Madison Pierce: then, Melissa, it's so great to have you on the podcast. So welcome and we're really looking forward to learning from you today.
Ben Conner: Thank you. We're excited to be here. Thank you very much.
Madison Pierce: So to just get started off. Could you tell us a little bit about we're in this series on Disability and theology. Could you tell us a little bit about how your work intersects with that top of more broadly how you got interested in it, and maybe some of the shapes that it's taken over the years.
Ben Conner: Sure. i'll start. and Melissa will fit right into that, because our stories obviously intersect very deeply around this. But
Ben Conner: I was preparing to go to doctoral work at Princeton Theological Seminary with Daryl Gouder
Ben Conner: to look at mission on ecumenical theology and part of our bedtime ritual with the kids at that point our oldest Tommy, 7 years old, and then 3 girls go down from there
Ben Conner: was to read to him on the love seat, and while I was reading he had a seizure. and it was pretty frightening. I'd never experienced a seizure up close before.
Ben Conner: and everything
Ben Conner: didn't go exactly smoothly. The the person at the emergency room should never be around children, he said things like well, you should never ride a bike or swim again. Which were the 2 things he enjoyed doing most.
Ben Conner: We realized before that that he learned differently. So we had already decided to home school them because school was a nightmare for him. He was very creative. What was making connections, his peers weren't making in his
Ben Conner: teachers weren't making. And we realized this creativity and his intelligence. But we also knew he was
Ben Conner: moving off the beat of a different drum.
Ben Conner: And so already I was learning a lot about universal design and learning, and and principles of education and
Ben Conner: pedagogy, just by hanging out with my son.
Ben Conner: but that moment for us we
Ben Conner: was it important because we found out that through a series of tests that he had had a stroke at birth and was missing about a third of his brain.
Ben Conner: The story today is that he's a manager of a storage facility. He he is has a home with a couple of roommates and has bought his own car, and he's doing really well. But we were at the front end of that, and had no idea what was going to happen.
Ben Conner: and so we had to become advocates, and we had to learn about the disability community and how to navigate school systems, and it was exhausting, and of course all of that was going to inform the way that I listened, and the kinds of questions I asked at a theological Seminary.
Ben Conner: which was a place that could be defined by J. Dolmidge as filled with academic ableism. It's represented by heavy doors and steep steps. It's meant to filter people out. It's not meant to bring in
Ben Conner: different kinds of people. It has a certain kind of body mind that's going to be successful. A certain kind of body mind that's invited to participate. And here I am asking questions that Don't really fit. While I am
Ben Conner: trying to work on this dissertation that brings together mythiology and Christian practices.
Ben Conner: and i'm thinking, Well, if this doesn't apply to my son into all these other kids, i'm getting to know while I take him to occupational therapy while I take him to the pediatric neurologist while I take him to physical therapy. Why, I take him to the odd herb lady, you know all these things for trying to do to make sense of what's going on. If it if it doesn't work for these kids
Ben Conner: that i'm getting to know then how relevant is it in the first place, and
Ben Conner: and so that for me that was the beginning of shifting my thinking
Ben Conner: about disability as not a liability or deficit, but as a lens
Ben Conner: for looking at things as a as a embodied way of being in the world that provides a new way of knowing a new way of comprehending and
Ben Conner: seeing people with disabilities as expert life hackers who have had to learn how to navigate a world that's not designed for them.
Ben Conner: So while i'm doing this at Princeton.
Ben Conner: Melissa and the 4 kids move back to Virginia.
Ben Conner: where we're from. and that's where
Ben Conner: her side of the story
Ben Conner: comes in. So
Ben Conner: so I
Ben Conner: I grew up with forces. I was a lucky young girl, youngest of 3 girls, 5, 2 older sisters. I grew up around horses, and had always loved being in their presence. I did learn to ride as a
Ben Conner: at a young age, and did compete in the Hunter Jumper circuit in Virginia, and had really gotten away from horses. For a while the I became aware of
Ben Conner: therapeutic riding and equine assisted services in the nineties. I had a good friend who
Ben Conner: had an internship just out of college, at a center that was looking at therapeutic interventions, and it really peaked my interest, but I was in the middle of
Ben Conner: having very young children and doing all of these things. So when
Ben was working on his Phd. And we started on this new journey with our son.
Ben Conner: We were with him at Princeton for a while, but really ended up returning home to Virginia, really to seek out services for our son Tommy that were not available to us in New Jersey, not readily available. It was. It was like a 2 year long waiting list to get him into this, the speech therapy and occupational therapy that he needed.
Ben Conner: So I moved back home with the the 4 kids. So Tommy and 3 younger sisters lived with my mother in law for a while.
Ben Conner: and and what happened there was. I got
Ben Conner: well about 2 or 3 h a week other than homeschooling, doing lots of intensive therapies
Ben Conner: where my mother in law watched the kids, and I had free time, and where I found myself going was to the local therapeutic riding center to volunteer, because it was an escape for me to go back to my to help others alongside horses, and
Ben Conner: that was what I chose to do with my couple of free hours. I got every week, so
Ben Conner: I really just was tremendously
Ben Conner: interested, intrigued, and then, and became very passionate about that work as well, because at at that time in my life, as we were learning about how to
Ben Conner: relate to people with disabilities, realizing the ableest world that we lived in
Ben Conner: the opportunities that children had, which were very limited. We were feeling that ourselves with our son, but at that time I was just volunteering, and I was.
