A journey of discovery

A year ago, on September 11, along with the rest of America, I watched the images of airplanes hitting the World Trade Center. I saw the TV coverage of people screaming and crying and the huge twin towers collapsing.

I’ve been publishing newspapers for over twenty years. At such times, I switch into planning mode. I’m thinking, “What’s our newspaper’s role? How do we help people make sense of this?” That’s what was on my mind on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, driving back to the office from an appointment and listening to NPR’s coverage of the day’s events. I hadn’t had time yet to let myself actually feel the event.

I was headed down J Street when Judy Collins came on the radio, singing “Amazing Grace.” By the time I pulled into the News & Review parking lot, I was in tears. Her voice and the words were so powerful. They brought all the emotions of the day to the surface. They gave me comfort and the strength to carry on. What I did not know at the time was that hearing that song was the first step on a life-changing pilgrimage. The subsequent journey led me to discover a Sacramento I didn’t know.

Several months later, I went to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral for Sunday worship. In the weeks following September 11, the church had been packed with people. I felt a tremendous sense of community being among friends at my church.

Since September 11, I’d been worried by the reaction of those who wanted to retaliate against Muslims. While I was listening to the choir, an idea came into my head: Instead of letting this attack divide us, we should come together. And music could bring us together. Wouldn’t it be great to get Muslims and Jews together on one stage? And the Sacramento Men’s Chorus and one of the great Latter-day Saints choirs? And a gospel choir… As soon as this idea took shape, I had a strange feeling that it would work out somehow.

The next day the News & Review called to see if Memorial Auditorium was booked for September 11, 2002. I don’t know why I thought we could do this event. We had a million things going on at the time. Money was tight, and we didn’t have enough staff to handle it. I felt compelled to move forward anyway.

Before we heard back from Memorial, I was meeting with my friend Paulette Pitner, who has put on many events, including the Fair Oaks Renaissance Fair. I mentioned this idea to her. She said it gave her goose bumps.

A couple of days later I ran into county Supervisor Roger Niello, who had heard about our idea from Dexter McNamara, the executive director of the Interfaith Service Bureau. I asked him what he thought about bringing everyone up on stage at the end to sing “God Bless America.” He also said the idea gave him goose bumps.

I figured that any idea that could give both Paulette Pitner and Roger Niello goose bumps was bound to be a winner. Shortly after that, we were able to confirm Memorial Auditorium. We had the date. Now we just needed everything else to fall into place.

At this point, my knowledge of Sacramento’s religious music scene was virtually nonexistent. I knew there were some great gospel groups. Trinity Cathedral had an excellent choir. After that, I didn’t have a clue.

After consulting with the Very Rev. Donald Brown at Trinity Cathedral Church and Dexter McNamara at the Interfaith Service Bureau, I decided to visit different services around Sacramento to hear the music for myself. Little did I know what an experience that would be!

David Kessloff, one of our salespeople, is of Polish heritage. He told me that the Russian churches have great music. We decided to meet at the Russian Church of Evangelic Christian Baptist in West Sacramento. I arrived around fifteen minutes early, but I couldn’t locate David, so I went in alone and sat in one of the few remaining seats. The church was obviously old and way too small for the congregation. There was seating outside for people who could not find a seat inside the church.

I was sitting on a hard wooden seat next to a rather large man whose shoulders were so broad he looked like he was wearing shoulder pads. Fortunately, on the other side of me was an older, very small woman with a handkerchief over her head. In a few minutes the service began. It was all in Russian.

For the next two hours, I felt as if I had left West Sacramento and been transported to old Russia. Frankly, listening to a sermon spoken completely in Russian was a little tough. But the choir and the soloist were excellent, and the music was simply incredible. But the most shocking thing for me was the realization dawning on me—how little I knew about Sacramento!

