Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

259awards and artefacts that so generously describe her as so much more thaninstitutional ascriptions of frailty and dementia. Within the context of a life longlived within institutional bounds we see Gladys maintain her persistence ingetting her story heard against a socio-political regimen that insists on its storyprevailing. To the strains of ‘Climb Every Mountain’ there can be found thosewho, for the moments whilst Julie Andrews sings, are transported to themountains of Austria, far away from that place that assiduously monitors andrecords their movements and symptoms. And there is Jim, ailing, dying Jim, who,despite living the majority of his life behind institutional walls, despite living fordecades at the behest of oppressive medicalised routine, despite countlesshospitalisations and having a body fraught with cognitive and physical frailty andvulnerability, is still, in his final days, able to look beyond that which contains hisdying physical body and find a spirit that enables him to offer a personal blessingto another.Finkelstein speaks of the type of institution mentioned in this extendedreflection as offering a context for living that leads to social death. 618 Muchwhich offers life to people is denied or severely curtailed in this lived contextincluding familial relationships and friendships, private spaces, broad-basedcultural enrichment and community networking. So, whilst living in such a lifedenyingcontext, what is it that seems to enable some at least to show evidence oflife that refuses to bow to institutional philosophy and practice?I would argue that such a question cannot be definitively answered, just asinstitutionalised persons such as Barry, Angela, Eileen, Nicole, Mario, Janet,Rodney and Howard are probably unable to describe why it is they seem to gainvalue and meaning from the simple act of taking into themselves bread and juicesignifying the body and blood of Christ. However, I would argue that when welook to twentieth century asylum narratives we find some instructive wisdom thatsheds light on this issue.Brian Keenan went to live in Beirut in 1985 as an alternative lifestyle tothat afforded by his native Belfast. He soon found himself kidnapped byfundamentalist Shi'ite militiamen and held in the suburbs of Beirut for the nextfour and a half years. He was brutally incarcerated in his personal asylum.618 Finkelstein, "Disability: An Administrative Challenge?” 21.