Ben Conner: I was seeing miracles happen, and I was seeing God at work in People's lives in ways that I had. We've been in ministry for years, but I really was seeing some incredible things. And what really got me hooked was I worked was working with a
Ben Conner: four-year-old little girl
Ben Conner: who was not walking, and the doctors didn't know why. And this was a long time ago. This was 2,005, so I was just helping her as what we call a sidewalker, and her physical therapist had recommended that she
Ben Conner: try therapeutic writing, and within 6 weeks
Ben Conner: this little girl, her name was. Chloe took her first steps within 6 weeks of writing horse, and I remember the day it was Friday afternoon lesson, and she.
Ben Conner: I mean. She only took a few steps. She had her walker. She pushed her walk her way, and she walked towards her horse. And I was part of that team that got to make that happen, and I was just so excited. I I told Ben like, okay, i'm doing this for the rest of my life. This is incredible. I had always seen
Ben Conner: horses, as I knew that I enjoyed being with them. I knew I felt drawn to them, but I had never seen just the incredible life transformation that can happen. And in this case it was physical. For a a young girl with physical challenges
Ben Conner: and just understanding that God created these beings in this way such that a human
Ben Conner: riding on them can develop the musculature. To be able to learn to walk like that was just mind blowing. So what's interesting about our story? While these things were being.
Ben Conner: you know we were
Ben Conner: gaining awareness of
Ben Conner: what was happening in our lives and our family and our son's lives. It brought in our view to the world, and our son Tommy was never drawn to horses. He likes small animals. Actually, he had to overcome. Even dogs had a real fear of dogs.
Ben Conner: He had a fear of courses. So while I tried to introduce him to that, that was not his thing. So instead it became it. It did become my thing. But
Ben Conner: he, we still credit him with the introduction to the world of disability, theology, and horses as partners in ministry.
Ben Conner: So that's you know. You could ask another question if you want. But then the next step from that. Do you want to hear the next step from that. So that's I passed. I I passed my comprehensive exams, and then finally I was able to and join my family back in Virginia
Ben Conner: and needed to.
Ben Conner: You needed to put some.
Ben Conner: I need to act on all this stuff I was learning
Ben Conner: because you obviously don't have much time when you're learning theological, German and French, and trying to pass comps and get your dissertation topic approved. You're just trying to survive. And so I finished this part of it now. I actually had some time and some some energy, and I said to Melissa, I think
Ben Conner: I think we should start up some sort of ministry, and in my head the way I sprays. It was some sort of ministry to young kids with disabilities.
Ben Conner: because there just doesn't anything like that where we live. And i'm hearing all of these stories from the parents. when i'm taking Tommy to these different places about how Craig used to have a friend in the neighborhood. And then another guy said, Why do you hang out with that retard? And so he doesn't have a friend anymore.
Ben Conner: and then one that really broke my heart was. There was a girl who was gonna have a party at the local aquatic center. and the mother was just about in tears, because no one was coming to the party.
Ben Conner: and this was when I was waiting at a occupational therapy, and I said, Go ahead and have that party. Melissa and I coach the swim team in our neighborhood.
Ben Conner: and we had done Youth Ministry in town. So we got our. We got our Mini vans and filled him up with kids and took him to the dollar store and gave him money to buy pirty
Ben Conner: sort of aquatic theme stuff, and we all showed up at the aquatic center.
Ben Conner: and this girl at a party. And here what I noticed was this.
Ben Conner: that yes, the girl was delighted because all the attention was on her, and she was having fun. The mother
Ben Conner: was in tears.
Yeah.
Ben Conner: because no one had done that for her.
Ben Conner: and it wasn't me. They the most exciting thing to me was, I've been in youth ministry. I was always trying to come up with discipleship techniques that involve prayer and Bible and retreats, and these sorts of things, and all of them were really
Ben Conner: even service projects were very self serving. But I found out all that I've been learning about Christian practices, about hospitality, and and this this sort of caring and nurturing for one another, these embodied ways of living out our theology.
Ben Conner: I saw it coming to play. I saw high school kids who are
Ben Conner: considered by others to be.
Ben Conner: you know.
Ben Conner: run by their
Ben Conner: hormones and have a pre frontal lobe that makes them make poor decisions, and largely selfish because they're trying to work on their identity. That's how they're seen by other people. And then here I see them
Ben Conner: loving this girl, caring for her and being delighted in it. And I thought, this, this is discipleship, and now I can explain to them what's going on what they're experiencing, what the Biblical foundation is of what it is that they're doing right. Now, how to articulate what they're experiencing theologically.
Ben Conner: So this ministry that that then we began together.
Ben Conner: turned out to be a ministry. Yes, to young adults, with intellectual and developmental disabilities; also to typically developing high school kids who we recruit as volunteers, whether they were Christians or not.
Ben Conner: they were gonna come into this community. I experience something of the power, the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus Christ. And then we accidentally started this ministry to parents where they would come, bring their kids to our house, and then take a walk in our neighborhood, connect with each other, find other. Parents are going through the same kind of
Ben Conner: struggles, exchange information about resources that are available.
Ben Conner: The ones who have been at it longer helping the other ones along. And it was a real community.
Ben Conner: and that's where things start to change. But things change for me. and theologically, when I took a group of 7 of these guys to a camp.
Ben Conner: and when I took these kids to a camp it was
Ben Conner: I. I did not know what I was doing, and so everything that I did was probably wrong, like having written a book on youth, ministry, and disability. Now I don't use examples of what I did positively
Ben Conner: because I had these parents show up with their kids, and the first thing they did was hand me these coolers filled with medicines.
Ben Conner: It's like what in the world like I had no idea, because Tommy had a different kind of disability. He didn't require all of this, and this medicine can't be taken with this. This one has to have food. If he doesn't have these gummy treats with this medicine he won't have them.
