And What I Taught Myself Instead
“At this point I cannot give you a passing grade for the work you submitted…If you get another extension you can go back and actually do the work [emphasis added]. You will need to do this today so that your [grade] does not turn into an F.”
“Yes I am aware that today’s format is not accessible, but we still planned it that way.”
I’ve never had a professor be the only thing that stood between me and my own commencement. But the final semester of my graduate studies for my mDiv, that was case. After fighting for an entire year to finish one course, I was still struggling against academic institutionalized ableism- a much more potent foe than any Greek principle part. I was a Hermione Granger at a Hogwarts for Jesus, but there was only one thing that made me different from my counterparts- I’m disabled. And at that point I was the sickest I had ever been.
Accommodations were hard to come by. My school was part of a consortium, and it turned out that neither the school nor the consortium had a disability office nor a disability officer of any kind. I had to send my private medical documentation to the Dean of Students who was also our Chaplain, who sent it to a different Dean at the consortium who had no medical training, who decided whether or not I could have what my doctor said I needed. I did not get all my accommodations approved.
It didn’t really matter in the end, because only three professors out of the twelve I had my final year-and-a-half of seminary actually followed my accommodations like they were mandated to by law. Accommodations aren’t special privileges or special treatment, they aren’t cheats. They give you a seat at the table and give you a chance to thrive the same as your peers.
When you’re deliberately made an outlier, by whatever means, it becomes more and more de-humanizing. “Stand as you’re able” isn’t inclusive when everyone stares at you trying to figure out why you can’t stand.
Professors not honoring your accommodations basically says “you are too inconvenient to me to allow you to achieve.”
So here I found myself in a class about Christian worship. Online, as many of my classes were so I could work from home and around my debilitating pain. My accommodations still applied. I was allowed to test differently, to have certain days for home care, to arrange different deadlines.
This professor was a guest professor touted for having a worship design company that travelled to different congregations to transform their worship programs. She had her own book that was required reading for our class.
A while into seminary I observed a split in the personalities amongst my female professors. There were barely two generations of them and their personalities seemed to go one of two ways- humbled and passionate about sharing knowledge, or expanded by an ego still feeling the need to compete for their place amongst men. Forgetting that time had passed, and their female students were just eager to see someone like them standing before them, that their female professors were few. That they still heard from old men telling them all the reasons they were not worthy of their vocation. That ego was getting in the way of intimacy, learning, relationship, and depth.
But if I wasn’t worshipping her deadline, her way, her technique, her business- I was failing.
When we read the books (the ones I was accused of not reading) I critiqued their lack of accessibility for worship and the ableism present.
When we presented a piece of us leading worship I taught a piece of signed liturgy- the Lord’s prayer.
And in final projects I re-wrote liturgy with instructions to make services more accessible for the disabled. Why? Because that’s why I haven’t been to church in five years.
When I went on her business website for worship design I found no accessibility, no resources for disabled congregants.
If I didn’t agree with her opinion, I was wrong- and threatened with failure. But worship doesn’t have right or wrong answers.
So this leads me to the real question- what really did I learn about worship from an ableist professor who just punished me for being disabled?
I learned from myself.
I learned that worship has nothing to do with buildings. The best worships I’ve ever been to were around campfires with tiny humans stomping their feet with reckless abandon, covered in dirt, dancing with the counselors with stars glowing overhead. Reveling in the safety of the trees, we sang for God, we sang for each other, as we bubbled up with laughter. And when fireban came we filled the firepit with twinkle lights. Worship is campfires.
What is worship? Worship is using your gifts to bring joy to others. Worship is filling the halls with music, sending notes reverberating through the steeple or through Kingsmen Park. It’s walking up Mt. Clef talking to a close friend, it’s singing in the first gay Bishop in the synod. It’s choir folder #17.
Worship is listening. To yourself, to others, to God. Worship isn’t cultural appropriation for production value, only using the best in your congregation because that’s what sounds high quality. It’s not highly produced. It’s not ignoring needs for your benefit or your vision. It’s not plagiarizing your disabled student’s work during a pandemic to make yourself look better.
Worship is that snapshot moment in time with your friends on a mountain road in summer with the windows down singing to the radio, thinking I always want to remember this.
That’s how God feels about us. Worship is being fully alive in authenticity in who God made us to be.
Moxie 