Christianity and the Art of Wheelchair Maintenance

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After twenty years, Stephen Faller shares his journey into seminary and ordained ministry. This book reveals the story of how someone with a lifelong disability, cerebral palsy, might find his way into ministry as a hospital chaplain, there is a certain irony in that. While particular in its own right, this story will speak to anyone in college or graduate school studying one of the many disciplines hoping to make the world a better place. Through narrative and dialogue, Faller engages philosophers and theologians alike. This is an intimate text that seeks to integrate mind, body, and spirit that situates itself more beyond the margins than as marginalized. Just as Faller's own narrative is contextualized by disability, this personal work is contextualized in our polarized and politicized culture, as it considers the meaning of ministry for a contemporary time. His is an embodied text that speaks to a multicultural society, even if that body carries brokenness and even if that society is divided. "This really interesting book lives up to its title, which is a reminiscence of Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It is an acutely observed, unsentimental account of life in a wheelchair, so engaging as to make an almost insider of the reader. It is also an account of the author's spiritual and philosophical experiences. Although he is very well-read in both popular and weighty literature, his philosophizing is of the 'do it yourself' sort, which means it's the real thing. So too is his wrestling with his Christian vocation. It's an instructive as well as moving piece of literature." --Eva Brann, Dean Emerita and Senior Faculty, St. John's College, Annapolis, and author of The Logos of Heraclitus "Stephen Faller is a theologian of life. He is someone who understands that theology is deep, complex, and mysterious, but first and foremost it is something that is lived and that points towards that which we live for. In this wonderful book Stephen shares some deep insights into the nature of disability, the presence of God, and the nature of diversity and the good life. Beautifully winding together personal narrative and deep biblical and theological experience, he takes us on a wonderful and insightful journey into humanness. No one reading this book will emerge unchanged. This is an important contribution to disability theology." --John Swinton, University of Aberdeen Stephen Faller is a Board Certified Chaplain and a Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisor as a Diplomate of the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy at the Center for Pastoral Care at Capital Health in Hopewell, NJ. He is the author of Beyond the Matrix (2004), Reality TV (2009), and The Art of Spiritual Midwifery (2015). He has a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School and a Master of Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary.