The focus of last week’s meeting was building your congregation’s Inclusion Committee. The meeting featured two outstanding speakers and a brief presentation about what IDN has learned over 10+ years of supporting congregations on their journey’s toward full-inclusion of people with disabilities and their families.

The meeting was kicked off by a presentation from Dennis Kelly. Dennis work’s for Catholic Construction and Chairs the Inclusion Committee at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Lilburn, GA. Below check out some photos from their amazing renovation:

The renovation started with a commitment from the priest-in-charge to build the most accessible facility they could dream. People with a diversity of abilities and disabilities were consulted all along the process. There were a number of places where the church exceeded the ADA code or where the took the experiences of end-users with disabilities as the guide.

The result was a wonderfully accessible facility!

The priest-in-charge then brought together an inclusion committee. The charge to the committee was to use the parish’s accessibility as a platform to think about full-inclusion in the life of the parish

During the next part of the meeting Mark Crenshaw briefly presented a PowerPoint that featured what IDN has learned about supporting congregations on their journey’s toward full-inclusion:

Practical Steps to a More Inclusive Congregation (1)

Mark then promised that he would share links to surveys of accessibility and inclusion that members could use with their congregations:

Accessibility Assessment from Accessible Faith Progeam

Accessibility Assessment Used By IDN

Accessibility Assessment from The Unitarian Universalist Association 2010

Parish Accessibility Survey from Disabilities Ministry, Archdiocese of Atlanta

The meeting was hosted by Reverend Gerald Durley and the Community at Providence Missionary Baptist Church.

The meeting ended with Dr. Durley telling his own story of beinf labeled with a disability and therefore being put into a “box.” He then spoke about his church’s call to be accessible and welcoming to people with disabilities.

He ended by calling attendees to build the next civil rights movement to build a more just world for people with disabilities and their families!

IDN is grateful to Dr. Durley and Providence Missionary Baptist Church, to Dennis Kelly and St. Joh Neumann Catholic Church and to all of the advocates and self advocates who are building this movement together!

I come to my work and passion around the full inclusion of people with disabilities and their families honestly. When I was in junior high school the pastor of my small town United Methodist Church was a person who embraced a charismatic Christianity. During his tenure as pastor of the church there was speaking in tongues and there were many prayers spoken for healing (cure) of physical, emotional, spiritual and practical circumstances.

When I was 14 or 15 the pastor became convinced the God wanted to heal (cure) me of the effects of cerebral palsy. The pastor would call me to the altar each Sunday, anoint me with oil and pray that God would heal (cure) me. This went on for a number of months. I was never cured of the physical effect of my cerebral palsy. The pastor first became convinced that he was praying for the wrong thing and asked my family and I to explain what cerebral palsy was so he could make sure the correct words. There came a time when the pastor began to believe that his prayers weren’t the impediment to me receiving “my healing.” He then started asking me questions about un-confessed sins and wondering aloud if I really wanted to be free of my disability.

What I wanted when I was 15 and what I desire for myself and all of us now is the same. I want to inhabit congregations and communities where disabilities are not perceived to be impediments to lives fully lived and gifts, skills, and abilities shared for the healing and transformation of the world.

I have given talks and presented workshops to churches, synagogues, masajid and temples over the years and I have tried to speak words of hope and possibility to the people who have honored this vital conversation with their presences and participation. I have spoken words of hope and possibility because I am hopeful that churches, synagogues, masajid and temples all over this country WILL become places where people with disabilities and their temporarily able bodied fellow members share their gifts, skills and abilities together.

I sometimes choose to believe this in the face of evidence that speaks otherwise. Reverend Bill Gaventa says that when you ask families to tell the stories of their congregations you will either hear great stories of communities creating opportunities for belonging and community or you will hear terrible stories of exclusion and humiliation at the hands of religious people.

I know that stories of humiliation and hope are being written in congregations every day. The stories of entrance denied, of dignity trampled on, of gifts unrecognized serve to break my heart. My heart breaks because I know that congregations are turning away opportunities to help themselves become the communities that the Holy one is calling them to become.

There stories of access denied, of dignity denied, of the image of God denied threaten to force me to curse the darkness and begin to claim that religious leaders will never catch up to the wonderful, life-giving work God desires to do in our religious communities. These stories make me angry and depressed.

I know that stories of humiliation and hope are being told every day as well and these stories too often serve to tell people who live with disabilities and their families that religious communities are not place where they can seek to live as fully human, fully included people made in the most excellent of all molds (the Image of the Divine).

Where then is the content of my hope?

The content of my hope lies in congregations and communities who are engaging in the messy work of re-membering, calling back together ALL of the members to be the community we are called to be together.

These are stories where parish priests affirm that working with people with mental illness is the work that helps them come alive. These are stories where congregations covenant to stand with families with members with disabilities no matter what. These are stories where seminarians sit around a class room table and gain tools, resources and language to make the congregations they will lead places where everyone finds community and belonging.

