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A Word of Hope on Ash Wednesday

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This is the second entry in the UCCDM Lenten Devotional 2015. This reflection for Ash Wednesday comes to us from Mr. Robert Kates an M.Div. student at Brite Divinity School. 

But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

~Matthew 6:6 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

I have prayed to my Mother/Father, God, many times behind my closed door. First, over twenty-five years ago when I felt that door slam in my face with the reality of HIV/AIDS and now these past seven years having developed polymyositis, a disease that affects all the muscles of the body. For that door opens onto a staircase leading down to the first floor. There are 14 steps.

However doors do have door knobs, God has shown them to me. They can be opened and walked through, even though now I may require a walker. And that staircase beyond my door must be descended cautiously, and climbed passionately. Yet still God has shown me nothing is impossible, nothing is forever, everything has possibilities even when they seem ultimately futile. There is always hope or another way to achieve things.

The door that slammed in my face twenty-five years ago has miraculously turned into a chronic disease, no longer an ultimate death certificate, and not to become the last door in my life with which to deal.

The door opening onto my exterior staircase going down those fourteen, very scary steps, may eventually be replaced by a door leading onto a ground level sidewalk with no steps, maybe perhaps an easy sloping ramp.

God has shown me my abilities by rewarding me with the knowledge to take care of myself. How to turn the door knobs in life. God has given me back my life, my dignity, to take control of my life once again and live it to its fullest. Abling me to transcend many doors, and descend and ascend many staircases.

For there are doors for everyone to heal behind and then venture out from. Doors are of benefit, meant for privacy and intimacy, but never for exclusion.

Right before Christmas, this year, I had a relapse of my polymyositis. I was in the middle of fall, final exams at seminary. I fell and could not walk for three days. Today I can, but carefully. This is encouraging considering I graduate this spring from seminary and hope to be ordained in two years, before I turn 65.

Perhaps God still wants me to keep walking out that door to the staircase, to use those steps as daily exercise so as to forestall my disease, perhaps negate it. Perhaps God keeps challenging me, because once I am ordained, my concern will be with other people’s challenges. I hope always to have doors to pass through, and pray behind.

Ash Wednesday Devotion

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This is the first entry in the UCCDM Lenten Devotional 2015 series. This reflection for Ash Wednesday comes to us from Rev. Jeanne Tyler, Co-Chair of UCCDM Board of Directors. Her bio can be found on the Board of Directors page. 

2 ¹ Blow the trumpet in Zion;
    sound the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
    for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near—
2 a day of darkness and gloom,
    a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness spread upon the mountains
    a great and powerful army comes;
their like has never been from of old,
    nor will be again after them
    in ages to come.

¹²Yet even now, says the Lord,
    return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13     rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
    for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
    and relents from punishing.
14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
    and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain offering and a drink offering
    for the Lord, your God?

15 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
    sanctify a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
16     gather the people.
Sanctify the congregation;
    assemble the aged;
gather the children,
    even infants at the breast.
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
    and the bride her canopy.

17 Between the vestibule and the altar
    let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep.
Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord,
    and do not make your heritage a mockery,
    a byword among the nations.
Why should it be said among the peoples,
    ‘Where is their God?’”

~Joel 22:1-2 12-17 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

I like Ash Wednesday. I like being marked with the sign of a cross in ashes on my forehead. I feel placed in community as an equal to all those alongside me. We hear ancient words like “Blow the Trumpet”, “gather the people”, “listen”, and “rend your hearts and not your garments”. It seems strange to write about hearing the words when I struggle to hear.

I like being in line with others in front and in back of me waiting to be marked with the sign of the cross. I feel placed in community as an equal to those in front and those in back. We wait patiently expectantly for the time will come. It seems strange to write about walking as though it is a given when I experience trouble with balance.

I like hearing the word “repent”. It means to change. I discover in the Book of Joel, God is repenting along with humanity. For the prophet Joel it is the people that are called to repent. It is the community that is called to repent. And it is also God who repents of the anger that if activated could destroy creation. Joel’s take is why would God place the divine reputation to the test?

