Old red-brick church survives in high-tech San Francisco

The outsider tends to think of San Francisco as irreligious city.

Cable cars, the Golden Gate Bridge and LGBT pioneers are among things so-called “Baghdad by the Bay” is easily recognized for, but San Francisco has an array of beautiful structures, including many houses of worship such as Grace Cathedral, Sherith Israel synagogue, Saint Ignatius Church, Saints Peter and Paul Church and Mission Dolores, the oldest surviving structure in the city, dating to 1776.

Other noteworthy houses of worship are less well known. Take Saint Francis Lutheran Church, the only Lutheran church in the world to be named for the Italian (Catholic) saint.

Located on Church Street, near the intersection of Market Street in the Castro District, Saint Francis Lutheran dates back to just before the devastating 1906 Earthquake. By the time of the disaster, the main floor meeting hall had been completed and was in use, but the sanctuary above was still unfinished.

The earthquake damaged the sanctuary, but the main floor was left intact and was used by the Red Cross as a hospital and shelter for the injured and homeless.

The red-brick church was constructed in a Danish-Gothic style, modified in the Nordic tradition, according to NoeHill in San Francisco, a website dedicated to San Francisco historical sites.

It possesses a wooden steeple and features a stone foundation and steps. In the sanctuary are copies of two masterpieces by Danish sculptor Berte Thorvaldsen (1770-1844).

San Francisco, like much of California, received a wide array of immigrants from many parts of the world following the 1849 Gold Rush. Danish immigration to California began in the San Joaquin Valley and gradually moved to Fresno and then north to the Bay Area and San Francisco.

For many years, religious services in San Francisco were performed by Lutheran clergy dispatched more than 180 miles from Fresno, according to NoeHill in San Francisco.

Around 1900, when the Danish community in San Francisco had reached a size to warrant its own church, the community wrote to Queen Louise of Denmark asking for financial assistance. The monarch sent a gift of 500 Kroner, which formed the basis of the building fund.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, the area around the church was populated mainly by Scandinavians and Germans. For many years, the neighborhood supported five Lutheran churches, each holding services in a different language: Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish and German.

Over the years, as English became the common tongue the various Lutheran congregations merged. In 1964, a Danish and Finnish congregation merged and named the new congregation in honor of San Francisco’s patron saint, Saint Francis.

(Top: 111-year-old Saint Francis Lutheran Church, in San Francisco’s Castro District.)

Jesus: Apostles needed; Goliath need not apply

I’ve occasionally pondered a blog dedicated solely to the religious adventures of Daughter No. 3. For one, there’s definitely no lack of material. She’s the one who most recently expressed interest in looking into the church role of “crucifier” (rather than “crucifer,” the individual who carries the processional cross into and out of church at the beginning and end of mass).

But as much as I chortle at some of her misguided answers to basic Christian history, I often find even better her attempts to explain her lack of knowledge.

Last week, for some reason (perhaps simply because I decided it was time for a little levity), I asked Daughter No. 3 what term was used to refer to the men closest to Jesus.

“UH, UH, UH, I KNOW THIS! I KNOW THIS! – The Twelve Disciples!” she shouted, proud as a peacock.

“No, not quite,” I replied. “You got the number right, but you missed on the title.”

“What?!? 12 Disciples! It’s disciples, I know it’s disciples!”

“No, I’m sorry, it’s not,” I stated. Then, looking at her siblings, I asked, “Anyone else?”

In unison I heard, “The Twelve Apostles!”

Daughter No. 3 was less than impressed. “Disciples, apostles, what’s the difference?”

After explaining that any follower can be considered a disciple, but the 12 specific individuals who were Jesus’ closest followers were his apostles, she seemed less than convinced.

So I followed up with, “All right, how many of the Twelve Apostles can you name?”

This, of course, is where the fun began; Daughter No. 3 began racking her brain for biblical names.

“David … Jonah … Adam … Abraham; how about those?” she asks.

