Puget

There is a small wooden church on Puget Street downtown that was the start of an important journey for me. A journey that started one early Sunday morning in January 1994, when my then next door neighbor, Shelia, invited me to go to church with her. I did not know what kind of church, all I knew was that the church recently had a new Pastor from San Antonio, Texas. I had lived in Texas for 10 years and was familiar with San Antonio, having spent one Christmas and New Year's Eve there with my parents and brother and two younger sisters , in1981. We stayed at a beautiful hotel on the river walk. So, a pastor from Texas, was kind of like a pastor from home. When we got to the church and Shelia parked her car, I noticed all the people walking to the church were black. Maybe that was not too surprising as Shelia and her family were black. Suddenly I became anxious, I thought, but I am not black, people will resent me or hate me. Nothing could have been further from that fear, because the moment I walked through the doors of the church, I was greeted with smiles and hugs. I was overwhelmed with joy, because I was at a point of social isolation where I really needed a morale boost. I had never set foot in a black church before, and the experience was so wonderful, so uplifting, I could not wait to go back. I still can't, 18 years later, and the church is now on Pacific, in Lacey, in a beautiful brand new building. Shelia moved to Virginia 9 years ago, but I kept going to New Life Baptist Church. Our pastor from Texas is a Bishop now, the church has grown a lot, but the spiritual messages of hope, love and faith, the wonderful choir, the joy of being there has only increased over time. I feel I draw great strength from the sermons I hear, the spiritual and emotional support, the friendships I was privileged to make over the years.At a time when some people are bent on turning the clock back on racial tolerance and understanding, the black church continues to be a beacon of hope, of compassion, of profound mysticism when it comes to transmitting the power of Christ like love and wisdom. When my soul was under the floor after my youngest sister's suicide in 1998, when my parent's bitter marriage tore our family apart, when my father succumbed to Alzheimer's in the midst of  betrayal and intrigue, that ended with the death of yet another sister and my mother, the church saved me from despair, and turned the ashes of tragedy into renewed dignity and hope. Ever since I was a child, I was drawn to black history, and was infuriated as an 8 year old, learning about the horrors of slavery. In college in Texas, I became friends with two students from Tyler, Texas, Cathy W. and Shelia P. who invited me to their home in the summer of 1980. Even tough I was the only white person in their neighborhood, I was treated with love and kindness. Cathy's mom gave me a 1971 President John F. Kennedy silver dollar. I felt so at home, it was a wonderful experience. The same year, I had a roommate from Nigeria, Cordelia O. She told me something I always remembered and that put racial relations in this country in a sober context. She said she preferred to wear her African clothes, which were beautiful, bright and exotic, she even gave me one of her dresses and headscarves, because she felt she was treated with respect when she wore her Nigerian clothes. She told me whenever she dressed in Western modern dresses - and she was a very attractive woman with a great sense of style- she said she was treated like a second class citizen, she was shocked. She said before coming to America, she had never felt anything but good and confident about who she was and her looks and race, but once she donned western garb, she felt she could begin to understand how American blacks felt, because in Western clothes people did not treat her like an African woman, but like an American black woman. She said it made her yearn for home where she did no longer have to feel this way, no matter what she wore. Her insight was quite an eye opener to me. That was 1980. In 1988 I moved to Washington State, and became a member of New life Baptist Church in 1994, when I was baptized by Pastor Obey in March of that year at the church on Puget. I felt I had finally come home, spiritually and emotionally. The longing that started in my child' heart so long ago, on the other side of the world, was finally fulfilled.That is why I refuse to give in to an element of American thinking right now, that wants to rekindle the ugly specter of racism and division, because I feel it as a personal attack on all that gave me hope, courage, strength, and joy when no one else would. It breaks my heart to think America cannot get beyond this, because my heart is tied up in the black church and its history, as it is now part of my history as an American citizen which I became on September 29th, 1994.