Tomorrow we gather to honour my curate, Sue at her thanksgiving service. 175 people have signed up. Our church fits around 140 – 150, and more will likely arrive. The hall across the road is our overflow space, livestreaming the service for those unable to fit in the church. It will be a big day. It should be. She was an incredible presence.
On Wednesday I travelled to the hall with our church wardens to test the setup. I’m a representative for both the church and the hall, but the caretaker was already arranged to open up, and the setup was physical. I wasn’t really needed. I wish that was communicated beforehand. I wouldn’t have gone.
That journey matters. Travelling in a powerchair isn’t easy. People joke about “resting their legs” but the reality is different. I leave home 2 and a half hours early. I travel 15 minutes to the station, early enough for the accessible team to put me on the train, travel 21 minutes on the train, then take the thirty‑minute drive in my chair to get to the church. I navigate uneven curbs, cobbles, patchwork paths, pedestrian islands two inches too high, and slopes that jolt my spine and weakened core. By the time I arrive my structure has slipped, and I’m slumped in the chair, sore and physically tired. I still have the return journey to face later.
5 hours, there and back, of physical battering for something I wasn’t needed for. I take that journey several times a week for other church‑related events, some by choice and some not. They’re good people. I just don’t think the physicality crosses their mind.
The service will be busy. Able‑bodied people will arrive early, choose either a good pew or chair and get rewarded with comfort, visibility, and choice.
My space is imposed. On Sundays I park and sit where I can see, engage, and belong. That won’t be possible. I would block aisles and the entrance, and become an obstacle. So I’ll be placed somewhere out of the way, unable to see and participate equally. My autonomy removed and equity replaced with equality that doesn’t fit disabled bodies.
The “wheelchair spot” is in the left nave, at the end of a row of chairs once one is removed. The rest of the seats are pews. I will be behind pillars, and standing and seated bodies higher than me.
If I want the best inaccessible spot, I have to get there early, but getting there early also creates problems. Until the row of chairs fills up, I instantly become an obstacle, moving for those filling those seats, apologising until I can stop being a problem.
Able‑bodied people won’t do that in the pews and chairs. They’ll move and slide along for space. They get their choice. They arrived early. All without being a problematic obstacle.
I’m an obstacle if I go where I normally do, and when I’m in my imposed place. Unless someone has lived this, they won’t understand why it matters. Able‑bodied people get choices. Wheelchair users don’t. If I argued, I’d be told about the church design, layout, and limited options, but best case adjustments and reasonable positive steps. The same reasoning for denied public accessibility. That’s when the “decisions made for us but without us” debate starts. They plan from a privilege position, where the barriers I face simply aren’t part of their experience, but I’m a fully present and capable disabled person, and, as colleagues and friends, I should have been spoken with. I wasn’t. The decision was already made.
Why not go to the hall? Hannah suggested it, as the busy, packed church would make her feel overwhelmed, but the hall is livestreaming the service. I might as well watch from home. I want to be in the church, Sue’s and my spiritual home, honouring her lived ministry, but if I’m not there, the physicality of the journey seems pointless for an act of watching a link I can access comfortably at home. Honouring Sue online one way or another.
It’s a catch-22 situation. If I go, the journey impacts me physically, places me somewhere inaccessible, keeps me an obstacle, and expects quiet acceptance, or the journey impacts me and I watch via an online link. If I stay home, I look problematic, maybe petty over seating, or unwilling to show up for Sue. Me, the future priest who didn’t comply or support.
I’ve written about independence and autonomy, presence and participation, equality and equity, accessibility and usability, and ableism in church. I cannot advocate and then permit quiet acceptance when it happens to me. This is her funeral. It’s not and shouldn’t be about me, I get that, but the problem remains. I want to honour her and keep my dignity intact without facing imposed limitations.
I think the best option is to take a role in the hall, welcoming those in the overflow space. It justifies the journey’s physicality, is on my terms and not imposed, shows disability equity in church life and leadership, and lets me honour Sue in a dignified and right way.
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