THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 23, 1995 TAG: 9511230569
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
As a newly ordained Methodist minister in rural Virginia, Judy Hash felt overwhelmed by the struggles of those in her congregation. She was too young and inexperienced, she says, to give them wise guidance.
So Hash took a different route to helping people. In 1989, she traded the pulpit for a patrol car and became a Norfolk cop.
To her, the two jobs aren't as different as people might think.
``When I talk about ministry, I mean I had the opportunity to help people out of horrible situations, to encourage people, to give them hope, all of the things we're taught that being a Christian is about,'' the 34-year-old officer says. ``I'm able to express these things with my job on the street.''
Those two careers came together Wednesday night, as Hash traded her uniform for a jade business suit to deliver a sermon at an ecumenical community Thanksgiving service at Temple Baptist Church on Tidewater Drive. The event, sponsored by 10 churches in the Fairmount Park, Ballentine Place, Lafayette-Winona neighborhoods, has been held annually for eight years.
Hash was invited by pastors at the local churches, who got to know her through her work in the past two years as a community-based police officer. When they learned what Hash jokingly calls her ``great secret'' - that she had mastered the 12-minute sermon in her years at Duke University's Divinity School - they convinced her to flex her preaching muscle.
Her short sermon on Wednesday, to a crowd of 150, reflected her life as a police officer, where she has searched for signs of goodness while responding to a steady stream of vicious and violent acts.
She took her theme from the words of the Apostle Paul: ``Give thanks in all circumstances.'' And Hash said she has found reason for thanks in situations where others might find despair.
She talked about going to a ``roach motel,'' in Ocean View, to pick up a 13-year-old runaway girl. The motel manager told her that a tenant was keeping the teenager in a room until police arrived, and Hash paused outside the tenant's door to listen to the conversation.
She recalled hearing a voice: ``You're young, honey. You have your whole life ahead of you. If you don't make wise choices, you can end up like me, a prostitute. I've been beaten. I never feel safe. Your parents love you. Go home.''
Hash opened the door to find one of the transvestite streetwalkers she regularly saw on her patrol, dressed in a red miniskirt and a black silk top with cleavage showing.
The teenager said, ``Ok, I'm going home.'' Hash said her own surprise turned to gratitude. ``I thank God for that moment and for this unusual vessel that God used to save this child.''
Hash's first career choice came out of her involvement in her home church in Mathews, the quiet country town where she grew up. Salem United Methodist Church was a place where ``everyone knew everyone,'' she says, ``where I felt a tremendous amount of love.''
She won a scholarship to Eastern Mennonite College in Harrisonburg, which emphasized the Christian commitment to community service. She went straight into a three-year stint at Duke University's Divinity School. Immediately after her ordination in 1988, she shipped out to become pastor of two rural congregations outside Lynchburg.
From the first, she never felt up to the job. ``I got in a situation where I was a young person, I'd gone from college to grad school, I had all these credentials and I didn't know diddly about people,'' she said. ``I really felt out of my league.''
A year later, she resigned. She had thought about trying law enforcement in earlier years - an uncle who was a state trooper and another in the Internal Revenue Service were some inspiration - so she applied to the Norfolk police. Soon after, the former Methodist minister was learning how to shoot a handgun and work as an undercover narcotics officer.
Her training as a pastor has helped her as a police officer, she says, especially in thinking about the family drama behind violent conflict. It also helped her become a better listener, she says. ``I hear beyond the peripheral, `He did it, she did it.' ''
And it has helped her view the community as a kind of huge congregation - full of good people she may never know, but whose influence is felt.
``We drive past the homes of thousands and thousands of good people, family people, church- and synagogue-going people. . . on the way to that one violent incident,'' she said. ``What I drive past are people with phenomenal gifts and energy.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot
Fresh out of divinity school, Judy Hash, 34, wanted to know more
about people to do her job. On the street, she still gives thanks.
by CNB