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Leonard Cohen - Treaty.
Showing posts with label prophets & seers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prophets & seers. Show all posts
Saturday, 22 October 2016
Notes on Blindness: A more inclusive future for VOD
The acclaimed film Notes On Blindness (which was screened last week at St Martin-in-the-Fields as part of our 'Prophets & Seers' weekend), is now available on DVD and also to stream on Curzon Home Cinema, Virgin Media and the BFI Player. Not only is the film available with subtitles, but it also comes with a range of different audio tracks specially designed for blind and partially sighted audiences. Charlie Lyne suggests in The Guardian that the film's exemplary package points towards a more inclusive future for Video On Demand.
Sunday, 16 October 2016
The story of a journey from the centre to the edge
Donald Eadie spoke on film for Prophets & Seers: Calling from the Edge, the 2016 Disability Conference at St Martin-in-the-Fields, organised as a partnership between St Martin's and Inclusive Church.
In recent years Donald has lived with a serious spinal condition which forced him to retire early as Chair of the Birmingham District of the Methodist Church. He has often been in the firing line for advocating justice and respect between people of all faith, women and men, gay and straight people. He is a much consulted Methodist minister, retreat leader and author.
Donald said:
Donald said:
'We bring our discovery of bread on the edge and wells of water under our feet, in desert and destitution as did both Elijah (1 Kings 17:1-7) and the slave girl Hagar before us. (Genesis 21: 8-20) Consecrated food from heaven is not confined to lie under white cloths in our Churches. We bring these gifts and many others, not as victims but as liberators.
I have come with a story of a journey, from the centre to the edge, of making connections between our experience of body and the body of Christ, and of receiving threatening gifts which could transform.'
He asked us: 'What does the journey toward transformation through vulnerability mean in your situation? What are your stories of frightening liberation?'
I have come with a story of a journey, from the centre to the edge, of making connections between our experience of body and the body of Christ, and of receiving threatening gifts which could transform.'
He asked us: 'What does the journey toward transformation through vulnerability mean in your situation? What are your stories of frightening liberation?'
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Julie Miller - Broken Things.
Reality reshaped by disability
Day two of Prophets & Seers, a weekend of events exploring disability and church at St Martin-in-the-Fields began with a Eucharist and healing service for St Luke’s Day reflecting on the themes of the weekend and using liturgy written by St Martin’s Disability Advisory Group and Healing Team. The service included the laying on of hands and anointing with oil, accompanied by prayers for healing for individuals, someone else or the wider world. A screening of the acclaimed documentary film Notes on Blindness also took place in St Martin’s Hall. The film is based on John Hull’s audio diaries, as he reflected on his journey into blindness. Joining us for the screening were the filmmakers and Marilyn Hull.
Our symbol for this year's weekend of events exploring disability and church is that of ripples on a lake. This weekend we are celebrating five years of conferences on disability and church organised by St Martin's and Inclusive Church, whilst also celebrating the profound influence of the theologian John Hull, who spoke in past years at the conference, and who died last year. The image of ripples was chosen to represent the rippling out of influences from the conference, John Hull and our own Disability Advisory Group.
I want to use that same image in a different way this morning. In the novel ‘The Book of Questions’ by Edmond Jabès, a rabbi speaks of ripples on a lake as representing a face with marks, wrinkles or wounds which reflects the face of God. If we understand the image of ripples in that way then we can make a connection between the image and the story of Jacob, from today’s Old Testament reading (Genesis 32. 22 - 32). Jacob’s story is of a journey from a selfish and ambitious focus on himself to a place of valuing relationships and the founding of a nation, where the moment of transition involves a disabling experience after wrestling with God. He carried the marks of that experience with him as he limped into a period of his life that had significance for the many, rather than the few. His disability reflected the work of God in his life.
This morning I want to explore how our reality can be reshaped by disability by comparing and contrasting the story of Jacob with that of two writers who both wrestled with God in relation to their experience of disability. The first of these, Jack Clemo, was one of the most extraordinary poets of the twentieth century. Although not as widely recognised as he should be, the 100th anniversary of his birth, in the heart of Cornwall’s China Clay Country, has been rightly celebrated this year.