When I read the Prophet Joel, I am reminded of the community to which I belong is the source of my being. The community is powerful enough to place me as an equal among others. This is truly a blessing for I experience alienation from myself and from others.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent which is a journey that the community takes together. The journey changes us. Repentance for persons with disability may mean giving up passivity in light of the disability and taking on activism on behalf of the self and others. It may mean claiming gifts that come alongside the disability. It may mean an acknowledgement that the community needs the wholeness and holiness we include to be whole and holy in and of herself as church. Repentance may mean for persons who are temporarily able bodied and able mindful to be attentive to and committed to the inclusion of all gifts of all people. This makes the church whole and holy. The journey means all these things and more but surely these are essential to the journey that is Lent.

All Black Lives Matter Even Those Who Live With HIV/AIDS

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The UCC is a theologically diverse denomination. This article is posted for consideration and reflection. Articles may not reflect the opinion of the full Disabilities Ministries Board.  We invite lively discussion.

This reflection comes from Rev. Anthony Sullivan, member of the UCCDM Board of Directors.

In recent weeks, the world has seen firsthand how the American justice system treats Black people as if they don’t matter. Grand juries in Hamilton County, Ohio, St. Louis, Missouri and Staten Island, New York each decided that the deaths of Black men were not worth further investigation by declining to call for a trial of the police officers that killed them.  Worldwide media has exploded with the shocking, horrifying images and videos of local law enforcement’s response or lack thereof over these deaths, and the African American community’s peaceful and sometimes violent protests since those fatal confrontations. Conversations equating these events with Black of Black crime while negating the realities of institutional racism, white supremacy, white privilege and posttraumatic slave syndrome have run rampant.

