By Liz Holmes
A physical therapist, she elaborates, talks with patients "on an intimate level. Patients are concerned about how they're going to live. It's easy to move from how you're going to walk or get out of bed to concerns about life and death." As a pastor, too, she tries to be "a spiritual leader in all life situations, from birth to the grave." But there's nothing remote or ethereal about that role. At the urban Faith Congregational -- at 177 years, the oldest black Congregational church in Connecticut and possibly in the nation -- she ministers "one on one and to the community." This means, among other things, building a collaborative relationship with troubled schools -- starting a mentoring program with volunteers from the church and running an after-school music program. Along with the usual pastoral duties of managing and speaking -- she has a warm, rich voice, and listeners describe her as "charismatic" -- Headley as chaplain opens and closes sessions of the Connecticut senate, where she tries to "be a religious presence around the lawmakers" and to speak up on ethical issues. It's a busy life and, she says, "My leisure is carving out a few hours for physical therapy." After graduating from Ithaca, Headley worked for five years as a physical therapist in the Bronx, then went to Union Theological Seminary in New York City. A trip to South Africa with fellow students and pastors during her last year of seminary bolstered her concern for community in the widest sense. She met Bishop Desmond Tutu, whom she found "tremendously inspiring." Despite the grim conditions of apartheid, she was struck by "the hope and love of the people." She came home to get deeply involved in the divestment movement. Headley got her doctorate in 1989 from Hartford Seminary, where she was appointed assistant dean even before graduating. There she taught classes at both the master's and the doctoral level. Though she loved teaching, she wanted to be a pastor in an urban ministry. Reaching that goal wasn't easy. Though Headley estimates that two-thirds of the students in American and Canadian seminaries are women (many of them embarking on a second career), women as pastors still encounter strong resistance. "God is not a respecter of gender," says Headley firmly, but many church members say they "just can't get used to a woman." Though Headley could serve in an interim capacity, any sort of permanent role as pastor or chaplain was hard to come by. At last, in 1996, after having served Faith Congregational Church for some time as acting pastor, she was installed in the permanent position, thus becoming "the only woman pastor of an established black church in Connecticut." (She is careful to say "established," noting that some women, frustrated at the resistance to them as ministers, have started their own churches.) The occasion was momentous enough to merit a personal letter of congratulations from President Bill Clinton. Though she has her own church now, she still has difficulties. Many members have yet to be won over, but there is progress. For example, she tells of a church member who said, "Before, I couldn't think of having a woman pastor. Now I don't know what my problem was." Sometimes she has to meet with male pastors who are "openly hostile," and in some settings she is the only female. But after years in the ministry, Headley says, she has "learned to handle that, and not be defensive." She has an assured but unpretentious consciousness of her role: "My very presence is a learning experience for people." |
For Barbara Headley '77,
the physical and the spiritual have always been connected. This year the
energetic pastor of Faith Congregational Church in Hartford became chaplain
of the Connecticut senate -- the first Protestant and the first woman ever
to fulfill that role. But she is also a physical therapist who practiced
for several years before entering the ministry, supported herself through
seminary by practicing in the evenings, and still finds time to see a few
patients. "Therapy," she says, "is a laying on of hands."