Ben Conner: and I I thought, oh, my goodness, you know, and I have 7 different things to administer. And then one of the women who dropped her son off had this big smile on her face, and I couldn't understand why why her son Xavier
Ben Conner: is the most athletic kid I've ever met. He's on the autism spectrum.
Ben Conner: But if you could somehow vote for a football to him and point him in the right direction, he would score every time he he's the fastest he can jump the highest. He's so strong and solid even at 14. I couldn't keep up with him. He was amazing amazing athlete. He could jump through a whole room filled with people who are just sort of lounging and not step on anybody's fingers toes anything like that
Ben Conner: just just remarkable. Well, he was going to camp with me in the middle of the George Washington National Forest, and he's a runner. I wasn't prepared for that. I only had one other volunteer with me.
Ben Conner: and so the whole trip up. He was excited. He was shaking my seat as we were going, so it's like at a massage seat for 3 and a half hours, going back and forth. Another kid, who was on the trip.
Ben Conner: had just had a death in the family, and so he was really sad. He's having a challenging time processing it. He has down syndrome, intellectual. He has intellectual disability. He likes quiet spaces; he likes to sit in a corner with a book.
Ben Conner: He likes to watch what's going on, and engage on his own terms. The camp we were going to was not set up for a person who experienced his life that way. It was a typical youth camp with all the energy and all the lights and surprises and sounds, and
Ben Conner: I was not ready for that. And then one of the other guys who came on the trip
Ben Conner: as become a very good friend. his name's Craig.
Ben Conner: He was in his mother's when when she had a car accident, and as a result has cerebral palsy.
Ben Conner: and he is a big nascar fan. If you were to ask him he'd say, Dale, Jr. Dale, Jr.
Ben Conner: So that's Dale Earnhardt, Jr. For the uninitiated. He has a whole room filled with Dale Junior
Ben Conner: trinkets, and
Ben Conner: I don't know what you would call it. But even as tires and posters and cardboard cut outs, he just loves it. He also loves Virginia tech sports because I went to college at Virginia Tech, and sometimes that's a good thing. But recently it has not been a pleasant thing, because every time there's a game. He texts me about the wins and losses, and most of them been losses. And while i'm trying to forget, he's, reminded me constantly
Ben Conner: he has a great sense of humor. Wonderful Guy, most thoughtful Guy, and he loves animals, and, in fact, right now he's working
Ben Conner: at the Humane Society
Ben Conner: with animals. So he was on the trip with me.
Ben Conner: I'm getting to where everything changed for me. We get to the camp.
Ben Conner: Beau, who said, won't, get involved in any way
Ben Conner: he he doesn't want to go the meetings he hasn't eaten for 3 days. He's very sad.
Ben Conner: I know that he loves friends, the show friends. In fact, he talks to them, you know. No, no, Chandler, that's not funny, hey? Monica, you know, like he'll work them into a conversation with you as if they're there. Of course that's relate to the fact. He Hasn't had a lot of
Ben Conner: durable friendships. and so he's had to create some.
Ben Conner: But here he is now. He has some people who care about him and like him, but he's learning how to engage him. He's learning how to trust when he said so many relationships that were therapeutic interventions, or with doctors, or with teachers or special education, but no durable friendships, really.
Ben Conner: And so it's hard to build trust with him.
Ben Conner: and I think well, he loves friends. I'm gonna have the people who are leading the meetings play the theme song to friends, and I know that'll get him involved.
Ben Conner: And so here we are. We're going to the meeting me, the one other leader and the 7 guys all together.
Ben Conner: And then all of a sudden the Savior boom. This is a good time to explore the George Washington National Forest, and he bounces away. I know there's no way. I'm going to catch him, so I asked my volunteer leader, Brent, who was on the way, and merry football team go catch Zavier. I'll get everybody else safely to where this meeting is. I'll get a responsible leader to watch our kids, and then I will go
Ben Conner: help you. But when I get there I realize I only have 5 of the kids Beau is not with us. The only thing Beau has enjoyed so far is a hot shower
Ben Conner: half an hour to 45 min at a time or the hot tub there's actually a hot tub at this camp.
Ben Conner: So I say, okay. I'm gonna go look for Beau.
Ben Conner: So I head out. Look for beau. I go to the the dorm room. The shower is not there. Then I go over towards the hot tub, and as I'm. Walking towards the hot tub
Ben Conner: I find a shoe. and then another shoe, and then a sock. and another sock, and a shirt.
Ben Conner: and some shorts.
and some boxer shorts.
Ben Conner: and then I find Beau next in the hot. So just smiling going.
Ben Conner: and fortunately I find a towel. I wrap it around Beau and I bring him back to the dorm room, and i'm thinking, okay.
Ben Conner: I gotta do something about this, and i'm a parent of a child who has disabilities. So I apply my parenting skills.
Ben Conner: and they fail. They worked about as good as they did with my own kids, and so then I think all right. I have a master of divinity, the most arrogant title of any degree ever where I have
Ben Conner: taking pastoral care, and I've learned how to be a non anxious presence, so I will be a non anxious presence to beau. But of course i'm anxious, so it didn't really work very well. It's making him more upset.
Ben Conner: I'm a defense away from a doctorate where I've considered these things at very deep levels, so I apply that skill set as well.
Ben Conner: And as you can imagine. It's just about as effective as the other 2,
Ben Conner: and he's crying, and i'm not a very emotional person, but i'm about to cry, and i'd love to say it's out of empathy, but it was out of frustration.
Ben Conner: I thought I got 2 more days of this. This is miserable. What I'm going to do. We've been there so long that the meeting ended. Xavier bounces in the room, bounces around it, bounces out, and I thought, oh, good! We found Xavier.
Ben Conner: and then Craig comes in.
