I am from frame flats with steep staircases, lining city streets. Daddy’s eyes, sparkling. Momma’s worries. Baby sister, big brother.
The smell of yeast bread as I climb the narrow steps, cozy. The smell of beer, always. Cereal for breakfast, peasant borscht for supper at five. On the back porch, tracing Sputnik across the sky.
Shame: “we don’t say that.”
I am from Steelworkers Union 19806, bargaining rights and hoping for overtime. Snow drifts. Winter winds. Slow springs, long-awaited, lilacs in big dishes, coleus leaves, hollyhocks.
Moving – again.
I am from up North and cooler by the Lake, humid nights, thunderstorms crashing from west to east, short, languid summers, sheets fresh from drying in the sun.
I am from hanging with the smart kids, the Center Street library, laughter, and lots of tears. Anger that never cooled. Warm and loving folks. Books. Books. Books.
Old World people and me – tiptoeing into the New World.
“I am from,” Mary Elyn Bahlert, from Moments, published 2026
I was serving part time in a small congregation in South San Francisco, living in Oakland. After several years of my floundering around, trying to make my way into the United Methodist Annual Conference while being married to another member of the clergy, I was grateful for the chance to preach each Sunday, to be present to the people of that community. Aldersgate United Methodist Church had been built in a post-war housing development in South San Francisco – the same development as my Uncle Pete and Aunt Athalie, who had lived there for many years. My being there was a twist of faith, or fate – or something else chosen by powers greater than myself or even greater than the United Methodist Bishop who sent me there. I was finally Pastor of a congregation that I was serving on my own. And I was grateful.
I’m Pastor’s School that year was at Asilomar, a conference and retreat center along the Pacific Coast, south of Monterey, in January. I always looked forward to Pastor’s School, mostly for the time with other clergy, the friendships I formed among my colleagues as we sat in classes and ate meals together. Each conversation felt like a connection. I was standing outside, in conversation with Paul Extrum-Fernandez one day during Pastor’s School that year, 1996. As we stood there, Paul asked me where I’d like to go in the Annual Conference. Hmmmm… I had not considered that one, clear question – ever. And no one had ever asked me before. I stood silent for a few moments, thinking. Finally, I answered: “Lake Merritt,” I said.
Paul’s wife, Renee, was Pastor of Lake Merritt. I knew that. Paul knew that. “Oh, Renee will never leave Lake Merritt,” he said.
Two years later, I was Pastor at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, a congregation formed by the merger of old First United Methodist Church of Oakland – whose building had burned to the ground – and St. Stephen’s United Methodist Church – where the people of Lake Merritt began to worship after the fire, before the new congregation built an entirely new building on the shore of Lake Merritt. The merged congregation became one: Lake Merritt United Methodist Church. I was excited, happy to be sent to Lake Merritt. And I was happy for 16 years – a long tenure, by any account, for a United Methodist Pastor, whose parishes are appointed by a resident Bishop. And I was grateful. I loved the people, in large part because I understood that they had chosen to continue to do ministry after their merger, and with insurance money to carry them into the future – in downtown Oakland.
I was right there with them, in downtown Oakland – and in my view, in heaven.
Sixteen years is a long tenure for a United Methodist Pastor, whose fate is held in the hands and heart of the resident Bishop, but Jeff and I worked it out as best we could as a clergy couple who chose to live together, to not be separated by an appointment to a church by a Bishop. He received training as an interim pastor, which opened doors for him to serve locally in churches of other denominations as well as United Methodist parishes.
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Every Sunday during my tenure at Lake Merritt, I opened worship with these words: “Welcome to worship at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, an open and welcoming Christian congregation serving downtown Oakland”. And I served, together with the wonderful lay people of the congregation, who accepted and understood the diverse community of Oakland, and had chosen to stay and serve among that often unruly and difficult community. I was – I am – proud of them.
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I’ve been retired for 12 years now. I miss many things about being a parish pastor, but as time has gone on, I’ve taken other, shorter gigs, and even traveled some to be with one or another community of faith, to lead worship, to preach, and to connect with the folks of another faith. To be honest, there are many things I don’t miss! I’ve preached at other United Methodist Churches – filling in for friends and colleagues who are taking a Sunday away, and I’ve gone to Mass at a local Roman Catholic Parish that serves the African American community of the Bay Area. Until this past year, I had not stayed closely connected to the community at Lake Merritt, but the current pastor has invited me to preach, to be present for her and to the people of the parish.
This past weekend, while the Pastor is on Sabbatical, I have been one of the clergy she has invited to preach in her absence. And as fate would have it, I was called upon to offer pastoral care and finally to perform the memorial service for a woman with whom I have a strong connection; I buried both her husband and her son, a police officer (see “The day they died,” thewisdomyears.org, May 18, 2025).
And what I have seen in my visits to Lake Merritt UMC is “an open and welcoming Christian congregation serving downtown Oakland.” The vision that the people and I held in our hearts and minds, in our openness to diversity of all kinds, has created a truly open and welcoming Christian congregation. I think this is rare reality among churches. Congregations are well-known for holding tight to old, old traditions, to be unable and unwilling to make changes, for the unwillingness to step on the toes of folks who’ve been around for a long time and have their own ways. Congregations will not be moved from “the way we’ve always done things.” But Lake Merritt has outgrown and surpassed those ways. I credit their witness and determination to serve the community of Oakland – a community that can be gritty and hard, a community that is colorful and rich in diversity – as a strength that continues to blossom in the people there.
I’m proud of them.
Virginia Turner and me – after worship at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, Oakland. Virginia Turner is my 102 year old friend.
Fourth of July has passed for another year. On Saturday night, Jeff and I fell asleep to the sound of booming skies, carried to us from around the whole Bay Area. For several years, we’d climbed to the strip of land that attaches itself to our property to the South East of our property – a strip of land that is almost sold to the people whose house behind ours faces a different street – to watch the fireworks from what we had come to call “The Panhandle.” Not this year. We started to go to bed earlier during COVID – waking earlier each morning, too – and so we were in bed at the end of daylight.
The booms from all over the area filled the air as I lay awake, always falling asleep later than Jeff, who falls into sleep soon after his head hits the pillow. I listened for a while before I, too, fell asleep. As I listened, the sounds took me back to a Fourth of July many years ago.
Some memories shine, as if lit by a magic light from within.
I was little, probably four or five. I lay on a hill in Washington Park on the North Side of Milwaukee, next to my Dad. I expect that my mother and the baby, Suzie, and probably my big brother, Ronnie, were with us, but they did not show themselves in the memory. It’s as if Daddy and I were alone on the hill. Of the five of us, Dad – I later took to calling him FRB, a nickname which stuck with the whole family – holds center stage in the memory. He was the one in our house who talked the most, an extravert who lived with four introverts.
Daddy watched the fireworks with his extraversion on full display, along with the fireworks. “OOOOOH,” he said, loudly. “AHHHH,” the sound followed. With each burst of light, a new sound escaped from Daddy. “OHHH…” he claimed, again. I lay close to his side on the side of the hill. While the fireworks flashed overhead, I turned to watch Daddy as enjoyment and wonder flowed from him.
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Why do some memories stick, and not others? I’d like to know. Every Fourth of July, I think of those moments, moments now over 70 years old, as the fireworks boom overhead. I’m still there on that hill, laying close to my Daddy, his joy spreading along the grass to me.
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For many years now, the dry days of summer in Northern California surround me. Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, Mt. Shasta in the distance, from the Warner Valley, CA, 06/9/2026