The experience that I recounted at the beginning of this post plunged me into a dark night of the soul that lasted for a couple of years. I confused the my church’s un-willingness to accept me, as I was, with what I perceived to be G-d’s unwillingness to claim me. G-d and I were not on speaking terms for quite a while.

It was in college in 1994-1995 when I was introduced to a church called Community of Hope. This church was appropriately named if one ever was. The church was a place where people living with HIV/AIDS came and were accepted. It was a place where single parents found support. It was a place where people from every social class could worship together. It was a place that was committed to welcoming all of God’s people!

I began to experience unconditional love, acceptance, and healing (not cure, but healing) In fact, it was in this place that G-d 1st planted the seeds in me that I was acceptable and uniquely gifted. It was here ,for the first time, in the church(!) that I knew I could be a person with cerebral palsy and a valued member of a community. I understood that I could inhabit my body without apology!

I have hope because G-d met me, in a community, and spoke to me about how important I was to G-d and to my community.

I have hope because in the face of religious leaders and congregations who don’t yet know how to reflect the image of G-d who says, “YOU are valuable, YOU are Mine, and I love YOU!” There are people committed to stepping out in the midst of uncertainty and fear. There are people committed to naming the silences and telling and hearing life giving stories.

This post was prompted by my re-encountering a ritual in a book titled Shaping Sanctuary: Proclaiming God’s Grace in an Inclusive Church. The volume was edited by my friend, Reverend Kelly Turney. The ritual is titled: A Ritual of Hope The ritual comes from the Community of Hope in Tulsa and it is the community’s promise to journey with Barb and her son, Daniel, who lives with autism as they seek to better supports for Daniel.

I have hope because their are wonderfully loving, supportive, courageous people in the world who aren’t afraid to call each other by name and committ to support each other whatever comes.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr said, “The moral ark of the universe is long and it bends toward justice” and I will add to that the idea that there are courageous people who are willing to do the the work to bend it when justice doesn’t come as quickly as it should.

The Summer edition of Making A Difference Magazine from the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities features five articles about the power congregations have to be places of inclusion and opportunity for people with disabilities and their families.

Making A Difference Magazine Summer 2009

Thank you to Reverend Bill Gaventa, Ginny Thornburgh, Imam Furqan Muhammad, Pastor Devin Strong, Rabbi Harvey Winokur, Reverend Denny and Varion Spear, Pat Nobbie and many others for their work in lifting the profile of this important issue.

Thank you to The Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities for shining a light on religious leaders and congregations who actively engaging people with disabilities in worship, study, service and leadershi.

The second episode of the Interfaith Disability Connection podcast features an interview by Mark Crenshaw of Reverend Bill Gaventa; keynote speaker of the upcoming 2009 IDC Summit. The conversation provides a preview of the 2009 IDC Summit and it gives listeners a glimpse of Reverend Gaventa’s passion for the full-inclusion of people with disabilities in congregational life.

Reverend Gaventa serves as the Coordinator of Community and Congregational Supports at the Boggs Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Click the play button on the player below to listen to the podcast.

Download this episode (right click and save)

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

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:

Update: A memorial to Dr. Eiesland from the Emory Wheel, Emory’s student newspaper

Update: A link to a nice memorial from the New York Times

As stress increases more and more people in our congregation are likely experiencing the effects of depression. I have found that too often we have difficulty speaking the truth about depression because we feel we should be better able to control our moods. We become convinced that depression is a sign of weakness.

May faith groups have put together resources to assist congregations in talking about and responding to depression and other form of mental illness in our midsr. Here are links to a few of them:

United Methodist General Board of Church & Society

Department of Jewish Family Concerns- Union For Reform Judaism-Mental Health information

Presbyterian Church (USA)- National Health Ministries- Serious Mental Illness Information

Mental Health: Ministries: To Erase The Stigma of Mental Illness

I was reminded of these issues and the importance of providing space for this important conversation by a recent interview I saw with Quaker teacher and Scholar Parker Palmer.

Please take a few minutes minutes to view the clip below:

I would love to hear your reflections on our times and the rise of depression. I would also love to hear from readers concerning your reflections on the Parker Palmer clip.

Inclusion if people with disabilities in our congregational and community settings is a two way street. It opens up the possibilities that children with and without disabilities can learn together and challenge each other.

This morning I read a post from Dave Hingsburger at Chewing The Fat. Dave is one of the most observant bloggers I have encountered. He seems to be intentionally present to the lives of the people he encounters each day. This post is no exception. (Read it ready to be moved!)

I have often encountered families, unaware that I am hearing their conversations, who are not prepared to use the presence of a person with a disability as a teach-able moment. The parents in Dave’s story do an amazing job answering their son’s questions and giving him information to begin to remake his image of what it means for his neighbor to live with disability.