I had been publishing an alternative newspaper here for 13 years. I thought I knew our community. But there are 80,000 Russians in the Sacramento area, and I did not know a single one! This thought both disturbed and intrigued me. It shook my confidence in my knowledge of Sacramento. But at the same time I was fascinated by the possibility that there was more out there to discover.

I knew that we needed a good gospel group, and I knew we would have plenty to choose from. The first African-American church I went to was St. Paul’s Baptist Church in Oak Park. I convinced my 10-year-old daughter to go with me. Even more amazingly, I convinced her to wear a dress for the first time in several years!

We drove out through the abandoned homes and empty lots and arrived at St. Paul’s, a beautiful brick building in the middle of Oak Park. Although we were early, we still barely found a space at the end of the gigantic parking lot. As we walked in, my daughter held my hand tight, saying that she was afraid. She felt different, being the only white girl in a room of black people. I told her that it would be okay. But when she asked me if I’d ever been to an African-American church before, I said I hadn’t.

We went in and were warmly welcomed with a special visitor’s ribbon. Throughout the service our fellow parishioners went out of their way to extend small but much appreciated courtesies. We were shown the place in the prayer book, the plate was passed to us with a smile, and someone leaned over to explain a little joke. During the meeting one of the older women engulfed my daughter in a big bear hug.

In the five African-American churches I attended—Antioch Progressive Baptist Church, St. Paul’s Baptist Church, Calvary Baptist Church, New Testament Baptist Church and Shiloh Baptist Church—I was touched by how people went out of their way to welcome us. More than anything, I was amazed by the music. Each of these churches had great music. And the energy from the choir and the audience made the churches literally rock.

One of the sermons by Dr. Ephraim Williams, pastor of St. Paul’s, really stuck with me. He talked about a woman who had lost her mother and then her father. As he spoke, the woman’s woes kept piling up. If I were this woman, I thought, I might have called it quits. But Reverend Williams had a different take on her plight. These trials and tribulations gave her the chance to discover what she was really made of, he said.

Later, I thought about the challenges our country faces today. Reverend Williams might say that going through these trials is the way to find out what we are made of. Will we stand by our ideals and principles? Or will we bend under the onslaught?

I cannot leave the African-American churches without commenting on the hats. I loved those beautiful, colorful hats, especially on the many small, elderly heads. Those hats were so colorful they make me happy just thinking about them. What’s more, they paint a picture of vitality, of energy, of living life to its fullest no matter how tired the body is under the hat.

From the beginning I knew we had to include the Muslim community in our interfaith event. Fortunately, I met Dr. Metwalli Amer, the president of the Council of Sacramento Valley Islamic Organizations. He is an amazing man. He radiates a quiet dignity and genuine caring for other people.

Dr. Amer invited me to attend mosque on Friday afternoon. Services were held in a temporary building, so the setting was very simple. I sat in a spot between the men in the front and the women behind them. The chants had a very soothing rhythm. After the service, nearly everyone went out of his or her way to thank me for coming.

The people I spoke with in the Muslim community are very dedicated to the ideals of our country. They believe strongly that these ideals—freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly—are the best part of America.

Meanwhile, however, Attorney General John Ashcroft has rounded up 1100 suspected terrorists, virtually all of them Muslims. The son of evangelist Billy Graham has criticized Islam and Muslim leaders. So it is understandable that Sacramento’s Muslims are nervous. They understand that their need to wear traditional clothing and to observe their religious practices puts them at risk of being attacked or ridiculed. Nonetheless, they continue to believe that America will let her best face shine forth.

If Reverend Williams is right that we are truly tested only when things get tough, then I hope we as a country discover our strength during these difficult times.

My next stop was a mass at St. Francis of Assisi Church. It’s a marvelously ornate church with beautiful stained-glass windows. I guessed that the people sitting around me had parents who had gone to church at St. Francis, and that their children would worship there too.

