Trinity United Methodist Church Archives

Attending the closing of Trinity UMC Albany

Disciple Bible study

Of course, we were attending the closing of Trinity UMC Albany on June 22. Not just my wife and I, but our daughter, who hadn’t even been born yet when we left in 2000. The bulletin notes, “Celebrating 188 years of faith and service!” But it won’t hit 189.

The opening hymn was The Church’s One Foundation, which was the opening hymn on September 17, 1933, when the building was rebuilt on the corner of Lark and Lancaster for the second time in less than 35 years.

The choir numbered but five; they’re pretty good, given that. A small piece of me wishes I had been singing with them.

After the anthem, a Litany of Thanksgiving was offered for the physical elements (Baptismal font, communion table, etc.), the congregations over the years, the church’s mission, the study groups, music, and hymnals. Near the end: “We come together with so many good and treasured memories, but with a strong sense of grief at saying farewell to this hallowed place.”

The sermon by Rebecca Richards was based on Lamentations 3:19-26.

Remembering Our Ministries was offered by Nancy, the Lay Leader. Someone read a letter from Rev. Jeffrey Matthew, the pastor from 2008 to 2021. The hymn This Is A Day of New Beginnings, which made me a tad melancholy, especially as a Prayer of Letting Go followed it.

I saw several folks I recognized who were still attending, as well as many who came back for the finale, including Allie from California. Here’s the video of the service.

Repast

In the parlor where coffee hour is usually held, there were several items to eat and drink. People were encouraged to tell stories. My wife noted that she hosted the Disciple Bible study at her home, which I attended; subsequently, we got married at the church.

I could have spoken about our choir singing at the annual Troy Conference in Vermont, caroling on Lark Street, and the several choir members who passed away during my tenure there. Or a book club I attended for over a decade. But I was disinclined.

Someone asked me what it was like being there on that day. I compared it to going to the funeral of an old friend. Perhaps you experienced friction in your relationship, or maybe you’ve fallen a bit out of touch. Still, you didn’t want them to die. I know that building and the many souls past and present who attended there. It was/is a foundational time in my life.

I was very touched by the Goodbye Trinity video, which I saw a few days later. It showed people no longer with us, including Lillian, Fran, Bob, Jim, Jeannette and Bob, and even Mickey, and ends with a couple of touching pieces of music.

Trinity UMC is closing

At Lark and Lancaster in Albany

Trinity UMC is closing. From the Times Union: “Church members voted May 4 at a Special Charge Conference to discontinue Trinity United Methodist Church, the last Methodist church in Albany.” I knew it was coming, but it still hurts, even though I left there a quarter of a century ago.

As I’ve almost certainly told before, I didn’t attend church much from when I left for college in 1971 until 1982. My grandmother Gertrude Williams had died on Super Bowl Sunday in Charlotte, NC, but her funeral wasn’t until May, held at the Trinity AME Zion Church in Binghamton, NY. I sang in the choir and realised I missed singing in a church choir.

So, I started church shopping with my girlfriend at the time. In December 1982, a tenor from the choir named Gray Taylor stood in front of the congregation and announced that the choir was seeking more people. I said, “That’s what I was waiting to hear. ” In January 1983, I joined the choir.

Music

It was a good group, with 25-30 people singing. We’d participate in Christmas caroling sponsored by the local Business Improvement District. Many of us have kept in touch with each other even after I left the church in 2000. Indeed, a couple of them followed me to First Presbyterian.

I distinctly remember Eric Strand, a choir director in the early ’90s. We watched the Today Show when Bobby McFerrin performed a few songs from the Medicine Man album. A couple of years later, he had three of us sing the 23rd Psalm from that album. It was high in my range, so I sang it in falsetto; my now-wife said that somebody thought I must be gay, which I thought was absurd.

The administrative board decided to have an “interest” fair at the church, trying to get people to join small groups: knitting, card playing, or whatnot. Most of them didn’t stick, but one that did was a book club which lasted about a decade, once a month, ten months a year. I read many books I might not have; specifically, I chose A Handmaid’s Tale when we had to read a novel. Most of the group were women, mostly a generation older than I, whom I was very fond of.

Once we had an intergenerational dance event. It must have been in the late ’80s, because I remember from some of the latter music included Bobby Brown’s My Perogative, with all the young kids, who are now about 50, dancing to it. I bought that Bobby Brown CD primarily in honor of that event.

Cathedral

I served as a docent for that building at least a few times. It’s a great building, and there are some very historic stained glass windows there. I learned a lot about the history of Methodism, from the racially tinged Central Jurisdiction to the 1968 merger of the Methodist Church and the United Brethren Church to form the UMC.

I was very involved in the lay leadership, serving on the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee. For a time, I was vice-chair of the Administrative Board; then the chair resigned, and I became chair. At a different point, I chaired the Council on Ministries, which served as the engine of outreach activities. Our church would table on Lark Street at various events.

