Waking Up Racist

Seminary was finally behind me and I was beginning what I had no idea would be perhaps the most important education experience of my ministry. I arrived at the Hospital early, eager and apprehensive, to begin my residency in Clinical Pastoral Education. I had my Masters degree but now, it was real life, real needs, real people. What would this be like? Was I prepared to stand in the gap for people in crisis; physical, emotional and spiritual crisis? It’s amazing all the things you think about, worry about while you are driving and walking.

I opened the door to the small outer office of the Department of Pastoral Care. This wasn’t an unfamiliar place. I had spent Mondays here last semester getting my feet wet in pastoral ministry. Now I was about to take a plunge into the deep end.

I knew there would be seven of us in the residency program. To be honest I was so focused on myself that I really hadn’t thought much about who my colleagues would be. As I opened the door, there was a lady directly in my line of sight. Older than me, well dressed and seemingly much more confident. I walked a few steps into the office and introduced myself, already feeling grossly inadequate, a demon I would wrestle with in the coming year. As I reached out my hand I noticed another individual in my peripheral vision. I turned and introduced myself, another woman, closer to my age and also professionally dressed. She too exuded confidence. Perhaps their life experience gave them a confidence my too few years hadn’t yet given me. I had met my first two colleagues, two women; one white and one black and unbeknownst to me I had waked up that morning, a racist.

That reality was not yet apparent to me, but it was to the woman I had just met. She had made her conclusion in those first few seconds. As the class of residents gathered, it was clearly a very diverse group for a collection of ministers in the buckle of the Bible Belt. Seven residents, three men of whom one was black and four women of whom two were black. Let the education, dissection, destruction and reconstruction begin.

To say that my first year of residency was difficult would be an inadequate description. I met people with heartache I couldn’t fathom, despair that drilled into your very soul. At times it came at you wave after wave, and we weren’t even the local trauma center. When I wasn’t reeling from the hurt of the patients I connected with, I was receiving a ministerial colonoscopy from my peers. We called it IPR; Individual Peer Review. Basically, you present yourself and your ministry to your peers and they tear you a new one. It sounds exciting, I know, but actually whether you were presenting or tearing, you were learning. After all, we are often the most critical towards others about the things we see, and don’t like, in ourselves.

Despite the seemingly adversarial relationship, I relied on my peers for support, because we were indeed in this together. I had developed a good working and even more than collegial relationship with most of my peers. All except L., the woman I had met early that first day. We were cordial but not friendly. But to be honest I didn’t think about it. After all, we were finding our footing and I had no idea something was wrong. No idea until ten weeks later when we had our first Peer Evaluation.

Peer Evaluation is a presentation to the group when we evaluate our learning, our self-awareness, our ministry and ourselves. We also evaluate our peers in relation to our interactions and what we are learning from them. It was during that last portion of her presentation that I found out that on that morning ten weeks earlier, completely oblivious to this fact, I had apparently waked up racist. L. informed me of this fact, making her conclusion based on that first meeting. According to her, on the morning we arrived, I had shown myself to be a racist contributing to the hostile work environment at the hospital that she had experienced to this point. Her reasoning; as I entered the office, I walked passed her and introduced myself to the white lady and then I turned and introduced myself to the her, the black lady. That action was the sum total of her ‘evidence’ but it was enough. In her eyes from that day until we finished our residency, a year later, I was a racist.

To say I was taken aback is to say it mildly. I was hurt, angry, dismayed, confused and ultimately crushed. How could she think that? How could she say that? Needless to say my supervisory visits took a bit of a turn. I struggled for the next 42 weeks with her ‘revelation’. I questioned whether she was accurate. I parsed every comment that started to come out of my mouth. I wondered about the other members of our little club. I had a wonderful relationship with them. However, after three similar evaluations from L. over the next several months, it began to sour as well. Now, understand, I was not her only target, she hit everyone in our peer group as well as supervisory team with the accusation. Even filed formal charges with CPE towards the end of the program. But that is not this story.

My supervisor was a very wise man and he was well aware of my need to be liked, my deference to authority, my self-diminishing respect for those who are older and my non-existent Pastoral Identity. These are all areas we had begun to work on during those first ten weeks, and, obviously, those issues went into overdrive. I worked to prove to her I wasn’t a racist. I tried to support her in IPR when, quite frankly, no one else could. I wanted, no, I needed her to like me, to respect me. Even though, that was never going to happen.

I could go on, filling these pages with stories about the rest of that year, but suffice it to say that life went on. We completed our residency, she went on her way, vindicated in her mind for combating the racism she found, convinced of the good she had done, unaware of the hurt that she had caused. I went on, a better minister, less naïve, a little less concerned with what others think, a little more confrontational (I know, just think how non-confrontational I must have been); but also a little more wary, a little less trusting. That has been the continuing struggle.

For 26 years, I had gone about my life, befriending those who were friendly, and constantly wondering why those who weren’t didn’t like me. Being as loyal as a military kid who grew up moving every 3 or 4 years could be. I have learned a lot over the years but that first year of residency was a kick in the rear for sure. I pray, that I am still the same person in some ways, open to all who cross my path, not too jaded by the experience. Viewing people through the lenses of our Father; as unique, and beautiful beings created with purpose. Not allowing the things the world uses to divide to skew that view; but it is getting harder everyday. Our world likes to label, because labels reduce the value of the person and it’s easier to hate or dismiss a label. To some degree we all label, our human failing, but when the label becomes to sum total of that person in our eyes, we lose.

That day, in her eyes, I woke up a racist and she treated me as such. That was our loss. We lost the opportunity to actively learn with and from each other. We lost the opportunity for meaningful dialogue. We lost out on the opportunity to be bond Servants together in the ministry. Today, I am thankful I have the privilege to serve God, to continue to strive to serve all his children, and I pray, I do so to His glory. I am thankful for what I learned in that very difficult year, about myself, my ministry and forgiveness.. I am thankful for the encouragement of my wife who listened, sometimes helplessly, to my lament and struggle. I am thankful for the pastoral identity God built in my life. “For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able, to keep that which I’ve committed, unto him against that day.”