Caregivers at Ascension

Share This Post

As anyone knows who has tried it, caring for an ill or disabled person can be exhausting. The physical demands are often great, and the psychological ones frequently overwhelming. Our culture tells us that no sacrifice for a loved one is too great, that caregivers must give their all — and then some more. It is an impossible situation — and then some more.

To address this situation The Rev. Mark Glidden, a licensed mental health professional, has founded a caregivers’ support group (no fee) at the Church of the Ascension. Assured of confidentiality, participants discuss their concerns openly and freely. “Whatever is said here stays here.” In addition to the benefit of ventilating, there is also an exchange of practical information, often very helpful.

The group meets from 3 to 4:30 PM on Saturdays in the ground floor meeting room of the Ascension rectory, 7 1/2 West 10th St. All those who are caregivers by circumstances rather than profession are welcome. For more information call Father Glidden at 212-534-9959 or e-mail him.

More To Explore

Hans Süss von Kulmbach, The Ascension of Christ (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Newsletter

Parish News: May 17

In this week’s newsletter, Mother Liz celebrates the parish’s feast day with Malcolm Guite’s sonnet on the Ascension, exploring its paradoxes: ending and beginning, absence and presence, humanity and divinity. Jesus leaves the disciples to fill all things with even more profound intimacy, and it is his broken, still-wounded body—”the heart that broke for all the broken hearted”—that ascends to God’s heart. The rector invites us to sit with these mysteries during the “dazzling darkness” between Ascension and Pentecost, pondering how we are held and hidden with Christ while called to be his presence in a world of crisis, wonder, and grief.

Read More →