Monthly Archives: May 2015

Creating an Inclusive Community without the Accepted Normal

Reading for Trinity Sunday: Romans 8:12-17

Peace be with you!

Being welcomed into a community is important because it creates a sense of self-worth and dignity for a person. People create communities based on a common opinion or thought process, although each person has a unique perspective as a result of their past experiences. Communities adopt new individuals into their fold and share their ideas.

Erin M Diericx with ladies at Shepherd of the Hill  © Copyright 2015 Original Photo take by Margaret Schrantz

Erin M Diericx with ladies at Shepherd of the Hill
© Copyright 2015 Original Photo take by Margaret Schrantz

For people with disabilities, being adopted into a new community takes time and patience. The person with a disability has to first overcome physical barriers, such as stairs, lack of space to maneuver a wheelchair, and bathrooms. Second, the person with a disability has to break down psychosocial barriers, such as being seen as different and incapable of functioning like the others. Communities, including congregations, have a difficult time accepting those individuals who are unable to conform to the accepted normal.

As Christians, God adopts us when we confess Jesus Christ is our Savior and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us (Romans 8:14). God has no perceived notion as to what physical abilities his children should have. God does not care if you have a limp, cannot walk, are missing a limb, or cannot hear and/or see. There are no physical or psychosocial requirements to be adopted by God, other than simply believing Jesus Christ is your Savior.

Furthermore, Jesus only gives us two commandments: 1) to love your God with all your heart and 2) to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-40; John 15:12). Jesus gives no other requirements (time, space, or social standing). Jesus himself ate with sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans, Canaanites, and others outside the Jewish tradition. Jesus challenged the Jewish authorities by healing a man on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-6) and challenged social norms by having a conversation alone with a Samaritan woman (John 4). Jesus pushed against social norms into order to develop real relationships with people. Jesus said, “The healthy do not need a doctor but the sick do” (Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31; Matthew 9:12). Jesus did not come for the individuals who are perfect; he came for broken people.

Then why do congregations turn away people with disabilities? Congregations follow the social model of only inviting those individuals who fit the accepted normal. We fall into the same trap as the Pharisees: making a ritual mold for everyone to fit into. By doing so, we create an exclusive church structure—the very thing Jesus challenged. In Discovering the Trinity in Disability: a Theology for Embracing Difference, Myroslaw Tataryn and Maria Truchan-Tataryn write:

“The categorization of people labeled with disability as ‘those’ people, as ‘special,’ as Other is something of an absurdity, because traits of disability have always been part of human experience. Even the use of disabled as a categorization of people is problematic, considering that the term represents a limitless set of potential human anomalies that would not necessarily render anything in common between those bearing the label.”[i]

In other words, if you live long enough, having some form of disability is inevitable. The older you get, the more prone you are to physical abnormalities due to strokes or heart attacks, which can cause you to need a walker or wheelchair. Congregations take care of the elderly as they decline in their physical abilities, yet a younger person with a disability is discouraged from becoming an active member of the church. Although I disagree that there are no fundamental commonality between the different disabilities, I do agree with the idea that disability is a common human experience.

And if you believe in the notion of disability being as a result of sin being a part of the world, then everyone should have some form of disability. We are all sinners. This is why God sent Jesus in order to give us God’s forgiveness, grace, and love in the world where people have pain and suffering.

Erin M Diericx with Father Ladd & Judy Harris and The Rt. Rev. Gregory O. Brewer, Bishop of Central Florida at Shepherd of the Hills on February 16, 2014.

Erin M Diericx with Father Ladd & Judy Harris and The Rt. Rev. Gregory O. Brewer, Bishop of Central Florida at Shepherd of the Hills on February 16, 2014.

