This is a book about time, the mystery of time, a practical theology of time and most of all, it’s about time and disability. Have we wondered what it might mean to encounter God for a disabled person, without words in a world where words seem to be central to most of what we do? What about the intellectually challenged who cannot even device an abstract concept of the divine? What of people with dementia who can no more remember the past, and how would they remember to process the divine grace?
To state that this is one of the most important theological books I have ever read would be an understatement.
John Swinton, in this epic book titled “Becoming Friends of Time - Disability, Timefullness and Gentle Discipleship”, engages with a theology of time. A theology of time that presumes that the gift of time is in fact a gift of love. He beautifully draws out the radically diverse nature between our clock time and God’s time. It is not just a linear or progressive clock time, but a mysterious similitude. This gives an altogether new dimension to when the author of Hebrews says “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever”.
The author then begins to explore the ways in which engagement with disability can help to transform our understanding of time. God’s time dictates the speed of love; it refuses to race past those who are moving slowly. Moving beyond a mere inclusivity to a gentle discipleship of the disabled is key. Swinton forces us to take a fresh look at the parable of the talents in Mathew 25. Instead of burying our own talents, we may unwittingly be party to an attitudinal and theological process that serves to bury the talents of others. Imagine that the church is the servant and the “talents” are the various vocations of all it’s members. If we fail to recognize some persons’ vocations, do we not force them to bury their talent? What might the church look like if people with profound intellectual disabilities were conceived of as disciples with a distinct vocation? It is the ability to love, not the ability to include or tolerate, that is a primary mark of discipleship.
Swinton goes on to explore what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, when the cognitive abilities are challenged. How do the disabled get to “know” Jesus? For those who have no way of recognizing and making sense of the primal nature of sinned for whom individual sinful acts not only make no sense but are probably not realistic potential. Repentance in that case will take on a different form and meaning. The sacraments too, do their own traveling in such instances.
Swinton beautifully evokes a theology of time by reflecting on the experiences of people with advanced dementia . When memory becomes much more than recalling something from the past, it has to do with the way of the heart, which is not bound by time or neurology.
And finally, Swinton explores the theology of time in the context of acquired brain damage in the beautiful chapter “The Time Before and the Time After”. The author looks at the horrors of time and it’s tragic dimensions, what one cannot “unhappen”, and the practical implications of what people endure in such circumstances. He then brilliantly articulates the mystery of being hidden in Christ and one’s true identity found in Christ alone and not a mere human quest. Viewed as such, the issues of identity and change take on a richer and fuller dimension.
As we live timefully and walk faithfully towards a gentle discipleship, we will then begin to learn to tell the time properly.