Johnny Who?

I never, ever, ever in my life thought I would ever quote the star of an MTV show with a very unfortunate name, but here goes.

In last year's movie, The Ringer, Knoxville notes in the bonus features that

“God has taken something from them in one area, but He’s made them extraordinary in all the other areas.”

It's a great quote, and it really reflects the truth of what disabilities mean. Some people say that a disabiled sense in one area actually heightens your other senses. I don't think it does - I think it makes you rely more on your other senses, something you don't do when you have all of them functioning properly.

"Rely" is the key word in this discussion. When some is disabled, they cannot rely on that part of them that is disabled. I have a speech impediment. I cannot trust that my communication will come through clearly just by me mumbling. I must find ways of making sure I am clear, and I do that by relying on different tricks that help me get around my impediment.

People with more severe disabilities rely on more severe solutions: a full-time aide, speech devices, wheelchairs, friends. They all "rely." And it is this reliance that offers to teach us so much, and which leads into my next two posts. The first will be about where we place value when it comes to disabilities, and the second will be on the object of our reliance.

Today's Blessing: Mohinder

When two Elim staff members arrived in Asia* this past April, they learned a lot about the differences in cultures. But some things are the same across the ocean, like Mohinder.

Mohinder is a little boy who had never made eye contact with his mother. In fact, it was difficult to ever tell if he was looking at anything in particular.

Kim wanted him to make eye contact, to engage with his environment. So she tried all kinds of things to get his attention and to get him to lock his sight on something, anything.

After many unsuccessful tries, Kim finally found a ball that lit up when you pounded it on the table. She splatted it right in front of Mohinder and his eyes darted toward the ball. A few more times, and he was looking at it consistently.

Mohinder's mom was excited, and she was standing right there. She took the ball and started banging it, geting Mohinder's attention, then pulling the ball towards her own face, forcing him to finally look his mother in the eyes. She did this over and over and over. She was so happy to see Mohinder do this, she started crying.

But it gets better.

Kim and Mohinder's mom would then guide his hand to the ball, and then, holding his hand and the ball, they would pound the ball down, settying off the lights. Mohinder could see that he could interact with this ball. He could do this. Slowly, he took more and more interest, and independence.

And by the end of the week, Mohinder was actually taking the ball on his own, pounding it, and watching with excitement as he caused the lights to go on. What a blessing!


* country un-named and child's name changed

Today's blessing: Michelle

Today, I watched as Michelle practiced sorting through different colored blocks, trying to arrange them in the right color-coded bowls. In the process, Michelle is learning sorting skills crucial to her vocational development. As I took her picture, she couldn’t help but smile every few seconds, even squeezing in a muffled "cheese" from time to time. She must have been thinking “I am supposed to smile when my picture is taken, but how many pictures does he have to take?”

Michelle was a blessing to me this morning, but I had to be open to the blessing too. This is the lesson then: God blesses you in unexpected ways, through people you don't expect. Be open to receiving His blessing from whatever source He chooses.

Madness of God

In his books, Rev. John Timmer (an ordained minister of the Christian Reformed Church denomination) frequently refers to works by Elie Wiesel. One quote that stands out for me is from a play by Wiesel called "The Madness of God." Here's what Timmer says concerning Wiesel's decision to call it God's madness rather than the madness of a group or individual person:

"...God's madness is his decision to use a weak and despised people to be the instrument of his saving purpose in history, to be the means whereby he brings healing and salvation to the nations."

Here again we see how God's strength is displayed, and powerfully so, in the midst of man's weakness. It seems as madness to us - why use what's weak when you want to succeed? Why use the lowly to proclaim your power? This is indeed the madness of God, and it is seen and evident all around us.

Beginning with an understanding

Something I cannot do in this blog is pull my thoughts away from the context. I believe things. Because I believe these things (my context) I live my life a certain way and pursue certain goals.

I also don't believe some things. I'll start with that. I don't believe that what we see is all there is. I don't believe that a religious life means you go to heaven when you die and that's it. I don't believe that everyone subscribes to a common understanding of what's right and wrong purely because of 'societal norms.'

So what do I believe then, what is the context for this blog?

I have observed that all people (every single one) has a sense of what is right and what is wrong. It is not learned. From infancy, we know it is right for you to feed me but not to hurt me, and our sense of this 'morality' can grow and sophisticate as we get older (I say 'can' because not everyone lets that happen). But even though everyone innately understands at least a sense of right and wrong, we notice that:
1) the world often seems out of balance with what's right and what's wrong; and
2) each of us often fails to live up to what we actually know is right

It is therefore as though we live in a world that has been placed askew - out of whack. It's as though the 23-degree angle at which the poles spin our little globe has also impacted how we live our daily lives, and everything is off balance, so many things are wrong. Disease, war, lying, pollution, health care disasters, natural disasters - all speak to a reality that things are not as they should be.

And yet, some good still comes out of it. We find ourselves better off for the struggles we went through. We gather together, we help each other, we donate money to causes, we offer aid. People get better from illnesses, live to 90 despite smoking like a chimney, and forgive their daughter's abuser. This doesn't speak to things wrong; it speaks to something, somewhere, being right. And it's right because it's in line with what we think of as 'right.' It coincides with our innate understanding of right and wrong.

It is as though there is this world and another world, living concurrently, at odds with each other. And it is this I believe. Of course, this leads tme to conslusions you can probably jump to as well. And we will get to those. But I felt it was important to establish some kind of baseline so that you knew where I was coming from.

Hopefully, you can accept these ideas as valid perspectives, and continue to visit this resource, and we can continue the conversation.

Rethinking Disability

Do you realize how much of your world is filled with people who are a lot like you? I know that's true for me.

A few years ago I started working at Elim Christian Services, where there's a lot of people who are very different from me. Okay, I do have a speech impdeiment, but everybody at Elim has some kind of significant developmental disability.

Most people look at a place like Elim and assume it's a place of sadness, but it's not. It's become a source of joy and blessing in my life. But it's not because of Elim, it's because of the people there.

They have revealed to me a powerful statement: God's strength is made evident in weakness.

We cannot hide from weakness or struggle or pain. It eventually finds us one way or the other. This blog, I hope, will become a place where you can see and celebrate stories of success over disability, success despite pain, and even success because of pain - I believe all three are evident every day. In fact, I believe that we can and even should challenge our definitions of success.

How's that ? Vague enough for you? Well, every journey begins with one step. Maybe every blog begins with a really bad first entry. We'll see if they get better. Thanks for stopping by.