About 40 people -- diverse in age, race, sexual orientation and faith -- walked along a North Side Richmond street yesterday to reflect on the Stations of the Cross while stopping to pray in an area known for violence and suffering.

"The Stations of the Cross is not an exercise in trying to imagine the suffering of Jesus," said Susan Eaves, rector of St. Thomas' Episcopal Church, as the group gathered on Brookland Park Boulevard at Noble Avenue.

"Rather, it is a way we might come closer to the attitudes and actions of our own lives and of the world around us," Eaves said. "We stand today in a place of great need in our city. In our walking of this path, may we receive clarity of sight and purpose."

Brookland Park Boulevard was once a thriving commercial corridor that in recent decades has experienced lean times and problems with crime.

Volunteers, two at a time, took turns carrying a large brown cross down the avenue. The group stopped 14 times to recite the Stations, which trace the last hours of Jesus.

A cacophony of street sounds -- car radios pumping music, buses chugging by and conversations spilling out of stores -- accompanied their prayers and hymns.

Some motorists honked horns in support while others craned their necks to get a better view of the group that spent nearly 90 minutes together.

The event was a joint effort of St. Thomas' Episcopal Church, a mostly white church, and St. Philip's Episcopal Church, which is predominantly black. The churches draw worshippers mainly from Barton Heights and Ginter Park.

For Marti Michlec of South Barton Heights, the event showed true unity.

"Sunday mornings are the most segregated days in our state," she said. "But when you look at the black and white participants together praying here on a Friday afternoon, why can't we do it on Sunday mornings?"

Observing the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday also reminds people that God gives second chances, Michlec said. A man was shot near her home last winter and survived.

"We have to remember Jesus died on the cross for our sins. On Sunday, we remember the Resurrection. We all have second chances," she said.

Doroteo Amora was on his way to observe Good Friday at St. Paul's Catholic Church when he spotted the group and joined in.

"Living Stations of the Cross are often done in the Philippines," said Amora, who moved to Richmond last year and teaches math at Thomas Jefferson High School. "When I saw it, it reminded me of the Philippines. It's a good practice."

Camey Chiles of Mechanicsville participated last year and decided to return with her daughters, Kyle Elaine, 14, and Riley, 11. She came out "to bring a presence of hope and dignity and desire for social justice," she said.

Gwen Jallah, director of youth ministries at St. Philip's, walked with Reid Pulliam, 5. Jallah participated "to pray for the revitalization of the community and to support all of the families that have lost loved ones and give them a sense of hope."

At Hanes Street, Canon Alonzo C. Pruitt, rector of St. Philip's, said a young man on his way home recently was killed a block away. And down the street a family lost their home to fire.

"Someone near us is always in some terrible pain," Pruitt said. "We need to embrace ways of addressing it and not to think we can distance ourselves."

Congregants said walking the avenue made their faith more authentic.

"It gets us out of our churches and into our communities," said Gene LeCouteur, a member of St. Thomas' and a student at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education. "The church needs to come to people. Jesus didn't sit and wait for people to come to him. He sought out those who were suffering.

"That's what we need to do," LeCouteur said.
Contact Robin Farmer at (804) 649-6312 or rfarmer@timesdispatch.com.