Last time we were here, I was telling about Luke’s diagnosis (at age 4) with Autism Spectrum Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified. This is a diagnosis that is “behaviorally observed.” It means there’s no blood test, no x-ray, no biopsy, or any other “objective” way to diagnose. Dr. Mark Yeager, who would come into our lives later, says “If you’ve met one kid with autism, you’ve met one kid with autism.” Luke was certainly not “non-verbal.” I have sometimes said “There’s a kind of autism when the kid doesn’t speak and they kind where they won’t shut up. Luke’s is the latter.” Much of his speech was (and is) “perseveverating.” He repeated himself, quoting movies and videos he’s watched, repeating stories he’s told before. He is interested in what he’s interested in. He doesn’t “read the room” and respond to the usual social cues. As we began telling people, a frequent response was “But he’s so smart.” This is true, but doesn’t negate the diagnosis. Others would say “He’ll grow out of it.” We definitely hoped so, but I can say, now that he’s 30, that he hasn’t. Coping with his challenging behaviors, discerning what is the autism and what is a correctable behavior, discerning what his real potential was and is became the defining parental challenge of our lives. Many marriages break under the strain. Ours did not. Lynette and I both loved our kid and each other. Everything else grew from that. We also had another child, who was “neurotypical.” Sarah did not know about having any other sort of brother than the one she had. She could be the “catcher” of his negative behaviors. There was no alternative to her having the childhood she had, but it wasn’t “fair.” She became an overachiever. Loyola does not send me her graduate school grades, but I don’t think she has ever made a B in any academic class. I know she didn’t K-College graduation.

In addition to now being the parents of a child with autism, Lynette and I were also pastors in the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church. Lynette was asked to serve on the Resolutions and Petitions Committee for the 1998 Annual Conference session. LaRue Owen, my boss at Methodist Medical Center, was also a member of that committee. Before that session, we noted a plethora of very angry “culture war” type resolutions coming for the Conference to deal with. LaRue and Lynette, along with many of the Conference leadership were nonplussed. What was this about?

I mentioned that in the late 1980s, Bishop Bob Morgan began to actively recruit and promote clergy from Asbury Theological Seminary. This was a significant change to a system that had long been dominated by graduates of Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Asbury graduates had been viewed with some suspicion in Mississippi, as Asbury is not a seminary formally related to the United Methodist Church. The school is allied with the “Holiness” tradition. There certainly had been “Holiness” preachers and churches in late 19th century/early 20th century Methodism, but there had also been new Wesleyan “Holiness” churches breaking off with Methodism like the Church of the Nazarene. The net effect of this move toward Asbury was to introduce both a more distinctively conservative group of clergy into the Conference and people familiar with schismatic tendencies.

A disclaimer: When you’ve met one Asbury graduate, you’ve met one Asbury graduate. I have known MANY Asbury graduates over my 38 years in the Mississippi Conference. Some have remained loyal to the Mississippi Conference and the United Methodist Church over the last five years. Many have done so at the cost of lost churches, lost friendships, and lost money. They have been subjected to verbal abuse, bullying, and questioning of their faith and salvation that weren’t “wasted” on me, a known “Lost Cause.” So, when I say, “Not ALL Asbury graduates,” I mean it.

Another phenomenon was the introduction of former Southern Baptist clergy into the ranks of Mississippi Conference UMC clergy. Again, a disclaimer: I am former Southern Baptist, though I left in the middle of my junior year of college, never having been clergy. My father and maternal grandfather’s Alma Mater, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was University Senate approved for educating United Methodist pastors in the 1970s through much of the 1980s. Southern Baptist pastors live under the ongoing threat of being fired at any time and for any reason (or none). Once fired, getting another job as a Southern Baptist pastor is near-impossible. Southern Baptist pastors who get divorced are likewise fired and unable to get another job. The Mississippi Conference UMC became a welcoming place to these (White) men. Again, I am not averse to welcoming gifted pastors from other denominations into our ranks. In fact I welcome it. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of these two phenomena was to make a clergy membership that was far more conservative theologically and culturally than the one I joined in 1985. The possibility of schism was also more “thinkable.”

These changes began to bear “fruit” in the resolutions presented to the 1998 Session of the Mississippi Conference. Some were openly and unapologetically homophobic. They left no room for dissent. One called for a boycott of Disney (directly copying something from the Southern Baptist Convention of that period). LaRue, Lynette, and the other members of the Resolutions and Petitions Committee worked to soften the Resolutions, giving people a place to stand. The Chair of the Committee asked all members to sit behind him on stage as he presented the Committee’s report The makers of the Resolution angrily demanded that they be adopted as written. A lengthy series of debates, motions, substitute motions, “amendments to the amendments” followed. A body that depended on voice votes to move through most of the agenda bogged down on hand-raised votes, voting by standing, and “dividing the house,” in which we literally had to “stand up and be counted.” The makers of the resolutions wanted them adopted, of course, but they also wanted to identify who to support and oppose in the next year’s elections to the 2000 General and Jurisdictional Conferences. Guss Shelley, the very grounded Senatobia District Superintendent, said to Becky Youngblood, a fellow Superintendent, “Becky, looks like we ain’t goin’ to Cleveland”(Site of the 2000 General Conference). When the Disney resolution came up, Guss said, “And we ain’t gonna have no movies to watch, neither.” Bishop Jack Meadors presided over this mess calmly, but warned he might “rule out of order” similar resolutions in the future. I couldn’t have guessed that more than twenty years of future Annual Conference sessions would be dominated by “culture wars.”