Jack became deaf at the age of nineteen and blind in his thirties. These experiences of disability which combined with his rural location and his strong Evangelical faith, which was at odds with an increasingly secularized Britain, all served to make him an isolated outsider calling out ‘from the margins.’ His is a poetry which has power as he finds words to articulate his condition and convictions in his experience of marginalisation.
He used the landscape of the clayworks where he lived for much of his life - a landscape that had been violently shaped by industrial working - as a metaphor for the invading Gospel of Christ. His focus was on ‘the innate sinful condition of ‘nature,’ sin having warped nature just as much as humankind, with only God’s intervention able to restore the intended state of grace. As a result, he ‘believed his own suffering’ (for that was how he viewed his disabilities) ‘was necessary, but only as evidence for the crucial purification of original sin.’ So he declared that suffering (meaning his experience of disability) ‘in itself had taught me nothing; it had merely created the conditions in which joy could teach me, and so it could never be the last word or even the vitalizing word in my Christian adventure.’
Jack believed that God would invade his isolation by giving him the threefold happiness of healing, marriage and success as an Evangelical poet. As a result, he made few attempts to live with his disabilities, refusing to learn braille for example, and wrote some poetry which seems critical of those who chose to live with the experience of disability rather than seeking cure through God's invasive power. He achieved a measure of success as a poet and also married in his 50’s, but, despite much prayer for healing over many years and many moments when he thought healing had come, never experienced the physical healing which he fervently sought. His biographer, Luke Thompson, writes that ‘However we interpret Jack’s beliefs about the role of God in his life, they seem wrong. Over and over again, his statements and expectations were disproved; the signs and patterns perceived were incorrect; God’s promises were broken. It would be possible to construct a picture of a divinity working through Jack’s life, but it would require a complete renegotiation of the terms.’ That is, in part, because Jack only valued his disabilities as an arena in which God could demonstrate his healing powers to an unbelieving world.
By contrast we can consider the experience of the John Hull who, in the early 1980s, after decades of steady deterioration, lost his sight. ‘To help him make sense of the ensuing upheaval in his life, he began to keep an audio diary. Across three years, he created a unique testimony of loss, rebirth and renewal, excavating the interior world of blindness.’ ‘Based on these original recordings and his published diaries ‘Touching the Rock’, [the film] Notes on Blindness recreates his ‘journey through emotional turmoil and spiritual crisis to a renewed perception of the world and the discovery of ‘a world beyond sight’.’
In the book and film we travel with John Hull ‘farther and farther into the world … of blindness, until finally he comes to a point where he can no longer summon up memories of faces, of places, even memories of the light. This is the bend in the tunnel: beyond this is “deep blindness.” And yet at this … darkest … point, there comes a mysterious change—no longer an agonized sense of loss … but a new sense of life and creativity and identity. “One must recreate one’s life or be destroyed,” Hull writes, and it is precisely re-creation, the creation of an entirely new organization and identity, which [he] described ... At this point … [he] wonders if blindness is not “a dark, paradoxical gift” and an entry—unsought … but to be received—into a new and deep form of being.’ In reflecting on the nature of that gift, John said that, ‘After living with it and meditating on it for some time, I realized that blindness is not just a loss but it is one of the great human states which have characteristics of its own.’
‘My works,’ he wrote, ‘are … a yearning to overcome the abyss which divides blind people from sighted people. In seeking to overcome that abyss I've emphasized the uniqueness of the blind condition—blindness is a world. I've also sought to show that it's one of a number of human worlds. That sight is also a world. And that to gain our full humanity, blind people and sighted people need each other’. As a result, before his untimely death last year, John called on disabled people to challenge the church with a distinct prophetic ministry based on their own lived experience.
Both Jack Clemo and John Hull wrestled with God as a result of their experiences of disability. Jack increasingly wrestled with the reality that he had not been healed. His struggle was with God’s failure to grant to him the supernatural transformation that he desired and this desire and struggle left him isolated and lacking in solidarity with other disabled people. Because he viewed his disabilities as an arena in which God would demonstrate his power to cure, he did not explore the dimensions of the worlds of blindness and deafness that he inhabited or their potential for relationship preferring to remain waiting independently for rescue from those worlds. As a result, he was personally dependent on those around him and his poetry became strident and simplistic when he reasserted his belief in a cure that he was not receiving.