We occasionally engaged in different types of services. There was a Taize series, which is a very meditative format. The church had two different Spanish language congregations there in the ’90s, which the church wanted, but the cultural divide became problematic.

There were several opportunities for Bible study, often led by Jim Kalas. I also participated in something called Disciple, which was held at my then former girlfriend/now wife’s apartment, during which I read the entirety of the Bible in 34 weeks; reading the whole thing wasn’t required, but if you if you’re gonna read 48 chapters of Genesis you might as well read the other two, right?

Food, of course

A social group called the Ogden Fellowship met monthly, which featured a speaker; local newspeople Chris Kapostasy Jansing and the late Ed Dague spoke at a couple of them. Fran Allee was that event’s chief cook, although she encouraged others to prepare food. Twice, my future wife and I prepared Shepherd’s pie for 40.

I experienced love and marriage at Trinity more than once. For certain, there’s a lot more I could share.

I stopped attending Trinity in 2000 over the Troubles, though I returned to Trinity one last weekend, singing at the funeral of campus minister Frank Snow on a Saturday. The next day, the weather was such that First Pres was closed, but Trinity, two blocks away, was open, so I sang there.

Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye

When there was a FOCUS service – First Pres and Trinity were both members – and it was held at Trinity, it was a tad awkward early on. Apparently, my choir music slot (#6, I was told) still had my name on it. Three and four years after my departure, people kept asking me when I would return to Trinity; that would never happen.

But I still feel enormously sad at the church’s demise. “On June 22, the church will host its last Sunday service, accompanied by a farewell video that members are encouraged to add to and share their favorite memories from the church.”

My late former pastor

Mickey

Trinity My late former pastor, the Rev. Dr. Maurice (Mickey) Drown, died on March 24. He began his ministry in the Troy Conference in 1971.

I started attending Trinity United Methodist Church Albany in 1982, joined the choir in 1983, and became a member in 1984. Mickey became pastor in 1985 and was there until, I believe, 2008.

Early on, I saw him berate the superintendent of the Sunday school in a mean-spirited manner that left her crying. It seemed totally unnecessary.

The tenor soloist, Sandy Cohen, had a heart attack and would not leave because he wanted to, in his words, “finish the gig.” Going to Mickey for some comforting words, Mickey joked that Sandy was just seeking attention; he often inserted “humor” at inappropriate times.

He was a jerk leading up to my and my bride’s wedding in May 1999. He irritated my new MIL.

The events of 2000 that led to my departure were more substantial, and I wrote about them here. Still, while there, I worked with Mickey quite a bit because of my roles in the church.

The good side

He was best at tending to grieving loved ones. I noted to a former Trinitarian that his “dichotomy” ran a much wider range than any pastor I’ve known. They countered that it was a wider range than anybody they had ever known personally.

One thing he was right about was that before we got married, my fiance and I, along with two other couples, were involved in a premarital counseling session. He said that we ought to move into a house that was ours, not hers, because it would feel like I was moving into her space. Sure enough, that’s what happened. A year after we got married, we bought our house.

The last time I saw Mickey was in February of 2020. We were both at the funeral of one of the people who were kids at Trinity in the 1990s but are now in their 40s.

Jim Kalas (John W. Kalas), RIP

Psalm 84

His given name was John, but he was always Jim Kalas. I knew him from my time at Trinity United Methodist Church from 1983 to 2000, but I would continue to see him occasionally when the FOCUS Churches would meet during the summer.

One thing many folks knew was that he was an avid swimmer. I found this article from North Central College in Naperville, IL. He was inducted into the college’s sports Hall of Fame for Men’s Swimming in 2015 based on his accomplishments in the pool back in 1955.

Speaking of a Hall of Fame, Jim had the same deep, mellifluous voice as his brother. Harry Kalas, who died in 2009, was the longtime announcer for the Philadelphia Phillies. Harry was the 2002 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award, awarded by an arm of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Jim and his wife Mary attended the ceremonies in Cooperstown.

The college article about Jim gave some useful biographical information. “After graduation, Kalas went on to earn a Bachelor of Divinity degree from the University of Chicago in 1958 and a doctorate degree in philosophy from Columbia University in 1962 before beginning his career as an assistant professor of philosophy and religion at Lake Forest College.”

TUMC and SUNY

At Trinity, he was very active on various boards, as I was for a time. He was also an educator. I attended several of his sessions, reading sections of a Bible version that Jim had translated from the original Greek. He was slated to offer a monthly Bible study of Genesis, promising to look “at the present day meaning of some of those old, familiar and fascinating stories.”

His primary vocation, though, was as an administrator for the State University of New York, overseeing various areas over a quarter century, including research, economic development, and international programs. He was interim president of the College at Potsdam c. 1997

Jim retired, allegedly, in 2000 as an associate provost, He later joined the University of Albany as a part-time professor in educational administration and policy studies.

He was always very active, serving on the board of The Capital Area Council of Churches, among other tasks.