      While others have been able to express themselves in ways that are both vocal and visible, I’ve been contemplative and have not given voice to my feelings of anger, sadness, and frustration about the losses of Antonio Martin, Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Jordan Davis, Oscar Grant, Erica Collins, Shelly Frey and others. They have joined the countless men, women, boys and girls of color in Black communities throughout our country who have been lynched physically, emotionally, and psychologically.
      Major denominations, including the Church of God in Christ, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Assemblies of God, officially stated their support for Black Lives Matter Sunday held on December 14, 2014. The AME Zion Church, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Black Presbyterians, Full Gospel Baptists, and the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World also directed their congregations to participate by requesting that:
·      Community and church members wear black
·      Churches hold special altar calls for young men and boys where leaders would pray for God’s covering over “their souls, their lives, their families and their destinies”
·      People be encouraged to buy from black-owned businesses during the holiday season
     I applaud these religious leaders and their organizations on their commitment to reminding our nation of the value and importance of the lives of Black males, and their call to action to protest the criminalization, disproportionate incarceration, and killing of Black men by law enforcement.  However, I find it particularly distressing that these same leaders and organizations have allowed misogyny, patriarchy, heterosexism, and homophobia to co-opt this kairos moment by failing to recognize that all Black lives have value irrespective of gender, age, class, religion, physical/mental ability, and sexual or affectional orientation.
      I am an African American, same gender loving clergy person.  Initially diagnosed with HIV over ten years ago, I set aside both personal and professional plans since I did not expect to live a long and healthy life. However with the advent of better medications and a greater understanding of the disease, I work toward the mobilization of the Black Church around issues of HIV/AIDS, stigma, homophobia and sexuality.  I serve as a member of the United Church of Christ HIV/AIDS Network (UCAN) Board of Directors.  The mission of UCAN is to build a network of people, congregations and organizations within and beyond the United Church of Christ for care giving, education and prevention in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic by:
·      Providing technical assistance to help congregations and other settings of the church start and build their capacity and programs;
·      Offering training in the use of the United Church of Christ’s comprehensive HIV/AIDS curriculum, Affirming Persons, Saving Lives, as well as other HIV/AIDS educational resources;
·      Giving leadership for education and information on public policy concerns; and
·      Prioritizing its work to bring critical presence to those most affected by HIV/AIDS in the United States and throughout the world
     At all stages of HIV/AIDS from infection with HIV to death with AIDS, Blacks are disproportionately affected compared with members of other races and ethnicities.   Nevertheless, Black faith communities have been largely silent on the subject of HIV/AIDS, when, in fact they should be the primary voice in the fight to direct Black congregations to become more aware of HIV/AIDS testing and prevention paradigms largely because the epidemic is growing most rapidly in our community. This disease was once thought of as a disease that impacted white gay men only, but the reality is that HIV/AIDS has become the plague of communities of color in general, and Blacks in particular. Statistics compiled by the Center for Disease Control indicate the following:
·      In 2010, men accounted for 70% of the estimated new HIV infections among all Blacks. The estimated rate of new HIV infection for Black men was seven times as high as that of white men, twice that of Latino men and nearly 3 times that of Black women
·       In 2010, Black men who have sex with men (MSM) represented an estimated 72% of new infections among all Black men, and 36% among all MSM. More new HIV infections occurred among young Black MSM (aged 13–29) than any other age and racial group of MSM
·      In 2010, Black women accounted for 29% of the estimated new HIV infections among all Blacks. Most (87%) Black women with HIV acquired HIV through heterosexual sex. The estimated rate of new HIV infections for black women was 20 times that of white women, and almost 5 times as high as that of Latina women
·       At some point in their lifetimes, 1 in 16 Black men will be diagnosed with HIV infection, as will 1 in 32 Black women.
These statistics, while alarming also indicate a humbling reality.  HIV disproportionately affects Blacks. Thus, there is an urgent need to expand access to proven HIV prevention interventions as well as develop new approaches to fight HIV.
      Black faith communities are charged with serving economically disadvantaged communities, underserved and underrepresented populations, and people whose human dignity is under assault by social arrangements and structures.  As such, they are called to provide a theological framework that facilitates discussion, both on the nature of God and on people living with HIV/AIDS. Both clergy and laity should be able to ask fundamental theological questions in a new context, and expect to find answers. For example, what does it mean to talk of the goodness of God in the context of HIV/AIDS? We need to find answers that are relevant to people affected by HIV/AIDS, as well as to people for whom HIV/AIDS is far removed from their own experience and consciousness.
      Moreover, I believe that Black faith communities should play a vital role in providing comprehensive education that informs congregants on ways to avoid risk of exposure to HIV infection, delivering physical and spiritual care and support to those infected and affected and by combating stigma and discrimination.  Success requires partnering with community–based organizations and others to collectively educate the community and respond compassionately to better serve the physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of persons living with HIV infection and AIDS. It is my hope that the day will come when the church, in general, and the Black Church in particular, takes the lead in addressing the problem of HIV/AIDS disease and in developing supportive ministries for the people affected by the disease.   The truth of the matter is, all Black lives matter, even those who live with HIV/AIDS.

 

News on Ecumenical Work on Disability

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Participants in the Ecumenical Disabilities Advocacy Network Consultation on new theological document called "Gift of Being" and leadership meeting in Elspeet, Netherlands October 2014.

Participants in the Ecumenical Disabilities Advocacy Network Consultation on new theological document called “Gift of Being” and leadership meeting in Elspeet, Netherlands October 2014.

The UCCDM works with Ecumenical partners around the issue of disabilities. Recently, UCCDM’s partner, the Ecumenical Disability Advocacy Network held a consultation on a new theological document and met for its bi-annual leadership meeting in Elspeet, Netherlands.

For more information on this ecumenical work and event please see the official report from the World Council of Churches news. At the end of the news article is link to the official communique from the consultation and leadership meeting that provides more details about the discussions at the EDAN leadership meeting.

Carolyn Thomson, former UCCDM Board, and Rev. Kelli Parrish Lucas, UCCDM Secretary, represented the UCCDM at both the theological consultation and the EDAN Leadership meeting. Rev. Kelli Parrish Lucas has been named the new North American Coordinator for EDAN.