John, by contrast, recognised that he had been given the gift of experiencing the world of blindness realising that it is a world to inhabit, not to seek to leave, and his wrestling with God was the wrestle to reshape his reality, to receive a new and right spirit to trust that in the midst of the world of blindness, truth will be experienced and shared. He realised that, as a result of his twin experiences, he was able to speak into the worlds of blind and sighted people and emphasise their need of one another.
How do these stories relate to Jacob’s experience of wrestling with God? Jacob divided his family on the basis of his own ambition buying his elder brother Esau’s birthright and tricking his dying Father into giving a blessing that also belonged by right to his brother. While primarily selfish in a way that was not the case for Jack Clemo, his independent isolation does have similarities with Jack’s isolation and independent vocation. Jacob then wanted to be reconciled to Esau but was worried that Esau’s reaction toward him would be aggressive, so he set up a series of gifts for Esau and spent an anxious night wrestling with God. His experience of wrestling with God was a liminal moment in his life, a rite of transition from an essentially self-centred individualistic existence to become forefather to a people who, like the sand on the seashore, could not be numbered. This change involved crossing a boundary (the river Yabbok), struggling (with God) and naming (as Jacob became known as the Patriarch to Israel, the people who struggle with God). He limped away from this experience but went with God’s blessing, so his experience of change and transition was both disabling and a blessing. His reality was reshaped, enabling him to receive the generous act of reconciliation which his brother afforded him the next day.
Like John Hull, Jacob found his disabling experience to be one through which he gained a greater understanding of himself, his role, his destiny, his people, his world and his God. The result, as for John, was renewed relationships. Unlike Jack, who thought cure would demonstrate God’s reality and who, therefore, separated himself from other disabled people, Jacob and John experienced disability as the threshold to re-creation, renewal and relationship. That is a deeper, fuller experience of healing and a greater demonstration of God’s reality and presence. To return to the image with which we began, the marks of their experiences reflected the face of God.
John Hull taught that blind people and sighted people, disabled people and non-disabled people need each other. That realisation begins as disabled people challenge the church with a distinct prophetic ministry based on their own lived experience. The Greek poet Tasos Leivaditis has described just such a moment of realisation and so I end with his prose-poem ‘The Blind Man and the Lamp’:
‘IT WAS NIGHT and I had made the greatest decision of
the century — I would save humanity — but how? — as
thousands of thoughts were tormenting me I heard footsteps,
opened the door and beheld the blind man from the opposite
room walking down the hallway and holding a lamp — he
was about to go down the stairs — ‘What is he doing with
the lamp?’, I asked myself and suddenly an idea flashed
through my mind — I found the answer — ‘My dear brother,’
I said to him, ‘God has sent you,’
and with zeal we both got down to work . . .’
Here is my sermon from the St Luke's Day Eucharist:
Our symbol for this year's weekend of events exploring disability and church is that of ripples on a lake. This weekend we are celebrating five years of conferences on disability and church organised by St Martin's and Inclusive Church, whilst also celebrating the profound influence of the theologian John Hull, who spoke in past years at the conference, and who died last year. The image of ripples was chosen to represent the rippling out of influences from the conference, John Hull and our own Disability Advisory Group.
I want to use that same image in a different way this morning. In the novel ‘The Book of Questions’ by Edmond Jabès, a rabbi speaks of ripples on a lake as representing a face with marks, wrinkles or wounds which reflects the face of God. If we understand the image of ripples in that way then we can make a connection between the image and the story of Jacob, from today’s Old Testament reading (Genesis 32. 22 - 32). Jacob’s story is of a journey from a selfish and ambitious focus on himself to a place of valuing relationships and the founding of a nation, where the moment of transition involves a disabling experience after wrestling with God. He carried the marks of that experience with him as he limped into a period of his life that had significance for the many, rather than the few. His disability reflected the work of God in his life.
