Dementia - a spiritual journey towards the divine

1
Dementia - a spiritual journey towards the divine

• A personal view of dementia
• Christine Bryden

2
People with dementia ...

• live within a complex web of social encounters
  that are tainted with stigma.
• Stigma like racism is pervasive and endemic to
  their existence.
• This threatens our spiritual identity.

3
Dementia has been called the theological disease

• Dementia entails a loss of self and is
  disintegrative, non-redemptive thus challenging
  theologically.
• But can you truly say my mind is absent and
  body an empty shell?
• Where does my journey begin? At what stage have
  I lost my spirituality?

4
What measures my existence as a spiritual
being?

• As cognition fades, spirituality can flourish as
  a source of identity.
• A spiritual self reflected in the divine and
  given meaning as a transcendent being.

5
Is spirituality the temporal lobe?

• If I can get my God-experience from a well-placed
  electrode
• will I lose my God-experience when I have lost
  even more of this part of my brain?
• But we know so little about the brain, let alone
  how it relates to the mind and soul.

6
The lie of dementia ...

• is that the mind is absent and the body is an
  empty shell.
• This medical model silences the voice of people
  with dementia.
• I am more than a damaged brain. My creation in
  the divine image is as a soul capable of love,
  sacrifice and hope, not as a perfect human being,
  in mind or body.

7
I believe ...

• The Christian creeds and confessions start I
  believe, not I remember.
• As I unfold before God, as this disease unwraps
  me, I can feel safe as each layer is gently
  opened out.
• Gods everlasting arms will be beneath me,
  upholding me.

8
We are reflected in others ...

• In the family of God, the body of Christi, we are
  what others remember of us.
• Jesus, remember me when you come into your
  kingdom.
• I will need you to be the Christ-light for me, to
  affirm my identity and walk alongside me.

9
What about whether I can be in communion with
you?

• Do this in remembrance of me - an action, not
  a cognition, a memory, or an understanding.
• I am part of the body of Christ and of all its
  acts of remembrance.
• The Holy Spirit is within me, despite my diseased
  brain, and helps me in my weakness with groans
  that words cannot express.

10
I need to seek emotional healing

• as this disease will increasingly challenge all
  my relationships.
• Within the body of Christ these are oiled by
  the Holy Spirit, but I must do what I can while I
  can.
• As the disease progresses, its the work done by
  others which becomes crucial.

11
I need to seek spiritual healing

• for this is eternal.
• As I travel towards the dissolution of my self,
  my relationship with God needs increasing support
  from you, my other in the body of Christ.
• The Holy Spirit connects us - our souls, our
  spirits - not our minds or brains.

12
Who I will I be when I die?

• My soul will always be me, even through the
  ravages of dementia.
• It is given life and meaning in Christian
  community.
• You play a vital role in connecting with me at
  this eternal level.

13
My journey is a path

• of survival with dignity...
• of making meaning in life... and
• of discovering the glory of God within me.
• We are born to make manifest the glory of God
  that is within us as we let our own light
  shine, we give other people the permission to
  do the same.

14
I can feel confident to believe

• I may make all things well and I can make all
  things well, and I shall make all things well
  and you will see for yourself that every kind of
  thing will be well.