... people with disabilities are often marginalized as well. Long before Christian Horizons articulated our vision that ‘people who experience disabilities belong to communities in which their God-given gifts are valued and respected’, Jesus helped others see our crucial need to belong. He makes it possible for people to belong.
The movie Penguin Bloom is highly refreshing because it opens a window into the physical and emotional pain that is often associated with adjustment to disability [...] Most importantly it shows each member of the family journeying through their own experience of grief related to disability and eventually coming out the other side, not wishing to die but learning to spread their wings and fly with reinvigorated passion for life.
Well I finally did it. After three years of using this thing, I capsized my wheelchair; with me in it.
"I was born with cerebral palsy which makes it challenging for me to speak or use my arms and legs. ... It is difficult for me to express my thoughts and ideas to people who do not know me very well because many do not understand the way I talk or type. This takes patience and practice."
But then I actually talked to the people I was trying to protect. While I was enjoying my coffee and car rides with my wife, some of my people were stuck at home alone, often with no access to our online services.
How did these COVID-19 restrictions affect people with disabilities, many of whom already felt unwelcome or ignored by their church even in normal times?
There is a subtle panic in her eyes: she is trying to read me, trying to understand what it is I could want from her, but she picks up nothing at all from my best encouraging face.
Being part of the Body of Christ means feeling pain when parts of the Body are not in alignment, and in such a large and diverse Body this will always be the case.
Currently we can feel as though we are trapped in our homes. However, there is a window out of self-isolation into the experience of many others; those who must always do life at a slower pace.
While in some ways the COVID-19 pandemic is unifying the community around the globe, in others it is legitimating archaic values and hierarchies.