Biography
Woodie White is currently Residing Bishop for the Illinois Area of the United Methodist Church. He grew up on Lennox Avenue in the heart of Harlem, and by his own admission was a troubled kid. His journey from there to Bishop is a challenge to all of us. His most recent book is Confessions of a Prairie Pilgrim, a book of meditations taken from a weekly column. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Being Upbeat in a Downbeat World" 
It is an audacious invitation: The Psalmist dares to ask that God search hearts, know thoughts, to see if there be any wicked way in heart and mind.

I was a student in Boston University when I was required to take clinical training in some hospital. I decided to do that training in a mental institution. There, once a week, I would spend a day trying to provide some ministry to those who had lost their way mentally. The mornings were difficult as we worked with patients, but I discovered the afternoons were even more difficult. For in the afternoons those of us who were students spent hours with psychologists and psychiatrists and chaplains, not now looking at patients, but rather looking at ourselves, trying to discern what it was in us that we needed to know better, what made us tick, where were the hidden places in us that we did not want revealed. It was a difficult time indeed. It was more difficult to look at me than it was to look at others.

The Spirituals in their simple verse, but in their profound message, seem to get right to the point of things theologically and worldly. In one of their moving verses you hear these words:

It's me, it's me, it's me, O Lord,
Standing in the need of prayer.
Not my father, not my mother
But it's me, O Lord,
Standing in the need of prayer.
Not my sister, not my brother,
But it's me, O Lord,
Standing in the need of prayer.

It's me, O Lord. "Search me, O God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me. Lead me in the Way Everlasting."

A little girl was overheard saying her prayers one evening. Her mother heard her say these words: "O God, make the bad people good and the good people nice." I suppose when we get down to it, all of us - the bad people and the so-called good people - need to have time to look inward, to see if there is any wicked way in us. For even good people are not always nice. They are not nice to others and often not nice to themselves. Taking time to look inward is awesome, sometimes frightening; we don't like what we see.

It seems that now many people don't want to take responsibility for themselves. "Everything is wrong except me. The government is wrong, the church is wrong, politics is wrong, my neighbor is wrong, and, in my case, my wife is always wrong, but I am always right." We don't want to look at ourselves. But we must, for maturity requires that we own responsibility for those actions for which only we have responsibility. "Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thought, and see if there is any wicked way in me." In my most honest moments I know the prayer of that Spiritual is really my prayer. It's me, it's me, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Not my father, not my mother, not my sister, not my brother, but it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.


I have a good friend who is a banker. Some months ago he gave me a book of prayers. That's most unusual - a banker giving a bishop a book of prayers - but it has become one of my most treasured books. It is called A Book of Private Prayer by a Roman Catholic Priest. In it he shares his utmost dreams and frustrations and aspirations. In one of those prayers he talks about how he wants to be better known by God. He wants to own his own faults and failings and then he makes this haunting observation: He says, "I suppose God is more offended by my evasions and excuses than by my glaring failures."

I suppose God is more offended by our evasiveness, by our excuses, than by our failures. I challenge you, I invite you, to take time in the quiet of your room, the quiet of your home, and ask that haunting question asked by the Psalmist, "See if there be any wicked way in me. Search my heart, my thoughts." Dare you stand naked spiritually before God and ask God to look at your attitude toward your neighbor, towards those who may look differently or speak with a different accent. Your attitudes towards those who may be of a different class or group or nation or opinion? Dare you show your naked self to God, asking that God search you?

I suppose that none of us are all that we would like to be - none perfect, none righteous. And the words of the Spiritual certainly are ours: "It's me O Lord, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer." I want to blame government and politicians. I want to blame church and social services. I want to blame spouse and members of my family. But too infrequently do I look at me - my faults, my failures, the places I need to grow to become a better me. Yes, it's me, it's me, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

There's this cosmic link from the appeal of the Psalmist to a Cross, a Cross on which One died for us all - One who stands waiting and able and willing to help us. We are able to ask God to look at us only because we know that after the searching, after the revelation, that whatever is found there we do not have to bear all by ourselves.

There is a marvelous little story about two Japanese monks who were travelling along a muddy road. They came to a bend in the road and there they saw a lovely young woman dressed in silks and satins and a beautiful gown. She was trying to cross the muddy road without getting her gown soiled. It was an impossible task. One of the monks immediately moved through the mud, lifted her ever so gently, and then carried her to the other side. As he did that, his companion, Ekido, looked with utter horror, not saying a word, but obviously displeased with what he saw. The two, Ekido and Tanzan, continued their journey. But Ekido said not a word for the rest of their journey. Finally, as night came, he could no longer hold his discomfort and anger and he said to his friend, Tanzan, "Why did you touch that young woman? You know it is against our belief for us to do that and yet you lifted her. Why did you do it?" Where upon Tanzan said to Ekido, "My brother, I left her along the road. Are you still carrying her?"

Yes, we are able to stand before God with this plea: "Search me, O God. It is me, it is me, it is me." We are able to stand before God only because we know that whatever is found, whatever seen, that we don't have to carry it all alone. The burden is too heavy, the attitudes fixed - some from childhood through adulthood - they are heavy and we wonder what we can do about them.

There is One who comes at the point of owning our thoughts, confessing our sin, standing stripped of pretense and standing in utter honesty, and who says, "I can take the attitude and change it. I can take the behavior and change it. I can take your arrogance and make you more humble. I can take your prejudice and make you an open, new creation."

