
Bem and Shawn.  "This is my brother, Church, and his friends, Shawn and
Bem."

"Hello, Father."  I shook the priest's hand.  "Joe understated one point.
Bem is my very good friend.  Shawn is my husband."

The priest's handshake didn't falter, and his expressive face didn't betray
any judgement.  "Wonderful."  He said as he traded my handshake for one
with Shawn.  "I hope you two are very happy.  Are you moving to the area?
Will you be joining the congregation?"

"We're just in town to see Joe and Mary."  Shawn replied, seemingly as
surprised as I was at the priest's acceptance.  "I'm not even Catholic."

"It's never too late."  Father Miller said graciously.  "If you'd like to
talk about converting, or anything at all, I have office hours every day
during the week."

I was stunned into silence.  I'd introduced Shawn as my husband as a direct
challenge to Father Miller.  It was a challenge he met without even
flinching.  Even more impressive, he welcomed us into his parish.  To say
that I was surprised would have been a gross understatement.

After some light pleasantries, Father Miller glanced at his watch.  "I'm
sorry to cut this short, but I have three baptisms this afternoon and a few
other things demanding my time.  It was nice to see you, Joe, and wonderful
to meet the new faces.  I'm looking forward to seeing you all again."  He
waved and hurried away.

Joe looked my way with a self-satisfied smirk that made his face look very
smug.  "Come on, Andy," he called, "I need help down the steps.  Meet us
around back please, Church."

If I was on my toes, I would have said something about committing the sin
of pride inside the church on Sunday.  As it was, Shawn had to pull me to
the exit.  I was in complete shock from my `Father Miller experience.'