Michael lived in a basement apartment on Stuyvesant Street. The entry was under the main staircase. The main floor was the living and dining area. In the basement there was a kitchen and above a bedroom. Michael was a large man - 6'4 or 6'5 - and bounding into his home gave me the impression of a large rabbit entering his warren. Yet once inside the wonderland, everything seemed normal in an east-village kind of way. Mostly, people lounged on the floor propped up on pillows. There were baskets for storage and spaces for well placed artifacts: an icon of Mary, a flower, a painting, a Japanese Buddha.
Michael was a priest who took on sexual freedom fearlessly and generously. His passions were a radical departure from his roots in Denver & Scandinavia. He was one of a handful of young priests notorious for getting phone numbers between the wafer and the wine. But it wasn't salacious or seductive, it was a generosity of spirit that invited men into a joyous celebration of their bodies as incarnations of holy writ. While I did not partake of this communion, many did and were thankful for knowing him so well.
Through his work at many parishes, he was known to afflict the comfortable as well as comfort the afflicted. He added so much life to the practice of love. Chuck Burleigh was with him the night he died, as he had been for many nights before.
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