Feast of Thomas Gallaudet

PRAYER  
O loving God, whose will it is that everyone should come to you and be saved: We bless your Holy Name for your servants Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Winter Syle, whose labors with and for those who are deaf we commemorate today; and we pray that you will continually move your Church to respond in love to the needs of all people; through Jesus Christ, who opened the ears of the deaf, and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. A-Men

I start this blog on this date by accident and design -- I must start of blog to be able to connect to more people but it is an accident that it begins on this feast day. These are the men who started Episcopal Church's Ministry with the deaf. My first job as a Rector had a small deaf congregation that worshiped separately at the church. I felt I needed to do pastoral work with them and they taught me sign language--or at least they tried to teach me to sign. My sermons in were so simple because that was all I could sign. My people had so much patience with me and limited their laughter when I would make a mistake. For instance the sign for "Peace is two hands coming together  and then resolving BUT if you cup your hands and bring them together the sign is for "Hamburger". I  got so nervous that instead of  The Peace of the Lord be with you!" I signed "The Hamburger of the Lord be with you!" They signed back their own response-- instead of the response "And also with you!" They signed "And alsoi with cheese."



It reminds me of the old line from Monty Python's Life of Brian where the disciples argue about the correct hearing of the Beatitudes being  "Blessed be the cheesemakers!" instead of "Blessed be the Peacemakers" How much we go out of our way to take ourselves so seriously and proclaim our firm knowledge of "Facts of Dogma" when we are dealing with the Mystery of God. I am sure God has more than a few laughs over us as we pompously proclaim our ignorance as knowledge.