This morning I want to explore how our reality can be reshaped by disability by comparing and contrasting the story of Jacob with that of two writers who both wrestled with God in relation to their experience of disability. The first of these, Jack Clemo, was one of the most extraordinary poets of the twentieth century. Although not as widely recognised as he should be, the 100th anniversary of his birth, in the heart of Cornwall’s China Clay Country, has been rightly celebrated this year.
Jack became deaf at the age of nineteen and blind in his thirties. These experiences of disability which combined with his rural location and his strong Evangelical faith, which was at odds with an increasingly secularized Britain, all served to make him an isolated outsider calling out ‘from the margins.’ His is a poetry which has power as he finds words to articulate his condition and convictions in his experience of marginalisation.
He used the landscape of the clayworks where he lived for much of his life - a landscape that had been violently shaped by industrial working - as a metaphor for the invading Gospel of Christ. His focus was on ‘the innate sinful condition of ‘nature,’ sin having warped nature just as much as humankind, with only God’s intervention able to restore the intended state of grace. As a result, he ‘believed his own suffering’ (for that was how he viewed his disabilities) ‘was necessary, but only as evidence for the crucial purification of original sin.’ So he declared that suffering (meaning his experience of disability) ‘in itself had taught me nothing; it had merely created the conditions in which joy could teach me, and so it could never be the last word or even the vitalizing word in my Christian adventure.’
Jack believed that God would invade his isolation by giving him the threefold happiness of healing, marriage and success as an Evangelical poet. As a result, he made few attempts to live with his disabilities, refusing to learn braille for example, and wrote some poetry which seems critical of those who chose to live with the experience of disability rather than seeking cure through God's invasive power. He achieved a measure of success as a poet and also married in his 50’s, but, despite much prayer for healing over many years and many moments when he thought healing had come, never experienced the physical healing which he fervently sought. His biographer, Luke Thompson, writes that ‘However we interpret Jack’s beliefs about the role of God in his life, they seem wrong. Over and over again, his statements and expectations were disproved; the signs and patterns perceived were incorrect; God’s promises were broken. It would be possible to construct a picture of a divinity working through Jack’s life, but it would require a complete renegotiation of the terms.’ That is, in part, because Jack only valued his disabilities as an arena in which God could demonstrate his healing powers to an unbelieving world.
By contrast we can consider the experience of the John Hull who, in the early 1980s, after decades of steady deterioration, lost his sight. ‘To help him make sense of the ensuing upheaval in his life, he began to keep an audio diary. Across three years, he created a unique testimony of loss, rebirth and renewal, excavating the interior world of blindness.’ ‘Based on these original recordings and his published diaries ‘Touching the Rock’, [the film] Notes on Blindness recreates his ‘journey through emotional turmoil and spiritual crisis to a renewed perception of the world and the discovery of ‘a world beyond sight’.’
In the book and film we travel with John Hull ‘farther and farther into the world … of blindness, until finally he comes to a point where he can no longer summon up memories of faces, of places, even memories of the light. This is the bend in the tunnel: beyond this is “deep blindness.” And yet at this … darkest … point, there comes a mysterious change—no longer an agonized sense of loss … but a new sense of life and creativity and identity. “One must recreate one’s life or be destroyed,” Hull writes, and it is precisely re-creation, the creation of an entirely new organization and identity, which [he] described ... At this point … [he] wonders if blindness is not “a dark, paradoxical gift” and an entry—unsought … but to be received—into a new and deep form of being.’ In reflecting on the nature of that gift, John said that, ‘After living with it and meditating on it for some time, I realized that blindness is not just a loss but it is one of the great human states which have characteristics of its own.’
‘My works,’ he wrote, ‘are … a yearning to overcome the abyss which divides blind people from sighted people. In seeking to overcome that abyss I've emphasized the uniqueness of the blind condition—blindness is a world. I've also sought to show that it's one of a number of human worlds. That sight is also a world. And that to gain our full humanity, blind people and sighted people need each other’. As a result, before his untimely death last year, John called on disabled people to challenge the church with a distinct prophetic ministry based on their own lived experience.