Ben Conner: Now, Craig, with a cerebral palsy. He's had to have a a dorsal result of me to stop his pesticity. He has all kind of things to help him move a little better, but he he still needs with an odd gate. He always looks as if he's about to fall over, but he never quite does
Ben Conner: he doesn't look at me and beau, and analyze the situation and say, what skill set can I draw upon from my previous learning to intervene.
Ben Conner: He doesn't have a capacity to do that intellectually. What he has. The ability to do is be present, and Craig comes in between me and Beau.
Ben Conner: He puts his arm around Beau, puts his head on Craig's shoulder and stops crying.
Ben Conner: and at that moment something changed for me. It moved from ministry to young adults with disabilities to ministry with and by.
Ben Conner: and that
Ben Conner: Yeah. So that moment for Ben and and I was I was there that week, too, but fortunately the girls were a little less involved than the guys, but that moment
Ben Conner: led not only to
Ben Conner: a change in Ben, where he changed the title from his second book.
Ben Conner: which is, he had already started planning on from amplifying their witness to amplifying our witness, because Craig was
Ben Conner: our partner and ministry as he ministered to Beau and Ben through friendship.
Ben Conner: and we realized that it was not about skill sets. It was about giftedness from the Holy spirit.
Ben Conner: and and showing up in the moment through that obedience, and that that we are all gifted differently, and that there is not a hierarchical way of thinking about this
Ben Conner: Instead, it is very holistic. So
Ben Conner: that was that approach, and that made him think differently and write differently.
Ben Conner: Yeah, many other guys Sorry
Steph Judd: I you keep talking, but i'll go ahead and take a redirection.
Steph Judd: Wow, Ben and Melissa! What! What a what a ride that the Lord is taking you both on over the over the course of your life so far.
Steph Judd: And thank you so much for sharing about the way that
Steph Judd: yeah, in in interacting with people with disability, has
Steph Judd: redirected the the path that you were going on. I think that's that's a common common thread throughout a lot of the series that we've been exploring
Steph Judd: is it? There's a there's an opportunity to re-evaluate and reconsider
Steph Judd: and the ways. That you used to think in a way that is really profound and refreshing.
Steph Judd: Then I wanna
Steph Judd: before we, before we talk about Melissa renew. I'd love to hear more about renewed the work that you're doing currently. But i'd love to hear a little bit more about.
Steph Judd: So you you just just described for us
Steph Judd: that moment with with Beau and with Craig. and realizing, oh, this is
Steph Judd: the directionality of this witness and this this this task is not, you know, directional. It's actually reciprocal. And we're doing this comment task together.
Steph Judd: You've obviously thought more deeply about the why that
Steph Judd: disability theology reshapes our understanding of mission. Can you unpack a little bit more about what is some of the key? The key kind of headline.
Steph Judd: Take homes that you have that you've had over the course of your professional career.
Ben Conner: Yeah. Well, it so if you start with the just the concept of witness one that was expanded. So first it in my mind, and in my upbringing it had to do with the
Ben Conner: capacity to communicate verbally.
Ben Conner: And so that was the saying of witness. But the truth is the concept of witness or martyria. The idea of you know, from which we get martyr. This concept of witness
Ben Conner: it. There's a a doing of witness being at which is the diagonal or the service that we do.
Ben Conner: There's a being of witness, which is the kind of community we are, which is the coin in Theia.
Ben Conner: so as a being of witness. And then there is a saying of witness the karigma. But all these things are connected, and and and I, and we tend to foreground the one
Ben Conner: that is most valued in our society, and that we we're most familiar with, and for many people it has to do with
Ben Conner: our our ability to understand, comprehend concepts into
Ben Conner: cogently relate them to other people in a way that's compelling all the time trusting, and the power of the Holy Spirit, that no one comes to Christ except by the Holy spirit.
Ben Conner: But being around people with disabilities and learning from disability, theology of of relativized the one that was always central for me and destigmatize the others.
Ben Conner: And in that way you could look at something like John the Baptist's witness. And when I say that what comes to mind is it the
Ben Conner: he must increase? I must decrease because i'm thinking a little earlier than that. In fact, i'm thinking a lot earlier than that. i'm thinking of Elizabeth and Mary meeting.
Ben Conner: And as you'll recall what happens. There is John leaps in the room
Ben Conner: now. I'm asking you what intellectual capacities, what social skills, what communication abilities did John the Baptist have. At that moment
Ben Conner: it was a response. It was a leap.
Ben Conner: and that leap is such a powerful witness. It's in Scripture, and we read it
Ben Conner: at least once a year.
Ben Conner: right? And that's bearing witness, and that that. So I had to think differently. Okay. So let's take different sort of disabilities and think about this concept of witness
Ben Conner: and reimagine, how we understand witness, through the reality of the lived experience of people with disabilities. Having spent a lot of time with people, with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Ben Conner: I I've learned that
Ben Conner: there are many, many different communicative modalities, many different ways. We respond to faith, many different ways that we
Ben Conner: express faith.
Ben Conner: and the problem is, we're not attuned to them because we don't attend to them. So all this is going on us all the time. And so part of it is a matter of slowing down and seeing differently through the eyes, ears, and bodies of other people. And if they're not present. You're never going to do that.
Ben Conner: So anything you're going to do in disability. Theology has to be done in partnership with people with disabilities.
Ben Conner: In fact, John Sweat and I right now are working on a book for a series we're doing within our varsity press partnering with my center for Disability Ministry at Western Theological Seminary.
Ben Conner: and our book is called Missing Voices and Disability Theology.
Ben Conner: where we're looking at people who use augmented speech and and recognizing them as theologians and trying to
Ben Conner: amplify their theological contributions.
