Thirty -seventh day of Lent: Stygian darkness

4/20

Just as I’m ready to head to my lectionary study group, I get a call, the roofers are ready to start. I open up the doors to let them in with loads of ladders, roofing materials, tar, drain spouts, leaders...The big ladder needed to get to the north tower won’t fit to go up the stairs. But I suggest taking it into the sanctuary and over the balcony and that works. When the ladder is up,I climb up and go through the hatch into the north tower. In fifteen years, I’ve never been in this space before. Halfway up the brick wall is the little door that opens out onto the roof. 

John arrives for a final review of the  contract with Woodshed. Hope arrives and we dig into the bag of archives. And Jim Clifford comes in to say hello on his way back from the hospital. Amanda and Danielle have finished a meeting and are in Riverside Park for lunch.

The bag of archives. Crazy. Random. After the water disaster, everything was just gathered up by the clean up crew and stuffed in bags. As we go through the items, years pass, pop up, go by, trail off...there’s lists of members, pew rental lists, marriage registers, mortgages, deeds, architectural plans. 

All right, I’ve discovered the meaning  of the two memorial plaques in the narthex! Lewis C.Bales was the second pastor of Park Church, only served briefly and died at 34 in San Francisco. David R. Downer, who the plaque says ...terminated his ministry and his life... was the first pastor of West Church. So these two plaques are concrete (marble?) reminders of the two former churches, their buildings, their people.

We find the merger documents. The first new church manual. Old centennial bulletins and history booklets. Documents from previous landmark fights. The merger struggle of the early nineties. No order, just jumbled up.

Strikingly, the documents repeat themes of struggle: financial, interpersonal,political, ecclesiastical...always hints of secret meetings, strategies, plots and plans...anger, hurt, accusation, acrimony...but also persistence, always facing near disaster and keeping on...as we are.

I meet Amanda and Danielle in the Park. Sunny, but still a little chilly. Catch up on our mornings, head back to the church. 

The head of roofing crew is on 87th Street trying to figure out how to get into that little, small flooded space outside the south wall of the  sanctuary. (When John went back there the first time, they had to climb over a fence, a small wall...and John said, and I had neither hip boot waders  nor proper wellingtons...) I tell him I know the way.

So we head down through the crawl space, back through the stygian darkness (explained that term to Danielle today) across planks and doors spread across dank pools of water to the door at the back. A quick twist and the lock falls off.  Though two large garbage containers have been filled with a swamp like sludge, there is still a foot or so of ominous water remaining. Clearly the source of the water that has drained into the bowels of the church.

The crew chief steps into the murk, searching for the drain. Wraps his hands in a plastic bag and digs down. This will take awhile.

Making my way back through the crawl space, trying to stay out of the sat dig water, I see the detritus of history tucked into nooks and crannies. Never installed organ pipes, broken furniture, a wooden bed head board...the exposed original brick and stone foundations...wet, creepy. People who romanticize about these buildings have no idea. No idea. Times like this I just want to say, it’s way beyond, just way beyond, take it down, start over....

I’m taking Amanda to see Jack. The Seattle connection. the music connection. My dream of producing an evening of his music, his poetry...I’ll come back and lock up later.

Thirty -sixth day of Lent: Today is the first day of Passover

4/19

Today is the first day of Passover. I send greetings to Mim, Ted and Asya, Jon and Alice. This celebration of liberation, of freedom from bondage, of escape from mitzrayim, the narrow space informs our vision, helps us to put up with frustrations and move towards a call, a witness that goes beyond any one  of us.

The roofers aren’t coming. Wet weather predicted. But plumbers arrive and start tackling  the drain situation. The work is only partially complete. 

John arrives to update our budget issues. It’s not quite the disaster that seemed to be happening. But close. We just might make it. We’re reviewing the Woodshed contract, getting ready to close the deal with them. 

Rochone comes and we begin to make this an official relationship. Her job will be  to make these concerts happen. While we are working on all this, James comes in, back from his chemo session at the hospital. Amanda and James greet one another warmly. Last summer, they together  created the office we’re now sitting  in. 

We get our computers compatible. Plumbers, roofers, meetings to be scheduled. Amanda and Danielle begin to work on contact lists. Arnaldo walks in through the open doors.

