Are we promoting a life-affirming environment?

Thursday, December 1 will mark the annual World AIDS Day. The World Council of Churches, in its latest news updates, titled ‘In Jamaica, WCC consultation sparks commitment to rejuvenate church response to HIV’, noted “A World Council of Churches (WCC) consultation in Jamaica sparked an open discussion between faith leaders delegated by the Jamaican Council of Churches, people living with HIV, UNAIDS, and local health ministers, all of whom agreed to strengthen their commitment to a fair and just response to HIV and AIDS.”

My journey into ministry with persons living with HIV and AIDS has certainly opened a vast world around the reality of peoples from all over the globe. Thirty-three years ago, I decided to choose attending the Family Centre, downtown Kingston, for my first exposure to field education. Seminarians at the United Theological College of the West Indies are required to spend considerable time doing field education; usually in hospital contexts, working with patients. This helps to facilitate professional and ethical development of those seeking to serve in the ministry of the Church.

I believe my mother’s interesting work and compassion for PLHIV – persons living with HIV – inspired my interest in exploring a pastoral response in this area of study, which at the time was still covered under much misunderstanding and attendant condemnation and judgement. I recall my mother, a retired nursing administrator, reflecting on a time when the acronym AIDS was used at a conference of medical professionals to mean ‘After infection, death is sure!’ That, indeed, tells you how far we have come in terms of reliable information.

LIFE TRANSFORMING

A challenging but exciting journey began for me. A little bus from the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) came to pick me up as I joined the weekly Friday team to the Family Centre. What a life-changing experience it was for me! We got to the centre and sat in a circle with the ‘others’. They were patients living with HIV or AIDS. I was there from the ‘clean space’ of Church.

I contributed to the devotional exercise and did a prayer, along with easy words of encouragement. Other members of the team did their usual engagement and supportive counselling. Then suddenly! Suddenly! Suddenly, the nurse announced, while looking at her watch, that it was lunchtime, and we would have lunch prepared by one of the patients. Lord, have mercy! A wa dis pon mi now?

No one told me that the visitation would include having lunch prepared by one of the ‘AIDS people’! That was a life-transforming event in my life! For the first time, and thankfully early, I had to face my hypocrisy. I had to self-engage. I said, “Now, Sean, you are going to have to actually practise what you preach. You know from the research that people living with HIV and AIDS cannot pass on the virus through food preparation. You also know that participating in the meal will have significant symbolic value for those who have prepared it.”

Yes, I also said the grace. And yes, I prefer spicy food with some other dimensions. The lunch came. I ate. Psychologically speaking, I intellectualised and appreciated the positive reality of the moment. Well, ever since that day, I looked forward to eating what a PLHIV had cooked. And every week, I did. My next placement was on a ward at the UHWI. One morning when I arrived, the nurse told me that she was anticipating my arrival and asked if I would see a patient who was dying with AIDS. She was in a room by herself. Upon seeing me, and possibly the cross that I was wearing, she exclaimed, “Don’t God love me tu sah?” My unplanned, instinctive response was to greet her with a hug.

In the Caribbean, a theological response is very significant to people, religious or otherwise. We have been socialised to interpret God in relation to our experiences, whether in terms of reward or punishment! A positive theological engagement is therefore essential to therapy. It became a habit for me to hug someone dying with AIDS.

When I went to serve as rector of the Anglican Church in the Cayman Islands, I was very early invited to serve on the board of the Cayman AIDS Foundation. This saw my continuing education around the increasing vulnerability of minorities when HIV/AIDS was involved. By the time I returned to Jamaica, almost nine years later, I discovered that a ministry to vulnerable populations had chosen me. Women, children, sex workers and sexual minorities were suffering from stigma, discrimination, poverty, job loss, poor nutrition, and other negative consequences due to prejudicial approaches.

MANY UNSUNG HEROES

Those who work with minorities interestingly (without choice) share in the stigma with which such groups are treated. I will never forget the children in a classroom, upon seeing my picture on an advocacy picture in the Cayman Islands, remarked that they knew me as “the AIDS man”. Then, when I got to Jamaica and continued my advocacy and public support on World AIDS Day, I eventually heard from pastors who would tell me that I needed to be saved.

Today, we have come a long way. Many persons living with HIV testify to the history of love and compassion experienced by agents of the Church. At the recent World Council of Churches consultation engaging the Jamaica Council of Churches and key stakeholders, it was significant that persons living with HIV recalled many such experiences. A common reference was to a group of Roman Catholic Sisters in St Elizabeth who continue to minister with much love and compassion to PLHIV. We often hear the negatives, when the truth also involves many unsung heroes in the Church.

Organisations such as the Jamaica Network for Seropositives, UNAIDS, JASL, CVC and various agents of the Church, inclusive of the wider civil society, must be commended for their ongoing commitment to working with PLHIV. The rest of us have the continued task of promoting a stigma-free environment. One in which everyone feels safe to seek and make health-affirming choices in public spaces, such as public health environments and the Church.

How are you promoting a stigma-free environment that will also be life-affirming for the human dignity of everyone? Continue sending questions and topics of interest that you wish to see addressed in Family and Religion.

- Father Sean Major-Campbell is an Anglican priest and advocate for human rights. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and se anmajorcampbell@yahoo.com.