Weird Church Cumberland

For anyone in our community (and beyond!), especially members of the Truth and Reconciliation Team, I encourage you to register for this event being hosted by the VIRL: "Q & A on the Indian Act with Bob Joseph". https://virl.bc.ca/event/bob-joseph/ Bob Joseph is a member of the Gwawa’enuxw Nation, Gayaxala (Thunderbird) clan, and the founder and president of Indigenous Corporate Training Inc., which offers training on Indigenous relations to government and corporate clients. He wrote "21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act" and "Indigenous Relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality"

Friday Morning Prayer

This Sunday we gather online once more at 4 pm, to carry on with our theme: Embodied. This week we are taking a closer look at why spiritual community is so important. Log in details at https://www.weirdchurchcumberland.com/

This month at Weird Church is all about the body - how we fully embody our spirituality, use our body as the tool to connect with God and one another, and all the complicated baggage that comes into play when we discuss bodies in the Western world. Linked is an article from The Atlantic, and although the author is writing from an American perspective, much of what she writes about rings true here, especially as parts of our country heads into further lockdown. https://www.theatlantic.com//quarantine-giving-you/617672/

Tomorrow we meet online for Coffee and Conversations that Matter: Embodied at 10 am &/or 6:30 pm (same zoom link). Join us as we open the discussion on embodied spirituality, using our bodies for spiritual practice, and how our distorted prescription of our bodies interferes with our connection to God and one another. Coffee and Conversations is an open minded spiritual discussion group where anyone (everyone!) is welcome.

"Pain is part of being alive. We engage it in different waysavoid it, embrace it, drug it, and numb it. Sometimes we rage against it, curse it, coddle it, savo...r it, fight through it, ignore it. When we theologize pain and strive to make meaning out of it, I suggest we proceed with the greatest caution, careful to speak in the personal and keep meaning in a private key. The popular scripts for making sense of pain are either hollow or profoundly dangerous. Pain has not been my greatest teacher, and suffering has not saved me. My relations with pain are intricate and individual. I know myself in part through the understandings I have reached with particular expressions of physical pain, just as certain emotional wounds have shaped and forged my sense of self. But pain is not the circumference of my circle. Pain does not encompass me. Pain lives in me, interwoven with my joy and delight and the daily business of this extra/ordinary life. What I wish for us is a way to push back against the ableist assumptions of these healing narratives: that disability is a sign of sin or moral degradation; that we are broken, suffering, and miserable; that we have no agency until our healing comes; that healing is the center of our story and our only longing. What I wish for us is that we understand why not everyone wants healing on these termsor any other. What I wish for us is that we find a way to resist ableism without silencing the fact that sometimes people do cry out for healing, that there are times and places where people long for relief from pain. I wish us a world where proud and powerful are the birthright of all children born with disabilities. I wish a concept of healing that resists the dichotomy of before and after, healing that does not besiege illness or declaim against disability, healing schooled by disability pride. Do not rush too quickly to assure me this is possible. Sit with the trouble. Stay with it for a while. We still live far from that world." - Rabbi Julia Watts-Belser [Image description: A photo of a plant that has leaves moving in a lot of different directions. The leaves are long, thing, and have tiny white hairs. These words sit on top of the grey background: I wish a concept of healing that resists the dichotomy of before and after, healing that does not besiege illness or declaim against disability, healing schooled by disability pride. Do not rush too quickly to assure me this is possible. Sit with the trouble. Stay with it for a while. We still live far from that world. - Rabbi Julia Watts Belser]