Salvadoran. We start going through mutual connections. I recall my lunch with (then) US Ambassador Dean Hinton. Arnaldo worked for Dean Hinton. I recall my meeting with   Roberto D’Aubisson, believed to be in command of the death squads. His Cherokee with the smoke glass windows.  My visit to the orphanage where the murdered US nuns worked. Where they served us a Thanksgiving dinner en estilo norteamericano. The children scattering in fear as an American  helicopter hovered overhead. I remember going to the body dump. Viewing the photos of los desaparecedos, murdered and mutilated, at the archdiocese office. Guards with automatic weapons in  front of Mc Donald’s and shopping malls. The intense surreal feeling of Salvador in the ’80’s. Arriving there a couple of days after my colleagues because of my trip to Guatemala. The semi-dazed look in the eyes of my friend Doug when he met me saying, I can never be the same after this, Arnaldo is bringing all that back. 

He has been in the home of my good friend and mentor, George. But this visit has to do with his interest in the church. He was part of the group of Columbia volunteers who gave a day of labor last December. He’s still interested. Take down his information.

The plumbers are dealing with the ruins of the drainage system. But its not easy.

Thirty-fifth day of Lent: Holy Week begins

4/18

Barney Greengrass is open for a rare Monday because tonight is the first night of Passover. And starting tomorrow they’ll be closed for the week, Gary’s only week of vacation. I buy my coffee, wish him a happy Passover and vacation. I’ll have to get my coffee somewhere else this week. 

Amanda and Danielle meet for the first time. They’re off and running planning a full week of work. And Amanda’s ready to plan four concerts for our Centennial Celebration week in June. 

Tom calls and Nazim and crew are ready to work. This afternoon. Wasn’t expecting them until tomorrow. The goal is to see if we can get the bathrooms up and running in time to bring the Three Graces theatre company, and maybe Warner Brothers, in by May 1. They’re going to turn the water on again. See what happens. Later  hear that one toilet nearly exploded. OK, not so easy. 


Somehow the pigeons seem to have broken back in. How did that hatch get left open? Doesn't matter. That disturbing  sound of fluttering  wings. And in the guano splattered anteroom there is the carcass of a dead bird. Haven't had to deal with one of those in months. Feels like falling back. I brace myself, walk in, pick up and remove the dead bird. 

Amanda and I dig in, dragging out bags of garbage that have been sitting in various places  much too long. Clean up, conscious awareness has to become part of our liturgy, our worship, our work. 


Tonight is Passover. Holy Week has begun.

Palms to Passion Sunday

4/17

Liturgy. From laiturgia...the work of the people. So on this Sunday, Palm Sunday, we begin our liturgy with work. I carry garbage bags out to the street. And the girls start placing the hymn books and Bibles we have  brought back from SPSA in the pews. Everyone is picking up old papers, empty coffee cups. Hope is running the vacuum. And Arcadia  and I sweep up under the balcony where the new plaster has fallen after the rains. If we love this place as we say, want others to know it, we must care for it. Be ready for Easter. 

After cleaning, the next part of worship begins. I recall other Palms to Passion Sundays we have celebrated here. Greg playing his berimbau as we chanted Hosanna. The liturgy that Katherine and Jed and  I created basing the order on the Gospel story itself as told  by Stephen Mitchell. As referenced by Barbara Lundblad in her lecture at Union last Thursday. Today Katherine and Andre are at the Chelsea Church. Philip is at work at Michalski. And Amy is on spring break. We will make our own music. I lead us in a chant  of Hosanna. We pass out palms that Ray Bagnuolo of Jan Hus has given to us. 

Our table today has palms, ashes from Ash Wednesday from Advent Lutheran’s palms, and pieces of our building. 

Instead of preaching, I lead the congregation in a kind of lectio divina, a guided reflection through the Palm  Sunday story. What do we see? Hope, the crowds in Egypt, in Libya and beyond gathering, yearning for freedom. Hugo, the dusty small town where he grew up.  What does he feel? Hot. Arcadia, the processions in Granada. Ana, a small Puerto Rican town.  

The words that captured me were humble, prophet, city, turmoil. I saw a celebratory  parade down Broadway, the canyon of heroes, ticker tape, Jesus in the back of a convertible. The crowds reaching out. And a few blocks away, no one knowing. The pain,the anguish, the turmoil of the city. 

