Welcome to the Mad and Crip Theology Podcast, hosted by Miriam Spies and Amy Panton, which comes out of the Canadian Journal of Theology, Mental Health and Disability. We both live and work lands that have been homes and remain homes to the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron Wendat, the Neutral and the Ojibway/Chippewa peoples and other peoples who have cared for the land. We are grateful for the opportunity to live and work on this land and are mindful of the need to repair broken covenants.
On today’s episode of the Mad and Crip Theology podcast we talk to Krysia Waldock and Dr. Mike Walker. Krysia's creative piece "Doing Church During Covid-19: An Autistic Reflection on Online Church" illuminates an Autistic perspective on faith and church attendance during the Covid-19 pandemic. Autistic people may be stereotyped as less likely to be religious or have a belief system, yet they can have a belief system much in the same manner as a non-autistic person. It is also emerging that Autistic people are also disadvantaged in the current climate of a global pandemic. We discuss Krysia's piece and also her work in the mad/crip communities more broadly.
Mike's poem "Love/Hate" describes his relationship to his body, rather fully…he loves his body because it is strong, slender, and sinewy. That said, he also experiences spastic cerebral palsy, scoliosis, and all that those conditions entail. Thus, often he hates his body, because he will walk into walls, nearly fall while moving towards a goal, lose his grip on an object. We discuss Bonhoeffer's assertion that the suffering God can help; that said, Mike sometimes wonders whether God sees his pains, and whether S/He really wants to alleviate them. We also talk about other work that Mike is doing in Ottawa.
This podcast is an opportunity to model how faith communities can engage in theological and spiritual conversations around madness and cripness. If you need a full transcript you can find videos on our Youtube channel and here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRUW9z5hoqP_WK74hg3N8bQ
We want to say that topics and conversations we are raising throughout our time together are often hard! They are hard for mad and crip people ourselves and hard for our families and loved ones. So, do what you need to do to take care of yourselves, your bodies, minds, and hearts.