The Accessible Altar Podcast The Accessible Altar

Stephanie and Robyn are joined by the Reverend Kristen Tossell Pitts for a conversation about how being disabled shapes their leadership.

Kristen Tossell Pitts is an Episcopal priest and school chaplain whose vocation focuses on the intersection of spiritual formation and Gospel-centered justice. She currently serves as the Chaplain and Director of Spiritual and Cultural Learning at Washington Episcopal School in Bethesda, Maryland. Kristen lives with lupus (SLE) and other autoimmune conditions, as well as ADHD. She and her wife live in Maryland with their toddler, cats, poetry collection, and mildly-chaotic native plant garden.

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Resources:
Universal Design (6 minute video)

Stephanie and Robyn discuss the documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution. We discuss our deep love for camp culture, the history of the camp the title refers to, and how a community formed in the 1970's helped shape disability activism and the world we all live in. Significant admiration for Judy Huemann happens.
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Resources:
Crip Camp (film page)
Ed Roberts and Independent Living podcast episode 
The Power of 504 (Documentary on YouTube, captioned) 
504 Sit-In 
Camp Jened

Stephanie and Robyn are joined by Sharan to discuss her diagnosis journey and how the grief involved is informing her faith.

The Rev. Sharan Knoell is the pastor of Valley United Presbyterian Church in a small-town community that straddles the Pennsylvania - New York border. Prior to 2014, Valley United was three Presbyterian Church (USA) churches. Sharan walked them through the merger, selling a church building, and renovating and newly-constructing the third...across state and denominational borders. She has a Masters of Divinity graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and also has a Masters in Nonprofit Management from Eastern University. Sharan has an autoimmune disease of blood vessel inflammation, GPA vasculitis, that she was diagnosed with in 2018. She almost lost her life to the disease twice in 2018 shortly after diagnosis, but she relies on infusions and her kitchen-counter pharmacy to manage the disease today. A native of the Philadelphia area, she lives in upstate New York with her husband, Ty, and her beagle-Jack Russell rescue, Shiloh.

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Resources:
Surviving and Thriving with an Invisible Chronic Illness by Ilana Jacqueline
You Don’t Look Sick by Joy H. Selak and Steven S. Overman
The Wounded Storyteller by Arthur W. Frank

Stephanie and Robyn are joined by the Rev'd Teresa Kim Pecinovsky to discuss her gorgeous children's book Mother God . They discuss the importance of good theology and diverse representation in the church and in children's literature.

Born in South Korea and raised in Iowa, Teresa had a brief stint as an ESL teacher in Japan, then landed in Houston, teaching early elementary and earning a Master of Education from the University of Houston. As a Vanderbilt Divinity School and Disciples Divinity House seminarian in Nashville, one of her most unexpected moments was reading Schleiermacher at 5 a.m. while pumping milk for her 4-week-old infant (don’t ask her what she remembers about Schleiermacher now.)
For the past three years Rev. Teresa has accompanied patients, families, and healthcare colleagues through hospice chaplaincy. Mother God is her debut picture book published by Beaming Books. Teresa is also excited to be a contributing writer for the upcoming Shine Story Bible through MennoMedia and Brethren Press. She and her spouse have two adorable and exhausting young children.

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Links:
Teresa's Website (scroll down for the link to the Scripture Guide)
Teresa is @tkpcreates on Instagram and Twitter

In this part of Robyn and Stephanie's conversation with the Rev Ian Lasch they talk about the impact of disability theology on Ian's diagnosis process, the implications of diagnosis and diagnostic criteria, and the Bible.

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Links:
University professor appointed as Chaplain to The Queen

Robyn, Stephanie, and Ian talk about what the language in our prayer books says about God and people, identity, and autism .

The Rev. Ian Lasch is an autistic priest in the Episcopal Church who takes great joy in living out the priestly vocation to serve as “pastor, priest, and teacher.” His primary areas of interest in ministry include Christian formation and discipleship, virtue ethics, disability theology, and the liturgy or worship of the Church. He is married to Loren, also an Episcopal priest, and father to two young boys.

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Resources:
More than Memory (Spanish) Ian's Earth & Altar article
Prayer C from Book of Common Prayer '79
Book of Alternative Services (Prayer 4 begins on page 201 of linked pdf)