Both Jack Clemo and John Hull wrestled with God as a result of their experiences of disability. Jack increasingly wrestled with the reality that he had not been healed. His struggle was with God’s failure to grant to him the supernatural transformation that he desired and this desire and struggle left him isolated and lacking in solidarity with other disabled people. Because he viewed his disabilities as an arena in which God would demonstrate his power to cure, he did not explore the dimensions of the worlds of blindness and deafness that he inhabited or their potential for relationship preferring to remain waiting independently for rescue from those worlds. As a result, he was personally dependent on those around him and his poetry became strident and simplistic when he reasserted his belief in a cure that he was not receiving.
John, by contrast, recognised that he had been given the gift of experiencing the world of blindness realising that it is a world to inhabit, not to seek to leave, and his wrestling with God was the wrestle to reshape his reality, to receive a new and right spirit to trust that in the midst of the world of blindness, truth will be experienced and shared. He realised that, as a result of his twin experiences, he was able to speak into the worlds of blind and sighted people and emphasise their need of one another.
How do these stories relate to Jacob’s experience of wrestling with God? Jacob divided his family on the basis of his own ambition buying his elder brother Esau’s birthright and tricking his dying Father into giving a blessing that also belonged by right to his brother. While primarily selfish in a way that was not the case for Jack Clemo, his independent isolation does have similarities with Jack’s isolation and independent vocation. Jacob then wanted to be reconciled to Esau but was worried that Esau’s reaction toward him would be aggressive, so he set up a series of gifts for Esau and spent an anxious night wrestling with God. His experience of wrestling with God was a liminal moment in his life, a rite of transition from an essentially self-centred individualistic existence to become forefather to a people who, like the sand on the seashore, could not be numbered. This change involved crossing a boundary (the river Yabbok), struggling (with God) and naming (as Jacob became known as the Patriarch to Israel, the people who struggle with God). He limped away from this experience but went with God’s blessing, so his experience of change and transition was both disabling and a blessing. His reality was reshaped, enabling him to receive the generous act of reconciliation which his brother afforded him the next day.
Like John Hull, Jacob found his disabling experience to be one through which he gained a greater understanding of himself, his role, his destiny, his people, his world and his God. The result, as for John, was renewed relationships. Unlike Jack, who thought cure would demonstrate God’s reality and who, therefore, separated himself from other disabled people, Jacob and John experienced disability as the threshold to re-creation, renewal and relationship. That is a deeper, fuller experience of healing and a greater demonstration of God’s reality and presence. To return to the image with which we began, the marks of their experiences reflected the face of God.
John Hull taught that blind people and sighted people, disabled people and non-disabled people need each other. That realisation begins as disabled people challenge the church with a distinct prophetic ministry based on their own lived experience. The Greek poet Tasos Leivaditis has described just such a moment of realisation and so I end with his prose-poem ‘The Blind Man and the Lamp’:
‘IT WAS NIGHT and I had made the greatest decision of
the century — I would save humanity — but how? — as
thousands of thoughts were tormenting me I heard footsteps,
opened the door and beheld the blind man from the opposite
room walking down the hallway and holding a lamp — he
was about to go down the stairs — ‘What is he doing with
the lamp?’, I asked myself and suddenly an idea flashed
through my mind — I found the answer — ‘My dear brother,’
I said to him, ‘God has sent you,’
and with zeal we both got down to work . . .’
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Mahalia Jackson - There Is A Balm In Gilead.
Saturday, 15 October 2016
Prophets & Seers: Calling from the Edge
The 5th annual conference on Disability and Church, delivered through a partnership between St Martin in the Fields and Inclusive Church, was held today. Entitled 'Prophets & Seers: Calling from the Edge,' the conference explored Professor John Hull's call for disabled people to challenge the church with a distinct prophetic ministry. Before his untimely death last year, John was a beloved friend and a great supporter of these conferences.
Through plenary talks and in small groups, with a silent space and a marketplace, we explored the issues arising from our experience and considered how we can resource each other and the church. This conference was organised by and for disabled people, supporters and people with an interest in these issues.
