God in the Shadows Revisited

Not long ago it occurred to me that I hadn't seen two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank in a film for a while. Where did she go? Well, I heard an interview with Swank a couple of days ago on the CBC radio program Q and discovered that she had taken three years away from acting to be the principle caregiver for her father, who underwent a lung transplant. 

She is in a new movie called What They Had about a family dealing with the dementia of a parent. The story follows Swank’s character, who has to travel back home to help take care of her mother whose Alzheimer’s takes a turn for the worse after an incident on Christmas Eve.


This was a timely reminder of the multi-faceted challenges of dementia, which most families struggle to address together. And that our society is more and more willing to bring "cognitive frailty" out of the shadows.

Today I will begin a series at Trenton United Church which we are calling God in the Shadows: Dementia and the Spiritual Life. In some respects it is a reprise of a similar series which we offered at Bridge St UC before my retirement, although there will be some significant changes this time around.

This is personal for me, as many of you know. My mother, Margaret, nearly 93, appears to be in the final days of her life. She has been dealing with Parkinson's related dementia for the past three years or more. She has a sister who has Alzheimer's, and while she is still physically spry her cognitive frailty is very evident.

The series was well attended at Bridge St and apparently there are about twenty people signed up for the Trenton sessions. It's understandable -- who hasn't been affected by dementia in some way?  Three quarters of a million Canadians have dementia in some form and that number is expected to double in the next generation.

It's important that we discuss and address dementia openly, as a practical challenge for individuals, families, and as a society. And as people of faith we must consider what ministry to those with cognitive frailty and their caregivers will look like in the days ahead, and how we can find God in the shadows of these illnesses.

Thoughts?