— My latest InterFaith21 spotlight in The Coastal Star.

Henrietta Smith reads the Litany of Commemoration at the 50th anniversary commemoration of the first communion of the Church of the Palms in Delray Beach on Nov. 14. Oher officers of the Women's Fellowship pictured are: Margot Beck (left), Marlene Hambleton, Polly Champ and Edie Kutz. (photo provided)

January 2011

It’s hard to imagine more welcoming folks than at the Church of the Palms, the North Swinton Avenue congregation celebrating its 50th year in Delray Beach.

“When we say everyone is welcome, we mean everyone,” said Henrietta Smith, a longtime church member and a past president of its Women’s Fellowship. “If you can come with no shoes on, come on in. If we can find some shoes, we’ll give them to you.”

The Church of the Palms was commissioned in January 1961 by the state conference that preceded the United Church of Christ.

Even then the fellowship was helping to lead the way. “These women were meeting together before that time,” Smith said.

In fact, the Women’s Fellowship hosted its first communion two months earlier, in November 1960.
“They were meeting in the Delray Beach Playhouse, quietly doing their missions from there from day one,” Smith said.

This November, the women again served communion. And then refreshments during the reception following the worship service. They also commemorated during their annual Christmas luncheon that first communion service.

But that barely hints at the local and international service work Smith recounted.

“The whole church is missionary oriented,” she said, “and the Women’s Fellowship does quite a bit in that area” — whether building a fresh water source for young people in Brazil, a church and school in Haiti or similar humanitarian projects in Kenya and elsewhere.

“Each place we have gone,” she said, “we have carried for the children a handmade Comfort Doll. We have given away more than 400 handmade dolls to comfort children who have little to play with that they can call their own.”

The acclaimed Comfort Dolls, representing every culture, also have warmed hearts at the Community Child Care Center and the pediatric ward of Bethesda Memorial Hospital. In yet another ministry, the women make and give prayer shawls to those in need of special support.

“If somebody is ill, somebody’s depressed, somebody’s on medical care, we give them so they can wrap themselves as if wrapped in God’s love,” she said. “These are not things that we sell. These are gifts that we give through God’s help.”

There’s also the gift of music, fine music and talented musical directors over the years, she said. “So it’s missions, music and, I guess, money, because we raise by doing some of these things.”

Smith — “one of the oldest members left around now” — said, “People came from New England and from Ohio and places like that and said we need a congregational church in this area. And that’s how it really got started.”

She arrived from New York in the 1950s with her husband, a retired judge and native Floridian who went to Brooklyn Law School, because as an African-American he was not allowed to go to Stetson University.

“When I came down to Florida, I spent quite a bit of time trying to find a home church that gave me what I had left” as a member of a Congregational church in New York, Smith said. “I was the first African-American member of the Church of the Palms. My children grew up in that church.”

The Rev. Elizabeth Hill, recently retired from a part-time ministry to older adults at the church, described its “rather dramatic transformation from a ‘country club’ church of primarily retired people, mostly Caucasian, almost no kids, to its present configuration an open, multicultural, diverse congregation open to all people of faith: ‘Wherever you are on the journey you are welcome here.’ We have lots of kids, people of varying cultural and nationality backgrounds, and a very different look and feel than 10 years ago,” the Rev. Hill said.

“The church has evolved to be a very strongly diverse congregation,” said the Rev. Roger Richardson, their pastor.

He recalled that a couple of years ago, “We had the call to worship, on Pentecost Sunday, in German, Creole, Spanish, Romanian and, of course, English. We have a Creole service on Sunday morning along with the English service, and on Saturday night we have a service that embraces Portuguese, Spanish, Creole and English.

“I believe over the years the Church of the Palms has not had as open and welcoming of a reputation as they have now forged,” Richardson said.

“It is extremely welcoming and open. They call it, ‘An extravagant and gracious welcoming to anyone, no matter where they are in life’s journey.’ So that’s kind of become the new motto for our church. We’re just happy to have folks who want to walk with us in faith.”

— C.B. Hanif

This month’s Coastal Star, First Presbyterian Church of Delray Beach’s Rev. Aaron Janklow and the popular TnT — or Twenties ’n’ Thirties — young professionals group he leads:

Young minister succeeding on his mission

And this month’s Look Inside our Places of Worship, the amazing story of the congregation whose serene, picturesque sanctuary once was a Boca Raton Air Force Base chapel:

First Church of Christ, Scientist

The beautiful smiles of Delray Interfaith Clergy Association members Donna Brueggmann of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boynton Beach, and the Rev. Joanna Gabriel, Unity Church of Delray Beach.

Earlier I shared some scenes from Delray Beach’s 9th Annual Mayors Interfaith Prayer Breakfast. Below is my essay on the event from the new edition of The Coastal Star, which hits the streets in print tomorrow. Next up I hope to share observations on the Dalai Lama’s visit to our area. For now:

A monthly book discussion group at the Delray Beach Public Library has been getting good reviews for addressing engaging topics. The latest theme: “ ‘The Other’ — Other Cultures and How We View Others,” was intriguing. So when I heard the title of December’s featured book, and Googled the author, I knew I didn’t want to miss the discussion of The Muslim Next Door — The Qur’an, the Media and That Veil Thing, by Sumbul Ali-Karamali.

Carl Wetzstein, one of the discussion leaders, opened up Dec. 17 by asking, “If you think of an Islamic woman, how do you picture her?”

He elicited such responses as: “I picture her covered, burka,” and “a fourth-class citizen in her own ethnic group.”

Wetzstein proceeded to display Ali-Karamali’s smiling, soccer mom-looking book cover photo.

“I think the cover is a metaphor for the book,” he said. “Because what she’s saying is what we see of Islam in the media is not what Islam is really like.”

Her Web site describes Ali-Karamali as “a Stanford-educated mom and corporate lawyer, with degrees in Islamic law and English,” who shares a warm, funny, yet scholarly and surprisingly down-to-earth conversation about life in America from an observant Muslim American woman’s point of view.

“She says what we see in fundamentalist Saudi Arabia and what we see in the Taliban and other terrorists represent just a tiny fraction of the billion or so Muslims in the world, and these people have twisted Islam into something it isn’t,” Wetzstein said of the Southern California-raised daughter of Indian immigrants.

“She says what we observe, such as women’s dress, are a matter of culture, not of religion as expressed in the Quran.”

The 16 discussion participants arrived with definite points of view, yet were open-minded, indicated by such caveats as, “as far as I know.”

Refreshingly, the group shared experiences on Muslim culture from India to Canada to London to here, and no one seemed so stuck in his or her views as to be closed to new information.

The previous month’s book was T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain, commenting on the immigration controversy.

Next month’s is The Faith Club, whose three authors, Jewish, Christian and Muslim women, spoke to 400 people in Delray during their tour several years ago.

That’s Jan. 21, 10:30 a.m. The discussion is free.

For more information, contact the Delray Beach Public Library, 100 W. Atlantic Ave., 266-9490.

(This article appeared in The Coastal Star newspaper, January 2010 edition, with the tagline: C.B. Hanif is a writer, editor and media and inter-religious affairs consultant. Find him at www.interfaith21.com.)