Interfaith Disability Connection educates and engages faith communities in cultivating mutually beneficial relationships with people with disabilities.
An excerpt from the Theology Forum that took place during the 2009 Interfaith Disability Connection Summit on Sunday August 9, 2009.
The question posed by forum moderator The Reverend Benno D. Pattison was: Does your tradition provide guidance about who people with disabilities are or why people have disabilities? Does this explanation help or hinder congregations in your tradition as they seek to welcome and include people with disabilities?
Responding to this question are:
Reverend Guy Pujol, Executive Director, AIDS Alliance for Faith and Health and Faculty Member, Interdenominational Theological Center
Dr. Khalid Siddiq, Atlanta Islamic Community Leader
Rabbi Mark Zimmerman, Congregation Beth Shalom, Dunwoody, GA
Check out the most recent episode of PBS’ Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. The episode features Reverend Bill Gaventa and people with disabilities and their families from Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations
Episode #3 of the Interfaith Disability Connection Podcast features Mrs. Betty Hasan-Amin and Reverend Alan Roof. Mrs. Hasan-Amin is the Founder of You-Ni-Verse Greeting Cards and a member at Masjid Al-Muâ??Minun. Reverend Roof serves as a Chaplain at Shepherd Center. Alan is an Ordained Minister in the United Church of Christ.
Betty and Alan are two individuals who helped plan and deliver the 2008 That All May Worship: Beyond The Ramp Conference. They discuss the impact that attending the 2008 event has had on them and help us preview what is most exciting to them as the prepare to participate in the 2009 Interfaith Disability Connection Summit on Sunday, August 9, 2009.
They also discuss why the think YOU Should plan to attend!
You can listen to the podcast by clicking the play button below:
I am late to the party on this and for that I apologize, but yesterday I came across an episode of the Interfaith Voices Podcast. The podcast includes a number of interesting stories about Pesach (Passover).
In this first podcast of the Interfaith Disability Connection Director Mark Crenshaw interviews Ginny Thornburgh, Director of the Interfaith Initiative at the American Association of People with Disabilities in Washington, DC, Thornburgh will serve as an event facilitator at the 2nd annual IDC Summit this Sunday, August 9, 2009 in Atlanta, Georgia. Click the play button on the player below to listen to the podcast.
This article by Archbishop Wilton Gregory from last week’s Georgia Bulletin provides and important example. I am grateful for the Archbishop’s perspective on these important issues
I was very impressed with the presenters, especially Robert Habiger, who is an architect. Habiger specializes in design of worship spaces. Mr. Habiger introduced participants in the webinar to a design concept called equivalent experience. Habiger says in an article about the concept from the EnvisionChurch.org web site that equivalent experience involves five key principles. The Principles are:
» Be intentional in discussing prejudices.
» Start with a focus on full, conscious and active participation.
» Explore situations disabled people face when in a worship environment.
» Donâ??t succumb to the belief that it is too difficult to accomplish.
» Think inclusivity, not separation.
If you would like to read more about the concept of equivalent experience in liturgical design you can go here and here.
The webinar is informative and the images used to convey Habiger’s concepts are powerful because they offer a fundamental reorientation to some of the common ways we conceive of congregational accessibility.
I would love to here from people who have been actively engaged in planning and implementation of design and renovation of your sacred spaces. Are Habiger’s concepts provocative? Are the feasible in your experience?
Reading and then meeting Dr. Nancy Eiesland brought about a transformation of thought and a transformation of possibility for me. She was a wonderful mentor, conversation partner, and friend. I am most grateful for her prophetic advocacy in the classroom, from the pulpit and in the larger world. She was capable of painting a picture of the already and the not quite yet for people with disabilities with equal measure of hope, grace and urgency. She did not shy away from inviting G-d into the fray or to request an account of the church’s failure to respond to the gifts and the needs of people with disabilities.
(Ret.) Archbishop Desmond Tutu speaks about the concept of ubuntu. Watch Tutu speak about ubuntu:
I understand ubuntu because of Dr. Eiesland. I would not be who I am apart from her contributions as teacher, writer, mentor, and friend. I assume that many people who met, heard and interacted with Nancy felt similarly.
Nancy’s books The Disabled God and Human Disability and The Service of G-d (Edited with Don Saliers) provide some of the most well conceived scholarship at the intersection of theology and disability even though it has been more than a decade since their publication.
Nancy will missed, but she leaves a hundreds of students and friends who will work to carry on the conversation in her absence.
Nancy’s words, deeds and friendship transformed the world for people like me, who were privileged to spend time with her. I ask that I may be an agent of that continued transformation so that Nancy’s legacy might live many years past her time here on Earth.
Nancy’s husband Terry and her daughter will remain in my prayers.
If you would like to attend a memorial service in honor of Dr. Eiesland there will be one held in the Cannon Chapel at Emory University on Sunday, March 22, 2009 at 2 PM.
Links to other pieces written about Nancy:
Links to Articles that Nancy wrote that help tell her story:
Darcee over at Simply Catholic has written an a step by step account about the social story that she wrote for her daughter, who lives with autism to help her prepare for her First Communion.
I think the story provides a wonderful model for educating people who have developmental disabilities about the rituals and movements of our congregations.
Please read the post and offer your comments. Have any of you used social stories to help facilitate your family member’s inclusion in your congregation or other social setting?
Zoila Martinez, is a member of St. Brigid Catholic Church in Johns Creek. I witnessed a wonderful presentation given by Mrs. Martinez about the process of helping her daughter prepare for her First Communion using a process very much like the one the writer of Simply Catholic describes.
Mrs. Martinez has accepted my invitation to be a part of a workshop on Inclusion of people with disabilities in study and service at the 2009 Interfaith Disability Connection Summit. You will be hearing more about the summit in the weeks to come.
