May 2008
This month
STORIES
· Jamie, a serving survivor
· One of Sue’s fun times
· What do you do after you do the worksheets?
RESOURCES
· Training member mission leaders
· Faithful Democracy
· Three conferences
FOR MEDITATION
· Explicit contact with the world
STORIES
Jamie, a serving survivor
Jamie, in his early seventies, is a survivor of polio that has deprived him of use of his biceps. He cannot lift anything and he has only limited use of his left hand. He is, at present, in training as a mentor for people with disabilities. The training includes a background check and finger printing. How he came to this servant-style of life is a story that needs telling.
A cradle Episcopalian, he saw very little lay participation in the church of his childhood, St. John’s, Beverly Farms, MA which was located in the wealthy area of the North Shore of Boston. His teen years saw the rebellious period of not wanting any part of church. He went into the Marine Corps where he contracted polio. During this rough period, he asked, “Why is this happening to me?” Twenty years old, he was angry at God and everybody else. During his rehab, the rector of his church visited him. Jamie voiced his feelings and was met with understanding and acceptance. “That led me back to the church.”
As he returned, he was still dealing with his disability and found people staring at him. After worship, people avoided him. When told, the rector responded, “Don’t give up. Keep coming.” So he did, and the situation improved. It was helped by beginning to feel better about himself; to be less self-conscious about his physical disability; and to deal with it in a more positive manner.
He entered Boston University and had a 25-mile commute. At BU, there was no spiritual life. What he had was limited to his, then, small church in Beverly Farms. As he began to participate in some of the evening programs at the church, he began to ask how he could connect his spiritual life to his disability by working with people and visiting people. He could let his faith shine through his disability.
His church connected with a church in Jamaica Plains, a very poor area of Boston. He wanted to join that church’s rector who was about to go to Selma, AL to participate in the civil rights movement. His doctor would not allow it because of his disability. He became angry all over again; and angry at God all over again. However, he came to see that was unproductive; that God wanted him to continue what he was already doing and doing well; and that God wanted him to move on. After BU, he moved to Westport, NY and met and married his wife.
Another defining moment for him came in 1983. He was in the ICU section of the hospital in Plattsburgh, NY recovering from a bout with sleep apnea. His polio had weakened his diaphragm thereby inhibiting breathing. While there, he met a local priest who was organizing a Hospice program for the County. He was impressed with it. Still hospital-bound, he began to visit terminally ill patients, many of whom never had a visitor. The man in the bed next to him died without ever having a visitor. He resolved to become a Hospice visitor when he was discharged. Completing hospice training, he began to visit those patients who had no visitors. He found it to be the most rewarding experience of his life. Next, he helped to found the Hospice program in his own Essex County.
He recalls visiting an extremely poor family, in particular. The husband was dying, totally paralyzed from a neurological disease. His wife was on oxygen. As he sat by the bed of the paralyzed husband, his own period of partial paralysis helped him to understand the man’s sense of hopelessness and frustration. He had been a man of vigor and a hard worker. Now, he was totally dependent on others.
In time, Jamie was accepted as a member of the family. As he talked with them, he had the deepest experiences of poverty in his life. For example, the 20-year-old son had to spend half of one day starting his old car. Late for work, he lost his job. In contrast, when Jamie stepped into his own car, it started 99% of the time. Such were the effects of grinding poverty.
Jamie advocated for access for the disabled at his present church for a long time. Early on, when he brought it up at a vestry meeting, he was met with, “Why? There is no one around here who is disabled.” Jamie answered, “I’m looking at you right now and everyone else in this room. You or anyone else could become disabled in a flash. And, maybe, there are people out there right now who don’t come because they know they cannot get into the church.” The church now has that access.
Summing up, Jamie closes with, “Over the years, I have learned to deal with frustration and helplessness myself and, throughout, I have been sustained by my worship and spiritual life.”
One of Sue’s fun times
What do you do after you do the worksheets?
Your group has just finished doing the worksheets (see Making the Vision Work > Basic Tools 3-3C on the website). How can you keep before them the call to God's mission? It's not too hard when you listen with the inner ear and are free to use other language!
At small St. Stephen the Martyr in Monte Vista, CO, the group had finished a rich sharing on the worksheets for each mission field. For their next event, they chose study guides based on the work of Thomas Merton entitled Bridges to Contemplative Living. The leaders said, "Good choice; that's the mission field of spiritual health." Further, they ask occasionally, "How will we live this week on the basis of what we have studied?" Then, when the study guide calls for sharing personal experiences, the leaders make sure all the relevant details are shared. The group is sharpening their skill to be specific. Getting to the specifics in each daily arena is the key to discerning what God wants you to do. Still further, the warden finds she is freer to share church concerns with others at work. And, a rancher tells how lambing season brings people into her home where she finds she can start substantive discussions much more easily than before. And, a teacher tells how the group's response to some of her frustrations helped her to levels of satisfying insight she had missed before.
It does seem that once people have completed the worksheets one week at a time they have acquired a sense of God's call in each area of daily life that just comes out wherever they are. So, leaders, take heart. The worksheets build a habit of living one’s daily missions that grows and grows in whatever people are doing.
Contact: Charlie Possee at cjpossee@aol.com or Missi Stone at stone123@fone.net
RESOURCES
Training member mission leaders: the first Member Mission Leadership Training workshop for teams of clergy and a lay leader is scheduled for October 6-11, 2008 at The Spiritual Life Center, Greenwich, NY 45 minutes from the Albany Airport. The training events – four full days plus travel days at either end – will provide the knowledge and skills to implement "member mission" in churches. The training will also teach interpersonal, group process, system, and feedback skills. Participants pay one-half of economy air fare or mileage plus $100. All other expenses are covered by Member Mission Network, Inc. And scholarships are available. To pre-register, write to membermission@aol.com.
Faithful Democracy, a coalition of communions and national, faith-based organizations, offers resources for participation in the political process. As political parties and campaigns strategically court the so-called "faith voters" and the Internal Revenue Service increasingly investigates churches both locally and nationally for political activity, some people may wonder what is the appropriate role for people of faith in this year's United States elections. Faithful Democracy (http://faithfuldemocracy.org), a web-based project, hopes to help people discern the answer this question. It seeks to be a non-partisan, online clearinghouse of resources, both practical and theological, to educate and engage people of faith about the role they can and should play in the democratic process. The coalition's goal is to increase the number of informed faith-based voters participating in elections.
Three conferences:
“Beyond Base Camp: Becoming an Equipping Church” – 5/29/08 – for more, go to http://www.dailylifeministry.org/EPFDL%202008%20RegistrationForm.pdf.
“Working From the Soul: From paycheck to transformation” – 5/29 - 6/1/08 – for more go to http://www.dailylifeministry.org/images/brochure.pdf.
“Listening for the Spirit in a Post-Christian World” – 7/24 - 26/08 – for more go to http://catechumenate.org/main.cfm?sid=3.
FOR MEDITATION – Explicit contact with the world
“Member Mission focuses on making Christian behavior stay in contact with the evolving world. Previously, it seems to me, that we assumed that participation in worship, education, and church life would result in such behavior with no reflection. Member Mission moves the process from an implicit one to an explicit one.”
[From Donald W. Kimmick, a reader]
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God is most interested in how we live from Monday to Saturday.
Sunday – all of church life – helps us to do it better.
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