My Obedience

[howdydave]

Howdy!

As most have probably figured out by now, I'm a monastic wanna' be...

I went to the monastery (St. Tikhon's of Zardonsk, just NE of Scranton PA) for Thanksgiving.
Just before I left, my Spiritual Father told me that he and the Abbot wanted me to become an ASL Interpreter.

About 20 years ago I worked at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, but we used SEE (Signed Exact English.)

It sounded as if they wanted the impossible. Even if I learned enough to become an Interpreter, how would I be able to maintain my skills out there in the boonies of NE PA?

At this point I am clinging to the dogma:
If your Spiritual Father gives you an Obedience, there must be some way for you to fulfill it!

While talking to a former advisor of mine last week, he told me that there was a Pennsylvania State School for the Deaf in Scranton (about 20 miles away.)

I am currently doing my preliminary research...

I'm going back to St. Tikhon's for Christmas.
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[Rabbit]

This sounds good. I think God is going to help you with this one!

Rabbit

[joy]

i agree with rabbit, with spiritual guidance and help like you said. keep us up to date on it please.

[satman next generation]

How wonderful Dave. When we are truly called we can overcome all sorts of obstacles. Philippians 4:13 - I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. You are in my prayers.

[howdydave]

If anybody else is ever interested in learning ASL, I found a great site:

Signing Savvy
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[Tattoo2]

It sounds like a wonderful opportunity Dave. I have come to believe that if a door opens for me, it is my job to walk through it. I can always turn around and come back or go in a different direction, but I will miss whatever possibilities lie ahead if I do not walk through the door. I always have thought I would like to learn to sign. Good luck to you and keep us posted. Tattoo

[howdydave]

I've been networking for the last week or so...

Establishing contacts on Long Island, Washington DC, Texas, California and Colorado who are currently using ASL in their churches...

I'm trying to find anybody who has a Standardized translation/transliteration of the Liturgy into ASL...
None yet, but if I get all of these people talking to each other, maybe something will come of it.

[annie]

Hi Dave

I have been learning Sign for about a year. We have a group of profoundly deaf women at the Senior Center and they are teaching me.

First thing to remember is that only young deaf people know ASL, and many young ones don't know it. Most older deaf speak manual english or some other dialect. You have to be flexible. Your earlier training will be useful. For example, there are several different signs for Jesus. For church.

There have been several major shifts in sign over the last 50 years. But mostly the changes only affect the educated Deaf. The majority just go along signing the way they first learned and signing "old" or "new" or "icky" if you ask about a different sign.

What I enjoy about it is the difference in thinking. The deaf do not think like the hearing. The educated Deaf who are part of Deaf culture think more like the hearing than my uneducated deaf. Very other.

For example, there are very few verbs. When I translate something I have to pick out the five or so important words out of a 50 word sentence. Complicated by my lack of vocabulary. My ladies can't read well enough to deal with closed captioning.

One of my most fun days was translating hula dancing. The hula teacher was explaining the story and some of the movements, which are words. I was signing them. The gesture for "star" is the same in Hawaiian hula and in sign.

So relax. Just attempting to sign makes deaf people very happy. You can get a long way being able to say "good morning" and "how are you" which are courtesys that are important. And it is amazing how it delights them when you tell them "I am not a chicken" shortly after they have taught you the sign for chicken.

You'll be fine.

Good to hear from you!

[howdydave]

Just got back from the monastery (I went there for Christmas) and arrived home about an hour before the snow (8" in a day.)

My instructions are now explicit: Become an ASL Interpreter while I am in Rochester!

I'm starting to feel like a student again...
Made my first contact with the Admissions Dept. at NTID (National Technical Institute for the Deaf) via e-mail yesterday.
Sent in my initial application for Student Aid yesterday.

Classes start in about 3 weeks...

My classes will probably take more than 3 years to complete!

[jingle]

Three years! Wishing you the best.

[annie]

I asked my sign language teacher, who is Baptist, about Catholic services for the Deaf. There are several parishes in Los Angeles for the Deaf. Closest one to us is Holy Angels in Vernon. While looking at that I found that there is a national Catholic organization for Deaf services. Bet anything that sign for theology is different from sign for every day life.

I know three different ways to sign Jesus and I am not even Christian.

[howdydave]

Howdy Annie!

Very much so.

Not only that...
Specific signs for specific concepts must come out of the deaf community itself rather than having the hearing community impose signs on the deaf.

If it doesn't come out of the deaf community, it will not be readily accepted.

Sorta' like having a German committee from the University of Berlin introducing new words into American English!

[annie]

Today in sign class we had four different Deaf. All four used a different sign for "study" some very different, some just different orientation.

The problem with this business of "coming from the Deaf community" is that they really mean "coming from the young upper middle class educated Deaf community" which is an entirely different ball game. Sign seems to change radically every 20 years. My Deaf ladies are all in their 60s, not well educated, and from different geographical areas. They argue a lot about what sign is correct to teach us. They are pretty tired of having young rich male Deaf bully them.

Religious signs seem to be the worst. All four sign "God" differently. "Church" "bless"

Go to a public library and look at their books on sign. Eyeopening.

Today we had a new student. He was looking at the book and listening to the teacher, just like you do in any class. Except this absolutely does not work with sign. The first thing you have to learn is ALWAYS look at the person who is signing. Seems obvious but it definitely is not!

[howdydave]

Annie

I've got a big (700+ pp) book that you might be interested in:

For Hearing People Only
Answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about the Deaf Community, its culture and the "Deaf Reality."

by Matthew S. Moore & Linda Levitan

ISBN 0-9634-01603-7

The information comes out of questions asked by Hearing readers of the magazine Deaf Life.

[annie]

Yes, I have looked at that.

Notice the capitals. The Deaf Community and the deaf community are two entirely different groups of people. My ladies are deaf, not Deaf. Things will change in the next generation because deaf children now have much more access to education than my ladies did. But the same as the situation is with hearing children, there will still be a split between the privileged and the nonprivileged.

The kids who drop out of school at 15 are human too, deaf or hearing. You would never know they existed from Deaf culture stuff.