Rev. Priscilla L. Denham on visual pastoral care

Different Perspectives on the Same Conversation

Perhaps our spoken words are never received as clearly as we hope they will be. So many layers of culture, history, emotions, stereotypes, etc. are between any speaker and listener in any conversation. Twenty years ago, Maxine Glaz wrote an article citing an interaction with me. Though she used no identifying information, she kindly showed me the draft to be sure I would not feel offended or exposed by the way she presented me. I was startled to see how two persons could have markedly different perspectives on a conversation. I was not offended. I didn’t even recognize myself.

On reading the February 15, 2006 issue of PlainViews (“Do Clothes Make the Chaplain," Sandra Katz), I had a similar experience. Had my name not been used, I would not have recognized myself as the speaker. Though I’ve had numerous discussions about the implications of garb for women and men chaplains, I don’t remember this specific conversation. The tone of the attributions and the idea conveyed that I think one should wear a collar or kippah “to establish and assert authority” leaves me feeling misrepresented.

Only twice (totaling five years) out of 25 years of chaplaincy did I wear a clerical collar daily. The first time was when I was also the Shock/Trauma ICU chaplain at Hermann Hospital (Houston). People came here after being scraped up off the highway or taped together after a construction accident/ shooting/knifing. No one ever planned to be there. Families were invariably disoriented in the first days they visited. Patients were unconscious or (when momentarily awake) in tremendous pain and drugged. So I wore a collar so they—without having to read a name tag, hear through bandages, sort through religious/hospital terminology, or struggle with a drugged memory—could know what my role was when I approached them. My two male colleagues, a Methodist minister and a Catholic priest with different clinical assignments, did not wear collars.

My second stint of clerical collar wearing was in Philadelphia as the University Chaplain at Hahnemann. One day I wore a collar for a memorial service. A Catholic head nurse, a Jewish administrator, and a Pentecostal security guard all expressed happiness at seeing my collar as “a sign of religion” in the halls. Because of huge ethical issues emanating from a business consolidation of hospitals, I realized any religious symbolism was seen as a small ray of hope and right ethics. Thereafter, I wore a collar every day. It was regularly affirmed by students and employees, including our Wicca EMTs and our Buddhist and Muslim students.

The principle meaning is not, for me, authority, but identity. The meaning of religious symbol – kippah or clerical collar – is identity, hopefully, not for the wearer, but for observers who may be trying to cross a language/drug/memory barrier that a recognizable religious symbol can help them transcend. The power is not political, but spiritual. Regardless of whether a patient/family likes religion or accords any authority to it, the identification allows the conversation to begin with the patient knowing what role (out of the multiple possible roles) the person walking into the room is claiming.

I was given advice (repeatedly) on how to dress “with Authority”: wear tailored clothing. As one with only two suits and a wardrobe mostly floral or funky, I chose to earn my authority through competence, not garb. My choice to wear a collar was based on pastoral considerations.

I was uncomfortable with the “you need to…” language being attributed to me. Perhaps pressures at Hahnemann brought this out, perhaps I was attempting to say something specific to her, maybe it was just bad supervision (surely situational), but - whatever I said - that is the way she heard me. I comfort myself that she spelled my name right, she remembered we discussed an issue important to her eight years later, and (apparently) the supervision led her (whether through guidance or oppositional struggle) to her own thinking and determination of action…I hold on to the thought, “If you can’t be a good example, you can at least be a horrible lesson.”

Do you have thoughts about advocacy you’d like to share with your colleagues? Send an e-mail to info@PlainViews.org.