“I don’t understand how flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood could live with a black man as with an equal. At first I thought you might have chosen a black man so that you could feel superior, and I knew that could not be healthy for either of you. Then I feared you might think yourself as inferior because of being gay, and therefore chose a black man. Yet I have listened and listened and I have found no evidence that either has happened. 

“And Son, something about you has changed. I loved you before you were ever born. I remember seeing you in the maternity ward with one foot out from under the cover the way I sleep, the way your grandfather slept, the way your great grandfather slept. I remember my joy the first time that I heard in your laugh your mother’s laugh. But son, up until now, something about you has always been incomplete. That’s not so anymore. I am not ready yet to meet Ernest, but you must go home and tell him that I love him, because he has given my son back to me whole.”

We often were amused that neither set of parents could recognize us when we answered the phone. Apparently we have the same answering style. Six years into our marriage, I answered and Dad said, “I’d like to speak to my son, please.”

“Dad,” I am your son, I laughed.

“No, Louie, I want to speak to my other son.”

This one’s for you, I whispered.

He told Ernest, “We are Christians, but we have not behaved like Christians. Will you forgive us, and will you and Louie come spend this weekend with us. We have invited all our friends to come and meet you.”

I believe in the Holy Spirit. I have seen the Holy Spirit happen.

As late as 1979 the General Convention held the view of gay people stated in Lambeth 1.10, in the Windsor Report and in the primates’ recent communique. If the Holy Spirit has needed almost 30 years to change our hearts, cannot we love those in the rest of the Communion enough for the Holy Spirit to work on their hearts?

I believe in the Holy Spirit. Amen