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| Erik Carter introducing Mark Crenshaw |
The third day of #SITD actually started a half an hour
earlier than the last few days… unfortunately, most of us were dragging a
little bit! But the speakers were well
worth it. Bishop David Talley of the
Atlanta Archdiocese, Barb Newman of the CLC Network (and a frequent Friendship
Ministries collaborator) and Mark Crenshaw, our host at Georgia State
University and Director for the Center for Leadership in Disability.
Bishop Talley addressed Humility and Service as part of his
own spiritual journey. A former Baptist
and seminarian dropout who finally studied canon law in Rome, he was challenged
to action by a mother years ago. Since
then, he has made serving people with disabilities a non-negotiable as a local
parish pastor and now in his present responsibilities as bishop.
A dynamic speaker, several of his comments stuck with me…
- As a member of the clergy, if I am to serve you, I must know how you learn and process.
- A life of humility is both a gift and a learned art -- only then can we move from arrogance and isolation to joy and connection.
There is no question that Bishop Talley is prophetically speaking
to congregations unwilling to move towards full worshiping participation. He juxtaposes the isolation that is often
experienced by people with disabilities, with the isolation that will occur when
those in the church find they are not living out God’s path.
Barb Newman walked through several chapters of her new book Accessible Gospel, Inclusive Worship and concentrated on Vertical Habits – encouraging us to take the skeleton of
the liturgy and dress it with musculature that is universally accessible
(Talley’s description). Her approach
from a special education consultant gave practical ideas (fidgets, rubber
bands, visual schedules, early warnings, assistive tech) for people to access
the curriculum in kinesthetic, visual, and physical means. The challenge for many (as evidenced in
twitter conversations) is to utilize her ideas outside of the reformed ordered
worship setting in which they originated.
Mark Crenshaw, in Recipients Towards Bearers, exegeted
the blind Bartemeus story, telling it from the perspective of the subject who
engaged Jesus, interrupting the crowd, and obtaining what he needed. Mark reflected that the greatest gift he has
to share (as a connector, often in religious communities) arose out of some of
his most painful experiences of disability within the church. He also reminded us that until we exegete and
understand the community and context and are finally trusted to do work on
behalf of the community, one may not belong yet.
In the discussion afterwards, we were reminded that a formal
weekly liturgy is actually just the template for the real liturgy which occurs
during the lifecycles of the rest of the week.
All three speakers revealed that all people with
disabilities have gifts. It is often
those of us without current disabilities that must get out of their way in
order for those gifts to be realized.
One critique leveled against the speakers this morning was
the danger of imposing a particular spiritual communities voice upon those
without the communicative capacity to reject that voice. A danger may exist in that we often may force
the presence of G-d or a sign of his into a situation where it does not exist. This
is a danger that clergy members – and the larger community of faith – may need
to guard against.
