(thesaintmarcus.wordpress.com)
By: MARGOT FORD McMILLEN
Published: December 21, 2011
While it might seem like a bunch of white farmers don’t have anything in common with African-American urban people, the Missouri Rural Crisis Center farmers love going to church in the city a couple of times a year and the members of Kansas City’s St. Mark Union Church always welcome us with open arms. I had looked forward to the visit, which was yesterday, for a long time, and the rest of the group shared my enthusiasm. Maybe we all look forward to it because we have everything in common.
MRCC has a long relationship with the church, beginning when they came to Chillicothe back in 1986 to support the farmers’ strike. Farmers were losing their lands and their homes, and black people recognize injustice when they see it. Their pastor, Sam Mann, became a lifelong friend of Roger Allison, MRCC founder and director. Today, Sam has retired but our relationship with the church shows no sign of flagging.
The pattern of loss is the same, whether it’s urban or rural. The jobs have left, the youngsters followed. For those who stay, drug use and crime are a constant background of life; the schools are better someplace else. Many of the strong families that kept the neighborhood going have moved. Is this the story of success in America?
Even though St. Mark’s neighborhood has been rebuilt by urban renewal and the church is surrounded by fairly new duplexes, the people who made the church have gone. It is as if, culturally, the building is stranded.
To keep things together financially, denominations joined together. St. Mark’s has combined old Presbyterian and UCC congregations. Their beliefs have been similar all along, so why shouldn’t they help each other? In my rural neighborhood, the same thing happened when Presbyterians gave up their church and joined the Methodists.
At St. Mark’s, other elements have made their peace with the Protestants. The statement of belief includes a strong African message invoking the memory of enslaved ancestors—and African masks and fabrics hang on the walls.
St. Mark’s is a massive concrete building, historic and magnificent, but only a few corners of the basement are still in regular use. In one corner, a sanctuary has been carved out of the fellowship hall. A podium, a piano, a drum set. Church members beginning to take their seats. Some chatting, some meditating, some hushing squirmy kids. A row of high school girls checked their cell phones, showing each other text messages, silently nudging each other.
From the time you hear Samala Gaskins-Dixon’s first rolling chords of the piano, the drum set filling in the holes with a little shiver of cymbal, a quiet thump of bass, you know you’re in a magical place. St. Mark’s is, after all, just a few blocks from 12th Street and Vine, the historic home of Kansas City jazz. In the park that runs along the main road, the parking lot is painted to look like piano keys. When I hear Samala’s piano, I think of Karen at our church. Wish she was here.
When we farmers arrived, we set up a meal in the kitchen. Roger had gotten up at 5:30 to grill pork chops, ham and bratwursts made from hogs raised by Patchwork Family Farm farmers in mid-Missouri. No antibiotics and no hormones used, these hogs live a healthy life outside. Most of the meat goes to the restaurants and consumers of Columbia.
I helped set up the table with paper plates, plastic forks, bread. Finished, I took a seat in the row behind the high school girls, who put their phones away for the service. Pretty soon, the rest of the MRCC group had filled the row.
Much of the service is familiar—readings, prayers, introductions. There’s a young lady back from college in Virginia for the holidays. She’s going to get her PhD in African-American literature. Impressive. Then, Cynthia Fuller takes the stand with the announcements. She finishes with a funny story and we’re all laughing when she finishes.
The choir begins a Christmas song, with a line from sopranos, then altos, then all of them in harmony. I’m surprised that it segues into Handel’s Messiah and then delighted when choir director Jackie Baston walks into the congregation insisting that we all stand for the line, “King of Kings.” By this time in the song, we’re all joining in because we all know it. Even though he’s standing 8 people and an aisle away, I can hear Tim Gibbons belting it out.
Now we’re starting, “Lift Every Voice,” the black national anthem. A great song, but I only know a few of the words. And is it OK for me to sing it? I try to remember to ask someone during lunch.
And, then, Reverend Fuller offers us a few moments to greet, shake hands, introduce ourselves. We’re all shy at first, then we get comfortable, clasping hands and hugging. I make my way to the front to thank Samala for her music.
