Mary goes the distance on her spiritual journey

The only Deaf* Minister in the Church of Scotland, Mary is minister to the deaf congregation of St John’s Church in Aberdeen and the North Region of Scotland, attending to the needs of 72 parishioners spread across half the country.

Originally from Yorkshire, Mary moved to Aberdeen in 1983 via London where she gained an honours degree. She initially worked at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in a pathology lab, but her heart was set on becoming a Minister and in 2002 she completed a part-time Certificate in Christian Studies at the University of Aberdeen.

Despite twice being turned down for traineeship opportunities,
Mary persisted and finally completed her training in 2011, when she was ordained in Lossiemouth as Auxiliary Minister to St John’s Church for Deaf People, becoming the first deaf British Sign Language (BSL) user in the Church of Scotland.

* Capital letter deaf implies those who were born deaf or became deaf pre-lingually and use British Sign Language (BSL) as their first/preferred language.

In 2015, she returned to the University to complete a Bachelor of Divinity, graduating in June 2017. A 15-month placement at Ferryhill Parish Church followed, as well as continuing her work with St John’s Church.

With a black belt in kickboxing that she achieved at the age of 58, Mary is no stranger to taking on new challenges, but the Covid-19 pandemic has been the most difficult of her time with the Kirk. Restrictions on funerals and burials meant that instead of being able to mourn with the support of family and friends, services were stripped back allowing only those closest to the bereaved to attend.

It has been very difficult for so many who have lost loved ones.

From the limited numbers of family allowed to attend services, which were only allowed to be 10 minutes long, to the banning of hymns and wearing of face masks, which make it impossible to lipread.

Some people find comfort in touching a coffin, but even this was not allowed. There were no handshakes and no queue to pay respects to bereaved family.

One minister told me that he had to take a 10-minute commitment service in a crematorium with no family or friends present – just himself with the coffin in an empty room. That is very hard.

Maintaining the spirits of parishioners in testing times is no easy task, especially with a congregation spread so widely, and with many without internet access. So in order to communicate as effectively as possible Mary has been writing weekly letters from her home near Elgin, complete with accompanying artwork featuring her beloved dog Scott.

Mary is bilingual in both English and BSL, the preferred/first language to 125,000 deaf adults and around 20,000 deaf children throughout the UK. A language in its own right, with its own grammatical structure and syntax, BSL is complex and is not dependent nor strongly related to spoken English. This means that Mary tailors her letters to make sure they can be easily understood by her parishioners.

She explained: “Many people in my congregation don’t have access to internet – they tend to use texts and for some deaf people, English language is difficult as most of us who are born deaf, or who go deaf at a very young age, miss out the essentials of picking up English aurally.

I started to write weekly letters to 24 deaf parishioners, with plenty of pictures and in a deaf-friendly way, often writing in ‘signing English’ as opposed to ‘hearing English’. It has given me a lot of pleasure and enjoyment, especially when I got replies.

It has also helped keep me sane, along with my hearing dog Scott and two cats. Scott even features in some of my artwork – driving a tractor and wearing a face mask!”