The scene is Glasgow Pride. The protagonists are making their way down Argyll Street in Finnieston. I am dressed in a black suit, clerical collar and small lapel ribbon in all the colours of the rainbow. The group I am with all carry colourful posters proclaiming “The Scottish Episcopal Church Welcomes You”. Mine is mauve.Â
A young man sidles up to walk beside me.
Young Man: Hi!
Self: Hello! Where are you from?
Young Man: Well, Australia, actually.Â
The Young Man pauses.
Young Man: I just, er, I just wanted to ask you something.
Self: Oh, OK, ask away.
Young Man: Well, are you real?
Self: Oh yes, I’m very real.
The Young Man gestures with his head towards the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence who, beautifully bedecked in Catherine Laboré style wimples and rainbow habits of various styles are waving a large rainbow flag in front of us.
Young Man: Yes, but the nuns?
The Young Man pauses.
Young Man: They are not real. Right?
Self: Right.
Sometimes it’s difficult to know in life what is real and what is not, what can be believed and what can’t.
Tales of the kid from a small village –
I had a friend, Pedro, who shared an apartment with me a little over eleven years ago. I met him living rough on the street after moving to the big city from a small village in southern Veracruz state. He had only had the first five years of primary school before his abusive father took out of school and put him on the streets selling sunglasses to tourists. I had satellite TV at the time and he saw much more television in his first month living with me, than he had in his 18 years of life. One day I came home and he was not watching TV, but was surfing the internet. He hadn’t really shown much interest in the computer soon after I taught him to use it, (perhaps because I didn’t teach him that there was porn on the internet) so I was surprised by his new found curiosity. However, he wasn’t his normal talkative self. When I queried what was bothering him, he said he had two questions that I later learned had been sparked by things that he saw on TV. The first was, “Did people really fly to and walk on the moon?” And second, “Are people like Superman and Spiderman real?”
Hopefully the folks of Glasgow can tell that the people of St Mary’s are real!
Ah…the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence…always where they need to be…fabulously!