Speakers:
- Ann Memmott, who is autistic and is a national advisor to churches and organisations throught the country.
- Donald Eadie. In recent years Donald has lived with a serious spinal condition which forced him to retire early as Chair of the Birmingham District of the Methodist Church. He has often been in the firing line for advocating justice and respect between people of all faith, women and men, gay and straight people. He is a much consulted Methodist minister, retreat leader and author.
- Emily Richardson - tweeter/blogger
- Alex Gowing Cumber. Self supporting Anglican priest, artist, life coach and soul companion; chaplain and creative therapist for adults with learning difficulties. Trustee of Inclusive Church
- Tim Goode - Southwark Diocese Disability Advisor. Trustee of Inclusive Church
- June Boyce Tilman - Professor of Applied Music, University of Winchester, composer, hymn writer and priest. June has a particular interest in the relationship between theology, spirituality, healing and the arts, and has written widely on music and healing.
- Miriam Hodson - expert by experience, mental health consultant, play therapist.
- Fiona MacMillan - chair of Disability Advisory Group St Martin in the Fields and a trustee of Inclusive Church
- Jonathan Evens - Associate Vicar for Partnerships at St Martin in the Fields and Priest in charge at St Stephen Walbrook
Donald Eadie said: 'We bring our discovery of bread on the edge and wells of water under our feet, in desert and destitution as did both Elijah ( 1Kings 17:1-7) and the slave girl Hagar before us. (Genesis 21: 8-20) Consecrated food from heaven is not confined to lie under white cloths in our Churches. We bring these gifts and many others, not as victims but as liberators.
I have come with a story of a journey, from the centre to the edge, of making connections between our experience of body and the body of Christ, and of receiving threatening gifts which could transform.'
He asked us: 'What does the journey toward transformation through vulnerability mean in your situation? What are your stories of frightening liberation?'
I have come with a story of a journey, from the centre to the edge, of making connections between our experience of body and the body of Christ, and of receiving threatening gifts which could transform.'
He asked us: 'What does the journey toward transformation through vulnerability mean in your situation? What are your stories of frightening liberation?'
Ann Memmott reminded us of Jesus' saying, 'You are the salt of the earth' and asked: Do disabled people keep faith fresh? Do disabled people prevent faith groups from 'silting' up? Do disabled people help prevent others slipping into glib ableist ideals, in our faith?
Her prayer was: 'Loving God, we are called by you. We are called by name. We are called as we are. We are called, through your grace, to be our authentic selves. Our calling is from the edge. Help it to be a powerful call. For truth, for love, for friendship, for true enablement. For mutual sharing and learning. In the name of Jesus or Lord. Amen.'
Jo-Jo Ellison told us about Notes On Blindness : Into Darkness, an immersive virtual reality (VR) project based on John Hull’s sensory and psychological experience of blindness. The interactive experience complements the story world of the feature film and forms an integral part of our outreach programme. Each scene addresses a memory, a moment and a specific location from John’s audio diary, using binaural audio and real time 3D animations to create a fully immersive experience in a ‘world beyond sight’. The project won the Storyscapes Award at Tribeca Film Festival and the Alternate Realities VR Award at Sheffield Doc/Fest. The experience is now available for free on the following platforms: Samsung Gear; Mobile or Cardboard: iOS | Android.
She also said that in the UK only 54% of people who are blind or partially sighted use audio-description. 77% are dissatisfied with what is on offer. So, for blind and partially sighted audiences Notes on Blindness is available with four soundtrack options:
• The standard version is the original film soundtrack with no extra description or sound effects.
• The audio-described versions use a spoken description to relate what’s happening outside of the dialogue. You can choose between versions by audio-describer Louise Fryer and Tony-nominated actor Stephen Mangan.
• The enhanced soundtrack version uses more original narration from John and Marilyn to tell the story, along with extra sound design and music. It’s a version that evokes the action, rather providing a literal description.
To make sure you can use audio description at any cinema, Archers Mark have partnered with MovieReading. This free app allows you to use your own smartphone and headphones to synch the film with your choice of soundtrack. More information about the MovieReading app is available at www.rnib.org.uk/audio-description-app-getting-started.