“Well, you seem to be on a decidedly Old Testament bent, sweetheart,” I told her. “Think New Testament.”

She paused, then blurted out, “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John!”

“I’ll give you credit for two,” I replied, figuring that then was not the time for a discourse on who the actual authors of the books of Matthew or John might have been, or that the authors of Mark and Luke are not known. “That means you’ve got four more to go to get to 12.”

She paused, then reverted back to the Old Testament: Daniel? … Noah? … Moses? …. Did I already say David?”

“Yes. You need one more.”

“Uh, Joseph,” she said.

“Which Joseph,” I asked. “There are several in the bible.

Goliath, center left, who didn’t make Daughter No. 3’s list as one of the Twelve Apostles.

She stared blankly back at me in the rearview mirror. I tossed out a name: “How about Joseph, Jesus’ father?”

“Yeah, that’s a good one.”

I looked at her incredulously. “If your brother was, heaven help us, a religious figure of some stature, do you think he would want me as one of his apostles?”

That brought a round of laughs.

Still, she wasn’t budging from Joseph, the father of Jesus.

“Congratulations,” I said in my best game show host’s voice. “You just named two out of 12 of the apostles. And to think you completed a two-year confirmation course just two weeks ago.”

“They didn’t teach us anything,” she blurted out in semi-disgust.

“Oh, I have a feeling they taught you plenty, you just weren’t learning,” I told her.

With that, I got a wave of the hand and a laugh. She knows that since I teach in the same faith formation program, I have at least a slight idea what was going on in her class.

I did give her credit, though. For once she didn’t go to her safety answer for all bible questions. Typically, the first name blurted out, no matter what the question, is “Goliath.”

Progress is coming in very, very small baby steps, but it is progress nonetheless.

(Top: Leonardo’s Last Supper, showing Jesus and the Twelve Apostles.)

Century-old stained glass underscores priest’s legacy

This past weekend a small Roman Catholic parish in Chapin, SC, unveiled its new church, a Modern Gothic Revival-style structure 10 years in the making.

Our Lady of the Lake Church features an impressive bell, a beautiful ambo and a striking altar. But perhaps what sets it apart from most new churches is its stained glass windows.

Unlike most of what is in the new structure, the eight windows are more than a century old, having come from the old Monastery of the Dominican Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary in Union City, NJ, also known as “The Blue Chapel.”

They were made at Buffalo Glass Works in New York by well-known stained glass artist Leo P. Frohe, who created them in the spirit of the Munich School style of glass, common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The set of windows was once called “the poor man’s Bible” by Frohe and his contemporaries because they offered a physical way for worshippers to experience the transcendence of God.

Detail of stained glass window depicting Mary and infant Jesus.

Five of the windows depict the joyful mysteries of the rosary, and the other three show images of the Sacred Heart appearing to St. Gertrude, Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane and Mary’s coronation in heaven.

Frohe (1851-1919) was born in The Netherlands. He came to Buffalo in 1862 with his mother and sisters, joining his father, a classically trained artist who had arrived in the US a year earlier.

For many years Frohe was the manager of the Buffalo Stained Glass Works. Frohe’s work for the company won a silver medal at the Paris Exhibition in 1889.

In 1895 he established his own workshop, called Frohe Art Glass, in Buffalo.

The Blue Chapel was built between 1912 and 1914, and housed the Order of the Perpetual Rosary which was started by Dominicans nuns who emigrated from France.

The monastery closed in 2008 when its last two nuns retired and moved to a hospice in New Jersey.

Father Andrew Vollkommer, the longtime pastor at Our Lady of the Lake, arranged that the eight windows be transferred to South Carolina in exchange for paying for the reburial of nuns who were interred on the property of the New Jersey monastery.

The windows were then restored at a Charlotte studio that specializes in stained glass.

Stained glass from the Munich School, created during the late 19th and early 20th century, possessed unique characteristics.

