Dementia forces us to question what contributes to a person when the normal markers of a person gradually disappear by disease.
Yet it is clear from carers that there is a distinct quality of a person that remains, in spite of it all, that tells them, often only the carer, this is still a person, their loved ones.
In the increasingly secular world, God becomes less and less distinct, more and more distant. In a way, our perception of God is ... of a dementing God.
Much like the medicalised term "dementia" equates to something being diseased within the person, (as opposed to a normal part of life and aging) we get angry at God for not being the God we want him to be. WE are the ones that forget what the person has been before. Not unlike how Israelites forgot how God led them out of Egypt when they wandered in the desert. Consequent to that, is the seeking of idols, false gods. Consequent to a person having dementia today, is they become increasingly excluded, rendered irrelevant.
It is by what the person does and say that we INFER there is a person in that body. So when these markers are lost as dementia progress within the person, we lose these markers and we feel the person is therefore lost.
By corollary, in modern day society, we see less and less of God doing things, we no longer have new scriptures to hear what He has to say, society becomes more and more secular. Is our God dementing?
So really, it is our inability to God in these circumstances, just like a paid carer without a relationship with a patient with dementia will not see that "glint in the eye" that says who they are.
So carers hold the memory of the person, and is able to conitnue seeing the person as a person. May be that's why Christians take communion, read the scriptures, to remember God.
And in rememberance of the patient, carers continue to construct the relationship with their loved ones. By definition then, they also continue to construct themselves in this relationship.
Words don't mean anything unless there is a common understanding of the meaning of these words. In this way, a carer and her spouse have that "secret language" that gives meaning between them. That "glint in the eye" of the patient means things to the carer that no one else understands. Is God like that for Christians? So may be,if non Christians spend time to build that relationship to understand what that gesture, what that grunts means, that they too develop a personal language with God, God will remain...demented, for them.
Carers often still have happy moments with their loved ones at the end stage of dementia. The dementia experience may be foreign but need not be inaccessible. I remember visiting a lady in a nursing home, when asked where does she live, she replied "the world". So in being a carer, one does gain and grow in the relationship as well, if one tries. THis is not an entirely one sided relationship the carer works on.
I suppose the same goes for God. If we look, we see how he still intervenes.
Just like communicating with a person with dementia takes adequate time and patience, so does communicating with God perhaps.
I should say though, that "God" in this may be different for everyone too.
SoI hope at the end of this life, I have a few persons that don't define me by what I have, what my house looks like, even what I say or what I do, define me, by being with me. ,
(this is actually not my own thoughts but combination of talks from conference and an article called Alzheimer's and the dementia of God, on random google search)