Jo-Jo Ellison told us about Notes On Blindness : Into Darkness, an immersive virtual reality (VR) project based on John Hull’s sensory and psychological experience of blindness. The interactive experience complements the story world of the feature film and forms an integral part of our outreach programme. Each scene addresses a memory, a moment and a specific location from John’s audio diary, using binaural audio and real time 3D animations to create a fully immersive experience in a ‘world beyond sight’. The project won the Storyscapes Award at Tribeca Film Festival and the Alternate Realities VR Award at Sheffield Doc/Fest. The experience is now available for free on the following platforms: Samsung Gear; Mobile or Cardboard: iOS | Android.
She also said that in the UK only 54% of people who are blind or partially sighted use audio-description. 77% are dissatisfied with what is on offer. So, for blind and partially sighted audiences Notes on Blindness is available with four soundtrack options:
• The standard version is the original film soundtrack with no extra description or sound effects.
• The audio-described versions use a spoken description to relate what’s happening outside of the dialogue. You can choose between versions by audio-describer Louise Fryer and Tony-nominated actor Stephen Mangan.
• The enhanced soundtrack version uses more original narration from John and Marilyn to tell the story, along with extra sound design and music. It’s a version that evokes the action, rather providing a literal description.
To make sure you can use audio description at any cinema, Archers Mark have partnered with MovieReading. This free app allows you to use your own smartphone and headphones to synch the film with your choice of soundtrack. More information about the MovieReading app is available at www.rnib.org.uk/audio-description-app-getting-started.
Emily Richardson spoke about finding her voice on twitter. Her twitter bio - often wobbly, frequently achey, usually smiley - describes her limitations and attitude, making twitter the ideal format within which to explore and express her thoughts and ideas.
In our closing Eucharist we prayed:
God of all, we thank you that you have known us since we were in our mother’s wombs.
All Please help us to feel your loving arms around us when times are hard.
We thank you that although we are as numerous as grains of sand, you still know us each individually.
All Please help us to respect the differences in others.
We thank you for the different gifts you give to each of us.
All Please help us to look for and nurture these gifts in others.
We thank you for both darkness and light.
All Please help us to have faith that you are always there in the shadows.
We thank you for giving up your son to die on the cross for us.
All Please help us to remember, that all we have to do is ask and all our sins will be forgiven.
We thank you that on the third day, Jesus came back to life and now lives with you in heaven.
All Please help us to keep trusting that one day we will be there with them too. Amen.
We used the words of John Hull for part of our Eucharistic Prayer:
All Please help us to feel your loving arms around us when times are hard.
We thank you that although we are as numerous as grains of sand, you still know us each individually.
All Please help us to respect the differences in others.
We thank you for the different gifts you give to each of us.
All Please help us to look for and nurture these gifts in others.
We thank you for both darkness and light.
All Please help us to have faith that you are always there in the shadows.
We thank you for giving up your son to die on the cross for us.
All Please help us to remember, that all we have to do is ask and all our sins will be forgiven.
We thank you that on the third day, Jesus came back to life and now lives with you in heaven.
All Please help us to keep trusting that one day we will be there with them too. Amen.
We used the words of John Hull for part of our Eucharistic Prayer:
'It is because of its broken-ness that partakers of the bread proclaim the death of Christ, for in his death he was broken. When he gave thanks, Christ broke the bread and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
“Broken-ness lies at the heart of what took place at the Last Supper. Not to discern the broken-ness is not to discern the body of Christ and not to realise the paradox of strength through weakness and life through death.”
In the same way, after supper he took the cup and gave you thanks; he gave it to them, saying: This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.
“We ask that, as we take the body and blood of Christ, we become apostles of inclusion, witnesses of vulnerability and partners in pain.”
Our prayer, together with the angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, is for ability made perfect in inability.'
“Broken-ness lies at the heart of what took place at the Last Supper. Not to discern the broken-ness is not to discern the body of Christ and not to realise the paradox of strength through weakness and life through death.”
In the same way, after supper he took the cup and gave you thanks; he gave it to them, saying: This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.