It is said to mirror “the European Romantic-era style of artistic, musical, and religious philosophy that took the lofty, hyper rational ideals of the preceding period and brought them, in a sense, back to earth,” according to the Hudson (NY) Reporter.

“It was believed beforehand that nature and the body were imperfect and that spiritual enlightenment could only be achieved by rejecting one’s earthly experience,” according to the publication. “The Romantic era proposed that true spiritual revelation was achieved instead by embracing nature and human emotion.”

Unfortunately, the man so instrumental in bringing the windows to the new church, along with everything else associated with the elegant structure, wasn’t on hand to witness the dedication.

Father Vollkommer died in his sleep in late January at age 60, after overseeing nearly every aspect of the structure nearly through to completion.

In more than 20 years of shepherding the parish, Father Vollkommer helped it grow from 60 families to 800, so there was more than a tinge of sadness that he wasn’t on hand this past weekend to see the fruits of his labor.

However, it’s not often that any of us are able to leave a legacy that will last generations. Buried a short distance away, Father Vollkommer will remain figuratively and literally in the shadow of the new church for decades to come.

Picturesque church a reminder of town’s glory days

Say one thing for old-time Presbyterians: They knew how to build a church.

Consider First Presbyterian Church in Laurens, SC. Built in Victorian Gothic Revival style, it has all the beauty and elegance of any storied European house of worship despite being located in a town with barely 9,000 residents.

Constructed of red brick, it possesses a cross-gabled slate roof, and a two-story mansard-roofed tower. It employs board-and-batten dormers with round windows and an octagonal broach spire. Its decorative brickwork is indicative of beautiful masonry found on many buildings constructed in the US up through the 1940s.

Features of First Presbyterian’s brickwork includes corbelled arcades, blind-raked arcades, soldier courses set with diagonally placed bricks, brick buttresses, and brick chimneys with recessed panels and corbelled bands and caps, according to information about the church detailed by the National Register of Historic Places.

Door to First Presbyterian Church, Laurens, SC.

The congregation was organized in the early 1830s, and by the 1840s it was more than 100 members. The church continued to grow prior to the Civil War, with its first standalone structure, on Church Street in Laurens, being built in 1850. By 1860, First Presbyterian’s membership rolls had swelled to 176, including 46 slaves.

First Presbyterian, like most houses of worship in the South, struggled during the war, as not only were a number of its congregants killed during the conflict, but contributions fell off as members sought to keep their own heads above water financially. In 1863, its minster was sent off to serve as chaplain in the Confederate army.

Following the 1861-65 conflict, First Presbyterian slowly recovered, as the region embraced manufacturing and textiles, and also served as a transportation hub, with several railroads serving the town.

Toward the end of the 19th century things were going well enough in both the church and the community that it was decided expansion was in order.

First Presbyterian acquired a lot on Laurens’ Main Street for $800 and began construction in 1891. The first service inside the completed structure was held two years later, in April 1893.

During the past three decades, Laurens, like many Southern towns, has fallen on difficult times as textiles and manufacturing plants have closed or relocated. Nearly 500 fewer people lived in Laurens in 2010 than did so 50 years earlier, a trend evident in small towns across the Southeast.

However, even with the problems inherent in struggling town, the Presbyterians of Laurens, SC, have a house of worship they can rightly take pride in.

Francis, Kirill set for historic meeting in Cuba

The recent announcement that Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic church, and Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox church, plan to meet in Cuba later this month will mark the first such gathering in more than 950 years.

The summit comes after decades of diplomacy between the Russian Orthodox church and the Vatican.

The two branches split in 1054 over disagreements regarding theology, when they officially became two separate faith traditions: Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians.

While modern popes have met in the past with the Istanbul-based ecumenical patriarchs, the spiritual leaders of Eastern Orthodoxy, the meeting with Kirill is more substantial. Eastern Orthodox patriarchs play a largely symbolic role, while the Russian church is seen as wielding considerably more influence because it includes 165 million of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians.

