Caring for the Caregivers, Part Two
As I listened to each of us introduce ourselves at the beginning of the Making a Difference workshop in Alabama, I thought about one of our principles – that the people in the room are the right people. There are no other individuals or no other group "out there" that should be present. Those of us here and now are the right people.
And as each of us answered the question, "What had you say yes to the invitation to be here?" I realized that what made us the right people was that we did say "Yes." Eighteen ministers from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida said yes to participating in the second workshop for those affected by the hurricanes along the Gulf Coast last year.
For 12 months, they have been – and are still – living and dealing with all the aftermath of disaster: no church left standing, no home left standing, communities that lost half or more of their population, communities struggling to deal with a huge influx of evacuees, congregations merging, congregations dwindling, congregations sharing space, teardown and cleanup of structures, insurance and government paperwork, building permits and projects, hopelessness and hope.
The devastation they faced and still live with is hard to imagine and harder to describe. Nancy Juda, a longtime sponsor, agreed to meet me in Memphis and drive to the workshop. It gave us time to call on friends of the Mastery Foundation in Clarksdale and Greenville, Mississippi, and in New Orleans. We also got to see the effects of the hurricanes first-hand, albeit one year later.
In New Orleans, we drove for hours through neighborhood after neighborhood of houses that are now just shells. After awhile, the impact of what you are seeing accumulates and you realize each empty home represents two, three, maybe ten lives completely undone by the hurricanes. Along the Gulf Coast highway between Slidell and Biloxi, there were very few houses. Both sides of the highway were empty, except for the occasional shell of a building or a sign marking the place a church once stood.
Now, through the generosity of our donors, for the better part of four days, a group of extraordinary ministers had time to relax at a beautiful retreat center on the bay near Mobile. And they had the opportunity to renew themselves and their ministries through the power of community, centering prayer, and the distinctions of the workshop.
The workshop was led by Myrtle Gallow, a Mastery Foundation board member who also managed and did most of the enrollment of participants; Bill Cawley, a brother of the Sacred Heart; and Clinton McNair, director of the pastoral counseling program at the Seattle University’s School of Theology; with a little pinch hitting from me. Our assisting team was Nancy and Harry Toussaint, a pastor from Moss Point, Mississippi, who was in the June workshop in New Orleans.
Nancy noticed right away that she was the only Jewish person in the group. "At the beginning of the week," she said, "I saw people figuring each other out, as if they were asking, What kind of Christian are you? It was fascinating to me, because I don’t know all those different denominations and traditions.
"I’ve spent my life being in the minority, as a Jew, as an artist, and in other ways. Frankly, I like it, yet there is a way I suppress myself sometimes because of it. I didn’t do that this time, and as a result, I think one or two of the people I met now have a different idea of what a Jew is. All I had to do was show up. I didn’t feel I had to choose which Nancy to be. You can really suffer inside that kind of control or suppression, and it’s not really in service of anything but looking good. Instead, I had the opportunity to contribute in a way I wouldn’t have otherwise, simply by being who I am. And that has stuck with me since the workshop."
From the beginning of the workshop, participants were reporting results in their ministries, particularly in places they had felt stuck before. After we distinguished listening on the first day, one pastor had to go back to his church the next day for a funeral. When he returned on Wednesday, he told the group that as he was preaching, he had a whole new listening for the people listening to him. Later his wife asked him, "What happened to you? You’re like a different man. You’re even listening to me, and you were only gone overnight."
The workshop deals with distinctions like listening that empower those in ministry, whatever their faith or creed. It promises to give the participants access to renewing themselves and their commitment, not by remembering what called them to ministry, but by creating and re-creating the possibilities they stand for in their ministries. And as the participants said frequently in those moments of insight, "That will preach!"
The workshop also opens up new possibilities. Several ministers in the workshop now share church buildings because of the hurricanes. During the week, one minister said she had long secretly dreamed of merging the two congregations but had never told anyone. On the last day, she and the minister from the other congregation sat together at lunch talking about doing just that.
I suspect what many participants will remember the Mastery Foundation for in years to come are the unique meals they shared with us and with each other. One evening of the workshop is a cross-community dinner. These dinners are designed to generate new connections and conversations that transcend divisions and open up the possibility of a shared purpose and future. The dinner on the last evening is a celebration of our time together. After the meal, we shared stories and songs and sang gospel music together. It was an experience of the essence of fellowship – the companionship of individuals in a congenial atmosphere and on equal terms.
In some ways, many of us didn’t want to leave the dinner or leave the comfort of the retreat center the next day and the small community we had become. But the work to be done was back at home, and we would return there to do it, because we are the ones who said yes.