Ministry

By Mickey Friedman
November 11, 2016

My mother, before she was shipped out as a child to a bunch of foster homes, each one more miserable than the next, did a stint with the Nuns, who tried to beat the stuttering out of her. That combination of sustained cruelty shaped her life and she became strong and independent and extraordinarily kind. But her antipathy to Nuns stuck with me and as we walked our Bronx streets I often had to restrain her from giving the random Nun a piece of her mind.

I inherited her quarrel with God. That He hadn’t taken proper care of my mother haunted me and that anger grew as I saw the suffering of children everywhere around me. All in desperate need of heavenly intervention, all worthy of an angel.

And yet I’ve come to appreciate the role a variety of churches have played in our community lives. There was St. John the Divine, a street away from my slum apartment on 110th Street and Columbus, up that very long block that divided southern Harlem and the poor from the lucky world of Columbia University. The difference between ham and cheese from the bodega or cold cherry soup at The Green Tree Restaurant.

St. John was magnificent and impressive, and it was inspiring, even as a non-believing interloper, to sit in its pews and contemplate the stained glass. So too did I learn to appreciate the bravery of Riverside Church during the early years of the civil rights movement and the struggles against the Vietnam War.

It was impossible during the Sixties not to appreciate the courage of people of faith. When I moved to Monterey and in the early nineteen seventies helped start the Monterey Food Co-op and the Monterey Energy Project, the Monterey Church provided space and encouragement, the church our social center.

It was the First Congregational Church in Great Barrington that provided the basement space for the Great Barrington Food Co-op and decades later Pastor Van continues that great tradition of facilitating community conversations about important issues.

And it is Calvary Church on Route 41 that houses Peoples Pantry today.

Ministry is the act of serving. To minister: to function as a minister of religion, or to give aid or service.
And there’s also St. James. James, the son of Zebedee and Salome, one of the twelve apostles, and the first such to be martyred. According to Wikipedia, today’s digital version of the formerly unaffordable encyclopedia, James witnessed Jesus bathed in glorious light and heard him addressed as Son by His disembodied voice. Jesus, it seems, was often annoyed with James, but James was killed by Herod in AD 44 and considered the patron Saint of Spain, his portrait painted by Rembrandt. And more recently celebrated here in Great Barrington by Saint James Church.

The other day I was lucky enough to walk with Sally and Fred Harris in and through their ongoing reconstruction and rehabilitation of our gorgeous St. James. Another local church that had kindly lent its space a decade and a half ago to work we did with the Berkshire Green Alliance. And, like many of you, I’ve been privileged to hear some lovely classical music concerts in the grand hall and many a recital by the Berkshire Children’s Chorus. I’ve attended lectures hosted by the Schumacher Society. That the church had fallen into disrepair and was about to be lost forever was a tragedy thankfully avoided by the extraordinary concern of Sally and Fred Harris.

They are doing several special things to restore and reclaim St. James, including creating three very unique performance spaces, beautiful upstairs offices, and a space for a professional kitchen.

I’ve spent these last many Thursday mornings volunteering with the great Mel Greenberg and his right hand helper, Jurek Zamoski, picking up and delivering food so generously donated from the Big Y and Guido’s (and Mazzeo’s and The Marketplace), from Great Barrington Bagel and the Home Sweet Home Donut Shoppe over to People’s Pantry on Route 71. And so I’m particularly thrilled and moved by the commitment of the Harrises to house People’s Pantry in the basement of St. James.

Right now, we struggle to carry heavy boxes of produce down the narrow stairs of Calvary. And because the church is located out of town, it is difficult for many people without the use of cars to get there.

The new space at St. James will make it so much easier for everyone – there will be no stairs to navigate and the B bus will stop right there. There’s increased space for storage and refrigeration. People’s Pantry will be able to do a better job of helping all those who could use some additional food. And thanks to Sally and Fred Harris, while no longer a functioning church, St. James will continue in a brand new way to minister to our community.