Church is called to be an inclusive group with people from all walks of life. I am blessed to be a part of a congregation that engages with me and uses my spiritual gifts. Due to my speech impairment and spastic movements, it has taken time to build relationships with various members of the congregation. I had to spend time with various individuals and demonstrate my spiritual gifts and abilities in order to break down any and all psychosocial barriers. God adopts us all into his family no matter what your race, age, heritage, and abilities. In the same way, my congregation has adopted me into their fold and the various members love me for who I am—a child of God who just happens to have cerebral palsy. When a church openly welcomes people with disabilities, the congregation allows God’s love to be expressed to people with all abilities—disabled or abled.

Thanks be to God!

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for adopting us into your fold, despite our abnormalities. Help us to resist the need for an “accepted normal” as a community. Lead us to welcome those a bit different from us into our fold and to build relationships with individuals with all abilities. Thank you for giving us space to build relationships with one another. Amen.

[i] Myroslaw Tataryn and Maria Truchan-Tataryn, Discovering the Trinity in Disability: A Theology for Embracing Difference (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2013), 14.

Bringing People of All Abilities Together

Reading for Day of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21

© Copyright 2015 Original Artwork by Erin M Diericx

© Copyright 2015 Original Artwork by Erin M Diericx

Devotion

Peace be with you!

According to Dictionary.com, disability is “a physical or mental handicap, especially one that prevents a person from living a full, normal life or from holding a gainful job.” The word disability has a negative connotation, and its definition implies anyone with a disability—let alone someone with multiple diagnoses—cannot live a full, normal life.

As an individual who has had her disability since birth, I have had to wrestle with what it means to be someone with cerebral palsy. Back in the early 1980s, doctors did not know how cerebral palsy affected the person and their ability to live their life. In fact, the doctors told my parents I would never walk, talk, or sit up. The doctors assumed I would be under my parents’ care all my life and would never live in my own house and pay my own bills. In my poem entitled “Never Mind the Doctors,” I talk about feeling the world is against me and seeking to prove the doctors wrong. I feel triumphant that I so often managed to do just that.

Even as we celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the disabled culture is still working educate society that a person with a disability has the ability to hold a sustaining career and have a family. Society still holds on tight to stigmas that people with disabilities cannot lead productive and fulfilling lives, because the prefix dis- implies an inability to do anything.

On the day of Pentecost, the disciples were gathered and a wind filled the entire house (Acts 2:1-2). The Holy Spirit gave the men the ability to speak different languages and to understand one another (Acts 2:4, 6). The devoted Jews who were present began questioning if these men were drunk (Acts 2:13). How could Italians, Serbians, people from Croatia, Romania, and Greece, Asians, citizens of Egypt, Libya, and Arabia, and people in the Middle East all be speaking about God’s deeds (Acts 2:9-11)? How could they even be speaking to one another, let alone be sharing the news? These people did not go together. They did not socialize with one another. And yet here they are, discussing the good news of Jesus Christ and receiving the Holy Spirit together. How could this be?

Peter reminds the Jews of Joel 2:28-32: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:17-21 NRSV).

Peter saw the day of Pentecost as a fulfillment of scripture as the Holy Spirit entered the world. Pentecost started as a Jewish holiday to commentate the fifth day after Passover when Moses received the Ten Commandments. Now fifty days after Jesus’s resurrection from the grave, the disciples and other followers of Jesus receive the Holy Spirit as their advocate. The Holy Spirit breaks down the language barrier, so people around the world are able to hear and understand the good news of Jesus’s crucifixion, death, and resurrection. For the first time, the word of God becomes accessible to all people.

Jesus promised abundance of life by sending the disciples an Advocate who will continue to unfold God’s love for all to know (John 16:8-11). The Advocate will seek protection and prayer requests on our behalf as a mediator. The Advocate will lead the disciples and us by the truth of what is to come in the future. The Holy Spirit bears the good news, so the disciples could be empowered to share it with the world. Jesus sends us the Holy Spirit to embody and model the good news for us, so that we can know and come to understand what it means.

