For Wilshire Baptist Church
“Are you a retired doctor?”
“No.”
“Well, you look like a retired doctor.”
“Sorry, but I’m not.”
The question came from a man remodeling the vacant house next door. Work has been sporadic over the past two years, so I sometimes walk over when someone is working to get the latest forecast on completion. We’re eager to have good neighbors in that house.
The conversation this day was through an open window when I took a break from mowing. I can’t imagine what there was about me that made him think I was a doctor, and a retired one at that. I mean, seriously, I was mowing my own lawn. The closest I’ve come to being a doctor is when I worked in communications at DART and donned a doctor’s white coat for a photo shoot in the atrium at Medical City Hospital.
Another time I was mistaken for someone also happened while working at DART. A photo was taken of me and my coworker Melody at communications awards banquet, and someone saw the photo later and asked her, “What are you doing with David Finfrock?” That comparison was totally off my radar — like thunderstorms in July — but that was back in the day when the longtime NBC5 meteorologist and I both had a mustache and a streak of gray in our otherwise dark hair. I suppose if you were squinting you might find a resemblance.
The most alarming time I was mistaken for someone else was when I walked into a convenience store in Waco and a police officer outside eyed me as a perfect match for the suspect in a string of C-store holdups. He was ready to pounce, but when I greeted him by name as I came out, he realized I was the new police reporter at the newspaper he had met at the station a few days earlier. Whew, that was close!
Those cases of mistaken identity make me laugh now, and they’re easy to brush off because they’re based on superficial physical appearance. I’ve made the same mistake myself: last year I waved enthusiastically at Wilshire’s Katie and Steven Murray from a distance at a Baylor basketball game until a closer look revealed it wasn’t them. The couple I flagged looked at each other like, “Huh?” No harm done, unless the couple spent the rest of the night trying to figure out who I was.
Mistaken identity can be funny, but it can be disheartening if the other person turns away in disappointment or dread, or says, “Oh, it’s just you.” The good news is there almost always is someone who wants you, appreciates you, needs you and is happy for you to be “just the way you are,” as Billy Joel sings. The key is to be your authentic, natural, God-created self. That’s when you find out who your true friends are.
That was a theme at the beginning of Vespers at Wilshire on Wednesday evening. Pastoral Resident Georgia McKee, who will lead the services each month through the fall and spring with Resident Maggie Morey, encouraged us to come each time “as you are; bring your authentic self.” She listed a full menu of states of the human condition – some temporary and some permanent – that can make us feel less than presentable in public.
As I listened, I recognized conditions that we fear will turn people off. For me, that list might include tired, discouraged, irritated, uncertain, ashamed, regretful, feeling “less than.” But church, of all places, is where we should be all-in on being authentic. Church, by design and by mission, should be where we have the best chance to get close to the God who created us, warts and all. It’s where we shouldn’t be afraid or ashamed to be our authentic self. Still, it doesn’t always work out that way because churches can be judgmental and intimidating. To be an authentic congregation, we have to welcome authenticity among each other, starting with ourselves.
Back at home, I’m glad I spoke up and cleared up the truth of my not being a doctor. I’d hate for there to be a nail gun accident or someone fall off a ladder next door and have them come running to me for help — all because someone thinks I’m a doctor. The reality is while I never declared pre-med as a major, I took pre-med biology as a “what if” and was weeded out as designed. I’m grateful that door was closed, because I found my authentic self in other pursuits.