Rebuild the Churches

It does my heart good to see that my little Episcopal parish is on the list to raise money for the Rebuild the Churches Fund. It looks like many churches will collect a significant sum for Black churches burned in the backlash against national revulsion at the Charleston massacre.

It's one thing we can do. Our neighbors are hurting. Some of the fires may not be arson. But I warm to concrete actions more than "conversations." The cause is good.

At St. John's, we have community memories of being recipients of this sort of effort. When our congregation's building was dynamited to make a fire break after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, donations from the generous Episcopalians of the East Coast financed the current Perpendicular Gothic edifice. It's visually impressive -- and a struggle to maintain.