When a person of faith, a minister, essentially calls you a liar on social media it takes one’s breath away. I make absolutely NO secret of my desire to save the ruins of Ebenezer A.M.E. on Bacton Hill Road in Frazer. I have been trying for a few years now to get the attention of the A.M.E. national church organization (which by all records OWNS the land still) to pay attention to this equally sacred and historic site before it is beyond any preservation.

And face it, we are pretty darn close to NO salvation on this site. And there are people in Chester County and elsewhere today with ancestors buried there, who want to visit their ancestors. And they can’t. It is all overgrown.

Until 2011 volunteers would more regularly get in there and clean up the area. Boy Scouts used to adopt the area too as well.  But people run out of steam and I imagine get frustrated because technically this place looks abandoned but the A.M.E. Church still owns it.

So the A.M.E. Church has been in Philadelphia for their bicentennial. So because all of a sudden they are up on social media sites like Twitter, I have been tweeting photos and the story of the place at them.

I am sure these A.M.E. folks do not like my Tweeting about how they don’t honor their dead, but they don’t. How is that not truthful? If the A.M.E. Church honored their dead, they would be maintaining the churchyard and securing the church ruin.  If the A.M.E. Church honored their dead (and here there are freed slaves and black civil war soldiers) they would honor their history by honoring the history of this sacred place.

But what do you get instead? Religious hypocrisy. Obstructionism. They have all that money to put on a HUGE bicentennial celebration, do peaceful protests, erect statues and so on and so forth, yet they can’t take care of one small place in Chester County? Really? How truly sad is that?

So this minister rolls up and tells me what I write is flawed because I have never attended A.M.E. Church.  And mocks me when I said some folks with ancestors buried there are grateful to me (and others) who are trying and have been trying to get this place cleaned up. How is this a holy person of God?

Am I a member of the A.M.E. Church or even related to those buried there? No, I am not. But it doesn’t mean I do not respect what those brave souls buried there did for this country.  It doesn’t mean that I can’t care about this place, does it?   Do I have to be a card carrying member of the A.M.E. church to care about the ruins of Ebenezer A.M.E. on Bacton Hill Road in Frazer, or only to IGNORE the ruins of Ebenezer A.M.E. on Bacton Hill Road in Frazer?

So A.M.E. Church here is how I feel: instead of allowing your members to be ugly and passive aggressively infer more ugliness because I am not a member of your “flock”, I challenge you while you are in Philadelphia to take the hour plus to drive to the site and see it for yourselves.   You all check it out and tell me how the condition is acceptable.

These are some of the souls buried there:

I do not know what is WRONG with this church’s national leaders that they can’t or won’t see what is going on here.  You would think they would be happy people cared enough to try for YEARS to get them to pay attention.

Holy hypocrisy. They want to celebrate their bicentennial in high fashion, yet they don’t honor their dead who are so very much part of their history.

I just don’t get it. Don’t #ByeBlogger me, lady. #HonorYourDead —that is all I want, that is all any of us who care have ever wanted. For these people to be respected and their final resting place cleaned up and preserved.