I reminded the people that when Matthew was first read, Jerusalem lie in ruins. People read of this triumphant entry in a city in ruins. All its riches, treasures, sacked and taken to Rome. I lift up pieces of our building. remind the congregation that we returned not to a magnificent restored sanctuary but to ruins. That many of us bear hurts, disappointments, frustrations. And it is into this turmoil that we welcome Jesus in this year. 

We take up our offering. I read the Passion story. Remind them, as if they need to be, that there is no resurrection without crucifixion.  Holy Week has begun. Our session gathers to discuss our concerns. Ana shares her cafe con leche. As we close up the church, lock the doors, we place a cup of coffee and a palm on the steps of the church. 

Thirty-third day of Lent: Persevere

4/15

Chuck and Paula are waiting for me at the door. Chuck and his family  have been part of West-Park for almost as along as I’ve been here. His wife Angela was once our volunteer coordinator and in the eighteen months after 9-11, directed our Hub Church program where we responded to the needs of people who fell between the cracks of government programs.  His children Martha and Jasper baptized here. And those children led directly to our bringing Holly here. 

Chuck, like most people in this city, came with a dream.  Philly roots, Syracuse, acting dreams. Supporting that dream by working in the food service industry. Union man. He and his family part of the migration of young families from the Upper West Side to Harlem as the cost of housing has moved beyond working/middle class means. 

(Our neighborhood has always “worked” because of its economic integration. Because of that, we have had the most successful public housing projects in the country. No one is seriously thinking about the heightening social tension caused when the middle class is forced out of a neighborhood and only rich and poor remain.)

Chuck was also part of our  Men’s Spirituality and Writing Group, a cell group that ran for years. 

He and Paula were both founding members of the 29th Street Rep Theatre Company, the home of so-called brutal theatre, though Paula says that was a kind of tongue-in-cheek way of saying they did the plays they wanted to do. 

Over the years, I’d seen them both in intriguing and challenging pieces like Bobby Supreme and The Censor, and South of No North which opened up the world of Charles Bukowski to me. They were willing to push the boundaries, explore rough places but always with an eye to the complexity of human relationships. They lost their theatre in the ongoing rising tide of commercial rental rates. They’ve come to West-Park to see if this might be a place to bring those dreams back to life. So we take the tour.

Paula has other ideas, too. Possibilities that could emerge out of art and her evolving role in that world. We are attracting people with dreams, it’s at the very center of this project. But to make them real...

Bob and Paula

LJ comes up the street while I’m sweeping. She’s coming to see about getting married. Surprised to see me in the street. I explain to her the story of what we’re trying to do. She’s asking me about doing her marriage  because she’s read I’ve got experience in interfaith and bilingual ceremonies. She slipped into Spanish in our phone conversation to see how I’d respond. But the clincher was when I identified the 503 area code as Portland, Oregon. And said, PDX.

There is this odd connection. My friend Ken, an Episcopal Deacon and publisher who was in residence at West-Park for a year developing our Deacons’ program and creating a weekly Taize service moved there.  Dave, co-chair of a PHEWA network and Pastor for the mother of Jane Galloway. My old friend Bill from Tulsa. Amanda. Bill who spoke about Ritual Space. The Mayor’s Office of Sustainability. The US office of Sabeel, the Palestinian Theological and Liberation project from Bethlehem whose director Naim Ateek I’ve known for years is there. I’ve only been to the city once, but, well, these connections.... Despite the joke about being  a place where young people go to retire, or what Kermit said on Treme, they clap on the beat there,  there’s an ethos that seems to connect with where we’re trying to go. 

LJ’s interfaith New York Jewish-Peruvian Catholic marriage is actually not the future, it’s the world we’re living in now. 

Paul, a young African-American, comes in to take a look. “I always wanted to see inside here,” he says. “I like looking inside of churches. This is beautiful.” Been here three years. Usually goes to St.Gregory’s. He crosses himself. On the way out he asks, "Are you the guy who takes care of the church?" I pause for a moment. “Yes, I am.” We shake hands.

Outside Elle is coming past the church with her companion. Arm in a sling. I ask her what happened. Broken elbow. Ironically, I’d spent the morning with Andrea and her newly broken elbow. Elle lives in an apartment that would have been blocked by our proposed condominium tower. She says she appreciates how much better the church is being cared for. Asks how we’re doing. And I tell her.

