After decades in pastoral care, I thought I had the answers. Turns out I had a lot to learn.
One year ago, in my first column with Cityview,
I wrote that when I know something, I know half and when I am absolutely sure I know, I know less than half (Edwin Friedman). Well, in the past year and a half, I have had a new teacher, and he is teaching me not as much by words, but by what he is doing. Friedman’s words have come to life.
I stepped down as the Director of Pastoral Care at UT Medical Center 17 years ago, and the next day became a Special Advisor. I held that title until last year. Under that title, I did some mentoring, some teaching and counseling. People who had been shot, stabbed, or beaten had come to the ER.
When they initially came in, there was a bit of drama: police, families, or suspicious folk would show up. If there was a death, the drama ramped up. If it was gang-related, it ramped up even more. But this always died down after a bit. In many cases, patients were seen, treated, and released. I’m unsure if there was ever any follow-up.
In the midst of my new job, I began meeting with people I had met and worked with 30 years before about what has come to be called “gun violence.” The stories behind these events that brought people to the ER were not medical issues, after all; they were community issues. The violence was and is not limited to areas we tend to believe are “more susceptible to crime.” So even after my departure from the medical center, I continued to meet with this group to see if there were resources we could put together to help. This is where I first heard of Safe Haven, a program that was working with kids, age 10 to 18, to help them stay out of trouble.
I called one day to learn more and a deep, quiet voice answered, “Hello.” No “Safe Haven, a place of refuge and safety,” just, “Hello.” It was, I would later learn, Lawrence Williams, Safe Haven’s founder. I told him who I was and that I wanted to meet to learn about his work. “Why would you want to know?” It was then that my new teacher began to impart his wisdom.
My learning up to this point included 40 years of clinical pastoral training in a prison, seven years in a federal mental health institute, 13 years in a state one, and 39 years at the medical center. All this “experience” and yet I am discovering it was all within walls, boundaries that existed outside of the community itself. Community problems—violence, sickness, accidents, deaths—all came to those places. But these places exist apart from the people.
It was during my first visit to Safe Haven that I met Lawrence, a middle-aged man who was born, raised, and still lived in this community. While there, I met two polite young men in their mid-teens, who were living at Safe Haven. Lawrence was mentoring them in a stable and safe house where they were fed and taught.
The learning for me had a rather steep curve. For the first time, I was where the people who came into the ER actually lived, where they had to be aware of their safety every minute. Each of the young men I met had been carrying guns before they came to Lawrence. Having once been part of that culture, Lawrence was the strong role model for them. Turns out he was for me, as well.
He is teaching me how little I know about the people in my community who have not only health and welfare issues, but a lifestyle that I, as a white pastor seeking to be a part of the “helping,” am disconnected from. And while I have more questions than answers now, I know enough at this point that I can give what little of the gifts I have—physically, emotionally, and financially—to support. Programs like Safe Haven are making an extraordinary difference as 501c3s, but they lack staff to write grants or fundraise in order to grow or sustain their programming. I have asked Lawrence many times in the past year, “How do you pay for all of this?” It’s always the same answer: “God always provides.”