[Magdalen] Calvary, Pittsburgh

[Jay Weigel]

Ann, can you shed some light on this?

On Wednesday, June 17, 2015, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:

>
> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 10:17 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  While I don't want to be swarmed, or pointed out as an example, if I go
>> to a church and no one speaks to me, it's a pretty sure bet I will NOT be
>> back. If it happens twice, you can be DAMN sure of it.
>>
>
> The worst (or at least most strange)  I've been to in the past couple of
> years was St Paul's Cathedral in
> Buffalo.
>
> I hasten to add that when we arrived, several African-American people
> greeted us
> warmly. But when we hit coffee hour, it was a different story. No one
> spoke to
> us, and when I tried to strike up a conversation (twice), they turned away.
> What's more, while the church is racially mixed,NOT One of the
> African-American
> worshippers showed up at Coffee hour, let alone those who greeted us so
> warmly.
>
> What's THAT about?
>
> And as I dropped a check in the plate, they put us on the mailing list,
> and I've
> received all manner of "Welcome to St Paul's" and solicitations for
> contributions and pledges and updates on their clergy search. Their mail
> has not
> followed us to Scranton (so far).
>
> OTOH, we had a great experience at Calvary Pittsburgh, perhaps enhanced by
> the
> fact that the then Rector, Harold Lewis, remembered us from the Diocese of
> Long Island. And he seemed genuinely disappointed that we were just
> visiting rather than moved to Pittsburgh.
>
> Cheers,
> Jim
>