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.” • God’s 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, “it’s 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.”