The Disability Advisory Group (DAG) meets today to celebrate its 10th birthday and to spend time writing liturgy for the 10am Eucharist on Sunday 21 October, our disability conference weekend.
This year will be the 13th annual conference on disability and theology. It’s a partnership between St Martin’s and Inclusive Church that offers space for disabled people to gather and resource one other and the church. Previous years have included ‘Wholly, Holey, Holy’, ‘Rolling down Justice’, ‘Something Worth Sharing’, ‘Telling encounters’ and ‘Calling from the Edge’. Those titles give some indication of the breadth of the ministry of the conference which, until covid, saw people travelling from across the UK to St Martin’s. The last few years it has been online, which has enabled some people to join who were previously prevented by health, finances or geography, although being online is a new barrier for others.
The DAG meets three times a year. As well as discussing the barriers to belonging apparent to disabled people within our community – ‘lifts, loos and loops’ and broader issues of access and participation – we also come together exactly as we are. And, as we open ourselves to one another and to God, we find healing. It feels a key part of what church should be. After discussions, we share lunch together. An initial offering of bread and cheese becomes a feast – the basic gifts are multiplied with what others bring, reminding me of the meagre offerings of the little boy at the feeding of the 5000 which, blessed and shared, became abundance.
For me, it’s been a journey of discovery. I joined the group initially thinking of myself as non-disabled but as the years have passed discovering that I too have frailties; I can be disabled by health or other barriers. But above all the group teaches me that, while our physical, emotional and mental states vary, our worth before God is always the same.
Jeff Claxton