Whereas past efforts to bring the two faith leaders together have failed, the two churches are now willing to meet largely because of the “current turmoil facing Christians in several parts of the world, and particularly in the Middle East,” according to the Christian Science Monitor.

Both the Vatican and the Orthodox Church have long been vocal in denouncing Islamic extremist attacks in the Middle East, North and Central Africa, in which radical Islamists have waged wars on Christians, often causing a rift between Muslims and Christians, the publication reported.

“In this tragic situation, we need to put aside internal disagreements and pool efforts to save Christianity in the regions where it is subject to most severe persecution,” Metropolitan Illarion, foreign policy chief of the Russian Orthodox Church, told the Associated Press.

In addition, concerns that Ukrainians are losing faith with the Orthodox church over its acquiescence to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “aggression in Crimea and the Donbas,” and the Roman Catholic church’s desire for religious freedom for Catholics in Russia and Ukraine are also driving the meeting.

The split dates back to difficulties between Michael Cerularius, patriarch of Constantinople, and Pope Leo IX, head of the Roman Catholic church.

By the middle of the 11th century, there were a number of ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes standing between the Greek East and Latin West. These included the source of the Holy Spirit, whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, the Pope’s claim to universal jurisdiction and the position of Constantinople in the organizational structure of Christendom.

Michael Cerularius was determined, if possible, to have no superior in either church or state. He took several actions against the Western church, including attacking it because it used unfermented bread in the sacrifice of the mass and closing the Latin churches in Constantinople, according to The Catholic Encyclopedia.

In 1054, Leo IX sent a letter to the patriarch that cited a large portion of the Donation of Constantine, a forged Roman imperial decree which was purported to have been written by the emperor Constantine the Great, supposedly transferring authority over Rome and the western part of the Roman Empire to the pope.

Leo believed the Donation of Constantine to be real and cited it to show that the Holy See possessed both an earthly and a heavenly imperium, the royal priesthood, according to The Catholic Encyclopedia.

The upshot of the Donation was that only the apostolic successor to Peter – the bishop of Rome – was the rightful head of all the Church.

In early 1054, Leo IX sent a legatine mission under Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida to Constantinople to negotiate with Michael Cerularius in response to his actions concerning the church in Constantinople.

Humbert quickly disposed of negotiations by delivering a bull excommunicating the patriarch. This act, though legally invalid due to Leo’s death on April 19, 1054, was answered by the patriarch’s own bull of excommunication against Humbert and his associates.

Not surprising given the bad blood that had been brewing between the pope’s representatives and Michael Cerularius, the patriarch rejected the claims of papal primacy, and subsequently the church was rent in two in the Great East–West Schism of 1054. That split continues to this day.

(Top: Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill.)

Catholic church emerges from receding waters in Mexico

An indication of the extent of drought conditions in southern Mexico was shown earlier this fall when a colonial-era church, under a man-made reservoir for nearly 50 years, was revealed by receding waters.

The Temple of Santiago, also known as the Temple of Quechula, is an abandoned Roman Catholic church located in the  Nezahualcóyotl Reservoir in the southern-most state of Chiapas. It was built in 1564 but later abandoned due to a smallpox epidemic in 1773 and ultimately submerged by a dam in 1966.

Drought conditions in Chiapas have seen the ruins rise again. In late October, the water level in the reservoir had dropped by more than 80 feet. The church normally rests under 100 feet of water.

The church is 183 feet long and 42 feet wide, with a bell tower that rises 48 feet high. When constructed, it was far larger than needed given the size of the congregation, but the Spanish anticipated a population boom.

“It was a church built thinking that this could be a great population center, but it never achieved that,” architect Carlos Navarretes told the Associated Press. “It probably never even had a dedicated priest, only receiving visits from those from Tecpatán.”

