We attend a very small church. Sometimes no more than 30-40 people. Sometimes different people besides our pastor will bring the message. One particular Sunday a former pastor and church planter spoke. In his introduction he was making a comment about something, I can’t remember now, but he used the “r” word in reference to I guess some people would think I was “r” for _____. Again I cannot remember. But as soon as he said it he also said “ oh I guess I should not have said that”. I softly said no you shouldn’t along with a friend sitting next to me. My ID brother was with us that day. I grew up with that word referring to my brother. We are in our sixties now. It was common to use it but thankfully society had gotten away from it. That day I became so angry especially that this was in church from the pulpit. After a bit I could not concentrate on anything else he was saying. I looked at my husband and said we are leaving and we got up and walked out. Again we are in a very small church. It’s not like we could sneak out. Later that afternoon I had phone calls and texts from our pastor and other members of our church apologizing Eventually I had a long conversation with the speaker and he apologized. He also apologized in front of the whole church tho we were not there that day. the shocking thing is he told me that he has several ID relationships and has done work in the disabled community. He recognized he had made a huge mistake. But the word still resonates deep humiliation when used the way it was used. My brother attended a school in the 60s and 70s that was named—- Louisiana school for spastic children. That’s the way they were looked at then. Thankfully the name was eventually changed to Louisiana special education center. As family of disabled people, we are always more sensitive to the use of certain words than others. I am so sad and horrified that we are seeing a resurgence of the use of the R word.
Gosh that sounds like a really hard moment, but I'm also so glad to hear the story of how you handled it and then how the church/pastor responded. I had a lot of interactions early on in Penny's life with friends who used the r-word and I never felt like I handled it well. That said, most of them circled back to me and apologized and we had great conversations. There's still so much learning to do around why and how our words matter. I have so much grace for people who use words without having done that work, but the callous indifference to the words we use and how they affect people (that I think we are seeing right now) is a different matter.
We attend a very small church. Sometimes no more than 30-40 people. Sometimes different people besides our pastor will bring the message. One particular Sunday a former pastor and church planter spoke. In his introduction he was making a comment about something, I can’t remember now, but he used the “r” word in reference to I guess some people would think I was “r” for _____. Again I cannot remember. But as soon as he said it he also said “ oh I guess I should not have said that”. I softly said no you shouldn’t along with a friend sitting next to me. My ID brother was with us that day. I grew up with that word referring to my brother. We are in our sixties now. It was common to use it but thankfully society had gotten away from it. That day I became so angry especially that this was in church from the pulpit. After a bit I could not concentrate on anything else he was saying. I looked at my husband and said we are leaving and we got up and walked out. Again we are in a very small church. It’s not like we could sneak out. Later that afternoon I had phone calls and texts from our pastor and other members of our church apologizing Eventually I had a long conversation with the speaker and he apologized. He also apologized in front of the whole church tho we were not there that day. the shocking thing is he told me that he has several ID relationships and has done work in the disabled community. He recognized he had made a huge mistake. But the word still resonates deep humiliation when used the way it was used. My brother attended a school in the 60s and 70s that was named—- Louisiana school for spastic children. That’s the way they were looked at then. Thankfully the name was eventually changed to Louisiana special education center. As family of disabled people, we are always more sensitive to the use of certain words than others. I am so sad and horrified that we are seeing a resurgence of the use of the R word.
Gosh that sounds like a really hard moment, but I'm also so glad to hear the story of how you handled it and then how the church/pastor responded. I had a lot of interactions early on in Penny's life with friends who used the r-word and I never felt like I handled it well. That said, most of them circled back to me and apologized and we had great conversations. There's still so much learning to do around why and how our words matter. I have so much grace for people who use words without having done that work, but the callous indifference to the words we use and how they affect people (that I think we are seeing right now) is a different matter.
I’m looking forward to reading her book. This topic has been top of my mind lately!
It's really good. I enjoyed it all, but just an FYI that I think the final section about practicing Sabbath, Eucharist, and Baptism is the best part