“You’ve got to persevere,” she says. “You can’t give up. I was a designer. Fashion. When I’d be out out one door, I’d go right in the next. Persevere.” I thank her. She heads home. 

If only it were that simple. This part of the story is taking too long. 

Thirty-second day of Lent: Nothing Biblical

4/14

Norm, Hope and I meet to to go further with the archives. Hope’s unopened bag and the bag I picked up at Jim’s office on the way here are like bags of unopened Christmas presents. With no other place to work, we gather around the communion table, put what we’ve got down to look at.

It’s a impressive array of stuff, that’s for sure. Old hand written deeds. personal letters. Tintypes, kodak polaroids, examples from the whole history of photography. Lists, records, marriages, baptisms. Blueprints, planned renovations that never took place. A letter of dismissal. The Peacemonger Press. Christmas cards. Unsorted, random. History in our hands. This is being destroyed just by our touching it, says Norm as we go through papers from the 19th Century. 

Norm has a sense of what we have. he needs some color things. Some things  that attract attention. Tell a story. We’ll have to look for those. 

When Hope and I go outside, Marty is there. On the steps. Writing in an notebook.                                           “Hey Marty, what are you up to?” “Nothing Biblical, I assure you. My shopping lists, et cetera.” 

Hope says, “You moved,” gesturing across the street. 

“Too hot over there,” he says, "Monday it was near 80, today, ah, 65? I’m looking to live on the median...” 

We close up. That’s all for now. Later I meet Mim with a friend  from Bank Street, the teacher’s college. We give her a tour. She talks about an exciting film program involving kids and their own neighborhoods and video. Like Paolo Freire’s work with cameras. Where people become the subject of their own history. Take back control of their own lives. Our guest smiles when I mention Freire. Of course, she says.

On the one hand, it’s an exciting opportunity. On the other, I am tired of opportunities. I want to see something real. We shake hands. Agree to talk further. 

We go back outside. In the sun. Marc Greenburg of the Interfaith Assembly is there on 86th.  Knocking at the door. Pushing the buzzer. We go for coffee and popovers. History. The Assembly was started by three giants, Father Daniel Berrigan, Rabbi Marshall Meyer and the Rev. Bob Davidson, my predecessor. Formed to respond to the 200 day homeless sleep-in vigil in City Hall Park. Marc has been the only Director. And I am now the President. Part of our legacy. And present. Each year there’s  a  convocation, march, sleepover and morning meeting with elected officials around the budget and the homeless. A liturgy of remembrance and presence.  Turning the Park and the street into what Bill Tripp would call Ritual Space. We finish our conversation.

Time to go work on the budget. 

Thirty -first day of Lent: Make me an offer

4/13

A pretty messy day. Long matches and a urine smell,( sigh) you need some clorox here says the UPS delivery woman. And I will never understand where surgical gloves come from and why. 

I come to the church to meet Hope to go through archival material with  Norm tomorrow. Spent all morning being deposed over a fall down sidewalk case from 2007.    Four attorneys, four hours. The most painful part is having to go through the whole failed history  of the  development project with Richman. In aching detail. 

I am exhausted in every way. Hope isn’t coming. While sweeping, I see an orthodox man, hat, beard and all...checking out the church very closely. He’s talking on the  cell phone. I hear him give the church number.  Read off the old list of programs. What’s up with this?

I try to catch his eye.  He’s preoccupied with his cell phone.  He looks at me. Assumes I’m a schlemiel, or at best a shammus.  Goes right on by as if I’m not there.     

I search here and there for items I remember and haven’t been able to find. Not since the water damage. .  But there is so much.  So much more. Overwhelming.  All the boxes, all the stuff flows over me like a busted water pipe.

When  Hope calls to say she can’t come,  I breathe a sign of relief. But while I’m locking up, a phone call. Do I want to sell the church?   His Italian client doesn’t want to say what he wants. But if the church wanted to stay there and worship, well, hey, no big deal.   Could be...   

Thinking about how depressed,  stressed I feel, I want to say yes.  Don’t trust any phone call that starts out in a cheery pseudo familiar how are you  today? But I want to say, so make me an offer....