The Value of a Life: Triage Ethics and Disability
While in some ways the COVID-19 pandemic is unifying the community around the globe, in others it is legitimating archaic values and hierarchies.
Can we go out today?
These men, despite their depths of hard-won wisdom and delightful companionship, are well-accustomed to strangers keeping their distance in public places. The conditions we ironically bemoan on social media are barely distinguishable from how they have spent most of the days of their lives. They are old pros at quarantine, and they are teaching me.
The Blessings of Witnessing Redemption and Transformation
The Covid 19 pandemic and related precautions have made me realize that the reason my faith excites me is because of opportunities to witness the redemptive power of Christ, or the ways in which God transforms negative events into blessings.
The Prescient Witness of Disability in a Post-Pandemic World
Disability Theology acknowledges that vulnerability is complex. Some are vulnerable because the world is broken. But everyone is in some way vulnerable, and this is not a bad thing.
The Fullness of God’s Kingdom and Righteousness
Seeking God's kingdom and his righteousness is about more than making God your first priority and engaging in spiritual disciplines. Seeking God’s kingdom also means responding to the injustices that we or others experience and advocating for God's kingdom values like love, inclusion and accessibility for all.
Being Befriended: Formation in L’Arche’s Theological Imagination
In the winter of 1999, I found myself on a Greyhound bus travelling from Three Rivers, Michigan to Richmond Hill, Ontario. I was moving to L’Arche Daybreak, one of the many communities of people considered intellectually disabled and nondisabled who share life and faith together. A little excited and a little frightened, I went looking for Christian community and a way to live the Gospel. I wound up finding both those things – and a whole lot more.
This Lenten season, what’s your “something else?”
80% of the world’s citizens who experience disabilities, people like Hiwot, live in developing countries. One person in seven has a disability here at home. My small sacrifice of removing one thing from my life (frankly, an unhealthy practice anyway) in order to turn my attention outward and upward on their behalf …well, it seems to make some sense.
A world without Down syndrome? (video)
In a recent BBC documentary, Sally Phillips explores the potential ramifications of a new, less-intrusive screening test for Down syndrome.
Physicians, Assisted Dying and Vulnerable People
Today, we are pleased to welcome Matthew Piamonte to the site for a guest post on Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying Bill C-14. Matthew is finishing his residency training in family medicine [Read More]
Assisted Living Meets Assisted Dying
Many who have not had the experience of illness or disability struggle to understand or validate the quality of life, skills and value of people who live with illness or disability.