UNCOMFORTABLE
PRESENCE
Friday 9 - Sunday 11 May 2008
Rev Peter Cole, Rev Donald Eadie
Sr Barbara Claire, Helen Tyers
& Susie Burdell
What is it?
This weekend will explore how and why people with impairment often experience themselves as an ‘uncomfortable presence’ within church and society. It is a development of the 2006 conference ‘Faith Journey of Impaired Pilgrims’ and is equally for those who attended that conference and for those who did not. The course will also address the experiences of carers, partners, and others who walk alongside those with impairment, whose life journey can similarly often be both challenged and challenging.
Taking place over Pentecost weekend, the course will explore ways in which the uncomfortable presence of people with impairment within the church can be
seen as both a challenge and a gift. What is the
Spirit offering to the church through the stories of people with impairment and their carers? and what is the church’s response?
Space will be made within the weekend for course members to share together their stories of living with impairment as people of faith. We will also explore what has shaped the attitudes of the community of faith towards people with impairment and how these may be challenged by our actual stories. What are the challenges of living with impairment and how are people with impairment challenging the church?
Having acknowledged the challenges involved in living with impairment we will also explore the difficult area of how impairment can become gift. What are the particular gifts that people with impairment, and their carers, can offer to the church? How can these be celebrated and how can the church be encouraged to receive and include them? What is the Spirit seeking to harvest from the lives of those who live with, or alongside, impairment?
Who is leading it?
Reverends Donald Eadie and Peter Cole are Methodist ministers who both live with painful spinal conditions and who where members of the Methodist Church Working group on impairment and ministry. Donald, the author of Grain in Winter, was Chairman of the Birmingham District. Peter has recently completed a programme of research at Sarum College on the spirituality that emerges from the experience of impairment.
Sister Barbara Claire is a Sister of the Community of St Mary the Virgin, whose Mother House is at Wantage, Oxfordshire. Her connection with impairment is through her blind father, the presence of sisters in her Community who live with impairment, and through her own hearing loss.
Susie Burdell has experience as a nurse in the UK, Pakistan and Eastern Europe. Due to a neurological condition she is a permanent wheelchair user and now works as a counsellor. Susie belongs to a NFI church in Dorset and cares for a severely disabled aunt.
Helen Tyers is a social work regulator for disability in social work and social work education and training. Sheacts as an expert in court cases where disabled people may havetheir children
removed by social services. She advises the Methodist Church on issues of disability, faith and practice. A permanent wheelchair user she relies on her faithful support dog, Cherry, for many things.
Who is it for?
Not only people with impairment, but also their carers, supporters and fellow travellers, and also anyone who is interested in reflecting on their own or other people’s experience of the continuing faith pilgrimage of people with impairment.
Will I be able to cope?
Sarum College offers this conference as a model of good practice and will endeavour to meet the varying needs of participants. It would be helpful if you could identify particular needs in terms of mobility, accommodation; car parking, toilet facilities, presence of carers with you, dietary needs and any particular impairment for which the college can provide help. The college has a lift and a loop system.
What should I bring?
If it has been part of your story it would be helpful for you to bring an object or picture that symbolises your experience of being an ‘uncomfortable presence’ in the church. If this is not part of your experience then please bring something that symbolises where you are on your particular journey with impairment.
Please also bring something to share (songs, poems, stories, etc) for entertainment and recreation on the Saturday evening.
How will the course be structured?
The programme will start with supper on Friday at 6:30pm but participants can arrive earlier in the afternoon to settle in if they wish; lunch at 1:00pm can be ordered as an extra if desired.
There will be some plenary sessions in which facilitators will reflect with us on the nature of impairment as ‘uncomfortable presence’.
There will be some group work in which people may share and explore their stories of living with their own - or another’s -impairment. It is our hope that a strength of the course will be its mutuality as we receive one another as we are. We will endeavour to adapt the programme where necessary to meet the needs of the group that attends. There will certainly be space for rest and reflection, and the conference will take place within a context of simple acts of worship culminating in a final liturgy followed by lunch on Sunday.
What does it cost?
£130 for a single room - including all meals.
£220 for a double room - including all meals.
En suite accommodation: £5 extra per person per night.
£85 for day time attendance (including lunch and dinner)
If you have any questions about the content and format of the weekend, please contact Donald Eadie on 01214 499357
Please contact Sarum College if you seek a bursary
towards meeting the cost.
Alternatively you may wish to approach your Diocesan or
local church authority, or local disabilities advisor.
Please return the completed booking form with your deposit to:
HOSPITALITY
SARUM COLLEGE
19 THE CLOSE, SALISBURY, WILTSHIRE SP1 2EE
Telephone: 01722 424800
Fax: 01722 338508
Email:
website: