I went to church on Sunday, to St. Paul’s First Lutheran Church in North Hollywood — though I wasn’t sure if I’d be welcome there, given the strong words I’d just written about the deeply unwelcoming way several of its members had treated a Black woman who had sat down for a rest on the church lawn.

I don’t want to give you the false impression that what I’m about to tell you is all puppies and rainbows — problem raised, problem addressed. From what I can gather, a good part of the congregation still is in stunned disbelief about all the unwanted attention.

But I have to start by saying that I was warmly welcomed at St. Paul’s, as was Alex Marshall-Brown, who just a few days before had used her cellphone to film an older white man in the congregation telling her she was not welcome on the lawn, screwing a “No Trespassing” sign onto the trunk of the tree she’d chosen to sit under for shade and announcing to her, “All lives matter,” apropos of nothing she’d said. All this after she’d broken the ice by speaking to him as he at first went about his business with the sign without saying one word to her.