Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

255myself as having needed qualities and resources to share with the other but theother person with an intellectual disability has needful qualities and resources toshare with me. We both need each other. As we acknowledge these narratives thenature of those qualities and resources, both given and received, come into focus.I acknowledge that I have much to offer these people. To those whoworship, I offer signs of the journey of faith -- bread, juice, a sign of peace andthe cross. To others I offer my time, and an attentive non-judgemental listeningear, allowing stories to be told or relationships to be valued as presence. To thoserejoicing, I offer a celebratory heart and soul. To those in pain, I offer myempathy, compassion and tears. To all, I can open my arms wide in a gesture ofhospitality, inviting embrace.I also acknowledge that I seek not to give of myself out of a desire toreceive for to do so would be to displace love with self-fulfilment. The otherbecomes a means to my ends. I seek to give of myself to the other out of agenuine desire to share with the other the love I have received from God. AsReinders states in reference to friendship with people with profound intellectualdisability,The gift of friendship is received as a gift for the sake of our ownperson, as all true friendship is. God does not love us in order toget something from us. Likewise, we do not extend friendship inorder to get something from the other, because the result wouldnot be friendship but self-love. Therefore, as a sincere response toGod, we extend friendship to the other person for its own sake. ...one cannot reap the fruits of friendship if one’s friendship is ameans to another. Friendship is its own reward. 615As this pertains to the narratives and persons of this extended reflection itmeans that I don’t go to Jim’s bedside out of a desire to receive a personalblessing from him. I don’t sit alongside Henrietta in the craft room out of aSimilarly, other pastoral theologians call for a mutuality of care,Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 152-155.Swinton, John. "Friendship in Community: Creating a Space for Love." In SpiritualDimensions of Pastoral Care: Practical Theology in a Multidisciplinary Context, edited byDavid Willows and John Swinton, 102-06. (London & New York: Jessica KingsleyPublishers Ltd, 1997), 106.Moltmann, Jurgen. "Liberate Yourselves by Accepting One Another." In Human Disabilityand the Service of God: Reassessing Religious Practice, edited by Nancy Eiesland and DonSaliers, 105-22. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), 121-122.Vanier, Jean. Becoming Human. 2nd ed. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.), 2001.615 Reinders, Receiving the Gift of Friendship, 348-349.