Metropolitan United Church

   A small group of profoundly deaf people in the midst changes the nature of commmunity. This group arrived with two interpreters and our weekly rhythm began. The welcome and daily announcements had to be signed as well as spoken. It made for great fun all around when the menues involved exotic ingredients, or the evening's Scottish dancing promised to be "hot, and steamy." Our leader repeated that phrase three times just to ratchet up the response. 

   As the days went on, the deaf worked along side the rest of us, at meals or in our simple chores, heightening our awareness of the need to be clear, and engaging. They even offered us an evening of simple signing. We all spent the next day greeting one another with the words "chocolate puffin".

    An amazing moment happened for me at morning worship as a deaf women signed the Gospel text while a hearing-impaired woman read it. The speaker finished first. All eyes turned to the signer. There she was riveted to her copy of the text, her whole body delivering the news. "The presence of Christ among us is a gift beyond measure. To see it and miss its importance is to find ourselves under a judgement worse than that against Sodom." The signer rendered the word "judgement" by symbolically washing her hands.

    Our words are high and holy, but our bodies speak them best. To lean into God and the waiting world with all that we are, is the clearest language of faith. We may feel odd and out of step by doing that, but the impact strikes beyond words. People see in flesh and blood the grace, cost and glory of the Gospel.