Black and White and Grey

I locked the car and set out across the parking lot toward the church where others gathered in groups, greeting each other with warm embraces and subdued conversation.  

Family members, I figured.  

Well, maybe not all family members, I reasoned, realizing it actually included quite a number of small groups of people. 

For a fleeting moment, I thought how nice it would feel to be welcomed so warmly by one of the groups milling about outside the church.  

But only for a moment. 

I knew my place.  I was an outsider.  


I had come at the request of my friend and high school classmate, LeRoy.  

Only we’d known him as Leroy, without the capital R, back then.

We’d been a very close class.  More than just classmates; we had been family.
  
We went to class together, worked together, ate together in the cafeteria, voluntarily gave up our lunch breaks to form prayer groups where we would pray together – for the school, for each other, for the country….  

So over the years, it’s not a surprise that so many of us still feel a closeness to each other.  Our friendship lasted long after the tearful graduation, and even the adventures of college.  We were close before the advent of Facebook.


So when LeRoy spent his bedside vigil at his mother’s side in her last days, many of us were there with him in spirit, lifting him up in prayer and as best we could.  We loved him, and we carried his burden in our hearts.

And thus I arrived at a church I'd never been to, sixty-five miles away from my home, and made my way, invisibly, through the crowded front sidewalk and foyer.

Inside, I stood in line and waited my turn to sign the guest book.  A solemn, older, well-dressed woman with a hat stood behind the counter with the guest book, handing out programs.  

She greeted most of the people by name, or at least if she didn’t use a name, smiled and asked politely, “Would you like a program?”

When I signed the guest book, she stood there, clasping the programs tightly, almost protectively, to her breast saying not a word. 

I stood for a moment, caught somewhat off guard in the resounding silence, feeling suddenly off balance and vulnerable.  

She looked at me intently from behind the counter between us, and then just stood there staring off over my shoulder as though I wasn't there.
  

Awkwardly, I reached down to pick up a program from the stack between us on the counter top.  

But when I glanced at it, my confusion turned to embarrassment.  It wasn’t a program at all, but instead, a brochure for the mortuary.

“That’s for the mortuary,” the woman with the hat said, finally looking down her nose at me.  

She then turned, reaching around me, and offered one of her precious programs to the person who had been behind me in the guest book line.

I put the mortuary advertisement back on its stack and politely waited until the woman with the hat had finished her transaction with the person after me and apologetically asked if I might have a program as the next person in line wrote their address in the guest book.

The woman with the hat again held the programs close to her chest for a moment as though trying to make a decision, then very deliberately took one from the top of her stack and reluctantly handed it to me.  


I thanked her and she gave me a mechanical smile and nodded ever so slightly and then greeted the next signer of the book by name and handed her a program, commenting on her beautiful dress.

I walked into the sanctuary and stood quietly just inside the door, taking in the room – the area, the lighting… 

I looked across the wide space, deciding what angles would make good photos.  
I wanted to get a few photos before people came in and the service began.  








I had promised to take some photos for LeRoy to commemorate the day.

I stood in the back, northwest corner of the sanctuary behind the chest-high sound booth, where I was out of the way and not really noticeable from anywhere unless someone was looking backward from their place in the church.  

I could use the wooden railing of the booth as a level support for the camera in lieu of a tripod.

I was quietly caught up in catching the light and the lofty rafters when I noticed another photographer, a church member by the looks of him, had taken my lead and come over to my corner of the church and was mimicking my moves and catching some of my angles as well.

Just then, a middle-aged man in a suit approached me, cleared his throat to get my attention and said, “I see you are taking pictures.”

“Yes,” I said, giving him a brief smile before turning back to my camera.  

"There's lovely light in here."


He was the first person in twenty minutes who had spoken to me, other than the lady who didn’t want to part with the program.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“You mean taking pictures?” I asked.  


“Is it a problem, I mean, taking pictures in the church?” I asked, looking over at the other photographer standing not five feet away from me. 

I had never considered that there might be some problem with taking photos in the church, and I would be very quick to apologize had I stepped on some toes. 





But, he adjusted his tie authoritatively and said, “No.  I mean what are you here for?”

“I’m here for the funeral,” I said, somewhat surprised and confused.

I looked around the church, the pews that were now slowly beginning to fill.  Other faces had turned, some close by, some farther off, and many whispered quietly.  


Apparently Mr. Suit was not the only curious one.  

