Path to compassion
San Anselmo minister turns life challenges into helping others
Volunteering as a minister with the San Quentin Death Row Ministry, Chitoka Webb has often had to think about life and death while being a non-judgmental ear for others. It became more personal last year when the 48-year-old San Anselmo resident was unexpectedly diagnosed with end-stage liver disease and is now on the transplant list awaiting a liver.
Through this, the Presbyterian minister and chaplain intern believes she has become a “better friend of death by becoming a better friend to people.”
Webb took a leap of faith three years ago to move to Marin from Iowa to get her master of divinity at the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, which she did in May. Through her studies with Shaw Chaplaincy Institute, she spends her time at Christ Presbyterian Church in Terra Linda, St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Marin City and as a care line counselor at the San Francisco Night Ministry.
In her 2011 memoir, “Something Inside of Me: How to Hang On To Heaven When You're Going Through Hell,” she shares about growing up impoverished in Nashville, losing her sight for six months as a result of Behcet's disease and becoming a successful businesswoman.
She was recently awarded the Eastern Star Training Award For Religious Leadership Scholarship by the Grand Chapter of Iowa, Order of the
Eastern Star.
Q
What inspired your transition out of business?
A
I have always had the call. The problem was I didn't want to be a preacher because I didn't like my example of preachers. I didn't like how certain people were going to hell, and certain people weren't and certain people had to believe this. So I ran, and instead of going to seminary, I did everything else. I created businesses I was successful at, had a book deal and went on a book tour. But that call was still there and I couldn't run anymore from becoming a preacher who is inclusive.
Q
What inspired you to want to get involved with the San Quentin Death Row Ministry?
A
I have always been actively engaged in my community, even as a teenager. I had always done prison ministry work. I'm originally from Nashville, Tennessee, and I was with the Nashville Juvenile
Justice Center. But I had never, ever done work with individuals who have been condemned to die. It was a way for me to learn more compassion. And what I also have learned is the only way to actively learn anything or to change your behavior about it is to get involved with it.
O
ne of the things about the San Quentin Death Row Ministry is that we take an oath to never look up the person's crime. I had received this letter from a man who ended up getting more yard time, and just those few extra minutes caused him to have blisters on his feet. And he said, “But having blisters on my feet is a good problem to have.” That really touched me, and that all kind of coincides with doing chaplaincy work, because chaplaincy is all about compassion.
Q
Has faith always been a part of your life?
A
Always. And in part because it always shows up, not when I want it to, but when I needed it to. It has
never failed me yet. I always had 20/20 vision. In 2005, I was in my office. I was looking down at the keyboard and I looked up because someone had come into my office, and I couldn't see them. And then I blinked and I still could not see them. I was told that my vision would not come back. My whole world stopped. I remember just always saying, God, I can't do this. And I remember God telling me, I can. If you were to look at me, you would never know that I've been through what I've been through. It was hard. And then it happened again. I'm writing a second book about what I am going through now.
Q
Were you someone who always was motivated to help people?
A
I have always had that particular motivation.
But it came from the fact that I had my own reckoning with my own death. … You stop seeing everything through your eyes, and you learn to see things through other people's eyes. You look at life totally different.