Ben Conner: So one of the things I found, so someone say, what about someone? With profound disabilities, profound intellectual disabilities? People will say that they're non agental or non communicative. Well, if you attend to them, then you know that that's not the case at all.
Ben Conner: There's something going on.
Ben Conner: But even if it's not that discernible to you.
Ben Conner: let's take, for example, Francis young Francis Young, who wrote about her son Arthur and Arthur's, call and she talks about that I mean both the the beauty of Arthur and the challenges of Arthur, who doesn't have capacities that
Ben Conner: that you expect one to have to participate in a life of discipleship or have a location. But she's arguing, and Arthur's call. In fact, Arthur does have a vocation, and the way that you can talk about Arthur. The way that I've conceived it is, Arthur has an evocative witness
Ben Conner: that he evokes things around him that the spirit is involved in author, and that when he's in a community that the community is shaped around him, to be
Ben Conner: more loving, more filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, these things that author requires to flourish
Ben Conner: through which he lives in interdependence with a community.
Ben Conner: and he has something to offer that bears witness to the reality of the kingdom of God, even though he's not doing things in an active sense that we think about doing things, he's evoking things and others, and the community would be different, or ours are not there. So that's part of a Christian witness as well.
Ben Conner: So now let's think about something else. How about deafness, deaf as a culture, not deaf in terms of hard of hearing, but deaf in terms of using sign language, and a particular way of being in the world and organizing life, ways of arranging worship, spaces, ways of moving through spaces together.
Ben Conner: ways of working more collaboratively than independently
Ben Conner: being visual instead of primarily oral.
Ben Conner: And what does that have to say in terms of our
Ben Conner: our our our witness? In a in a world where we are filled with in we're, we're constantly assaulted by images
Ben Conner: and shouldn't. We then go to people who are more visual and embodied, and learn from them
Ben Conner: about bearing witness to the Gospel. Let's go along with that to Biblical interpretation. When you read a passage of Scripture something's going on in your mind in your imagination.
Ben Conner: But you're never held
Ben Conner: you. You don't have to let anybody know that right? Nobody knows that narrative.
Ben Conner: You're reading the words and something's happening in your head, but nobody knows unless you let them in on it.
Ben Conner: But in deaf communication you're enacting things, and that enactment is part of your hermeneutics. It's part of your interpretation. The facial expressions, the distance Touch your no touch with the way you position your body.
Ben Conner: All these things give insight into the text. They're all part of the interpretive process it that gives us a fuller witness to this gospel. It's so much richer and so we think about disability and ministry and disability and theology. And this building Witness.
Ben Conner: Don't. Think of it in terms of accommodation. We are all being accommodated. God is simply not impressed with my Cv.
Ben Conner: You know God doesn't think. Oh, Ben, he only needs a a little bit of an accommodation.
Ben Conner: And are you kidding? I mean, there's no way I know God except for God reveals God self to me in a manner that I can comprehend.
Ben Conner: The same goes for every single person. Accommodation is always going on. So let's just assume it's going on, and then try to attend to the specific ways it's going on. So, instead of thinking about, I have to accommodate this for somebody else, because I understand it, they don't let me put it to their level.
Ben Conner: which is just plain insulting
Ben Conner: Instead, let's think about this. We are all being accommodated to? And how can including the insights from people with intellectual developmental disabilities? People who are deaf
Ben Conner: people with mobility challenges you have to navigate a world differently than us. How does that enrich
Ben Conner: our gospel? If that's the case, then.
Ben Conner: And this is where I get to a little bit of disability studies. Okay, that difference between impairment and disability, and i'm sure you've covered this in your podcast. so you may have an impairment.
Ben Conner: but the impairment doesn't disable you from being able to participate in Christian witness. In a sense, the only thing that can disable you. And this is along the social model is, if you're not allowed a place to appear if you're not allowed a place to contribute. And that was the case with Craig.
Ben Conner: his contributions weren't valued, and so how I've taken that into theological education and into my writing is my goal is to create places where people with disabilities can flourish in theological education.
Ben Conner: so they never are faced with the question, how do you think you're going to be a pastor?
Ben Conner: Because that just shows a profound lack of understanding of Christian vocation. It's a very limited and able to understanding of what capacities and skills are needed to be a minister.
Ben Conner: Instead, we need to learn more about what vocation is, what a minister is, what theological education is. We need to disable theological education. Take away those biases we need to disable ministry, take away those biases, and When we do that the Church will be enriched.
Ben Conner: and our witness will be fuller.
Grace Ng: Thanks so much for sharing that I really appreciate hearing about how the contributions of people with disabilities really enrich our vision of the Gospel and of the kingdom. I think that's really beautiful. Would you be able to talk more about the Friendship Center at Western.
Ben Conner: Sure, a Friendship house is what is called, and it is a residence that is on the campus of Western Theological Seminary.
Ben Conner: I'll let Melissa start because she was a Director of Friendship House for a couple of years while she was getting things going with the therapeutic riding center. So do you like to talk about that
Ben Conner: sure one of the
Ben Conner: beautiful things when we we moved here to Holland, Michigan, and 2,013, and and as I was in the process of trying to develop
Ben Conner: the nonprofit ministry at renew it, it really became obvious the Friendship House as part of Western Theological Seminary needed some leadership and direction that had in the past been on the shoulders of seminary students.
Ben Conner: So Ben was overseeing that ministry, and there were 6 residents. It is a home on the campus, where
Ben Conner: a very unique model, where seminary students live as roommates and neighbors to
Ben Conner: the young adults from the community who have intellectual disabilities.
Ben Conner: It was started in 2,007, and it was started as a brilliant idea.