“We ask that, as we take the body and blood of Christ, we become apostles of inclusion, witnesses of vulnerability and partners in pain.”
Our prayer, together with the angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, is for ability made perfect in inability.'
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Taize - The Lord Is My Light.
Saturday, 1 October 2016
Prophets & Seers
This annual conference is not merely about disabled people but is organised by and for disabled people, supporters and people with an interest in issues around disability. Over the two-day event participants can listen to speakers, join in small group discussions and take part in events including a screening of the film Notes on Blindness. Organised by St Martin-in the Fields and Inclusive Church, the 2016 conference takes its inspiration from Professor John Hull, a long term supporter of this event, who called disabled people to challenge the church with a distinct prophetic ministry.
Saturday 15 October 10.30am-4.30pm in St Martin’s Hall
Prophets and Seers: Calling from the Edge
Day 1 includes speakers and small group discussions to explore the issues arising from their talks and consider how we can resource each other and the church. Speakers include:
· Ann Memmott, who is autistic, author of the guidelines for autism for the Church of England and an autism adviser to churches and organisations throughout the country
· Emily Jane Richardson, a tweeter and blogger
· Fr Alex Gowing-Cumber, a self-supporting Anglican priest, artist, life coach and soul companion, chaplain and creative therapist for adults with learning disabilities or dementia.
The day also features a silent space, a marketplace, panel discussion and liturgy, with a range of contributors including Rev Tim Goode, Southwark Diocesan Disability Advisor, Rev Dr June Boyce Tillman MBE, Professor of Applied Music, University of Winchester, composer, hymn writer and priest; Miriam Hodson expert by experience, mental health consultant and play therapist; Fiona MacMillan, chair of the Disability Advisory Group at St Martin-in-the Fields and a trustee of Inclusive Church; Revd Jonathan Evens, Associate Vicar for Partnerships at St Martin-in-the-Fields and Priest-in-charge at St Stephen Walbrook, and Bob Callaghan, National Coordinator, Inclusive Church
Tickets are £20 | £10 concessions and are available from http://inclusive-church.org/disability-conference.
Sunday 16 October Prophets and Seers: Calling to the Heart
10.00am-11.30am in church
On Day 2 all are welcome in church at 10.00am for a Eucharist and healing service for St Luke’s Day reflecting on the themes of the weekend and using liturgy written by St Martin’s Disability Advisory Group and Healing Team. The service includes the laying on of hands and anointing with oil, accompanied by prayers for healing for yourself, someone else or the wider world.
No tickets are required for the service.
Notes on Blindness
2.00pm-4.30pm in St Martin’s Hall
A screening of the acclaimed documentary film Notes on Blindness will take place in St Martin’s Hall. The film is based on John Hull’s audio diaries, as he reflected on his journey into blindness. Joining us for the screening are the filmmakers and Marilyn Hull. To book your free film ticket, please go to prophetsandseers.eventbrite.co.uk.
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Tuesday, 2 August 2016
Prophets & Seers: 5th Annual Conference on Disability and Church
Prophets & Seers: 5th Annual Conference on Disability and Church, in partnership with Inclusive Church. Saturday 15 October and Sunday 16 October. St Martin’s Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields.
The conference is organised by and for disabled people, supporters and people with an interest in these issues. On Saturday join us in St Martin’s Hall from 10.30am-4.30pm for speakers, small group discussions, a marketplace and silent space. Tickets are £20, £10 concessions and are available from http://inclusive-church.org/disability-conference.
All are welcome on Sunday in church at 10.00am for a Eucharist and healing service for St Luke’s Day. The service reflects on the themes of the weekend and includes the laying on of hands and anointing with oil, accompanied by prayers for healing. No tickets are required for the service.
Later on Sunday in St Martin’s Hall from 2.00pm – 4.30pm there is a screening of the acclaimed documentary film Notes on Blindness. The film is based on John Hull’s audio diaries, as he reflected on his journey into blindness. Joining us for the screening are the filmmakers and Marilyn Hull.
To book your free film ticket, please go to prophetsandseers.eventbrite.co.uk.
Download the full conference flyer here.
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