While parts of the church occasionally reappear during some dry seasons when water levels are low, the only other time a sizeable part of the church reappeared previously was in 2002. Then, visitors were even able to walk inside it.

The Nezahualcóyotl Reservoir was built on the Grijalva River to generate hydroelectric energy. Nezahualcóyotl is the nation’s second-largest reservoir.

(Top and below: Temple of Quechula, partially rises above the waters of Nezahualcóyotl Reservoir in the Mexican state of Chiapas.)

Keeping a lonely vigil over antebellum church, area history

Well back in the Allendale County countryside sits Smyrna Baptist Church. The antebellum church hasn’t held services since 1958 and today has but a single member on its rolls. Yet, there was a time when Smyrna Baptist, like so many rural Southern churches, was a vibrant, thriving house of worship.

Today, Hugh Gray, a cotton farmer and former Allendale County councilman, takes it upon himself to keep watch over the church. He grew up attending Smyrna Baptist, his family is buried in its graveyard and he’s purposely kept his name on the church rolls, making him the lone member, even though he attends Beech Branch Baptist Church, near Luray, S.C., about 15 miles away.

Gray helps keep up the grounds and watches out for troublemakers. A couple of residents closer to the church call him whenever a vehicle stops at the church.

Gray said individuals have broken into the venerable structure, stolen pews and otherwise caused trouble.

“More often than not when I get a call that someone’s down here at the church, they’re up to no good,” he said.

Constructed somewhere between 1827 and 1848 (dates vary according to sources), Smyrna Baptist was organized in 1827 and originally known as Kirkland Church, after its first minister. By the early 1830s, the church was big enough that it could afford to try three members for heresy regarding communion.

In the end, the trio, a husband, wife and the wife’s sister-in-law, were excommunicated and would go on to form a nearby church, Antioch Christian Church, which operated from 1835 until 1939.

Smyrna Baptist is described a meeting house-style structure, featuring a front with a central Palladian window “flanked by balancing nine-paneled entrance doors with transoms.”

The windows have louvered shutters with eyebrow-type windows located above each window. The structure’s original roof was covered with metal in the 1970s. Smyrna Baptist was placed on the National Register of Historic Properties in 1976.

Among those buried in its graveyard are Dr. Benjamin Lawton (1822-1879), a local physician and planter who signed the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession and served as a captain in the 3rd South Carolina Cavalry Regiment; and Lt. Col. Benjamin B. Kirkland (1838-1885), who served in the 1st South Carolina Infantry Regiment and was wounded at Second Manassas.

There’s also a memorial to William Baker Rice Jr., an Allendale County native who volunteered for the Royal Air Force during World War II and was killed in action on April 28, 1942, over what was then Bengal, India, and is buried in Chittagong War Cemetery, in Chittagong, Bangladesh.

The decline of Smyrna Baptist and hundreds of other rural churches across the region reflect the migration that’s taken place during the past century as significant numbers of Southerners have packed up from rustic locations and made their way to larger towns and cities, be they medium-sized polities such as Columbia, SC, Knoxville, Tenn., or Richmond, Va., or large metropolises such as Atlanta, Charlotte and Jacksonville.

Smyrna Baptist and churches like it reflect an era that’s long passed. Hugh Gray is doing what he can to keep his small church from falling victim to the ravages of time and vandals, but one has to wonder who will take over once he inevitably joins his family in the church’s graveyard at some unknown point in the future.

And who is looking after all the many small churches that don’t have someone like Hugh Gray to watch over them?

Osteen vs. Luther: in a theological debate, go with the dead guy

There’s no doubting televangelist Joel Osteen’s appeal to millions of Christians. The senior pastor of the largest Protestant church in the US, Osteen’s televised sermons are seen by more than 20 million viewers monthly in more than 100 countries, and he has written five New York Times bestselling books.

The Texas-based preacher has been lauded for touting God’s love for humanity, efforts to inspire others to overcome personal setbacks and emphasis on the need for mission and purpose in life.

Similarly, Osteen has been criticized for his simplistic black-and-white thinking, being a theological lightweight and applying Scripture out of context.

While I generally keep my distance from televangelists and megachurches, I will also readily admit to not being able to see into the hearts of others.

I can’t determine, in this case, whether Osteen is a well-intentioned individual who is doing his best, and has very likely provided solace to a significant number of people, or if he is part preacher, part carnival barker who has used his ability in the pulpit to enrich himself.

That said, there are many theologically savvy types who have had a field day picking apart Osteen’s teachings. Among them is the individual who created this imaginary back and forth between Osteen and 16th century Protestant reformer and noted killjoy Martin Luther.

While the twitter conversation is, of course, imagined, both Osteen’s and Luther’s quotes are taken from the respective religious figures’ various sayings and/or writings.

Luther, not remembered as a light and fluffy sort, would probably have had Osteen burned at the stake after sitting through just a few minutes of one of the latter’s feel-good services.

Facebook: Dumbing down everything since 1355

As anyone involved with Facebook for any amount of time knows, the social media site has become increasingly polarized on topics of politics and religion in recent years.

Early on, Facebook seemed to be particularly proficient at allowing users to portray unrealistically rosy views of their lives – wonderful spouses/significant others, above-average children, superior pets, etc.

But beginning with the 2008 presidential campaign, things seemed to take a rather vitriolic turn. Of course, it’s relatively easy to ignore those who still want to debate whether the current president of the United States was born in a foreign nation or is a non-Christian.

What’s become increasingly prevalent, at least from what I’ve seen, are inane postings related to religion. I’m not referring to all religious posts, because I’m of the belief that the Bible or various other holy books are filled with words that can prove helpful during difficult times, even for those who may not be particularly devout.

One doesn’t have to agree with another’s post to understand that a bit of faith-based prose can be well intended.

No, what I’m referring to are the all-or-nothing chain memes being shared on Facebook, similar to that above, with such wording as “You have a friend request. Jesus (Son of God) wants to be your friend. Confirm?” (There’s a helpful picture of Jesus included, in case the name “Jesus” or the words “Son of God” in parenthesis didn’t make it clear that the individual sending the meme was talking about Jesus of New Testament fame rather than, say, a Latino baseball player.)

Not exactly on par with Augustine’s “City of God”.

The implication being that if you aren’t willing to “confirm” your “friendship” with Jesus, you’ve turned your back on God and, therefore, your chance at eternal salvation.

What I find particularly distasteful is a meme which shows an image of Jesus with the words, “I will bless anyone who types amen”.

Now I’m no expert in canon law but this would appear to border on the sacrilegious or, at a minimum, the ridiculously superstitious.

I don’t pretend to know the ways of God, but I’ve got a feeling that He’s going to bless those with a good heart who do good in the world, whether or not they type “amen” on a silly social media site.

Who comes up with this foolishness? Can there really be those so devoid of reasoning skills that they believe that it betters their chances at redemption to devise such tripe?

And, just so we’re clear, I’m not interested in a debate on the merits of social media evangelism. I have my faith and you’re welcome to yours, or not, whatever the case may be. But don’t insult my intelligence by telling me that the path to Heaven can be widened by a few “likes” on Facebook.

Life experience trumps popular platitudes regarding race

This past Saturday found me looking for a long-vanished church in what was once the town of Helena, SC.

Helena, subsumed years ago by the county seat of Newberry, is a predominantly African-American area with a couple of interesting and decidedly disparate claims to history: It is the birthplace of civil rights activist Frank J. Toland Sr. and, conversely, was where noted racial demagogue Cole Blease served as mayor in the late 19th century before moving on to the South Carolina state legislature, the governor’s office and finally the US Senate.

There are almost no records of Helena Church available on the Internet, and all I had to go on was information found on a genealogy site titled “Newberry County GenWeb SC Cemetery Project,” which lists numerous county cemeteries, along with addresses and GPS coordinates if that data is available.