It's me, it's me, it's me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. And the Lord says, "You don't have to carry it all by yourself. You don't have to carry that load all of your life. You don't have to be the way you are. You can be better."

When I was a boy I remember a song that was sung by the late singer, Bing Crosby. "You can be better than you are." Isn't that a wonderful promise? I no longer have to hold attitudes and hatred. I no longer have to be gripped and held firmly by habits that do not help me. I no longer have to hate, but I can become a loving, new and caring person. But only when I'm willing to stand before God and acknowledge that I'm not as nice as I ought to be, nor as faithful, nor as kind, nor as committed, nor as generous. Then ask God to take what God finds and where there is any wicked way in me, help me to become a better person.
It's me, it's me, it's me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer. Not political parties, not political leaders, not my adversaries, not my friends, but it's me O Lord.

So I pray that you will be willing to stand in that moment of quietness. You know what you need to bring to God. Is it a habit, an attitude, some little quirk that you know is preventing you from being the best you that God would have you be? In the quiet of your room, will you stand, will you kneel, will you sit, and say with those profound words of the Psalm, "Search me O God, know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, see if there be any wicked way in me." Because "it is me, it is me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer."

And then you will discover the words of our Lord, "There is no sin so terrible that God's love cannot forgive." In that moment you will discover the possibility that is yours to be a new person - a new person in spirit, a new person in heart, a new person in mind. What an opportunity is yours because that is the kind of God whom we serve -One who loves and cares for us and who searches us out in our most difficult and in our most unlovable moments. It's me, and it's you, standing in the need of prayer.

Let us pray: Search me O God and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me. Then lead me in your Way Everlasting.

Interview with Bishop Woodie White

Dave Hardin:  Woodie, you told us, in an earlier show, how you grew up in a pretty tough part of Harlem as a troubled kid. Obviously, some changes have taken place. Tell us some of the turning points in your early life, would you?

Bishop Woodie White: Yes, the turning points were always people, never programs per se, but individuals who took time to correct me, to show what I call "tough love." A teacher who was tough but loving, a pastor who was tough but loving, a Christian Education director -tough but loving - and especially a man whose life did not demonstrate all that he taught, interestingly enough, but who had the good sense to put me in the right direction.

Hardin:  Who was this man? Was he a pastor or an uncle?

White: No, he was my God-Father, and literally, a Godfather.

Hardin:  So you had a real role-model, which is pretty important. One of the things that I hear about, and I think one of the most troubled areas today, is the inner-city youth. Huge drop-out rates from the High Schools, a lot of anger, a lot of unemployment, a lot drugs and not very many answers for this part of our society. What are some of your thoughts on how we can get at this problem?

White:  I'm convinced that there is no substitute for caring people because caring people can take a little and do a lot with it. You can have a lot of things and not have people who care and my feeling is you won't accomplish as much. I think people in the church, people in the community, must never abdicate their personal responsibility to show, as I say, tough love - to be able to correct, but to be able to show those you are correcting that you really love them and care about them. I think that's one of the things that is sorely needed today.

Hardin:  You mentioned that you had a mentor that changed your life. I'm really an enthusiast about mentoring. I'm told that young men particularly need a role model and that they are hard to come by in the inner-city, in the Black community and the other parts of the inner-city community. How do we get at that? Do you agree with me and how do we find these mentors?

White: Yes, the interesting thing that happened in my life, I was challenged by a man - I was talking hip, I knew the lingo, I had my own little walk and my own nickname - and one day I used slang to convey a thought and to my surprise, he challenged me. He said, "That kind of communication won't help you in life and you've got to learn to communicate better than that." I was surprised because I saw him as a role model and in fact he seemed to evidence in his own life the kind of model that I was trying to project. But he said, "I am not the kind of model that you need."

Hardin:  How old were you when you really sensed the presence of God in your life and had some kind of personal involvement or relationship with the Lord?

White:  All my life. I never had any trouble with sensing the presence of God in my life. My trouble was with the church. But I always knew there was a presence of God, I can't remember a time when I did not feel God's presence.

Hardin:  How about the decision to go to seminary. What did that come from?

White:  From a woman who, again, challenged me. I had intended to be a lawyer, and she said, "You are not going to be a lawyer, God is calling you to do something else." I was amazed and I do believe that God speaks through people and people can help us hear God's call even when we are not listening.

Hardin: Before you became Resident Bishop of the Illinois Area, you were General Secretary of the Commission of Religion and Race. What kinds of things were you facing, what kinds of racism were you dealing with in the church at that time?

White:  At that time, we were dealing with legally constituted, segregated structures where black people were in one structure, white people were in another structure and hispanic people were in another structure. Part of my responsibility was to help develop a structure in which all people were to be united and treated fairly. This was during the '60's and the early '70's. Then, of course, racism was more overt than it later became to be in the beginning of the '80's at any rate.

Hardin:  How about today? Are we making headway, are we losing some ground?

White:  I think we are losing ground. I'm sorry to say it. I think we are especially losing ground in the North. I happen to feel that if the North had done as much to deal with race relationships in the last 20 years as the South has done, the whole country would be at a better place. Racism is a lot more subtle in some places and then in some other places we are seeing some more overt expressions of racism. We seem to have given up completely on the idea of having an authentically integrated society. I think we still prefer to be in our own separate worlds.

Hardin:  I'm sure you are right. What is one of your dreams for the church, what would you like to see happen?

White:  I dream that one day our society can live out this wonderful American creed that we have, where all people will be accepted as they are and all people will have a chance to excel and have the potential and opportunity to be fine, productive citizens.