A Free and Responsible Search

An interview with Tracey Wilkinson by Dee Ray, JUC roving reporter

Many of us can relate to John Lennon’s quip: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” We’re taught that we need to line up our goals and focus on a destination that will make us comfortable and secure. Not Tracey Wilkinson, our pastoral care minister. I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone who more keenly lives the journey. Tracey is a woman of many layers—while genuinely shy and reserved on the one hand, she’s an adventurous spirit, uncomfortable in her comfort zone, and she welcomes any opportunity to be with people in a meaningful way.

From the time Tracey was seven until she was 12, her family lived in a tiny village near Coventry, England. She remembers this time very fondly as “It really opened my eyes to the fact that there’s more to the world than my back yard.” She spent her high school and college years in Pennsylvania, broken up by a couple of brief periods living in Germany as an exchange student. Again, she was excited to experience other ways of life. She looked upon her time there as “…a chance for me to really be independent. I was in a foreign country with a foreign language. I was on my own and had to learn how to navigate life in such a different environment, I loved the chance to do that.”

Tracey, what did you do after college?
After graduation, I moved to New York City where I got an apartment and a roommate and a job. I worked in finance for five years and during that time I went to Union Theological Seminary, but never with the intention to be a minister.

Then why did you attend seminary?
Union Theological is a non-denominational Christian institution--very liberal. I didn’t know what liberal religion meant then, but it was right for me. You know how when you recognize something even though you don’t have names and labels for it? One of their focuses was Psychiatry and Religion, and I knew that’s what I wanted. I said in my application and interview, “I want someday to work in the field of psychology but I don’t yet have enough life experience, and so I want to come to a place where I can find out what’s inside of me and what’s inside of other people.” So even though they told me I couldn’t focus on Psychiatry and Religion because I was getting an MA and not an M.Div, I did it anyway. I didn’t know what I’d ever use it for, but I knew I’d use it for something.

Is that when you discovered Unitarian Universalism?
At the seminary, we read an article by Forrest Church who was the senior minister at All Souls in the City. I was very impressed with the writing and I went to check it out. I was reserved and introverted, which came from my time in England, so although I loved going, people didn’t talk to me and I didn’t talk to people—nothing held me there. At the time, I didn’t consider myself a UU.

Did you go to a lot of different churches?
Yes, but I didn’t so much go to services. I always loved church. I spent time going to different cathedrals, different churches. I loved being in church. I would go during my lunch break because I was working with all these numbers and millions of dollars. I liked it, it paid the bills very nicely, but it was just about the externals, about money, money, money.

So you weren’t feeling satisfied? There was something pulling at you?
Yeah, there’s more to life than that. And I set out to find it.

What did you like about churches?
This is what I loved: that there would so very often be a candle lit whether there was a service or not. And I could look at that candle and I could just think about all the people who had been in that church and all the prayers that had been in that church. Just being there, I felt connected. There’s something so touching to me about the things that we hold deep in our hearts and when we speak those things in community with others, or when we take that time to just be with the things that are in our hearts, it is so holy. And so for me, going to these sacred spaces allowed me to go to the sacred places in my heart.

What made you leave New York and that life style?
I married a friend from high school. He was in the Navy, and we had great experiences living in different places. We lived in London for 3 years where I worked in Human Resources. Our daughter, Zoe, was born there. During this time, I found a school called Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California, where I could study Depth Psychology—Counseling Psychology with a focus in depth. That’s about what is deeply within us —it’s soul work in the field of psychology. In this program, you meet once a month for a very intense weekend, so I flew from London with the baby on a military plane, left her with my family, and went on to California. And that’s how I got my degree in Counseling Psychology. Part of that degree was an internship, and I did mine at a community mental health clinic outside of Washington, D.C. After the internship, I was hired and was there for a total of two years.

My, you have lived in a lot of places. Did you come to Colorado because of the military?
Yes, but my husband and I split while we were in Colorado Springs. Zoe and I were there for four years, and during this time, I did a clinical pastoral education (CPE) program at a hospital to help me figure out where I was gong next. CPE for me was about weaving together the theology, the spirituality, the psychology, and the counseling. The training was a blend of practical learning and reflection time, which involves meeting with a group of other students and reflecting on what you’re learning onsite at the hospital-- helping each other to learn about what you’re experiencing. I was later hired as a chaplain and did CPE and chaplaincy there for two years. I loved working with the interns--helping them process these intense experiences with patients and families; I loved discussing what it does to you as a chaplain. Part of it was lecture, and I began to get experience creating the curriculum and teaching the classes. I began stepping into the role of educator, which is not something I had been before.

Is this when you became a UU?
Yes. I lived right downtown and one day I was walking in the rain and walked by this beautiful church building, which turned out to be All Souls UU. As I said before, I love churches, so I went up the steps and looked in. There were all these nametags and there were posters about an art exhibit. And then I went the next Sunday, and the next Sunday, and the next Sunday. While I was going to All Souls and doing the chaplaincy program at the hospital, I realized I now felt called to ordination. So I started the fellowshipping processes. I already had my theological academic education, and now I have just about finished my requirements for ordination. I’ve begun talking with the Committee on Ministry and the Board and Peter about having JUC sponsor me for the ordination ceremony. So within the next year, I’m hoping that JUC will vote to do that.

Tell me why you’re drawn in particular to pastoral care.
I love being with people—I love companioning people when they’re going through something that’s very meaningful to them. Often it’s very healing to be able to speak with someone else who can help you through a dreadful tragedy, and sometimes you can’t make that happen on your own. You need somebody--not to tell you what to do and not to give you advice, but somebody to listen to your soul and to help you figure out your own path of healing. It’s what I love. Pastoral care gives me the opportunity to really look at how I engage life. It’s a back and forth thing—as I keep reflecting on my life, I’m better able to be with other people as they process what’s going on with them in their lives. It demands that I continue to grow. And to be with someone in such a deeply human way, I think that’s what life’s about. 

How has it been fitting into the congregation at JUC?
The welcoming has been just lovely. In some ways, the work is so familiar because it’s being with people the way that I love to; and in some ways, it’s very unfamiliar because I have a role here. Everyone has been very welcoming and very warm, and the way that the church does pastoral care is mind-blowing to me…the way that the people within this community are there for each other. And so I’m getting some credit for what is being done already in this church.

The way you tell it, it’s almost like you fell into all these great opportunities.
It’s because I really follow what’s deeply in my heart. It doesn’t matter if it’s totally not practical, it doesn’t matter if people along the way told me not to do it. I’ve always followed what’s been deeply within me even though I didn’t know where it was going to lead. I had a sense of the goal even though I didn’t know the details.

I find it interesting that you love it so much and it’s really kind of your comfort zone. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that it’s uncomfortable for me to go into a hospital room and try to think of something to say.
I don’t think of something to say. I just go in, and they do what they need to do. They talk about what they need to talk about, they cry when they need to, or they tell stories when they need to. And it’s not really my comfort zone, it’s completely an “uncomfort zone.” A comfort zone is when you get comfortable, but this is what stretches me and there’s a difference.

Do you have any other loves you’d like to share with us?
In the midst of it all, as much as I love pastoral care and I love the ministry, Zoe will tell you that my best job is being a mom.