UCCDM Lenten Devotional-EASTER, A Letter to Angel’s Caretaker

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This is the eleventh and final entry in the UCCDM Lenten Devotional. This reflection for Easter Sunday comes to us from the Rev. Dallas (Dee) Brauninger. She is a former UCCDM Secretary and Board Member her bio can be found on the Former Board of Directors page. Rev. Dallas (Dee) Brauninger also received the 2013 UCCDM Award.

Easter

Faith reflected in a note to the man in an Iowa prison who socialized Leader Dog Angel for a year:

You did a fine job of socializing Leader Dog Angel.  She and her trainer arrived at my house on Sunday, January 12. I will give it my all to be a good person for her to guide. Angel is my fourth dog guide since 1986. She returns my freedom to get around and have a life filled with doing meaningful things for others.

Thanks for teaching her how to return a thrown ball without a tease. I will see that she balances her lifework of patiently guiding a 70-year-old woman with the joy of play and being a “dog” dog when she is off duty.

I am proud of Angel’s first career of loving and trusting you.  She knows about trust. She gives freely of her love. You must have a wonderful soul to have encouraged these tender qualities. You gave her a solid start in her profession as dog guide — good habits and good behavior. I respect and thank you for the kind, gentle way in which you taught her.

You surely miss her. I wish well for you. I pray that you will continue to choose life-giving ways. I hope that whenever life is tough you can remember this dog who told you clearly that she accepts and trusts you to give her what she needed, no matter what your past chapters. Sometimes we need an angel to remind us to hope. If you were the one who named her, you saw her soul.

Though strangers, you and I share the gift of knowing Angel. She takes the loneliness out of my blindness. Perhaps she also lessened the loneliness of this Lenten time of your incarceration by helping you also to see yourself as a person who can respect and trust yourself. Nothing can separate you from what she gave to you.

I know the plans I have for you, to give you a future with hope. Jeremiah 29

 

UCCDM Lenten Devotional- Silence, Emptiness and Hope

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This is the tenth in the UCCDM Lenten Devotional Series. This reflection comes to us from Rev. Alan Johnson, Chair of the UCC Mental Health Network, Ex-Officio Member of UCCDM, and Former UCCDM Board Member. His bio cam be found on the Board of Directors page.

Silence, emptiness and hope are the themes for Holy Saturday

Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24.

The heart of the Christian story is of the three days, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. Good Friday is the suffering and death of Jesus of Nazareth. Holy Saturday is the time of emptiness and silence. Easter Sunday is when God raised Jesus from the dead to new life. The three days make a compendium, a trilogy of the whole Christian story. The death, the silence, and the resurrection, as a totality, make us sing our praise, offer us ways to see the new creation coming into being, and lead the believer to a new way to living in the world.

What is the point of Holy Saturday? Why not just go from the death to the resurrection? Because it reveals the truth of life itself. When I was sunk in depression, when I could not sleep, could not focus, was in a daze, could barely communicate and did not have an appetite for many days, it seemed like life had ended. I felt hopeless. It was an empty time; a void of pleasure; a wasteland. Thank goodness for a good therapist, medication, a supportive partner, my Christian faith and a faith community to which I belonged.

That is why Holy Saturday speaks to my soul. While as post-Easter people, we can barely surmise what it must have been when Jesus’ followers knew that he was dead. Really dead, as the Apostle’s creed says, he was crucified, dead and buried. That was it. It was over. Really was. What was the hope then?

In Lamentations, we read of the experience of being bereft.  “…driven and brought me into darkness without any light…has made me sit in darkness like the dead of long ago…though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.” This must have something of what those early disciples experienced on that day after Jesus’ crucifixion. The bleakness was real. Scripture tells it like it is. Lost, consumed with darkness, not a spark of light or hope. This has been real for many people, as it had been for me.