Ben Conner: but they only planned, I think, for about the first 3 to 5 years there wasn't a long term plan for how Friendship House was going to
Ben Conner: what it was gonna look 25 years down the road. So we moved here. It was about 6 years old when we moved here and there had been some turnover and students, some turnover in faculty, but the friends, as they were called, who are the 6
Ben Conner: young people, were now in their thirties mid to late thirties, and trying to integrate into the life of the seminary had not been a priority. It was really just considered a residential space up until that point.
Ben Conner: So as it was re-imagined, and under Ben's guidance. The the decision was made that they needed a staff member.
Ben Conner: a staff role at the Seminary to help with the care of the people living in Friendship House, both the seminary students and the friends, and then some intentionality, and integrating them into the life of the seminary, and that was daily chapel services
Ben Conner: participating in social events, and even what what ended up happening was even having some of the friends, as they were known audits, some seminary classes, to to build some intentional friendships, relationships with seminary students beyond just their roommates, but kinda to go bigger.
Ben Conner: So I got to be a part of that process which was very exciting, and then we graduated the founding friends.
Ben Conner: the 6 friends, and it was in a beautiful way we got to imagine what that would look like as they rotated out of living in the Friendship House, and they moved into a other seminary housing the red bricks which are town houses around the seminary.
Ben Conner: and they were able to live as neighbors, with some of the families and and others, and then welcome and some other friends, and ended up transitioning as I left that position in 2,018, and became full time
Ben Conner: at renew therapeutic writing center, and then Carlos Thompson was hired as a now and, fellow, they changed the model slightly to call them Friendship House fellows, where they actually do intentional internships and and and take courses as part of the expectation.
Ben Conner: So it was fun to to intervene at that time and and help shape some vision for the future, so that it wasn't just a residence anymore. But it actually was
Ben Conner: a a vital part of the seminary community and the really greater seminary. And then Greater Collins
Ben Conner: local town where we live community, and that has really been a beautiful thing to see, and those friendships have lasted. So that's the great thing the the friends we started calling them the friends, you know they they They became quite famous around town, but they have their friendships have multiplied. Really, a seminary. Students have come through, so they have all those relationships to draw on.
Ben Conner: We they each have different gifts. They've been able to contribute and worship, and to the life of the seminary
Ben Conner: and beyond, in the in the community.
Ben Conner: So now we have. Yeah. So she mentioned, we have a friendship else fellows program, and they apply, and Carlos Thompson leads it, as you mentioned Matt Floating's name. He's the one who imagine friendship, else
Ben Conner: in the beginning, and there are other friendship houses around, but none of them. They have integrated
Ben Conner: the the friends into the life of that they haven't
Ben Conner: had a stamp on a theological institution, and in order for that to happen, I realized we had to do some things we had to do, some training of our faculty and staff. So we had mandatory trainings for all faculty and staff around issues of ableism, and what disability studies has to say about
Ben Conner: theological education. We had Speakers come in like Bill Gaventa, John Swinton, Eric Carter.
Ben Conner: just to prepare our seminary to receive this gift. Also I developed a program at the the first thing was a a graduate certificate and Disability Ministry, which was 7 courses
Ben Conner: that begins with introduction to disability in the Church Has a Bible related one, a theology related one, and then several electives, and this was to get our students thinking this way. So they're They're sort of positions and oriented towards receiving the gifts of people with disabilities
Ben Conner: that turned into a masters of arts and disability and ministry. I'm just now finishing up a
Ben Conner: doctor of Ministry and Disability Ministry, and of the 8 people in it 7 of them claim disability.
Ben Conner: and, like, I said, this series that i'm doing with John Swinton. The focus of it is to provide publishing opportunities for scholars with disabilities. What we discovered through Friendship House is that some people with intellectual and developmental disabilities have a vision
Ben Conner: of being ministers. But hadn't been taken seriously.
Ben Conner: And so, what sort of a theological education can we put together for them that impacts our students, I mean. So you're learning Hebrew side to side with someone with intellectual disabilities. It changes the orientation of the class.
Ben Conner: Before that happened students felt a lot of anxiety. The class could feel competitive. You're worried about maintaining scholarships. You're worried about yourself. Well. And now all the shift
Ben Conner: it focused on this one student, Amanda
Ben Conner: Leila, was her Hebrew name that she took on, and they they wanted to make sure she succeeded, and it it wasn't it wasn't just that. But she provided
Ben Conner: insights hermeneutical insights that the Professor hadn't imagined the text because she's approaching it from such a different way.
Ben Conner: and because she learns differently, it causes them to learn differently Again, it. These stigmatizes these
Ben Conner: different ways of learning. It relativeizes this way that so valued in the Academy, and opens this up to so many more possibilities. So Friendship Palace has been very important to Western Theological Seminary, and I believe, to every student who's come through that program.
Daniel Parham: Thank you both for so much of your minister of Heart, and how you were sharing Melissa.
Daniel Parham: I I would love to hear more about renew and your your efforts in that area, but particularly in the therapeutic writing and and and where you see intersection between these 2 areas that you all have been kind of crossing over.
Ben Conner: Sure well renew therapeutic riding center is ministry here in Holland, Michigan. We are part of providing what's known as equine Assisted Services, or E. A. S
Ben Conner: part of that is Therapeutic writing. Some other
Ben Conner: parts are
Ben Conner: equine assisted Mental health or equine assisted psychotherapy, equant, assisted learning, which would be learning of life skills for people with disabilities.
