A Reading the Signs column by Jeane Tyler
“We have something to say. We want to be heard. Communication is what a church is about.
A clergy person with communication challenges differs little from someone in the pew,” says the Rev. Jeanne Tyler, who serves St. Paul’s in Lincoln, NE with her husband John. Jeanne reflected recently about living with speech impairment and a 55 percent hearing loss resulting from cerebral palsy.
Ordained for 20+ years, the member of national and conference level disabilities ministries committees said these losses are barriers. During worship, Jeanne moves closer to her congregation to hear announcements. “There is a difference between understanding what someone is saying,” she said, “and hearing. I may hear the words, but I don’t understand what they are.”
Neither do others understand her at times. Older sound systems that emphasize bass tones were designed by men for the male voice. “A good quality system with the mix of a good treble sound can amplify my voice to the best ability that it can be amplified. It is easier for people to hear. People don’t have to strain both to hear and to understand.”
Jeanne says most people offer a patient attitude. As she does not recognize phone voices well, most callers introduce themselves. On the other hand, acquaintances readily identify her voice.
She deposits positive feedback in the bank to draw on during lean times. “Otherwise, you can get pretty devastated,” she said. “The expressions on faces also tell me that most people who are interested and open to my sermon content respond positively.”
She said anyone with differences struggles with self-image. Who am I? How does what I look like affect how I am seen? How does how I am seen affect who I am? Jeanne occasionally sees herself on video.
“Then,” she says, “I know how much my congregation accepts me: I walk differently, I talk a little differently, and I listen differently. Yet, people laugh when I tell funny stories. They look sad when I tell sad stories. They have the normal reactions to me, so I know I must be doing something right. I try to be as real as possible.”
She reflects that she is “a person with disabilities with gifts and abilities.” Knowing she is not just a person with disabilities helps her to be a life-giving person. Among her gifts to her congregation is her capacity to listen attentively well to people.
Jeanne has seen the people of their church grow in understanding that God is somebody who accepts and affirms us, that it is okay to have limitations, that there are limitations in the world that we cannot always change, that we learn to live with them.
Her being, as well as her words, communicates a transformative faith that “announces life in the midst of death, change in the midst of fear, and love in the midst of apathy. This faith transforms fear of death, change, and lack of care into the power that the community can draw upon for strength. With this faith,” Jeanne Tyler says, “we trust God.”
First call for artwork, poetry, sculpture, a reflective paragraph from anyone acquainted with disabilities. Entries will be considered for an Annual Meeting display that increases understanding.
In what ways does your church include persons with hearing loss in the life of your church?
Reprinted from The Nebraska Record, Reading the Signs columns are used by permission
of the Nebraska Conference and shared with the hope that they will be used in other conference and local church newsletters to further disabilities ministries awareness.
