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People with developmental disabilities, people like Sam, have taught me that each person matters. These days, we often forget about the one, about individual people – we are so distracted by all the things and the many people which call for our attention.
This is not the love of romance stories or Hollywood endings. This is the kind of love that brings you to the end of yourself and then beyond. The kind of love that takes all you’ve got during the day and keeps you up at night. Real. Costly. Love.
Supporting a person with a developmental disability to grieve is not a matter of coming alongside, but of remaining where we already were.
It is a long and slow process for me, a well-educated and nondisabled white male, to appreciate and to pay attention to the ways that God is working on the margins. But whether it is in pausing my frantic productivity to gaze for a moment at crisp pin-points of light in the night sky or in turning my attention to a neighbour who does not use words to communicate, I am “Learning how to say ‘Hallelujah’ from the ones who say it right.”
God’s order is not our own, and the upside-down Kingdom is often led by those whom we might prefer to ignore or condemn. “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” the Pharisees demand. I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Pay close enough attention, he instructs, and if we’re quiet we will hear even the voice of these silent rocks.
I want everyone to have the experience that I had that day – to be in a space where there is true love and acceptance for each member. Where people show up with their whole, unedited selves and are embraced.
The technicians had very kindly broken the rules and allowed me to stay with him in the room, but I was still outside of the tube. I had the freedom of my limbs. The noises the machine made were not inches from my ears. I called encouraging words to him inside the tube, but they were just more sounds. So I did the only thing I could think to do. ...
So much of what we do on a daily basis we do without qualifications. We walk through every conceivable season of a person’s life with them because we are the ones who happen to be present when the call comes.
It is a weekday morning, and I am present, here in this beautiful place in this good company, and I am doing my job. These are not stolen moments, but given ones, gifts we have given to one another.
In my previous post I mentioned a man who recently died of COVID ... he was one of the first people I supported who did not use words to communicate, but clearly had much to say.
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