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To address the first issue I adopted the rule of a good pastor; namely, to remember my congregation's life experience. I began to try to relate my own life to theirs. Some experiences are common to almost all people, with some variations: falling in love, getting married, having and rearing children, finding and making a home, burying one's parents, paying taxes. So I began my pastorate by emphasizing what we had in common as brothers and sisters in Christ and in life.

As I did that, a surprising thing happened to me. I began to identify with their struggles as African Americans, which were not really my struggles. I began to hear my white counterparts and colleagues differently as they talked about racial issues. I began to develop and become conscious, somewhere deep inside of me, of the nuances of racism. I worked on remembering how alike we were, and I discovered that is the key reason prejudice and racism hurt so much. Because we are so much alike, racism is so profoundly unjust.

The second issue had to do with how "careful" I should be. Should I watch what I say? Should I say I "understand" what I can never really understand? Should I try to put on "black skin"?

The only sensible answer was to be myself, which meant remembering who I was. I had to remember that I was the person who had put on my first dossier years earlier that I was willing to serve a congregation of another race. I had to remember that I was the person who had been the only friend of a 5-year-old black boy in my kindergarten class because my mother had lectured me on racism when this little boy entered our class in 1950. I remembered that in 1968 my husband and I were the only whites who stopped on an Alabama road to help a black family who had been in a head-on collision with a "white" car, and that two ambulances left empty because they did not carry blacks. Things I had never thought much about now became memories that provided me with an identity in my pastorate.

Of course, I also remembered that I was a middle-aged Yankee woman in a mainline denomination who had enjoyed a life of privilege compared to most people, especially compared to the Messiah congregation. My willingness to be real in my relationship with the congregation opened the door for the congregation to be the same with me.

In an adult Sunday-school class early in my pastorate, I had the benefit of listening to members of my congregation as they explored the sensitive issues of racism in their own experience. I sat back and took notes. It was a gift beyond all gifts for my ministry. I heard stories that I had never heard or imagined before. I saw tears in the eyes of some of the most dignified and decent people I have ever known.

As a result, I learned something about what hatred and injustice and racism can do to the human heart. These were lessons that I have valued and kept carefully within me. To hear these stories so early in the pastorate was a great advantage to me because it helped me grow in understanding. It also reinforced my belief in the importance of listening carefully to people before daring to think you might understand them.

The week after the school meeting at which I became aware of drugs and shoes, Messiah's Session of six elders met at a long table stretched down the center aisle of the sanctuary.

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October 2 2000, Vol. 44, No. 11