BLOGGING-THOMAS

Lots has been going on at St. Thomas’ over the summer; and right on cue Blogging-Thomas crashed for a month!  Resurrection, however, is at hand — just in time for Richard Morgan’s edgy and thoughtful and fun Washington Post “On Faith” article, “Once a victim, St. Thomas’ Parish rebuilds.”

Some of my favorite parts (disclaimer: I am, after all, the spouse of the rector at St. Thomas’ Parish!) –

That hot August 24 morning, the building that The Washington Star in 1923 called “one of the most beautiful edifices in the country” was ordered razed. The next day the church paid $50,000 to demolish itself.

The congregation is a motley crew — former Catholics, Lutherans, Evangelicals, Quakers, families from Silver Spring and Alexandria, African-Americans, Asians, Latinos, and a pride parade’s worth of gays (“a He-Man Woman Haters’ Club for Jesus,” said one, “except we actually do have female members, and they’re pretty cool too”).

St. Thomas’ is a church at its most human, its most tender and frail and vulnerable, asking questions of itself and of its past and future — and, toughest of all, its present — that it never imagined.  Akin to a 40-year-old leaving his hometown for the first time, the personal sense of identity here asks a secret, taboo question: What does church mean to you? And what would you do — how would you handle it? — if you could rebuild yours?

There’s Nancy Lee Jose, 61, the fourth-generation Washingtonian who is a priest of equal parts Geraldine Ferraro and Mary Lou Retton — petite, joking, gentle, bold — a confection of a woman topped with a whipped-cream dollop of Miranda Priestly hair. [WF: "That's my sweetheart!!"]

It’s not a best-face-forward church. It’s honest, treating people as valued, as good, as loved. God, gays, education, equality. They’re all so strong here and all about the same thing: understatement that’s both powerful and radical.

This is a real church.  And bit by bit we’re building a stronger community every year.  By the grace of God we may build a new building.  But God has been at work in this place for a long time, building what lasts – a place of faith, and love, and hope … the only things, after all, that last forever.

The Pulitzer Center and St. Thomas’ Parish present

Glass Closet:

Homophobia, Violence and the Spread of HIV in Jamaica

Lisa Biagiotti is an independent multimedia journalist. She recently produced a documentary on toilets and open defecation in India and Indonesia for Current TV’s Vanguard documentary series. Lisa has produced and edited short-form videos and weekly radio shows for Worldfocus — a daily public television news program and website. She was awarded the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in the international television category and was nominated for a national news Emmy Award for the videos she produced on the crisis in Congo. Lisa worked with the Pulitzer Center as a Worldfocus correspondent to produce “The Glass Closet: HIV/AIDS in Jamaica.” Learn more at http://lisabiagiotti.com/

The Glass Closet is part of the Pulitzer Center’s in-depth reporting on HIV in the Caribbean, which also includes current work in Haiti and the Emmy award-winning project HOPE: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica.

The Pulitzer Center promotes in-depth engagement with global affairs through its sponsorship of quality international journalism across all media platforms and an innovative program of outreach and education. To learn more visit www.pulitzercenter.org