Thank God for Brian, for my encounter with him and my continued relationships with people who are considered to be disabled. Brian is a whole person, with his likes and dislikes, his own personality and his own ways of contributing to the broader community.

My silence can be holy, if I feel The presence, and the touch, of those who care. A gentle hand, or word, makes joy more real, And griefs gain substance in a loving prayer.

In my endeavors to learn and be enriched, I cannot discount the experience I gain from being in relationship with others. I can acquire knowledge, capacity, and skills from academic study and reading and yet it has been when I have engaged in community and established friendships with people with exceptional needs that I have gained the most.

I have seen that shape before

And now I find it troubles me.

Those hands held in just that way.

But I can't place the memory.

The world closes when the word disability creeps into one’s life because other people in the outside world do not see the abilities before the disabilities. I am a very capable person, but since I have lost my vision I am no longer viewed in this way.

Jesus names his present and future vulnerability to pain in this verse and empowers his friends to claim their own limitations, and to use them as the basis for trust. I know how Jesus feels, in terms of having a broken body. I have spastic cerebral palsy: this neurological condition means that my muscles are always tense, or spastic, and that I experience palsy, or continuous tremors in all my limbs.