This week I sent the final draft of manuscript, Ministry with the Forgotten: Dementia through a Spiritual Lens, to Abingdon for the their review and editing. The book is the outgrowth of the journey Linda and I have been on for more than ten years.

Dementia is seen in our society almost exclusively through a medical lens where the focus is on symptoms, lost capacities, and grief. Such a narrow lens contributes to the current fear, stigmatizing, and marginalizing of people with dementia.

The book seeks to broaden the lens by locating dementia within God’s Story of creation, liberation, restoration, incarnation, and salvation. We are all more than our limitations, capacities, and losses. We are beloved children of God, created in the divine image, redeemed by God’s grace, and incorporated into a new community.

I am honored that the Foreword is written by Warren Kinghorn,  a psychiatrist and theologian, who teaches in both the Medical School and Divinity School at Duke. His short Foreword is worth more than the book itself!

The book should be available by August. The royalties from its sale will go to support ministries with people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia and those who care for them.