RM ‘Jim’ Parkes could sell life insurance like nobody else could. Mutual Life Assurance Company, in its time Jamaica’s oldest and largest insurance firm, recognised that and made him their president. But these days, Jim Parkes sells insurance policies of another kind – a spiritual insurance plan.

Less than one month ago, Parkes was ordained a priest at the St James Cathedral in Spanish Town, a seeming about-turn from the high-flying corporate life he once led. But while to some it may seem as an almost complete transformation, for Parkes, the move was long in the making.

“God is always calling people to answer the call to worship and to be of service to humanity, and I suppose one becomes a Christian somewhere along the line because one answers that call,” Parkes philosophises in an interview with the Sunday Observer. “I started a search in my own life many years ago, and I can’t say that mine was a dramatic call like St Paul’s with all the lightning flashing and such, but it was certainly real.”

Parkes spent close to 30 years at Mutual Life, building a reputation as a top notch insurance salesman. In 1996 he was named president by retiring head of the company, Gloria Knight. The company was dissolved a few years after, during the financial meltdown that spawned FINSAC (Financial Adjustment Company) the firm set up by the Government to bail out collapsed firms.

“Most persons would say that I was successful in my insurance career. Some would say very successful, others would say exceptionally successful. And it’s probably true. In hindsight, it’s probably true. I joined Mutual Life as a salesman and ended up becoming the president of the company, so I really have no complaints about my career as such, it really had served me well and I’ve benefited from it,” he says.

It seems illogical – even ridiculous – that someone at the zenith of his career would turn away from it all, but although he became more and more successful in the corporate world, Parkes was never entirely comfortable with his life, despite being financially secure, respected in his field, and having attained major successes in the industry.

“One gets a sense that there is more to life than we see, than we experience, and for me, there was something always missing,” he explains. “There was the sense that there is more to it all. You see, while insurance speaks about providing financial security for people, you still have to have some sort of philosophy behind it. And more and more I struggled with that, until it led me to ponder seriously about religion.”

His ruminations about religion, the meaning and purpose of life and Christianity first brought him back to the church, in fact the very church he used to attend as a child in the 1940s – St Andrew Parish Church in Half-Way-Tree. While still at Mutual Life, Parkes began to attend the Anglican church, trying to find answers to the questions that wouldn’t seem to go away.

“I hadn’t gone to church in a long time, but I returned of my own accord because I felt a need,” he says. “And when I felt that need I started to go to St Andrew Parish Church, and I went there for almost two years before I made the conscious decision to become a Christian.

“I grew up in a Christian family, in a very strong Christian family, but like many youngsters, you leave high school, you start to work, explore the world, you start to look for your own answers and experiences and church becomes not very attractive. The attraction of the world has a very strong pull on young people,” he continues.

“We are taught that we must become educated, we must become successful, and get married and have a family, because that is what we define as successful, and that we should aspire to drive a nice car, live in the hills, that sort of thing. And that’s all very good, but for some persons, there comes a time when you figure that this is not enough – there’s more to life than all of that. So I got to that point, and when I got to that point I returned to church.”

Being a Christian in the corporate world was “challenging”, admits Parkes, but as he began to explore and understand his faith more, he realised that the Christian life was the only way for him.

“I was still at Mutual Life at the time, so I began to try to live out my Christian beliefs and principles in that corporate environment. That was very challenging, because the world of business has its own rules and guidelines and objectives, some of which conflict with Christian principles. In general, I think I was able to balance it, but it had its challenges.”

Soon, Parkes realised that it wasn’t enough for him just to attend church, and also that by attending church, instead of having his questions answered, he generated more questions about faith, religion and Christianity.

In July 1998, he resigned as head of Mutual Life, and suddenly found himself with more time on his hands than he’d had in years. To keep himself busy and to try to get some answers for the life questions he pondered, Parkes enrolled in one course at the United Theological College of the West Indies (UTCWI), and another at the University of Technology (UTech).

Parkes confesses that he began the course at UTech with the aim of creating a new career for himself, having left insurance, but that he went to UTCWI “in search of answers”.

“I resigned and shortly afterwards went to the United Theological College in Mona because I had a number of questions about my own faith, Christianity, and so on. I enrolled in a course called “Systematic Theology” in the September of that year. At the same time, I was doing a course at UTech in Real Estate Sales and Marketing, because my intention was to go into some sort of business activity, and I’ve always liked real estate.”

Soon it became clear which programme of study sparked his interest more. After finishing both successfully, he decided to pick up two more classes at the theological college the next semester.

“I just felt more and more drawn to know more, to find out more about my faith, about Christianity and religion, so I stopped the real estate and enrolled in the Diploma Course in ministry, and by September 1999 I was a full-time student.”

The call, he says, came soon afterwards.

It came one day, uneventfully by comparison to examples in the Bible, while he sat in a class on Ministry. For him, it wasn’t exactly a shock, rather, it was coming closer to having the answers to his many questions about his life and faith.

“Remember,” he whispers now, “I didn’t enter the college with the intention of becoming a minister. I went in search of answers and it was during that one course that I was called.”

After going through the process of having the church approve and sponsor his studies officially, Parkes began a journey to a life of ministry.

As he was about to officially start life as an Anglican student, tragedy struck. In the World Trade Centre disaster of September 11, 2001 in the United States, just as the semester was about to begin, Parkes got news that his only son had died in the terrorist attack. But despite being devastated, grieving and himself in the hospital for surgery, Parkes tells the Sunday Observer that the tragic events did not derail his desire to be a part of the ministry, but rather, strengthened his resolve to complete his course of study.

“It was a major challenge spiritually because my son was very active in the church. He lived in New York with his mother, and it (9/11) came in the middle of my studies, but what it did for me was to strengthen my faith in God. It sustained me,” he explains, his eyes becoming teary. His son’s death raised more questions, he says, but as he struggled with the questions, his faith was bolstered and his drive renewed.

“We have a way of blaming God for bad things that happen, but at the same time we have free will. Still, we have to contend with evil in the world, and man’s inhumanity to man becomes something we struggle with, and the question is where is God in all of this. At the time, I could feel God as it were, strengthening my faith, and I really felt sorry for those people who had no faith. I wondered how they coped, because they had no answers. For them, this was just something terrible that happened.”

Adds Parkes: “I believe I know where he’s gone, I believe the life he lived has taken him there, and so I grieve, but I have faith in God.”

On June 27 this year, Parkes was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church, and is now stationed at the Kingston Parish Church in the heart of the capital city. Today, his modest office behind the Church is a far cry from the one he occupied at Mutual Life. But Jim Parkes seems to be at peace with his decisions and his course in life. His daily challenges now have to do with guiding people to Christ, and opening their eyes to the benefits of the spiritual insurance plan he now offers.

“I think I bring a sense of realism, and practicality in terms of how to lead a Christian life because the Christian life is really about how one lives every day in the world, although some people still think that it has to do only with life after death…” he says. “Of course, the other side is that with my financial background I’ll be able to bring that to bear because there is a business side of the church.”