not be found amongst people living with dementia. I emphasize that part of the Church’s calling is to affirm the spiritual nature of the person living with dementia. By visiting and continuing to minister amongst people living with dementia the Church proclaims that a person living with dementia is made in God’s image and made for relationship with God. By continuing to share our lives with people living with dementia, we will encounter Christ in each other. The Church, by identifying with the most vulnerable people in society will show God’s love to this broken world. The friends and relatives of those living with dementia will also meet with Jesus in those encounters, discover fresh hope and be open to God’s love and grace to come into their own lives. If Kitwood75 can argue convincingly from the perspective of anthropology and evolutionary theory, that the burden of the task of caring for people with dementia should be ‘upon the community as a whole and not a few hard-pressed individuals,’ how much more should the Christian Church, as God’s community follow its calling to minister with people with dementia? The challenge posed by dementia is an opportunity for the church to act with loving action towards those who are weakest and without a voice in society. Our good words will seem hollow without action. The challenge of dementia is that it flies in the face of the humanist lie – we are worthy because of our productivity and our capacity for abstract thought. Treating a ‘dementia sufferer’ as a person is not an abstract activity, but one which is grounded in loving, practical action. The voice of the voiceless must be heard. The church must ‘care for the carers,’ whether those carers are unpaid family members or people employed in the task of caring for those living with dementia. Jesus’ words, recorded in Matthew 25: 35 made it plain that we are to reach out to people who are vulnerable and in need. 3.2.10 The body and mind may not be intact, but the person is intact and spiritual life continues Finally I have the sense that ‘people like that,’ who are living with dementia are on a journey, and on this journey eternity has begun to take over and the concerns for complex things has diminished – they are known, because Christ is known. Dementia challenges our thinking as it cuts across our simplistic notions, and questions our questions, and tears apart our reliance upon the rational to describe the transcendent nature of our relationship with God. As we minister with ‘people like that’ in Christ’s name, we demonstrate Jesus’ love by our attitudes and actions, and give reassurance that the loving arms of Jesus surround the person with dementia. We join with the person in proclaiming:
‘Loving Shepherd of thy sheep, keep thy lamb in safety keep, nothing can thy power withstand, none can pluck me from thy hand
75
Kitwood 2007 p 41
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