Steeples, Basements and Dreams

On sabbatical and starting in the deep South . . . .

When we arrived at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, we hadn't been sure we'd be able to get inside.  And sure enough, the doors to the sanctuary were locked.  So we walked around to the back of the building, hoping to find an office entrance.  We had to make our way past some construction--the church is putting in an elevator, realizing the dream of its late pastor, Clementa Pinckney, and many others, to make the building accessible to all.

As we rounded the back of the structure we were greeted by a fellow in his sixties.  He introduced himself as one of the church trustees.  We explained the work I am doing on the abolition movement and our hope to see the inside of the church, for its congregation has often been at the center of the struggle for equal rights.

Well come this way, he said, and then he ushered us through a side door and down a  narrow flight of stairs into the church basement.  It is a church basement like hundreds, thousands, of other church basements all across the country,  Basements where church suppers with casserole dishes and salad bowls brought from home, youth group meetings with silly games and serious discussions, and Bible studies of all kinds are held on a routine basis.  But on that Wednesday night in June things had been anything but routine as gunfire ended nine lives, and shattered so many others.  As we sat there on metal folding chairs, we were filled with a mix of emotions and an overwhelming sense of the sacred.

We smile a lot around here, our trustee host told us, it helps us make it through each day.  And as he took us around the rest of the building, we were struck again and again by the pride the congregation has in its property.  Most of it built by former slaves, we were told.  The woodwork on the pews was intricate.  There was a fine looking organ.  It was a place where folks like Martin Luther King, Jr., had spoken and offered up God's word of hope.

Emanuel AME--Mother Emanuel--is situated on Calhoun Street in Charleston, but it used to be called Boundary Street.  Because it marked a boundary, a line, that people of color were only allowed top cross if they were with their masters or on their masters' business.  They could work across the boundary, said our new friend, but not worship.  But on this side . . . .

On this side stands Mother Emanuel, with its steeple reaching for the sky.  Bearing witness.  Saying God's over here as well!

They call Charleston the Holy City for all its churches and steeples.  But last week I was reminded how often the holy lives cheek-by-jowl with that which is anything but holy.  Yet I was also reminded that even in the midst of great tragedy, there are those who keep building elevators, and welcoming strangers, and reaching for a dream that transcends all the boundaries we human beings can erect.