Our Book Club choice last term was At the Gates: Disability, Justice and the Churches by Naomi Lawson Jacobs and Emily Richardson. Here Becky Sandland reflects on how she found the book...

We have valued reading this book together at the ‘breakfast book club’ as it has been a really useful tool in helping us to see where we as a church are being inclusive for people with disabilities and where we need to change. In the book, voices from real peoples’ stories speak of their struggles and difficulties in simply trying to join in with church life. Reading their stories generated lots of conversation in our group around the things that we are doing well together at All Saints, but also highlighted that there is more that we could improve on to make all people feel valued, loved and understood. We discussed stories and ideas from the book over breakfast and agreed it can feel an overwhelming task as peoples’ abilities and disabilities can vary so vastly and are not always even visible.  

 As a person with invisible disabilities myself, I found some of the voices from the book painful to read, echoing my own experiences of times when my needs have been forgotten or pushed aside because I was in the minority and so not deemed important. This has been even harder to take coupled with the background of glib comments which were intended to be helpful and faith building, but actually were dismissive of the problems I was facing. I often felt blamed for my own health problems as quotes from the Bible were aimed at me repeatedly such as, ‘God heals all your diseases,’ Jesus said ‘Your faith has healed you.’ and ‘Well if the Doctors can’t fix it, maybe it’s demonic?’ I have also been told not to speak about the difficulties of my condition as it is not ‘good confession of faith that God will heal me.’  

All this has meant I have been left feeling that there is something ‘wrong’ with me as a person as God hasn’t cured me and that I should not ever talk about it. Instead I should ignore the pain and push on regardless. It has left me feeling unable to even talk about my difficulties or ask for help. It takes a lot of courage to ask for help or understanding again after experiences like this- you are risking being deeply hurt by the response and it’s less painful to just keep quiet. Offering to pray for someone’s healing is great, but if that person praying is not also interested in practical ways they or others could help or understand your difficulties, prayer can feel like the ‘easy fix.’ Something to do, feel good about, and then forget. 

Thankfully, my experiences since joining All Saints have been that I am loved, valued and cared for, despite my limitations. I feel loved as a whole person. Even so, I still found writing this review really difficult, and needed encourgament to include any of my own experiences. I’m having to get used to realising that people are interested and do care. I can’t tell you how much of a healing blessing that is to me. 

The key to loving people with disabilities was repeated by several voices in the book, summarised in Niccki’s plea: 

‘Don’t assume anything. Don’t look at somebody and assume that you know something about them because of their disability… Everybody is different. So ask. Have a conversation about it.’  

We in the group all agreed that at All Saints we need to keep listening to the voices of disabled people, asking them what we can do that would support them. Also to continue to strive to make All Saints a safe place where people feel able to request what they need, knowing that we, as a church, care for and value them just as they are.  

 Because, as Fern writes,  

‘The church isn’t complete until disabled people can actively contribute and take part, not just as objects of pity and charity, but as active participants whose experiences are seen as important too.’ 

Our next Breakfast Book Club is on Saturday 15th July when we shall be discussing Queer Holiness: The Gift of LGBTQIA people to the church by Charlie Bell. All welcome to join in at 8.00am for conversation over breakfast.