The summer and fall of 1998 were devoted to work and to seeking counsel and treatment for Luke. Just as the diagnosis of ASD is difficult, so is finding “What Works” as a treatment. The King James phrase “Suffered Long Under Many Doctors” came to resonate for us.

In October of 1998, I was very excited that Methodist Medical Center hosted an educational event for Pastors called “Pastor, I Have Cancer.” Part of my vision for being a hospital chaplain was that the hospital would provide education for pastors in Spiritual Care. Methodist Hospitals of Memphis had done this and I was happy that the place where I worked was doing so as well. The same day as that event, a devastating ruling for Methodist Healthcare from the Mississippi Supreme Court came down. Several years earlier, Methodist had sought a “Certificate of Need” to build a “North Campus.” The main hospital (formerly Hinds General) was located in south Jackson. Northeast Jackson and its suburbs had long been served by Mississippi Baptist Medical Center and St. Dominic’s hospital. Now, Methodist wanted into that market. St. Dominic’s and Baptist had opposed the “Certificate of Need” for Methodist during hearings before the State Medical Officer. That officer had granted the Certificate anyway. That Certificate was challenged in Hinds County Chancery Court. The judge also affirmed the Certificate. Baptist and St. Dominic’s appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court, which took several years. Methodist Senior Management in Memphis and Jackson chose to begin construction on the North Campus, even though the Supreme Court arguments and ruling was pending. That campus opened in the fall of 1996, my first year with Methodist. It turns out that starting a whole new hospital is quite expensive. The North Campus lost MUCH more money in its first year of operation than had been budgeted. The Senior Executives at the Jackson hospital who had signed off on my hiring departed in December 1997.

On that fateful October day of 1998, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled that the State Health Officer and the Hinds County Chancery court had erred in granting the Certificate of Need for the North Campus and ordered its revocation. That would mean Methodist could collect no Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance funds for care provided there. The order was not immediately implemented, but it was a “Death Sentence” for that part of our operation. A pattern of my life is that I’m often negatively impacted by events I don’t see coming and can’t control. This was another example.

In December of 1998, LaRue Owen announced that he was leaving Methodist to go on staff of a large church in the Madison County suburbs of Jackson. As a Manager, he gave Four Weeks notice. I found out a few months later that he knew (or suspected) something I did not. An interview with a recommended candidate for Department Manager was conducted that December. It would be one who had been a “Probationary Member” (old terminology) of the Mississippi Conference when I had been who had also found his “niche” in hospital chaplaincy. I thought I could live with that.

Also in December, I went to a first part of training with the Center for Pastoral Effectiveness in New Orleans. This was an initiative of the Louisiana Conference UMC directed by John Winn, who had learned a great deal about Family Systems Theory and was applying it to the work of ministry. I had been excited to learn about Family Systems in 1995 and could see great promise in that approach both to my own ministry in my my projected ministry of pastoral education. My participation in both part one and part two had been approved by LaRue Owen and his boss, the CEO of the hospital.

The second part of the Center for Pastoral Effectiveness training was scheduled for January 1999. I had had both the funding and time away approved already. The day before my departure, I was told that I couldn’t go. This offended my sense of justice. I always kept my promises and did what I was expected to do. I believed the organization I worked for should do the same. I went on to New Orleans as I was scheduled to do. While I was there, the department secretary called to tell me I HAD to come back, on pain of termination. I did so, but with my sense of injustice still very much in place. Early the next week, I attended a meeting of the clergy in “extension ministries” with the Bishop and District Superintendents. It seemed they knew something I didn’t, but what that was I could not guess. The next day I found out both what had the hospital CEO revoking previously approved continuing education events and what the Bishop and Cabinet seemed nervous about. Methodist Healthcare had sold its Jackson, MS operations to Health Management Associates, a for-profit healthcare company based in Naples, FL. HMA already owned River Oaks and Women’s Hospitals in Rankin County. Either then or shortly after, they also bought the former Rankin General Hospital in Brandon. None of those hospitals or any other HMA hospital I knew about employed Chaplains. The Methodist Healthcare Vice President that oversaw Chaplains in all system hospitals had negotiated a clause that would protect one Chaplain position for one year and one for five years after the sale to HMA was finalized. The other Chaplain in the department would turn 65 in 2000, so her position was protected until then. Mine would be protected for five years. The sale was completed on April 1, 1999. The clock on my position was running.