Diocesan Workshop : Being the Gathered in the Land of Forgetfulness

Wayne Ewing, St. Peter the Apostle, Pueblo

Every existing parish, as well as their immediate community, includes personal care partners in their aging fold. It is possible, in our discipleship, to move from the accidental and occasional acts of mercy and compassion for the caregivers amongst us, and in the community at large, to the intentional…to move from intermittent and casual support to consistent, healing Presence. Personal and family care partners are already deeply immersed in spiritual matters 24/7, yet rarely have the opportunity to rehearse their spiritual exhaustion in a prayerful setting. By gathering with care partners at the oasis of Presence in the desert of their isolation, perhaps in their own homes, Church is reborn as a healing environment. A brief introduction to this possibility by the author of “In the Land of Forgetfulness: Meditations on Dementia Care as Spiritual Formation” will be followed by focused conversation around what this movement from passive concern for caregivers to active Presence as spiritual companions in their life and living might actually look like as Church. The foundational theology and spirituality is incarnational; the praxis is modeled in missions like the Westberg Institute for Faith Community Nursing.