Reply #3: Spent a day last week in Denver [View All]

[madamesilverspurs]

at St.John's Cathedral, taking pictures for a photo montage we're preparing for Mom's 90th birthday. She grew up in that church, and met Dad at a serviceman's canteen operated by the church during WWII. They were married there and baptized the kids there before the family relocated. Dad was Episcopalian until he died at 92. Mom is still active in her parish.

I roamed the hallways, looked at the photo archives and picked up some printed 'current events' stuff to tuck into the package I'll be sending to Mom. The difference between "then" and now is striking, most especially in the numbers of female clergy; that change really upset Dad, although he eventually became quite fond of the female priest at their church in Washington, so much so that he requested that she preside at his service.

Having grown up in a very conservative home, where certain things were never discussed and others were spoken of in hushed terms, it was a delightful surprise when the bishop who had presided at my confirmation was arrested and went to jail with MLK. At our summer church camp, our favorite teacher was Malcolm Boyd. When I was small, Paul Roberts was Dean of the cathedral, and he was a very active pacifist; he was very much a dad to my mother who never knew her own father, and his son was one of her childhood friends. With all that, at home we were always cautioned against 'rocking the boat' - go figure.

The cathedral church is apparently very welcoming to the gay community. When I read that I immediately remember hearing Dean Roberts' commentary on the vestments he wore: "They dress you like Mother, but call you Father."