John Perkins Tribute | Christy Yates
Dr. John M. Perkins with Perkins Fellows and friends at the Perkins House, 2020. Photo: Lauren Stonestreet.
The sculptor Anne Truitt wrote that “The most demanding part of living a lifetime as an artist is the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work steadfastly along the nerve of one's own most intimate sensitivity.” I think this is a beautiful description of the life of Dr. Perkins. His most “intimate sensitivity” has been the personal and collective pain of racial injustice. And, rather than shying away from this pain, he has homed in on it, day in and day out, working along this tender nerve, knowing that only by abiding there, will deep and lasting healing come.
I first learned about the work of John & Vera Mae Perkins from a textbook (Mine Eyes have Seen the Glory by Randall Balmer) while an undergrad at UVA. It was the fall of 1996 and I had been meeting regularly in the basement of the Christian study center with Romesh Wijesooriya, Esther Adams, Dodd Pine, Corey Widmer and others to pray for racial healing on Grounds. Hearing the story of what the Perkins were doing in Jackson, MS, I knew that this was the kind of costly love we needed up here in Charlottesville, and that I needed in my own life. I convinced my then boyfriend, now husband, Chris, to take a road trip down to see this unusual, wholistic, multi-ethnic church and ministry. Without any GPS, we found our way to their church one Sunday morning and were warmly welcomed. We spent the next day following “Dr. P.” around, asking him lots of questions as he was fixing up an old house. A line he said that we still use to this day is: “Calk covers over a multitude of sins!”
That encounter helped develop a spring break trip to Jackson, MS and changed the direction of my own vocation. Returning to Charlottesville a dozen years ago, I worked with Karen Marsh to start the Perkins Fellows program - a vocational discernment experience through community engagement for undergraduates. With seed funding from the Lilly Endowment, our Perkins Fellows program has grown from just a few Fellows to nine this past year who each serve weekly at local non-profits in Charlottesville and then gather monthly to discuss what it means to live out the kingdom of God as students in this city. To date we’ve had over 80 Perkins Fellows who have served nearly 1000 hours for our city. And, to my knowledge, this is the only Christian ministry opportunity at UVA for students to be involved in regular, reflective service-learning.
John Perkins has many deep connections to Theological Horizons. Charles & Karen Marsh have had a deep and abiding friendship with his family and Charles and John wrote a book together, "Welcoming Justice: God’s Movement Towards Beloved Community.” We’ve also invited Dr. Perkins to speak twice as our Capps Lecturer, once in 2015 and once in 2020. Below are videos from our 2020 Celebration service of his life and his Capps Lectures in the Dome Room at UVA in 2015 and 2020. The photos are from his visit to the Perkins House, an interracial and intentional living-learning community of UVA women.
One of our favorite quotes from Dr. Perkins is the simple phrase: “Love is the final fight.” Dr. Perkins was somehow able, again and again and again, to hold the paradox of grit and grace together, tough love you might call it. Our hope for all of us is that we lean into the challenging divisions and fault lines of our lives, those ‘nerves of intimate sensitivities’, where we are invited to love hard and love well until the end…just like Dr. Perkins.
Christy Yates showing Dr. Perkins the portrait she painted of him. Photo: Lauren Stonestreet.