My job

Here’s a story I told two years ago, but I never gave attribution before. Shortly after he retired, Jim told me that I almost didn’t get the job as a librarian at the NY Small Business Development Center in October 1992.

“There were one or more persons on the committee who were concerned about my race. Specifically, the job required that the librarian in that position create liaisons with the state directors and other staff in the other states’ lead centers. Many of them were in the South, of course. The search committee feared that these folks wouldn’t cotton to working with a black person. So I was rejected for that reason.

“Then, someone up the State University of New York food chain told them, ‘You can’t do that!'” SUNY protocol prohibited them from excluding me because of my race. SUNY is the host institution of the NY SBDC. I ended up getting the job after all.” That someone was Jim Kalas, my boss’s boss’s boss at SUNY.

Brahms

Recently, my wife thought she saw him walking in the retirement community where my MIL lives. He must have moved there relatively recently, after his wife Mary, who I liked, died last year. Jim and Mary had been married 49 years.

Sometime this century, Jim told me that he wanted How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place sung at his funeral, which will be on October 1 at Trinity. The song is part of the German Requiem by Brahms, sung in English. It’s based on Psalm 84. I’ve sung it several times. Jim, who had a nice singing voice, probably had as well.

Mormon Tabernacle Choir

The Troubles: Leaving Trinity in 2000

a loyalty oath

Trinity Per my promise to my friend Lori, why I ended up leaving Trinity United Methodist Church in 2000.

The story really started in 1997 or 1998. The UM hierarchy had allowed churches to change its governance to something more compact than the Administrative Board we had. Our congregation had a meeting. Some folks, notably the late Bob Pennock, noted that he couldn’t see the checks and balances in the proposed new structure. But others argued, “Give it a chance.” The motion passed. Notably opposing the action were several members of the choir, including me.

In 1999, the church got a new choir director. His name now escapes me, but I know he was from Brazil. It became clear early on that he just DID NOT want to be there. Albany was too parochial, and as fall turned to winter, too damn cold.

The Brazilian wasn’t stupid, though. He needed a way to get out of his contract. So he claimed that a member of the choir had said an ethnically offensive comment to him. (I wasn’t present, so my information is second-hand.)

As a result of his allegation, the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee (PPRC) – which had no authority to do so – nevertheless suspended the choir in January 2000. The choir was so angry that some of us at least considered populating the choir loft in defiance. But we opted against that.

Then suddenly

Meanwhile, our church had a Spanish-language congregation that met in the chapel, slightly earlier on Sundays than the English-language folks met in the sanctuary. The Anglo church had voted overwhelmingly in November 1999 to continue the relationship.

Yet, later in January 2000, while I was attending the Spanish-language service, the pastor, Mariana, circulated a letter to her flock. It was from the District Superintendent saying that they would be moved to Emmaus UMC in Albany the following week! The group was stunned. But I was furious! I took copies of the letter and started handing them out to the Anglo congregants who were sitting near the back of the church, who would otherwise have had no idea this displacement was going on.

For the next two weeks, I attended the Spanish-language service in the basement of Emmaus. The facility had two distinct disadvantages. It was not accessible, which involved some of us carrying a man in his wheelchair downstairs. And it was cold, damn cold, with my feet getting numb.

Mao would be proud

As I noted, I started singing at First Presbyterian. But my wife was still going to Trinity, so I’d walk over to meet her after services. One time, a Trinity member asked me, “What IS it with the Gang of Six?” I knew that the PPRC had dubbed Bob Pennock and his wife, plus two other couples with this moniker. But the gossip mill must have been at work for HER to have heard the term.

In March, there was a meeting called by the chair of the PPRC. Judy was also the woman who coordinated Carol and my wedding at Trinity only months earlier. The gathering was billed as an opportunity for the choir to have its say. Alas, untrue. Judy did most of the talking, which included the idea that the choir members sign a loyalty oath to the pastor. Ultimately, only one person eventually signed it.

At the end of the meeting, Judy was looking all self-satisfied. She took the tears of some choir members as a sign of their remorse. Instead, they were the tears of the unheard. As we walked out of the church, I said to a smiling Judy, “That was B###S###.” She was both crestfallen and confused.

And the sign said…

I did attend a congregational meeting in May at Trinity. The cabal around the pastor wanted to have a sign that read: “Trinity: A Multicultural Congregation.” Seriously, after chasing away the SECOND of two Spanish-language groups in about four years? After some machinations, we were able to defeat the motion. But did I want to spend all my energy at Trinity trying to STOP things from happening? I did not.

Ultimately, I didn’t leave Trinity because the choir was suspended, or because of the ouster of the Spanish-language group. It was because there was no vehicle for recourse. The old Administrative Board was gone; these issues would certainly have been addressed there.

The pastor’s cabal allowed a meeting on a specific topic only with a petition signed by 10% of the membership. Since there were plenty of older members on the rolls but not attending services, this would have been a daunting task, not just on these issues but any future conflicts.

I had avoided talking about this topic, just referring to them as The Troubles. So now you know.