THIS book has the capacity to change people’s minds about the presence of God in a person’s dementia. While there are various books on the pastoral and spiritual care of those with the disease, notably by John Swinton and Joanna Collicutt, Peter Kevern goes a stage further in bringing God into the experience of dementia through the importance of touch.
Deeply moved by his father’s description of his mother kneeling to pray just before her death, the author, a practising Roman Catholic, brings a scholarly exploration to integrate experience and theology.
The first chapter tackles the general dread of dementia and begins to explore our human understanding of being created in the image of God. This leads to an examination of Christ-in-our-history embracing the whole of a person’s life. The third chapter breaks down Christ’s personhood in the Passion. In Chapter Four, this is discussed in a more practical way in a church context.
Chapter Five considers a case study and introduces the self-emptying of Christ. The next two chapters follow the journey of dementia and connection with God as cognitive functions deteriorate. The eighth chapter “considers our future destiny as resurrected bodies in communion with Christ’s body”, and the final chapter reviews the journey-as-a-whole.
This fascinating Christological study of dementia gives depth to the experience of both sufferer and carer. The careful argument and excavation of a wide range of theologians repays the reader’s effort. While valuing Swinton, Kevern’s engagement with the sacramental deepens an understanding of the eucharist both within and outside the context of dementia.
This is a book for the pastor and the believer. The experience of the unchurched and non-believer is outside the framework of this study. That notwithstanding, it offers a radically inclusive approach to ministry to those with dementia and those who care for them. It does not diminish the huge challenge of watching someone lose cognitive functions through the progression of the disease, but it does bring hope to those wondering where God is in dementia. Kevern is clear that God is in the body.
Just before my mother died, the hospital chaplain and I blessed her as she lay apparently unconscious. As we did so, her hand came up and traced the sign of the cross. Her deep faith and experience as a deaconess joined us in that final benediction. Although, unlike Kevern’s mother, she had been diagnosed with brain cancer rather than dementia, she had lost cognitive function.
In Chapter Eight, Kevern cites Catherine of Siena: “All the way to heaven is heaven.” He concludes that, through the process of stripping away the learnt cognitive aspects of identity, the experience of dementia emerges as preparation for the life to come. “Touch is the first of our senses to develop and the last to leave, the most immediate and omnipresent.” Christ was there before us and is still present in each of us. This is a deeply hopeful book.
The Revd Dr Anne C. Holmes, a former NHS mental-health chaplain, works as a psychotherapist and self-supporting minister in the diocese of Oxford
Touching God: Dementia and the bodies of Christ
Peter Kevern
Cascade Books £18
(979-8-3852-3255-0)
Church Times Bookshop £16.20