‘Deafness is the least understood and the most misunderstood of all disabilities, and unlike blindness or crippling its far reaching effects are not immediately obvious to the hearing person’.
These words were quoted by the late Canon Tom Sutcliffe and give a clear description of the outside world’s attitude to deafness. However, how does a born deaf person view the outer world? More importantly how does he/she develop an understanding of spirituality and faith?
I myself became deaf at the age of 7, but can clearly remember the voice of my mother and family saying ‘Pray to God’ words that made me look around for someone I could not see - words that planted a seed in my heart making me explore and search. Deafness came too late to wipe out that echoing sound of the word ‘God’ which was the beginning of my spiritual journey to grasp and understand something I could not see but knew, from those echoing words, ‘God was security and love’.
For someone born deaf, there is no echoing word ‘God’ to catch their attention, but they do have the gift of ‘sight’ to view the beauty of creation which is important to their growth of faith and the basic values of God’s gifts enables them to start out on life’s journey, the journey which develops spirituality from life’s experiences. Once a deaf child begins to understand what life is for and what life is all about - understand creation and the importance of caring for self and others, then seeds of faith begin to grow - the seeds which are attributed to the basic values of kindness and goodness - understanding of life and process of sharing. However, what access do these children have to the facilities offered to children without disabilities?
I include here a story from a profoundly Deaf woman.
‘I am prelingually and profoundly deaf, and have been since the age of one.
I have been attending church, both hearing and deaf, for many years. I wondered about the meaning of going to church because I could not follow the services at all in the hearing church, and the deaf church was boring with too many words, signed only by the Chaplain and one Reader, following the tradition of the hearing church.
One day I was invited to attend a deaf Christian Fellowship, where both the hearing and deaf speakers were using BSL facial expressions and body language, OHP and drama. At last I understood everything as it was in my language, my level and it was very visual. That weekend I was filled with the Holy Spirit and I was very thirsty and hungry for more.
I became angry with the Church because I learnt nothing from it all those years and I learnt more from only one weekend with the fellowship. So I told my husband that I was not going to attend the Church services anymore, but my husband advised me to continue going as usual. I thought about what he said and prayed to God about it. I realised that many deaf people who go to deaf church were probably in the same boat and I could help there somehow.
Now we have a church planning meeting every six months with our chaplain, discussing the theme so that we can plan drama, OHP, use of visual materials for the sermon, visual prayers, and encourage congregation participation. We invite three chaplains from our diocese, our two Lay Ministers and an outsider to take it in turns with sermons so that we have different speakers for 6 months. Also some of us attended the Alpha Course and our home group Bible study was then started.
Our deaf church has now become more alive.’
This story shows the importance of ‘understanding and being understood’ and this is where British Sign Language plays an important role. Sign Language conveys feeling and meaning in a way that spoken language is not able to. Often when a hearing person sees a signed service for the first time, they are brought to tears as they watch the true beauty of the service becoming alive through the hands. Spoken words become visualised and when this happens Sign language becomes a living language opening one to the dimensions of the Spirit allowing one the freedom of expressing his/her self in their own natural way - a creating of words within pictures.
For example:-
a) Jesus - The index fingers point out the nails by touching the centre of each open palm in turn.
b) The song of the bird is not heard but woven through beautiful gestures of the hands.
c) The patter of rain and the roar of the sea is not heard but visual to the seeing eye - again a picture can be created through hand gestures.
Deaf people are part of God’s message of love to the world and it is important on their Spiritual journey to share this with hearing people by the visual way they praise God through hymns, prayers and visual symbols.
Spirituality is within everyone regardless of whether they go the church or not, regardless of whether they are Deaf or hearing - its about a vast range of human experiences which shape our lives.
Someone put this question to me some years ago ‘Do Deaf people mourn?’. This person believed they did not mourn as deeply as hearing people.
Funeral services for Deaf people are different from hearing services. My overall impression is how important the role of the person taking the funeral is. Whereas hearing people can bow their heads with grief whilst listening to the words of the service, Deaf people are not able to do this as they are not given any time to grieve because their eyes have to be attentively on the chaplain or interpreter. Therefore their grief is hidden in the same way as their ‘deafness’. I myself experienced this at the funeral of my beloved mother - my grief came later when my eyes were at rest from communicating and I was able to let my grief come to the fore.
At a funeral service of a young man, his wife and son approached to lay a rose each on his coffin just before the committal - after a short time when I went to lead them gently back to their seats I noticed that the young widow was talking quietly to her husband telling him how much she loved him. Here was the proof that Deaf people do grieve as deeply as hearing - grief and pain are part of the process of life.
Spirituality and Deafness - living experiences of God through Deafness that enable us to discover our true self and worth. It is visual and revolves around human life experiences and the basic value of God’s gifts.
