Teachings

My teachings set out to teach a new language, a through the back of the wardrobe experience, its radical, a turning of the tables again but perhaps that is what our Church needs, a dose of what Bonhoeffer would describe as ‘costly grace’ 

God is a verb …

Andrew Meikle

Simple Solutions

It’s a simple solution for complicated people, we must learn the language of the heart and start to speak the words of Christ so that we all can become ‘other ‘.

Embracing 'The Other'

Entering the world of the deaf/blind learning their language means embracing ‘the other’. As if by magic I am connected through love (touch) to the Father, the planet, this Earth, as I enter Lewis’s Narnia and come face to face with Aslan. The barrier of viewing sound and vision as all powerful is removed. In March of this year, I sold my possessions and walked with no money just faith and the words of Christ upon my heart. I walked for 6 weeks from Brighton to Vezelay in central France. I was also diagnosed with Level 1 Autism with elements of Level 2 at the age of 65. I had stepped through the back of the wardrobe and become ‘Other’. The recent upheaval in the Church is just a reflection of a community that had dismissed ‘touch’ and ignored ‘the other’. We are all ‘other’, we have always been there but have been dismissed by the powerful sighted and hearing people. Perhaps it takes ‘the other ‘to show how powerful the language of touch is and to embrace this language through this lens of the heart and the words of Christ.

The Words of Christ upon the heart

Actually, it’s been there all along right in front of us, but perhaps we have been steadily going blind over time. This isn’t an intellectual exercise, we need to travel what some would call the longest road known to man, the 18” from our heads to our hearts. The love of the father is ‘touch’, taking it as a given by the sighted and hearing community that vision and sound are omnipotent has blinded them to this ‘touch’.The words of Christ upon the heart.

The Capitalist Church

The Capitalist Church and prevailing world view means we are being fed with food from our ‘interveners’, the sighted and hearing. The focus on ‘distantism’, the privilege of hearing and vision over touch, marginalising the deaf blindcommunity relegating it to be viewed as ‘other’. I know it’s radical but let’s cut off our ears and pluck out our eyes metaphorically so that we can focus on ‘touch’. Our souls heart felt response, when the ‘known’ is removed allowing us to see through the lens of a ‘Protactile’ approach.

.

Join me in a new movement...

God is a verb, the teachings of the Simple Preacher are an analogous deaf/blind community, embracing and internalising the Love of the Father by focusing on ‘touch’ rather than the norms of sight and vision. This really is a ‘through the back of the wardrobe ‘moment, to reference CS Lewis. The privilege of power/ money and the collective white ego fall away when people have the courage to step ‘through the back of the wardrobe ‘this is what The Living Experiment is about, learning a new language.

Deaf/Blind

The deaf/ blind community took back control developing their own language, Protactile, learning through what can be directly touched and experienced with the body. As the deaf/blind were separated from themselves and the Earth by Distantism, isn’t it the same for us? The Church prioritises power (money) and ‘the collective ego’ of white privilege, seeing the world as defined through this lens. This modality has separated itself from the ‘love of the Father ‘and the language of the heart, the words of Christ, the love and connection with the Earth by employing its own ‘Distantia’ methodology.

Loss of hearing/sight

As Clarke quotes "The loss of both sight and hearing constitutes one of the severest disabilities known to human beings. Essentially, it deprives an individual of the two primary senses through which we acquire awareness of and information about the world around us, and it drastically limits effective communication and freedom of movement, which are necessary for full and active participation in society."

Protactile

I have enrolled on a Protactile Language Theory Certificate with the University of Oregon USA. Why, I am both sighted and have hearing? When I started to read about the Protactile movement in the States I was profoundly moved. Each form of social bigotry has its distinctive personality and its unique set of intertwining evils states John Lee Clarke, the poet who has coined the word ‘Distantism’ to describe how the deaf / blind community, his community has been marginalised and separated from the language of the heart. Distantia is an attitude and a behaviour, it describes how sighted society have divided and conquered the deaf/blind community, seeking to maintain the view that it is only with sight and vision that the world can be interpreted.