For the Rev. Cordell Simpson, MDiv, DDiv, a chaplain at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the emotional dam broke a week after George Floyd was killed on May 25 while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minn.
Long-suppressed memories welled up until Simpson, a Nashville native and Vietnam veteran, couldn’t contain them anymore. In the presence of his colleagues they burst forth like a flood.
Simpson clung to his family’s teachings. “We were told when we came up that we were not to allow life to make us bitter but to allow it to make us better,” he said.
“Being looked at as if you’re dirt. Being followed around a store as if you’re going to steal something. I never had shared these stories,” Simpson said.
“It was after George Floyd’s death, so much compilation of racism, seeing so much and hearing so much until I felt led to talk about it,” he said.
One of his colleagues and the LifeFlight chaplain, the Rev. Raye Nell Dyer, MDiv, suggested that Simpson transform his feelings into something healing for those around him. That is how the VUMC Chaplain Covenant Regarding Racial Injustice came to be.
A covenant is a contract, an agreement. It also is a call to action.
“Together may we create a brave space,” the covenant states. “It will be our brave space together, and we will work on it side by side … to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to express themselves in a confidential and secure space.”
It was not easy for the eight full-time chaplains who serve Vanderbilt University Hospital, the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt Behavioral Health, to share painful experiences and thread hard conversations into the text of a covenant.
Traumatic events had been piling up for months — the March 3 tornado that tore through Nashville, the COVID-19 pandemic, George Floyd’s killing and the sometimes-violent protests that followed — all had taken an emotional toll on VUMC staff.
“These chaplains have been unloaded on for weeks now,” said Terrell Smith MSN, RN, VUMC’s Senior Director of Patient and Family Engagement. “They’re carrying all these stories and burdens of the staff who are reaching out [while] trying to minister to patients and their families.”
“One of our roles as chaplains is to give a prophetic voice, to acknowledge what is going on, to name it and to call it out, whether it’s grief or celebration or tragedy,” Dyer said.
The chaplains realized they couldn’t do it alone. This task of listening and grieving together and supporting one another required the involvement of the entire VUMC community.
“One of our roles as chaplains is to give a prophetic voice, to acknowledge what is going on, to name it and to call it out, whether it’s grief or celebration or tragedy,” Dyer said.
“We had some painful conversations. There were tears. There were some misunderstandings,” she said, “But we all felt good that we had the kind of trust with each other that we could do that.”
“Our hope is that (other) departments might use or adapt this covenant to begin a dialogue among their teams to ensure all have a place around the table,” said Andrew Peterson, M.Div, MMHC, director of Spiritual and Pastoral Care and Volunteer Services for Vanderbilt University Hospital and Vanderbilt Health.
“It is difficult work and it is something that takes time, but it will also create a stronger team and a more welcoming place to work,” he said.
Simpson was not particularly religious when, at age 16, he joined the Army’s 101st Airborne Division and was sent to Vietnam. “I had what I call my white brother,” he said, a fellow paratrooper from New York. “We dug foxholes together, we drank out of the same canteen.”
But when their tour of duty was over and Simpson brought his buddy home with him to Nashville to “celebrate getting back alive, we couldn’t even go to a restaurant (together) and sit down,” he said.
Yet Simpson clung to his family’s teachings. “We were told when we came up that we were not to allow life to make us bitter but to allow it to make us better,” he said. And eventually he found his faith.
In addition to his chaplaincy duties, Simpson is pastor of the Eighth Street Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville.
The stories still pour into the chaplains. “It’s still as intense,” Simpson said, “but we are handling it better.”
Smith has her own story.
She grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1960s at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. When her junior high school was integrated and a Black classmate named Valerie was in her homeroom, Smith and her friends ignored her. That lasted until the homeroom Christmas party when the girls saw Valerie eating a cookie by herself. They brought her into their circle then and “instead of treating us like we deserved to be treated, she was very gracious,” Smith recalled. The two became friends, and two years ago when Smith received the Medical Center’s Martin Luther King Jr. Award she dedicated the award to Valerie. “There are so many people I would have missed out on,” Smith said, “had it not been for Valerie.”
The stories still pour into the chaplains. “It’s still as intense,” Simpson said, “but we are handling it better.”
Dyer said she is cheered by the efforts of André Churchwell, MD, VUMC Chief Diversity Officer, Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI, VUMC Vice President for Health Equity, and many others, and by the formation of a new Racial Equity Task Force announced this month by VUMC CEO Jeff Balser, MD, PhD.
Dyer agreed. “This is a time,” she said, “when people are more open to change.”
Below is the text of the VUMC Chaplain Covenant Regarding Racial Injustice:
The Chaplains at VUMC, along with professional chaplains around the world, are very concerned and angered by the racial injustice that caused the senseless death of George Floyd, and so many other precious human beings…all because of the beauty of their birthright—the color of their skin.
We express deep condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones to hatred and violence. We stand with our colleagues at VUMC who are hurting at this time, because the reality of racism is painful and often terrifying. James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” As we lead and serve and offer expert medical care to our patients in this medical center, may we face the reality that evil and injustice are alive and deeply rooted in every aspect of society, even our workplace. May we examine ourselves, identify our implicit biases, and do the uncomfortable work of change so that we may no longer be complicit in systemic racism.
With pain, brokenness, and death all around us from humanity’s inhumanity to each other, we acknowledge that there is no reconciliation without commitment to change and action steps put into place.
As professional chaplains, we are committed to ending racism, discrimination, and all forces that disrespect our common humanity. We call on all that is sacred within us to empower us as leaders and healers.
Everywhere we see injustice and violence, let us confront and expose it. Let us foster brave spaces where we can face our pain, our wounds, and our flaws. May our non-violent action and leadership assist in shifting our culture toward healing and wholeness.
Together may we create a brave space. We name it a brave space, because for some, there is no “safe space” as we exist in this beautiful, but troubled world.
We are called to be brave, because we all carry scars and we have all caused wounds; brave, because we have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow, as we each respond to the call for more truth and love.
In this space we know as VUMC, we seek to turn down the destructive volume of the outside world.
We have the responsibility to examine ourselves, what we think and know.
We will not be perfect.
This space will not be perfect, nor will it always be what we wish it to be.
But it will be our brave space together, and we will work on it side by side.
As chaplains, we openly welcome the difficult dialogue surrounding this subject to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to express themselves in a confidential and secure space.
So we covenant with you, VUMC, to do this for the sake of all patients, families, and staff. May we hold onto this covenant with determination, strength, and hope.
(Excerpts from the Association of Professional Chaplains, “APC Statement Regarding George Floyd and Racial Injustice in America”; Micky ScottBey Jones, “An Invitation to Brave Space”; https://mailchi.mp/apcmail/statement-from-apcs-president-on-george-floyd-and-racial-injustice?e=f40ae00728)
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