The
Old Testament Prophet Isaiah foretold of the day when a “Wonderful Counselor”
would come to God’s people to provide comfort, consolation, wisdom, and
guidance. Life is too hard and too
complicated to make it on our own. We
all need a gifted counselor to help us navigate life’s turbulent waters. Lexington has been richly blessed to have its
own “Wonderful Counselor” for the past 35 years—Dr. Lee Dukes.
Lee
Dukes is an icon in our community. In
October of 1980 he became the chaplain of Lexington Memorial Hospital, back
when Lexington was a thriving community.
Furniture factories were in their prime, textiles were booming, jobs
were plentiful, Lexington was growing and life was good. The new hospital chaplain was creating new paths
as he developed the Department of Pastoral Care and pioneered one of North
Carolina’s first “Chaplain Associates” programs to provide continuous crisis
intervention coverage.
In
those early years Lee was directing four other hospital departments in addition
to Pastoral Care: Patient Relations,
Social Services, Volunteer Services and the Adult Day Care, which was the
predecessor of today’s Life Center of Davidson County. Through all of this heavy responsibility, Lee
was quietly developing a reputation as a wise and gifted counselor. This is his strength, his calling, and his
passion. He has been present with
countless numbers of families during times of trauma and grief, healed broken
spirits, given new hope and direction to the despondent, helped those who were
devastated by crisis to see new possibilities, provided wise counsel to
professionals facing major career decisions, and he has been God’s faithful
prophet, proclaiming comfort, redemption and grace to those in darkness. Lee has helped untold numbers of individuals
and families through times of distress.
Yes, Lee Dukes is Lexington’s “Wonderful Counselor.”
His
long and respected tenure at Lexington Medical Center will end next month. It is hard to picture Lexington hospital
without Lee Dukes. A new chaplain has been called and a CareNet Office (a
counseling service through Baptist Hospital) will begin offering services, but it
just won’t be the same without Lee!
Lee
has blessed this community in so many ways.
In addition to the Life Center, he is also a founder of one of our
greatest ministries, Hospice. He has been
one of the strongest advocates and leaders in the new FaithHealth initiative
that will be continued by his successor.
In the hospital Lee is the face of bio-ethics and has facilitated this committee
for decades. He initiated and developed
the first in-house assistance program for hospital employees to provide
psychotherapy services when needed. And
there are scores of individuals who have not had the resources to receive Lee’s
services, but he has provided them anyway.
Lee
first came to Lexington in the 1970s as the Associate Minister of First United
Methodist Church. He has always been
available as a trusted resource to the clergy and at least once a year leads an
educational session with the ministerial association. He is our community’s most vocal and eloquent
spokesman for Mental Health. No one has
felt our state’s deficiency in dealing with the mental health crisis more than
Lee. He understands that we cannot have
a healthy community without adequate mental health resources.
My
family and I are personally indebted to Lee for his professional counsel and
his personal compassion. He has touched
the lives of countless numbers of families in our community with wisdom and
mercy. His retirement from the hospital is a monumental change for all of us,
but because of his legacy Lexington is better equipped to do justice, to love
kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.
Thank
you Lee for being our “Wonderful Counselor!”