The emptiness, the silence, our spirits crushed. Holy Saturday, the day after Jesus’ death, allows meaninglessness and hopelessness to seep into our bones. It confirms this common, universal human experience. Although hope comes in our own hopelessness, for the God in Jesus ultimately will not abandon Jesus into a final death, our faith does not deny the bleakness and the profound loss, emptiness and silence on Holy Saturday. There was nothing more humanity could do. We came to the end of the line, to the end of the rope. It is in Holy Saturday that we live in silence.

Susan Palo Cherwein has written this prose poem, “God is in Silence.”

In the emptiness, God is.

In the darkness, God is.

In the silence, God is.

When the psalmist cried out form the pit,

God was already there.

When we cry out from the deep night,

God is already there.

When the silence is roaring in our minds,

God is there.

For when we are emptied of our paltry projects and goals,

When our grandiose and prideful accomplishments run aground in darkness,

When even our incessant mental chatter ceases in despair,

God is revealed in silence

Whither can we flee from God’s presence?

God is.

In the silence and the emptiness in this second day of the Christian Story, the Holy still resides.  The writer of Lamentations writes, “But this I call to mind.” There is that “Divine BUT.”  “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, therefore I will hope in him.”

Even on Holy Saturday when we spiritually journey into that place of gloom and doom, where, if it is not our lot at this time, it is the lot of many people in the world this day, we can remember. We can call to mind that it is with God that there is hope. And even if a person does not have hope, when in the pits, it is still God who shows up in unexpected ways and with surprising people to keep rekindling the fires of faith and hope. We know that God is the One who keeps us, holds us, lifts us up, and always provides hope in our hopelessness. Enter into the experience of Holy Saturday acknowledging that the emptiness and the silence are part of our human experience, but it is never the last word. That last word comes tomorrow.

“God is in Silence” from Crossing: Meditations for Worship by Susan Palo Cherwien–Copyright © 2003 Birnamwood Publications (ASCAP) A division of MorningStar Music Publishers, Inc., St. Louis, MO. Used by permission.

UCCDM Lenten Devotional-Reflection for Good Friday

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This is the ninth in the UCCDM Lenten Devotional Series for 2014. This reflections comes from Rev. Peggy Davis Dunn, UCCDM Board Member and former Chair. Her bio can be found on the Board of Directors page.

Good Friday

I am poured out like water, and all my bones have fallen apart; my heart is like wax; it melts inside of me; my strength is dried up like a piece of broken pottery. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you’ve set me down in the dirt of death. Psalm 22: 14-15 CEB

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light. John 1:5 CEB

I write this reflection sitting on a couch in a room in the Walter Reed Military Hospital in Bethesda MD. About six feet away from me lies a grandson whose body was broken in a horrific car accident about 6 weeks ago. We are here this week to be with him and to give his mom some companionship and respite as she accompanies him on his journey back from the days when he was given a 5% chance of survival. His trauma has involved having both arms and both legs broken, broken ribs with internal injuries, extensive facial damage including the loss of an eye and some hopefully temporary brain injury. Parts of his body which are whole have been drawn from to repair parts of his body which are broken. His rehabilitation has involved 21 surgeries so far, and this journey will likely go on for about a year. His body will not be the same as it was before his accident.

His pain has been great and his body has been broken. His life path has been altered in a split second. The words of Psalm 22 above are apt.

But daily we see him return to the land of the living. He gains strength and capacity. He moves more steps forward than back.

Good Friday is the day when Christians reflect on the suffering of Christ on a cross outside of Jerusalem, on the willingness of Jesus to endure the suffering of crucifixion. The suffering of Christ then, and the suffering of this grandson now, are very real. But suffering is not the last word, then or now.  Suffering itself is not redemptive, on Jesus’ part, or anyone else’s. What is redemptive is the Spirit that sustains in the experience of the suffering. And the Light which shines in the Darkness even when we cannot see it. We believe, in the words of John’s gospel, that the darkness of our lives cannot extinguish the light, tho the darkness be very real, and very dark. The light is found in the darkness. In our various ways, we hold that faith.