"I was in North Camden, the poorest neighborhood in the poorest city in America. I thought, 'Oh, my God, what have I gotten myself into?' " says Herz-Lane, 56.
"But I fell in love with the people. They were incredibly accepting and welcoming of me, a white German guy. And I fell in love with Grace Lutheran Church."
The cozy congregation at Fourth and State Streets is where he met the Rev. Margaret Lane, who became his wife in 1981. The couple have two grown sons and a grandchild on the way.
Grace Lutheran also is where Herz-Lane heard his call to ministry. He entered Mount Airy's Lutheran Theological Seminary in 1995, was ordained in 2001, and established Bridge of Peace church in Camden's Fairview section that same year.
Despite these and other satisfactions, Herz-Lane's relationship with his adopted hometown has been a love-hate affair.
I can relate: The decency of the majority of city residents can be overwhelmed by the depravity of a few. Much of Camden is an exhausted and exhausting landscape of human frailty and folly. It's like a giant exhibit of everything that can go wrong.
"I drive down the street and think, 'Can't they ever fix this?' It's just the dysfunction, and the sheer frustration of seeing generation after generation of good neighborhood people being frustrated at every turn because the system is against them," Herz-Lane says.
Like a number of activists, he had high hopes for the state's takeover of the city, which has mostly ended.
"I was a true believer," Herz-Lane says. "But again, the system let us down. The contracts went to the same old people. Cooper Hospital and the aquarium and the waterfront got all the money."
He and I agree: The powers that be certainly do have a way of getting what they want in Camden, often using our tax dollars.
