Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

260Amidst a de-humanising environment, in which he endured constant privationsand death-threatening experiences, he found cause to maintain a personal diary.He describes the value of maintaining this ritual amidst such an oppressivelycontaining environment.At first I could see no meaning in this jumble of words, of images,thoughts, prayers, observations and emotions. At times I thought Ishould tear it up and throw away my two-inch stub of pencil. But Icouldn't do it, and as the pages filled up more and more, and Irecorded more and more of this unexplored landscape, I feltmyself become helplessly lost in it. But I could not stop, for to seewhat has previously been invisible is powerfully captivating.Eventually it came to me that here in these pages there wassomething I could only dimly perceive, some threads runningthrough and holding it together like the veins that carry blood tothe living heart. Here in all this confusion some veins of life heldeverything together. I don't fully know what it was, yet rememberfeeling that in these strange pages was a whole human being. 619I would argue that it may well be that the uncontained practices outlinedin this chapter afford these people who live with intellectual disability in aninstitutional context what Keenan refers to as ‘veins that carry blood to the livingheart.’ In doing so, they gain a glimpse, probably unconsciously, of a more fullyhuman identity than that offered by the institution.Elsewhere, Keenan also speaks of how in such a situation of extremedeprivation, where one is denied the simple pleasures that are otherwise taken forgranted in more ordinary circumstances, these pleasures serve as life-sustainingmetaphors when accessed in such a contained environment. As he states of asimple bowl of fruit,The fruits, the colours, mesmerize me in a quiet rapture that spinsthrough my head. I am entranced by colour. I lift an orange intothe flat filthy palm of my hand and feel and smell and lick it. Thecolour orange, the colour, the colour, my God the colour orange.Before me is a feast of colour. I feel myself begin to dance, slowly,intoxicated by colour. ... Such wonder, such absolute wonder insuch an insignificant fruit. ... I cannot, I will not eat this fruit. 620619 Keenan, An Evil Cradling, 81.As noted earlier in this chapter, in the face of concentration camp incarceration and imminentdeath Etty Hillesum also maintained a diary that afforded her opportunity for order andcreative imagining that, in spiritual terms, took her to uncontained places beyond the camp,affording her a sense of freedom from her oppressive circumstances.Hillesum, An Interrupted Life.620 Keenan, An Evil Cradling, 68.