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[ Back to index of September articles ] St. Barnabas hosts national deaf convention By Lucy Chumbley
After a mastoid infection left him deaf at the age of 7, the Sunday communion service seemed to drag on and on, he remembers. "I hated it because I couldn't hear anything anybody said," he signs. He passed the time by reading an illustrated copy of the children's Bible and watching the animals and birds in the fields outside the church window. These days it's different, he says - especially here, at the Episcopal Conference of the Deaf's semi-annual convention. Bishop John B. Chane preached at the opening service, which was interpreted for all; the deaf, hearing, hard of hearing and the deaf-blind. "I could understand everything," says Hines, who is a parishioner of St. Barnabas Church of the Deaf, the hosting congregation, and a member of the convention's planning committee. This year's convention drew 80-some participants from all over the country to the center in rural Maryland from Aug. 18-22. They came bearing church banners to meet, mingle, renew old acquaintances and take part in field trips, workshops and worship services. "When the deaf have conventions, the lobby is never large enough," Hines remarks. "Everyone's always mingling around and talking to each other." Being with friends is the best part, says Lois L. Robinson, a delegate from St. John's Church of the Deaf in Hayden, Ala. ECD secretary Marianne Stephens, of Philadelphia, agrees. Deaf congregations are usually small and it's easy to feel isolated, she explains. "It's good for us to get together and talk to each other," she says. "See what works, come up with good ideas. We feed off each other - we do." Getting up from the table, Hines slowly makes his way to the evening's next event - a workshop on "Difficult Conversations" by the Rev. David Vryhof, of Cambridge, Mass. He chooses the stairs over the elevator, clasping the railing as he ascends. It is inner ear damage, not age, that causes him to sometimes lose his balance, but even that has its advantages, he says, explaining that deaf people seldom get seasick. While their hearing shipmates turn green, the deaf are happily playing cards and eating snacks, he says. Ocean voyages aside, the deaf community is still struggling to secure many of the same rights that hearing people have always taken for granted. The convention's keynote speaker, Steve Hammerdinger, expounds on this basic inequality in his presentation, "Breaking the Silence: The Plantation Mentality." Hammerdinger compares the lot of deaf people today with the condition of slavery. Just as slaves were dependent on the "good will" of white people for their rights, deaf people today are victims of paternalism, he says. "People treat us as children," he says. "I'm worried that we're going to come to depend too much on the good will of the masters." Deaf people face many obstacles - among them career discrimination, educational limitations and difficulties accessing information, Hammerdinger says. They also hear a constant chorus of "can't" along the way. "My parents had such a hearing mentality," he says. "They said, 'Steve, you're deaf - I'm so sorry you can't do this or that or the other.' They told me 'can't, can't, can't, can't' and I thought: What's the point? Why should I try?" Nods and murmurs. More and more deaf people are becoming successful professionals, and Hammerdinger wants that trend to continue. But success will take unity, persistence and a 'can do' mentality from within the deaf community. "No one's going to give you power - you have to take it," he says. "And how do you do that? By becoming knowledgeable." He urges his audience to campaign for better access to information and offers up inspirational quotes from Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt: "No one can make you feel inferior without your permission." Passionate conversations on the subject spring up during an ice cream social after the presentation. The Rev. Roy F. Brown, vicar of St. Andrew's Church of the Deaf in Brookline, Mass., passes out a group photo of the delegates with Bishop Chane. Hines reappears, proffering a yellow sign-language pamphlet designed to help the hearing learn to communicate with the deaf. And Robinson has changed her mind about the best part of the conference. Contact Lucy Chumbley at lchumbley@edow.org [ Back to index of September articles ]
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Pushing back from the Friday night supper table at Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville, 80-year-old Rudy Hines recalls the church of his childhood.