I had never before been to a complete mass, except for a funeral mass. I was surprised by how similar it was to the Episcopal service, even though the two churches had split apart hundreds of years ago. I imagined myself 1500 years ago sitting through a service very much like the one I was listening to today. Maybe people would be doing the same thing 1500 years after I was long gone. What is it about sitting in church that makes you think about this stuff? I found it comforting to know that billions before me had had the same experience. They came, lived and died and now have others to carry on.

Dexter McNamara kept mentioning the Spiritual Life Center to me. So I dropped my kids off at Trinity and went to the early services on St. Patrick’s Day. Spiritual Life Center’s members outgrew their church, so I found them at the Pioneer Congregation, where they currently rent space on Sundays. Most of these churchgoers were probably raised in some other denomination. These people chose their own path to worship. Instead of the sense of tradition I felt at St. Francis or Trinity Cathedral, I found services that were refreshingly innovative.

This day, they had a jam group playing instruments I’d never seen before. The beautiful spiritual music was free-form, innovative jazz with an Irish rhythm. They gave me the CD, and my daughter, who generally hates the music I play in my car, said that the music was good. It was more than good, though. It was out of this world.

While I expected to get support for our event from liberal denominations, I did not know what to expect from the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At Dexter McNamara’s suggestion, I called Bishop Dennis Holland, who had been active on the Interfaith Service Bureau, and told him about our event. Bishop Holland was delighted to help line up an interfaith youth group. He was a joy to work with. I do not expect that he and I will be voting for the same candidates, but I would love to have him as my neighbor.

I’ve always found myself in a better, more peaceful place after attending services at Trinity Cathedral, where I worship. During this year of visiting different services, I experienced many very different styles of worship, sermons, and music. But I found myself transported to that same reflective space in each one of them.

I was reading Huston Smith’s World Religions when I had an insight into this process. Smith was explaining the Buddhist view that there are many religious paths up the mountain. However, at the top, they are all the same. This concept changed my orientation. Instead of looking at the differences between the services I attended, I started looking at the similarities.

Each congregation had a sense of fellowship. Each faith had a sense of tradition that not only went back in time, but seemed to go forward in time as well. Each assumed that people had a good and a bad side and worked to encourage the good side. Each took extreme pleasure in anything, and I do mean anything, done by the children. Clearly the similarities between these practices were far greater than the differences.

From this perspective, there is no need to argue about who has the best path. Instead, we can celebrate living in a community with many paths up the mountain. Our differences need not divide us; rather we can look forward to meeting on the mountaintop.

An incident such as the September 11 attacks can cause us to become overwhelmed with emotions such as fear, revenge, hatred and anger. But, as Reverend Williams reminded me, it can also be an opportunity for us to discover the kind of mettle we are made of. Over this last year I have met many people of many different faiths, all searching for hope and healing. Many of these people have agreed to come together this September 11 to celebrate the unity and diversity that are our special strengths.

Call for Unity will be one of the most diverse events ever assembled on one Sacramento stage. Japanese drummers, a Jewish choir, the Latter-day Saints’ Interfaith Youth Choir, the Sacramento Men’s Chorus, two gospel groups, an NBA basketball star and community leader, a labor leader, and the local leader of the Muslim community are among those who will come together this September 11 at Memorial Auditorium.

Even this group cannot represent all of the people of Sacramento. But it symbolizes the unity and diversity of our community and our country, as well as the hope that we can overcome our differences to work together for a better future.

Tickets
$10 General Admission purchase online at Tickets.com box office or by phone at Sacramento Convention Center

More on a Call For Unity

A Call For Unity — Celebrate the richness and diversity of our community through an evening of interfaith music and spoken word.

Program Schedule — September 11, 2002 | 7pm | Memorial Auditorium | Sacramento

Opening Speaker — California’s First Lady - Sharon Davis.

Performers & Speakers — Celebrate the richness and diversity of our community.

Thank you — We would like to express our sincerest gratitude, appreciation, and thanks to those who unselfishly gave of themselves and their time to make this evening possible.

Filling in the blanks — Interfaith effort seeks new ways to combat blight, build homes in Oak Park.