Categories: uncategorized
Date: 27 March 2009 06:57:03
I feel this week like I am one of those life swap reality tv shows where somebody, for a week or so, artificially recreates the life of somebody else to find out what it's like and fails miserably because it's all so artificial.
Let me explain, my doctor has managed to temporarily exclude me from society and Third Party has for the given period turned into a young carer. I am therefore to some extent experiencing what life is like all the time for some people in our society. Yet this is in many ways not for real. Oh my illness is, but it is only temporary and in a week or so I will be back to normal and back to my everyday "real world".
The temporary nature of it all and my real life situation means I have been able to benefit from things like the neighbour who decided to leave a post it on my door yesterday, which Third Party found when she returned from school telling us not to cook - dinner would be arriving around 6pm. Also, I have had a few people offering to help out if we need (of course being the independent types we are the offers haven't been taken up but the fact they were there was reassuring).
I might be excluded from worshipping with my faith community this week, but again I know this is only temporary. Also because I have the benefit of IT at home it's not too much of a problem because I can plug into to alternative forms of nourishment. So while my exclusion is real and difficult for the week it is v. much fake in its nature because of both the temporary aspect and the facilities I have access to.
It has challenged me to think though, about people who are really excluded. What must it be like for the young carers who don't have an end date to look forward to and whose lives are one big round of shopping, washing, etc? The charities supporting them, like Young Carers are vital but underpublicised.
What must it be like for those with agrophobia or other debilitating illnesses either physical or mental who are stuck within their homes?
Last Saturday I went to a day where we were looking at the healing of the bleeding woman. I thought I understood her story, I thought I understood something about exclusion. I realise I, as a normally healthy, middle class, white woman with a high standard of education living in a democratic country understand nothing. I am struggling with one week of exclusion, the woman in the bible had 12 years of living like this being shut away from her community, not being able to take part in corporate worship and being seen as a risk to others because of her health. She didn't have people supporting her she was an outcast. I now realise that there is no way I can imagine the level of desperation or utter hopelessness she must of felt when she touched Jesus robe desperate for anything that might enable her to be part of society.
For most of us within our soceity we have lost the power of that story because it is so disconnected from our experience. It truly is a story for liberation.
Yet, it also presents a challenge and a problem to us as Christians I have begun to realise. We keep that story within our churches. Those who would most identify with the story and who need to hear it are by their very nature not within our churches. We need to find a way of taking this story to those who are genuinely excluded and marginalised. We also need to find ways of connecting them with our communities in a way which can work for them. The reasons they are excluded are complex. History has taught us if we go in without having listened to their stories, carrying only our own assumptions and priviledged readings of the bible we go in not to offer healing but rather as abusers of power. This is one of the reasons that I believe passionately that practical theology as a discipline is important, but only if it is combined with a mission focus. The academy provides a tool for us to hear stories and identify the good practice on the ground and deseminate it but this means nothing if we don't also find ways to engage with our findings. That may mean by forging more networks with those who have more practical and caring skills but it will also mean forging more networks with the excluded groups themselves, realising that we all have equal worth and value in the eyes of God.
Apologies if I have gone off on a rant again, but this is building up into something I need to scream out to anybody who will listen. There is a world out there that needs God, not as some kind of insurance policy but as somebody who is there for them in the reality of their here and now. There is a world out there that we don't understand because we don't listen to them or if we do we try to become some kind of amateur religious social workers trying to solve their problems and change them into what we want them to be. God wants us to wake up and take responsiblity for our part in the world we have created. God wants us to stop reading the bible thinking we understand it and can identify with complex characters within it when blatently we can't. God wants us to get off our arses and do something!!!! (Um - note here think that last bit was to myself and no I have no idea how to put it into practice.)
*Added bit* The world and Christianity is not all doom and gloom. There are some people already doing this type of stuff which is v.g. The history of the church tells us that normally the people doing exactly this kind of thing do it quietly and tend to be just getting on with it. To those of you reading who fall into that category :) .
(As for me I think the first step needs to be to stop ranting and to learn to be still and listen to the still quiet voice, and where that might be directing my attentions.)