If we are to remake the world and our communities to include people with disabilities in powerful, life-giving ways we must begin by paying attention to the opportunities around us. We must engage those opportunities as experiences that can dispel ignorance and fear. I was moved by the simple, loving, educational interaction between the members of this family and the role that the presence of the stranger turned friend played in opening up possibilities.

Sometimes the power of inclusion is simply in the showing up! Showing up is helping to create the next generation of advocates and allies.

Have readers who live with disabilities had experiences with children that opened up possibilities?

Have family members been able to find language to help children dispell myths, fear and ignorance around the presence of people with disabilities?

Does anyone have other suggestions about speaking to children about disability?

I came across an essay about how, for one Rabbi the Inauguration was a reminder of G-d’s power to break into history and change circumstances.

I found the piece originally on The Jspot. The piece is written by Rabbi Shai Held, a Conservative Rabbi and seminal Jewish thinker:

I have said countless times before: the meaning of the Exodus is that anything is possible, that there is no status quo that cannot be overturned. Imagine a world in which you are a slave, and your father was a slave, and his mother before him, and so on for generations. And then, seemingly suddenly, God intervenes and you are no longer a slave. To be sure, the journey ahead will be long and arduous. Indeed, there will be moments when things seem so frightening and unsettling that you will even find yourself longing for the way things were before. But there is no returning to the way things wereâ?? not ultimately, anyway. The Exodus is a rupture, a break in history, a moment after which all things are new, a moment in and through which all things are possible.

I have a very personal confession to make: over the past couple of years, as my struggle with chronic illness has continued and in many ways intensified, I have found myself less able to talk about the Exodus in this way. Is there really no status quo that cannot be overturned? I have asked myself. What about the pain and fatigue that wrack your body each day? What about the degradations and devastations that pervade the globe and seemingly make a mockery of human dignity and of lifeâ??s meaningfulness? Perhaps all this talk of the Exodus as paradigmatic for human history was just loose talk, just so much Pollyanna nonsense. I have wondered, and lamented the depths to which life seems resistant to, indifferent to, the stories we tell and the narratives we strive to live by.

This morning I feel something I have not felt in quite a long time: I believeâ?? but really believeâ?? in the Exodus again. That which was utterly impossible, indeed unimaginable, will become a reality in just a few short minutes. The United States of America, the great beacon of freedom and democracy, has always been tainted by the monstrous legacy of slavery and the ways it denied that black men and women, too, were created in the image of God and were thus every bit as infinitely valuable as their white counterparts. Today these same United States will swear in its first black president, a black man who will occupy the very house that slaves built so long ago. The status quo has been overturned, repudiated, one might even say redeemed. (This, I hasten to add, remains true regardless of oneâ??s political commitments or affiliations.)

We ought not be deceived. Just as the Israelites faced a long and torturous road to the Promised Land, so also do we Americans face a long and difficult road ahead (and on more fronts than I can begin to list). The Hasidic masters teach that each year we are obligated to re-live the Exodus, to tap into the liberatory energy that the Exodus represents, to reclaim and deepen our own freedom and dignity as Godâ??s creatures. I cannot help but feel that the Exodus is being re-enacted and re-experienced in our day, today.

To be sure, many of the worldâ??s problems will remain as intractable tomorrow as they seem today. On a personal note, my own battle with illness is not likely to disappear soon. Iâ??m still not sure about every status quo being overturnedâ?? at least not before the Messiah comes and enacts a kind of cosmic Exodus for us all. But what Iâ??ve learned this morning is that much of what we take as given and immutable is in fact neither. So I go back to what I have said and taught over and over again: to take Judaism seriously is to believe that the world as it is is not yet the world as it must be, and to know that we are implicated in the sacred task of closing the gap between them. May all of our faith in the possibility of redemption and transformation be renewed and revitalized by this extraordinary day.

â??This is the day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and delight in it.â?

God bless all of you, and God bless the United States of America.

The bold emphasis has been added by me.

I appreciate the point of Rabbi Held’s writing because I sense something new in the air, but I find myself intrigued by the paragraph I highlighted.

The onset of chronic pain and disability can affect a person’s ability to believe in one’s G-d and in oneself!The onset of chronic pain and disability can and does alter our experiences of community. Chronic pain and disability can and does change those who live with it in so many ways.

This raises several important questions for our congregations, I think.
1. Are we asking people how we can help them?
2. Are we willing to be present to the pain and grief without trying to explain it?
3. Are there ways our congregations can support people in their journeys of questioning and discovery?
4. Do our congregations have care teams and other support mechanisms in place to remain connected to people who are struggling with the onset of chronic pain and disability?

Are there other questions I am forgetting?

It is my hope and prayer that our congregations begin and continue to offer love, support and connection in the difficult and pain-full times in the lives of the members of our communities.

I would love to know what you think?