[Faith-Talk] Follow-up on use of accessible Bibles and books

[The Rev. Christopher L. Smith]

This may be a dumb question but the recent exploration of accessible Bibles and memory of a discussion of accessible hymnals brings up a related question for me. 

Before getting to the question, a little pertinent background. My legal blindness came about because of a rare degenerative neurological condition (PCA) that I was diagnosed with in my 40s. At the time of diagnosis, given the degenerative nature of the condition, the best estimate was 8-12 years to live (which I am now expected to exceed). Given these realities and the availability of other accommodations, I decided not to learn braille. This is a decision a fair number of people who are blind whose vision loss occurred later have also chosen.

Having material read to me is a different experience than reading it myself. There is a difference if having someone else’s voice, take on what is being read, choice of pauses, etc. Just in regular reading, this leads me to pause or even repeat parts of what I have heard, or even to allow parts to pass by if I think they may not be critical to what I am trying to get from a text (particularly in some academic reading).

Hymns, reading Scripture allowed when leading worship, or even following liturgy/congregational readings throw a different level of complexity for me. If I preached from a text, I would likely have the same issue. In these settings, people usually speak as they read. When using accessible means to the text, you are left to speak after something is read while the next part is also being read to you. This is a skill I never learned and still throws me, making accessible text not helpful for me when leading worship. Have others found a way to deal with this issue?

Christopher


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The Rev. Christopher L. Smith
New York, USA

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