An Eye-Opening Death

Earlier this year, I started writing a memoir about my long journey with race called “How’d You Get Like That?” I’m a long way from having something I’d be willing to publish, but this blog post is one episode that stands out as a particularly impactful experience. We don’t talk about it much in the context of missions, but race is a powerful if hidden barrier that obstructs our vision and hurts our credibility as disciples of Jesus at home and abroad. Sometimes, it takes some painful experiences to open our eyes.

There were about half a dozen of us who went to see Jimmy as he lay dying. Jimmy had for several years worked as our building maintenance man at the Central church. He was always kind and gracious, classy and encouraging. He presented himself as a man well put together. While his clothes were simple jeans and casual shirts and jackets, they were well pressed and perfectly matched. He was fit and strong and always on time. Everyone loved Jimmy, his wide smile, and sparking eyes. He was quiet for the most part but would engage in conversation if invited. I particularly loved Jimmy and often lingered to talk with him whenever we passed in the hall or after morning prayer time. His favorite subject was sports. He had been a great high school athlete and loved to watch and discuss all sports, but especially football. When his nephew was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers and began to play in the NFL, he was busting out proud.  

We got used to Jimmy coming to our staff’s daily prayer times and being a hard worker and all-around great guy. He was a believer, though I don’t remember of which Protestant tradition. Then after years of good service, Jimmy got sick. It was not obvious at first and he didn’t discuss it until it began to impact his ability to work. He had cancer. I don’t remember what kind. I just know that from the time we learned about it, indirectly as I recall, until he was unable to work, was amazingly brief. He was going to die, and those of us who worked with him didn’t want that to happen without getting to see him and pray with him. So, we went to his home.  

Jimmy lived with his mother and grandmother and likely other members of his family, though I never met or saw the others. Their house was in the neighborhood known as The Heights, which was a minority neighborhood in the far northwest corner of Amarillo. While some Black people had moved to other parts of town, this was where a high percentage of African Americans still lived, going back to the time when they were not permitted to live elsewhere. The Heights had a few stores and restaurants, but most were converted houses. It was low-income housing from the start, and not much had changed since it was founded based on how it looked. Amarillo’s Black churches were in this neighborhood even if the younger generations with good educations and middle-class professions had to drive in from the rest of the city to worship there, unless they wanted to go to a majority white church or worship with some other ethnic group. I had been to The Heights for meetings in a church building or restaurant, but I had never been in anyone’s home in this neighborhood before. Given the multi-cultural church vision I was leading, the irony of this struck me hard.  

Jimmy’s multi-generational home was small but clean and well organized. Everything was old and worn out. It had a “swamp cooler” (evaporative window unit) instead of any kind of refrigerated A/C. No central heat, just a few gas heaters on the walls. No carpet. Just a few tattered old rugs. Everything in that house looked decades old and well worn. The paneling on the walls was antiquated. No one had put any money into the updating of this house since it was built, so it appeared. Jimmy’s mother came to the door when we arrived but barely spoke to us. She would not look any of us in the eye. Her mother, I assumed, sat on the sofa, stared at the floor, and never acknowledged we were there. We explained who we were and why we had come, and Jimmy’s mother directed us to the room where Jimmy lay dying.  

Jimmy was a shell of his former self. He had lost well over 50 lbs, but was gracious and seemed glad to see us, though he could barely speak. We prayed over him and told him we missed him and left after what was one of the most awkward home visits I had ever made (and I had made hundreds in all kinds of contexts). No one knew what to do, say, or what to make of the experience. It was clear that Jimmy lived in a different world than we did, even within the same city. When he came to work, he crossed a cultural divide and knew how to code-switch well. We had no such experience or skill. People like Jimmy routinely had to enter our world to survive, be we could go a lifetime and have no awareness of life in his world, much less enter it.  

What did I expect from that visit? What kind of greeting did I anticipate? I’m not sure. My surprise at the distance and detachment of Jimmy’s family told me I expected something other than what I got, but what? Did I expect them to show appreciation and warmth to us for condescending to come to their home? Did I expect some honor to be shown for us caring for someone who was our coworker and brother in Christ when we had never tried to interact with Jimmy in any social way outside of his duties at our building? I don’t know what I expected, but I left realizing that I had a privilege I didn’t appreciate and a blind spot to overcome. That privilege functioned like a prison to lock me out of a world that could have enriched my life and those impacted by my ministry. It also prevented me from understanding the world I lived in or the impact of many of my own beliefs and actions.  

The people in Jimmy’s family understood my world, but I didn’t understand theirs. They had a lot of experience with people like us, but we had little with people like them. They knew the history of race relations in the USA and Amarillo, and we did not. They had no reason to trust us, and it showed. We came hoping to bring some comfort, not knowing we had not earned the right to presume we could.  

Jimmy died shortly after that day, and I never saw his family again except at his funeral. Why not? Why didn’t I go see his mother and grandmother? Was I just too ashamed to face them? I know I went to his funeral, but I must have blocked it out. Before the visit to Jimmy’s house, I would have told you that Jimmy was my friend, but now I know better. I’m not sure what we were, but I never really saw Jimmy for who he was. I only saw what he was for me. While I was preaching about a gospel that unites the nations and crosses cultures, I expected people of color to do all the traveling and to assimilate into mine. I expected them to give up their culture to worship with mine. I thought dropping segregation and expressing welcome was enough. It wasn’t. I didn’t understand or genuinely know the very people I supposedly cared about and wanted our church to reach. Yet, I assumed I could speak on their behalf. How arrogant of me.  

How did Jimmy see me? How did he view our church? I don’t know and I’ll never know because I never took the time to know Jimmy outside of our church building and his job. I never once asked him to go to lunch. I thought my friendliness to Jimmy meant more than it did. I thought my efforts to talk with him in the hallway meant more than they did. I probably spent most of my time talking with him trying to demonstrate that I was different from other white people only to prove I was exactly like most white people. I looked at Jimmy with the white gaze and expected him to adjust to me and then assumed I was virtuous for seeing the person I required him to present himself as in my presence.  

Jimmy modeled grace to me until the end. As he died, Jimmy became my teacher and he is still teaching me even though he has been gone for nearly two decades. He opened my eyes as he closed his for the last time. But only as he left my world did I realize I never truly welcomed him into it, and I sure never tried to enter his.