Then I noticed something that hadn't dawned on me earlier - in the flash of a moment before Mr. Suit continued - there was not another Caucasian person in the entire building.

"Why?


Who are you?” Mr. Suit challenged my authority to be here at the funeral of Mrs. Baker.



Are you serious?  We’re really going to go there? 

This really is what this is all about?  

It wasn’t my imagination.  


The being ignored at the door…  


The not being offered a program…  


And now the “Why are you standing in my church, white girl?”

Up until this moment, it didn’t occur to me that I was the outsider because I was the white girl.  

I’d been that girl before.  


I’d been beaten up and terrorized as a child in the school yard for being the only white girl.  


I knew all about being the outsider who is disliked, despised, beaten up, and shunned because of the color of my skin.

I knew I was the outsider when I came to this funeral.  I knew that I wouldn’t know anyone here but LeRoy.  But it never occurred to me that they would be offended by my being an outsider in their midst! 

It never occurred to me that I would be white and they would be black.  It never occurred to me in a million years.  

I guess I am just too long at this life’s journey.  I guess that after growing up in the islands, and then living so many decades in Southern California, I just don’t really ‘see’ people any more.  I guess I just forget that people have colors.  To me, they all look the same.

But for that moment, it all came back.  For just a moment I remembered the girl who had been so mistreated and beaten and even bloodied for the color of her skin and her pale green eyes.  For an instant my indignant anger flared. 

But just for an instant.  For a millisecond I wanted to lash out at this confrontational man.  But I took a breath. Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do….

I held my tongue for a moment.
  
Long enough to pray for patience and understanding, and then I replied, “I’m an old friend of LeRoy Baker’s.  He asked me to be here.”

I’ve always hated name-droppers. 

But this once, I felt it necessary to be one.  

I just didn’t realize what a name-dropper I was being.

Mr. Suit literally stepped back and put his hands up, momentarily, in a "hands off" pose before telling me that no, it was fine; I could take as many pictures as I wanted if I was a friend of LeRoy's. Then he turned and walked away.

As I sat through the more than three-hour-long funeral, I learned that LeRoy Baker was the only child of an amazing man and woman.  They adopted him when they were in their forties - an amazing couple who devoted their entire life to the church and evangelistic efforts.

By the end of the nearly four-hour experience, I felt a longing for Peggy Baker.  I felt so cheated that I had not known this amazing woman in life, but felt blessed to have at least met her, in death, on this day.

Then one pastor got up and reminded us all how far ‘we’ had come; how far the church of today had come from the church that Sister Baker started out serving seventy-plus years ago.  

The church that was not always so accepting of her at times – back when blacks were openly persecuted for the color of her skin.

I let my mind travel back through the painful years of the civil rights movement and my heart ached for Ms. Peggy.  

Then I saw the chilly look of the woman clasping the programs to her bosom, and heard the persistent grilling of the middle aged man in the suit.

How would the beautiful, warm-hearted Mrs. Peggy Baker feel to see a white stranger within the walls of the church she had helped build treated like an intrusive gnat?

And for that matter, did Mrs. Program and Mr. Suit even know what they looked like in the mirror?
  
I doubt it.  


I am sure they both think of themselves as good, God-fearing, loving Christians who serve the Lord, and doubt that either realizes they came off as anything less.


Sometimes we all are so busy being important that we forget to be compassionate and kind.  I would like to think Ms. Baker would have been the type to have welcomed me warmly and invited me into her church.


In fact, it wasn't until just now, re-reading this that the comparison came to me.  And forgive me, LeRoy, but it seemed so fitting.

I can't help but compare my coming to the church to honor Mrs. Baker to a Christian coming to the church to meet God.  

So often they are put off by the flaws of human Christians (who maybe don't share their programs freely enough or don't welcome strangers with their cameras.)  

But all they need to do is to say, "I am here because the Son invited me."  


That is a name that is ALWAYS worth dropping.

But churches aside, I dare to venture a wager that many of us might not recognize the real us we would see if we were to glimpse ourselves in the mirror of honest reality.  


So often, the person we think we are gets lost in the persona we portray to the world.


We may think we are great, friendly people, but we get so stressed and busy that we get a little more prickly on the outside than we realize.
   

We might get so caught up in trying to get things perfect that we snap at our loved ones in our frustration.  Or so busy with what we are doing we don’t make time for our loved ones at all!




It's not always so intentional and clear as black and white, but sometimes smudges of grey.

This week's blog is dedicated to thinking twice, and acting once.