Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

2977.3.3 Immanent Thou-ness and Uncontained LivesThe narrative analysis of this extended reflection also strongly pointed tothose personal qualities and behaviours of people with intellectual disability thatwere expressive of those who are not fully contained by negatively-constructedinstitutional philosophy and regimen. Such qualities and behaviours show signsof resilience and resistance that give evidence of life-giving contact with thatwhich lies beyond the containing and oppressive institutional influence. In abroad-based spiritual sense this can be conceived of in sacramental terms in that,through the lives of those with intellectual disability, there are qualities andgestures displayed that, like a light shining through a stained glass window, pointto a form of spiritual reality that describes life with attendant meaning and valuethat cannot be accounted for by institutional measure.I would argue that the sense of pastoral nearness afforded by ImmanentThou-ness enables a clarity of discernment and insight that affirms the possibilitythat, within a lived context that exercises control and policies of containment,there can still be evidence of life uncontainable by rationalist, deductiveprocesses. This pastoral model, with its focus on seeing and affirming the Thou,or the image of God, in the other, is open to the notion of the spiritual breakinginto the lives of those living in the institutional context. Immanent-Thou-nessaffirms the inbreaking of the spiritual in the lives of people with intellectualdisability as expressed through wooden cross, paper and pencil, or imaginarybaton. It is for the pastoral carer to affirm such uncontained signs of a moretranscendent reality. In doing so he or she either consciously or subconsciouslyaffirms in the person with intellectual disability the presence of life that cannot becontained by institutional strictures.7.3.4 Immanent Thou-ness and Evidence for LiberationIt has been the goal of this extended reflection to give expression to amodel of pastoral care that, according to the tenets of liberation theology, isexpressive of liberation from the oppression afforded by institutionalised modesof relationship imposed on people with intellectual disability. Liberation,understood from the pastoral dimensions that undergird this extended reflection,is that which affords status for the other over and above the oppressed valueafforded by the institution. As such, it seeks for the other to be regarded as awhole human being created in the image of God. In doing so it seeks for the