Stuck thinking
Apr. 4th, 2026 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseI read at church now and again. And the way that goes is I trundle up to the front in the scooter and someone hands me a microphone. Not that I couldn't manage to project my voice (it's a school hall that seats about 300, so fairly big but not ridiculously so), but the place is set up for microphones, so that's what we use. It's all perfectly straightforward and nobody gives it a second thought; and the last time I read, they gave me the first chapter of Ecclesiastes and you can have an absolute ball putting in the emphasis there, so I got a few unexpected compliments. Well, really, anyone could make that passage hum.
Well. Now I have been asked to do one of the readings at my mother's funeral on Thursday, and it's a beautiful chunk of Isaiah (there are so many of those). However, I've also been told it would be "better" if I brought the rollator rather than the wheelchair (as if I can't use the wheelchair as a rollator as well over a short distance, so it's more versatile than the rollator), because I have to get up one step to read from the lectern.
You see the problem here, don't you? It's not that I'm unable to do that. I can manage one step; I'll probably have to steady myself on the lectern, and it's going to be slightly awkward, but it's do-able. The problem is that in this particular church, while it's a good church in many other respects, they're so fixated on "we have to read from the lectern" that everything has to work round that. Someone who had to use a wheelchair all the time would simply not be able to read in that church, no matter how well they did it, because they couldn't get to the lectern.
Yeah, well, no, frankly. Churches, of all places, need to be taking the lead when it comes to ensuring that everyone is included. In this case it's a simple enough fix; I believe the microphone is fixed to the lectern, but they do have other microphones, so it would just be a question of, perhaps, one of the music group temporarily handing one to a reader in a wheelchair. (There is another consideration in play here, too. Our church is the sort of place where you're encouraged to bring your own Bible or borrow one of the church ones. The church where my mother's funeral is taking place is not. It's a Catholic church. There is a large missal sitting on the lectern, open at the day's readings. Some Catholics do bring their own missal, but it's not universal practice and it's not specifically encouraged. But, even so, there's probably going to be at least one person in the building with a small missal the reader could borrow, if they don't have their own.)
The priest there is a nice bloke, and a reasonable one at that, so I think I may be having a quiet word with him about it after the service - I don't need to do it before, since I can manage, but I should do afterwards for the sake of those who can't. After all, it's not a question of anyone deliberately intending to exclude anyone. It's just that - as in so many cases like this - they haven't thought.
Well, now I get to help them think. They're welcome.
Well. Now I have been asked to do one of the readings at my mother's funeral on Thursday, and it's a beautiful chunk of Isaiah (there are so many of those). However, I've also been told it would be "better" if I brought the rollator rather than the wheelchair (as if I can't use the wheelchair as a rollator as well over a short distance, so it's more versatile than the rollator), because I have to get up one step to read from the lectern.
You see the problem here, don't you? It's not that I'm unable to do that. I can manage one step; I'll probably have to steady myself on the lectern, and it's going to be slightly awkward, but it's do-able. The problem is that in this particular church, while it's a good church in many other respects, they're so fixated on "we have to read from the lectern" that everything has to work round that. Someone who had to use a wheelchair all the time would simply not be able to read in that church, no matter how well they did it, because they couldn't get to the lectern.
Yeah, well, no, frankly. Churches, of all places, need to be taking the lead when it comes to ensuring that everyone is included. In this case it's a simple enough fix; I believe the microphone is fixed to the lectern, but they do have other microphones, so it would just be a question of, perhaps, one of the music group temporarily handing one to a reader in a wheelchair. (There is another consideration in play here, too. Our church is the sort of place where you're encouraged to bring your own Bible or borrow one of the church ones. The church where my mother's funeral is taking place is not. It's a Catholic church. There is a large missal sitting on the lectern, open at the day's readings. Some Catholics do bring their own missal, but it's not universal practice and it's not specifically encouraged. But, even so, there's probably going to be at least one person in the building with a small missal the reader could borrow, if they don't have their own.)
The priest there is a nice bloke, and a reasonable one at that, so I think I may be having a quiet word with him about it after the service - I don't need to do it before, since I can manage, but I should do afterwards for the sake of those who can't. After all, it's not a question of anyone deliberately intending to exclude anyone. It's just that - as in so many cases like this - they haven't thought.
Well, now I get to help them think. They're welcome.