In the disabled culture, the day of Pentecost gives people hope that God recognizes many different abilities. People who have disabilities are able to do many things and should be recognized not by their disabilities but their abilities. The Holy Spirit gives people— disabled or able—of all abilities the power to live fulfilling lives to God’s glory. The Holy Spirit becomes an advocate for people with disabilities by empowering them with other gifts. People with physical disabilities are able to help the aging population with adaptation to homes and in public, because they understand what it means to feel isolated by barriers. People with cognitive disabilities see the world differently, and they are able to better relate to children since they think on their level.

If we as a society could think about people based on their abilities, not their disabilities, maybe we could make the world a better place for people of all abilities. The Holy Spirit equips people based on their abilities to spread the good news. The Holy Spirit breaks down physical barriers in order to welcome people with disabilities into the community where people share the love of Christ. The Holy Spirit advocates for all people to be welcomed to worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Thanks be to God!

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for making your word accessible to everyone. Help us to understand each other’s needs in order to allow everyone to live fulfilling lives. Break down the barriers separating us from one another. Set our hearts on fire as we welcome people with different abilities into our community. Thank you for sending us an advocate. Amen.

Reflective Questions

Please answer the following reflective questions in the comments below. Please agree to disagree and be respectful to each other. (If you have not already done so, please also take a moment, to sign the behavior covenant by commenting on it.) You can answer as many questions as you would like.

  1. What are your abilities?
  2. How has the Holy Spirit advocated on your behalf?
  3. Where have you seen the Holy Spirit working in the world?

Never Mind the Doctors

  1. Erin on her second birthday

    She was born into loving arms, parents who raised her as their own

  2. She was eighteen months old and the world was against her. She was labeled a nothing but heard a unique drum. She rolled over and laid in her mother’s arms.
  3. She enjoyed the freedom her four wheels gave her, as her four-legged companion, Daisy, led the way.
  4. She loved the story-telling trees as they hid her from the sun. Sand castles and pools were built in her world.
  5. She saw the country by plane, an expensive habit from her father and mother. Anytime off was spent in the skies. She and her brother chuckled at those anxious passengers too fearful for their own good. To them, there was peace in the skies, neutral ground there.
  6. She watched her family fall apart and got caught in the middle. She witnessed two families form and became a part of both.
  7. She went to school, graduated in the top ten percent amazingly for a suppose-to-be-a-couch-potato. She proved those doctors wrong.
  8. They called her “crash” as she rolled the go-kart/tricycle/electric wheelchair/etc. Speed was her addiction as she made her own track in the backyard.
  9. She loved her grandpa’s and grandma’s canned peaches. She loved sitting there watching them race about the kitchen, shouting orders, and sharing compassion.
  10. She sat waiting for her prince charming. She finally gave up — ten years from now — always wanted that family in her dreams. If he comes to call, I am instructed to tell him to look in the skies.
  11. She created her world on the canvas before her as paint flew. There she was, a girl without pain. She could run there and smell the redness of a rose.
  12. She ducked her brother and his friends. They ducked her. They were a family, even now. They keep in touch and continue the sibling torment.
  13. IMG0229

    Erin M Diericx at her graduation from Luther Seminary in May of 2009.

    She moved into her own home and got her degree, despite the doctors, and laughed. She just wants to be the person who went somewhere, somewhere unexpected. That is her mission, never mind the doctors.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Written by Erin M Diericx 2006

 

Living in the Crisis but Moving Forward in Faith

Reading for Seventh Sunday of Easter

Acts 1:15-26

 

2015-05-17 16.07.27

© Copyright 2015 Original Artwork by Erin M Diericx

Devotion

Peace be with you!

When someone you trust and depend on betrays your trust, it’s easy to be left emotionally reeling. Everyone experiences betrayal at some time during their life. A cheating spouse breaks the trust between husband and wife. A close friend revealing your secret to another person can break your trust. When you lie during a job interview, you are deceiving the employer. Betrayal can occur in many forms, yet the realization of being betrayed causes anguish and distrust.