Ben Conner: And then there are different therapies that are quite effective when you bring a horse into the therapeutic intervention model, such as physical, therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy
Ben Conner: so currently at renew. We offer therapeutic writing as our primary
Ben Conner: service that we do. We we serve about 115 families weekly through therapeutic riding services. That is where a person, a child, or an adult with a physical, cognitive, mental health or emotional
Ben Conner: challenge, and occasionally some there we do serve people who have challenges such as they're on a grief journey or healing. From trauma
Ben Conner: they come for what might look like a writing lesson. Our staff
Ben Conner: are certified in therapeutic riding through Path international. That's the professional association of therapeutic horsemanship international.
Ben Conner: We are a Premier accredited center with with path. So
Ben Conner: our program was developed really on the basis that we believe bringing forces and people together can cause positive life change.
Ben Conner: I I lean on really just the phrase of of John 1010 a lot just that when Jesus saying he's, come.
Ben Conner: I've come that they might have life and have it to the full.
Ben Conner: But because we know that bringing people with disabilities, together with horses, brings these opportunities for
Ben Conner: change in life, whether it's physical
Ben Conner: or otherwise. We see these things happen. So we want to set those up to happen. The beautiful thing is that
Ben Conner: we do see those connections made all the time, and sometimes their physical benefits, like the story I shared earlier. Sometimes there are emotional benefits. We have had people who have really struggled with some mental health challenges. And I've received notes and emails and had conversations
Ben Conner: where we've said this. This was the life changing point in time for them was because they knew
Ben Conner: that they could come every week and be in the presence of their horse in a safe space in a safe environment, and the horse had no judgment that it it created that place of healing for them.
Ben Conner: So there's just so many I I could tell story upon story upon story. One of the most recent that I had was a 16 year old boy with down syndrome, who was working on.
Ben Conner: He was coming for speech therapy, and he's been in speech therapy his whole life, I think, since he was 2 years old as he struggled with speech and his
Ben Conner: here he is 16. He spoke his sister's name for the first time, just like couple of months ago, while he was riding one of our horses, and his parents were just so thrilled because he was able to articulate the name. And it's that simple thing of he's doing a speech therapy session
Ben Conner: while seated on a horse that's moving that is able to stimulate his him neurologically and physically, through engaging his core, his increasing his respiration, strengthening his diaphragm to create speech.
Ben Conner: So those little things like step by step, putting them together, we it looks like service delivery. We do provide services to public schools, and really to anybody. We come at it as a staff, and our board of directors, all with a faith commitment.
Ben Conner: Feeling called to do this service, we look at our courses who are in our program as our partners in ministry. This is not a job that is
Ben Conner: easy to do, or and it's not suited to all
Ben Conner: all horses just like it's not suited to all people. Ben and I have done a a lot of considering, and we have. We have a book planned, but really utilizing
Ben Conner: horses as created beings with gifts.
Ben Conner: approach their work differently, and they have to be a willing partner in that work, and we can't convince
Ben Conner: a £1,500 animal to do what we want it to do
Ben Conner: if they really don't want to. So that's that's part of it. So, watching the horses give and understand.
Ben Conner: and I, I firmly believe, have empathy for those they are working with, and I see them adjust their bodies physically.
Ben Conner: and make choices to serve. And that's another just beautiful thing that we do at renew over and over again.
Ben Conner: So yeah, that's who we are, what we do. I should also say it's we have a here at renew. We have a fairly small staff, 11 of us on staff.
Ben Conner: and we have a board of directors, and we have about 150 volunteers from the community
Ben Conner: who walk alongside of us. We have 19 horses
Ben Conner: at our farm, and that takes a lot of work to run a 19
Ben Conner: course equestrian facility. And so the volunteers are involved in every layer of that.
Ben Conner: Another facet of that really is that it's the volunteers fully participate in what we do, and experience the blessings through relationships with the families that we serve
Ben Conner: with the horses
Ben Conner: that we partner with, and we have seen lots of
Ben Conner: changes in our volunteers as well. I have.
Ben Conner: It's a beautiful thing. You have to be 13 years old to handle a horse or or walk alongside of. And and once I want to grant, because I said, it's the only time on a Thursday morning in this community that you will find 13 year old Home schoolers.
Ben Conner: Hope college students, seminary students
Ben Conner: stay home moms. We have some professional people who take off work and we'll come join us like some real real estate agents.
Ben Conner: and then we have retirees.
Ben Conner: all working on a team to to walk alongside people with disabilities, with the goal of providing the service. So it's. It's unique in that way, and it reaches many different levels.
Ben Conner: So another quick story is a volunteer. One of our professionals who comes blocks out time 2 h in his week
Ben Conner: every week to come and be a volunteer, and he said it keeps him grounded. and it keeps him centered.
Ben Conner: and then he can go back and be more productive at work after he has had his volunteer time in the barn, and he has shared with us just that he sees a therapist Weekliness Therapist told him to come volunteer at renew as part of his
Ben Conner: ongoing plan for his life. So there's a lot of benefits that we've just seen trickle down, and really it's through relationship. It's through teamwork, and it's through trying to accomplish a goal together.
Steph Judd: Thank you so much Melissa for describing what seems like such a remarkable enactment of all these kinds of ideas that we've been exploring in this conversation together, in the sense that it's not. It's not, you know.
Steph Judd: a ministry to people with disability, but it's a ministry alongside and with.
Steph Judd: But I just want to ask a a final question about it seems.
Steph Judd: in one of our previous conversations with Mike and nud me Byrd, it it came up that
Steph Judd: being out in nature, being with animals
Steph Judd: seems to be a really good thing for people with disabilities.
Steph Judd: But Melissa, for what you described it's not just for people with disabilities. It's it's for all of us. I wonder if you could zoom back for us as as we finish up our conversation, and just
Steph Judd: describe to us some of the things that you have found through and you and through your your work about why it is that
Steph Judd: this work in in the natural world, with with animals, but also more generally is so effective.