For the old Helena Church, the information included GPS coordinates and the words “S/A Browns Chapel.” I don’t know what “S/A” refers to, but I am familiar with a Brown Chapel, an African Methodist Episcopal church in the Helena area of Newberry, sometimes identified as Browns Chapel.

I have been told of cases of some older white churches abandoning their structures once congregations dwindled to a size that they were no longer a viable house of worship, at which point a black church would take over the building.

Wondering if Brown Chapel was the old Helena Church, or built on the site of the latter, I decided to pay it a visit.

I pulled into the crushed-gravel parking lot about 2 p.m. and saw a couple of cars parked near the church. About 30 feet behind and to the right of the church I noticed an old gravestone standing alone and pulled near it. At the same time, another car with two older black women pulled into the lot.

I got out of my car to take a closer look at the grave marker, and the two women, having parked about 75 feet away, inquired from their car if they could help me. I walked over and explained to them that I was looking for the old Helena Church and asked if I was in the right place.

They immediately asked me my name and requested my identification. Somewhat surprised, I complied.

As they wrote down my name and driver’s license number, the pair, both of whom were in their mid- to late-60s, questioned me about why I was looking around. I told them I was interested in a certain individual, a German immigrant who had died around 1912 and who had been buried in the Helena Church cemetery.

Peering at my driver’s license, they noticed that I was from a town about 20 miles south of the church, and asked why I was in Newberry County. I explained, politely, that I had read old newspaper reports that had said the individual I was searching for had been buried in Helena Church and according to information I’d found on the Internet, I thought that the church may have once been at this location.

They explained to me that Brown Chapel only had graves of black parishioners, but suggested I try another site about a mile away.

I thanked them and as one of the pair handed me back my identification, she replied, “Well, we can’t be too cautious.”

The comment was an apparent reference to the shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston earlier this month by a 21-year-old white nut job that claimed nine black lives.

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I thanked them again and returned to my car. Needless to say, I found the experience unsettling.

A quick description of yours truly: Bespectacled white male, 6-foot-2, 210 pounds, 50 years old. I was wearing a t-shirt, nice shorts, dockers shoes and a Santa Clara University baseball cap. I can’t speak for others, but I hardly see myself as a threatening individual.

Were the two women out of line questioning me because I was white? Some would say yes.

Would they have asked for my ID if I were a black male; were they insinuating that given my color I needed to be watched more closely; do they believe there is increased chance of similar white attacks on black churches occurring?

I don’t know. I didn’t feel comfortable asking any of those questions.

There is a segment of society that decries the fact that, according to them, the most segregated hour in America takes place on Sunday morning, during church services. Personally, I’ve always felt that folks should go to whatever church they want, with the understanding that no one should be turned away from a house of worship because of something as arbitrary as skin color or sexual preference.

That said, after Saturday’s experience, I believe my presence during an AME or CME church service would be met with trepidation. But could I blame a congregation for being anxious if one day, less than a month after the events at Emanuel, an unfamiliar white male showed up at a black church service?

Doesn’t the human body provide protection by sending up internal red flags when something seems amiss?

As I thought about the encounter at Brown Chapel, I realized that both of the women I had talked with were likely born in the late 1940s or early 1950s. They grew up in the segregated South and had to deal with all that went along with that world.

I, on the other hand, was born in California, on the day after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. I’ve lived in the South for many years, but no matter how much I read and how many people I talk with, I would never be able to fully understand the experiences these two older black women went through.

I have trouble understanding how they could be suspicious of me; they might have countered by stating that they had trouble understanding how I couldn’t understand why might be suspicious.

If, as it has been said, we are all products of our environment, and every person we meet, every new adventure we experience and every book we read reshapes us, even if ever so slightly, and makes us the unique beings we are, I can only hope that my manner and disposition left those two lades changed, and for the better.