For individuals who are dependent on personal caregivers to help with everyday care, betrayal is an issue they deal with on a semi-regular basis. For example, a person with a cerebral palsy, such as myself, has to immediately trust any newly hired personal caregivers with intimate parts of their lives—from showering and dressing to running errands. Care tasks even include going to the bank, filling out withdrawal slips, and handling the cash. Sometimes the person with a disability hires a personal caregiver who just does not mesh well with the household (the individual with a disability, any frequently visiting family and friends, and the other personal caregivers). Other times the relationship between the individual with a disability and a personal caregiver can become strained if their friendship affects their working relationship. Sometimes a personal caregiver will become physically or emotionally abusive to get the individual with a disability to do what they want.

No matter the cause, any betrayal of trust can cause emotional heartache. In addition, finding a new aide one can trust and work with can be time-consuming and tedious. Firing an untrustworthy caregiver is not always immediately feasible; daily needs still have to be met even if he or she is unsatisfactory. If the individual with a disability uses an agency, they can ask for the personal caregiver who betrayed them not to be scheduled to do their shifts. Unfortunately many agencies are short staffed and occasionally the personal caregiver will still have to do a shift. If the individual with a disability hires and fires their own personal caregivers, they have to make sure their other staff can cover the open shifts before firing them.

In Acts 1:15-26, the disciples are processing Judas’s betrayal with Jesus. Judas did not just betray Jesus to the Pharisees, which ultimately caused his crucifixion and his death, but he also betrayed the other eleven disciples who shared their lives with him. The disciples shared intimate details of their lives with him. If he could betray Jesus, did Judas violate the personal confidentially? Did they have to worry about their families? How could Judas blindside them?

On top of this, the disciples needed to appoint another man to join them as a disciple and a fellow brother. How could they trust another man not to betray them? How could they open up to someone new? Who could they depend on? Once someone has broken your trust, it is difficult trust others, especially a new person. After firing a personal caregiver who has betrayed me, I find myself in a similar situation as the eleven disciples did in Acts 1:15-26—in a crisis but moving forward in faith.

In their time of turmoil, the disciples trust the Lord to call the right man to replace Judas. The disciples trust the Lord to lead them to a trustworthy man who will walk beside them and keep their secrets. Although casting lots may seem strange, in biblical times nothing was believed to happen by chance. In the Old Testament, Casting lots was not seen as gambling, but by removing the human element it left the decision up to the Lord as commanded by Urim and Thumim. Today casting lots meant acknowledging God’s presence in the discernment process of figuring out his will. The discernment process takes time and energy.

The eleven disciples proposed two men: Joseph called Barsabbas and Matthias (Acts 1:23). The eleven disciples spent time in prayer, asking the Lord to reveal which man was the best one to replace Judas (Acts 1:24-25). The disciples had to discern which man would work well with them to do God’s work in the world. It was an important decision for the disciples and could not be made lightly. In the end, the disciples decided Matthias was chosen to replace Judas (Acts 1:26).

Just as the eleven disciples discerned who would replace Judas in their circle, individuals who need personal caregivers should invite God into their hiring and firing processes. When I invite God into the process, I am always amazed and blessed by who God sends me, although not everyone works out as one would hope. These ladies help me with daily routines, as well they become a part of my household and my family; they become my right hand. I am so thankful God is willing to help me with difficult decisions and that I am not alone.

Thanks be to God!

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for helping us make decisions, especially the ones that affect our daily lives. Help us to treat others with respect and care. Guide us to the people who will build us up and let us flourish. Thank you for blessing us with wonderful friends, family, colleagues, and personal caregivers. Amen.

Reflective Questions

Please answer the following reflective questions in the comments below. Please agree to disagree and be respectful to each other. (If you have not already done so, please also take a moment, to sign the behavior covenant by commenting on it.) You can answer as many questions as you would like.

  1. How do you invite God in your decision process?
  2. Who has God blessed you with in your life?

 

Breaking Down Boundaries—physcial, psychosocial, and spiritual

Reading for Sixth Sunday of Easter

Acts 10:44-48

Devotion

Peace be with you!