Ben Conner: Yeah. Well, there's a number of reasons. One it's it's automatically universal design and learning.
Ben Conner: You can pick bark you can take in, since, since you can, you can. You can dig in the dirt. You can experience life. We all have a drive to do that. Why is that a guy named Edward Wilson calls it Biophilia
Ben Conner: Biophilia. It's this innate connection we have from. However, you want to go at it evolutionary in terms of biology how we've developed You've developed
Ben Conner: as part of
Ben Conner: nature. So you go into the forest, and you have mushrooms communicating with tree roots communicating with plants. There's all kind of communication going on. We just don't know how to attend to it, and that it's it's a it's a mutuality that results in flourishing.
Ben Conner: and we're intended to be a part of that.
Ben Conner: But we've taken ourselves out of that and constructed false environments, and so many of the benefits of being in there.
Ben Conner: The Japanese take forest baths just going out to the forest, breathing in the air, and it has incredible health benefits, and we've missed out on that.
Ben Conner: So. And there's a there's a book called Biophilia effect that that goes into the details this very deeply. Why is it that we have this strange relationship with creation
Ben Conner: I mean the first is dominion.
Ben Conner: We have this horrible concept of dominion. That's like domination. There's this a book by Matthew Scully, called Dominion, and I'm. I'll tell you this one quote from the book. He says: My point is
Ben Conner: that when you look at a rabbit.
Ben Conner: and can only see a pest or vermin, or a meal, or a commodity or a laboratory subject.
Ben Conner: You, aren't, seeing the rabbit anymore.
Ben Conner: right? That's what dominions done to us. We just want to control things and use things and shape things for our own purpose. We don't, we, we forget that we are nature. that we are part of creation. And so in the in, because of that we have this, the first things dominion. The second is a drive to differentiate.
Ben Conner: We wanna say, instead of saying what we have in common with all of creation. We want to say why we're better
Ben Conner: why we should be able to use it the way we want to use it, and a lot of that has to do with our ability to think and and control and and that but that just is ended up in devastation.
Ben Conner: There's other theological reasons that we don't have a good relationship with creation.
Ben Conner: and that's sort of the third one, the first dominion; the second drive to differentiate. The third is, we see, all of creation as a dramatic backdrop for a transaction that happens between us and God. Many people think we're going to be saved from this.
Ben Conner: But that's that's very poor theology, I mean. All things come together in Christ. It's all part of God. It all has the same r off our breath in it that gives it life. We're all created from the same materials. We're all cared for and love. And, in fact, if you want to talk about something the only creatures that cannot be what they're called to be as humans.
Ben Conner: You don't see rocks rebelling against God. You know I mean, a horse is a horse, and a horse does horsey things, and in doing so is glorifying God by being a horse.
Ben Conner: and we are the ones who can push against our vocation. And so, I think, being in nature. being around creatures. develops a sense of interconnectedness
Ben Conner: with others. It it develops empathy
Ben Conner: being out in creation develops a sense of wonder
Ben Conner: and curiosity.
Ben Conner: and we see when we see what's happened because of human interventions.
Ben Conner: it also leads often to repentance and confession. So right there is your liturgy right there in the world.
Ben Conner: and and I think that's so. That's part of what's important theologically about our connection to the earth and to nature into creatures. But then there are so many studies in in, in scientific journals looking at
Ben Conner: the impact of
Ben Conner: being in nature on our health and on our attitudes, developing empathy by being close to to to creatures other creatures built empathy with other humans and and all that kind of thing so
Ben Conner: and and so, instead of dominion and the drive to differentiate and a dramatic backdrop instead, we need to see ourselves as part of a community of creation that's interdependent with it
Ben Conner: that has something important to offer.
Ben Conner: and that's the that's the good, strong, theological side of dominion. The thing that we have to offer, not the control and not the
Ben Conner: misuse, but
Ben Conner: the orchestrating, the worship service.
Ben Conner: And I just I'll add on to that just a little bit that I there is a quote years and years ago that I saw that, said a horse doesn't see a child with autism.
Ben Conner: A horse sees a child. So it's part of that.
Ben Conner: They don't bring any pre conceived things. So in my world.
Ben Conner: They know we are humans.
Ben Conner: They know they are horses, and that's all that matters in their world. So I love the the leveling of the playing field, and in my work
Ben Conner: I see that every day. and then also just consider it this amazing gift at that. Horses allow us to be in their presence because they could flee.
Ben Conner: They are bigger than us. They are stronger than us. They have their own will, and to see them choose to be in our presence is a gift, and that's that, like cross species
Ben Conner: blessing which is really powerful. And there's some research that has been done with horses. There's a lot more research that needs to be done. But just recently we became aware of the Heart Math Institute doing a study
Ben Conner: just very simply noticing that the variable heart, rhythms and cortisol levels
Ben Conner: of humans
Ben Conner: drop when they are in the presence of horses. So it was pretty, and this just was done by people just taking a chair and sitting near a horse.
Ben Conner: So it was not even.
Ben Conner: you know, not a super difficult study to pull off, but they found that it was. It was very effective at. So when people and I found that to be true in my life. I didn't know why, but when I was a young girl
Ben Conner: I have incredibly happy wonderful memories of being with my pony at the barn. That made me really
Ben Conner: look positive on the rest of my life. And now I know like well, there is something going on there. I want to share that with other people, because I think that leads to flourishing.
So
Madison Pierce: that's incredible, Ben Melissa. Thank you so much for joining us. We really enjoyed this conversation, and I know I personally have a lot more questions, but we'll have to do that another day. So thank you so much.
Madison Pierce: All right.