Deborama’s Books and Writing — This Poem Needs A Name

Back in 2012, on the evening of Pentecost Sunday, and the night before Memorial Day, my church burned down. This was a Methodist Church in South Minneapolis, named after a timber baron who provided a large donation to build it in 1910. The congregation dated back to 1886. I joined it in 1985, after first connecting in order to volunteer to work with the Central American Refugee Sanctuary Project. That it was the same denomination I raised in was just a happy coincidence (although it was nothing like the Methodist church I went to as a child.)

Fast forward about 19 months from the fire, and we had rebuilt a new, very different sort of church building right on the very footprint of the old church. The pathway from one event to the other was somewhat fraught. There was the expense. There was the rawness of our grief, that seemed to be mocked by trying to shift into landowner, fundraising mode. There were sincere protestations that we could go on as a community without a building. There was an attempt to find another old church we could buy or rent. I believed at the time that we made the right decision. But I also heard and honored those who had been of a different opinion.

Our church community is known for its many artists, musicians, writers, and especially songwriters. One of the latter, Don B., wrote a wonderful song about the…