The world imposes physical, psychosocial, and spiritual boundaries on us. Stairs, hills, gates, doors, and hallways are physical boundaries, which keep us in or out of certain places. The ways in which we are welcomed or not welcomed, taught to behave, and loved or hated by others create psychosocial boundaries, which form our thoughts, opinions, and ideas about the world. Accepting one faith tradition over another—such as Christianity, Islam, or Judaism—forms spiritual boundaries of laws and beliefs in which individuals live.

People with disabilities understand physical, psychosocial, and spiritual boundaries. Physical boundaries keep people with disabilities (especially those in wheelchairs) from enjoying certain places due to step(s), steep inclines, narrow aisles, and carpet. These boundaries restrict our ability to enjoy certain places, whereas ramps, wide aisles, and tile allow us to enjoy a place without fear of tipping over steps or rugs. If a community does not welcome people with disabilities, then they will not come to the community’s events. On the other hand, if a community does its best to remove any physical boundaries in their building and is welcoming and accepting to people with disabilities, then they will come and be more willing to be involved.

Psychosocial boundaries have a lot to do with an individual’s attitude and how others welcome them into a community. If individuals with a disabilities have a low self-esteem and do not try different activities, they prevent themselves from enjoying what the world has to offer.

When it comes to spiritual boundaries, people with disabilities have been shut out of the church in the past. Since churches are not required to follow the ADA standards, physical boundaries, such as steps, narrow aisles, and a lack of space open in the worship space, prevent individuals with disabilities from even entering a church—let alone becoming a part of the community. Then, even if a church is wheelchair accessible, the members’ attitudes toward people with disabilities affect whether they will return a second time. Because of my spastic movements and my speech impairments, many people think I am cognitively disabled when they first meet me. It is not until I inform them I have a master of arts in New Testament that people will treat me like any other adult.

In The Disabled God, Nancy L. Eiesland writes, “Naming carnal sins against people with disabilities and other bodies relegated to the margins in the church and society and taking responsibility for the body practices of the church that segregate and isolate these individuals and groups is the difficult work of making real the possibility of the conversion to the disabled God. Often these processes engender conflict and tension as marginalized people seek their place in the decision-making processes of the church and make their nonconventional bodies models for ritual practice and as people who have endowed and overseen the body of the church fight to maintain control.”[i]

Within Christianity, spiritual boundaries can happen when pastors imply people are disabled due to sins of past generations or that their lack of faith prevents them from being healed. This makes individuals with disabilities feel as though they do not belong in the Christian community.

In our Scripture passage for this week, Peter addresses Cornelius and others. The Jews who are circumcised are questioning how the uncircumcised Gentiles can receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:45). Before Jesus came along, Jews and Gentiles did not mix. The Jews built a spiritual boundary between the Gentiles and themselves, because they believed they were superior as God’s chosen people. In the same way, people who are not disabled have made themselves superior to individuals with disabilities in the past.

Likewise, the church makes people with disabilities think God cannot love a broken, imperfect body. Yet, Eiesland writes, “To be human is to sin…”[ii] Therefore, we are all broken and in need of salvation through Jesus Christ. Peter challenges the Jews and people without disabilities by asking, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47 NRSV).

By the grace of God, we—Jews, Gentiles, people without disabilities, and people with disabilities—are all able to receive the Holy Spirit; we are all broken and in need of grace, salvation, and love from God. And he is ready and willing to give us this grace. No one should be denied access to the Lord’s fountain and table on account of being broken. The sacraments exist precisely for broken people.

Therefore, as the Christian community, we are called to share the good news of the forgiveness, grace, and love of Jesus Christ. We need to recognize Jesus as the disabled God who was crucified for our sins. At the resurrection, we see the holes in Jesus’s hands, feet, and side. Jesus fulfills God’s promise to become human and to take on our pain and afflictions. Nancy Mairs writes, “[Jesus] died as that body and yet somehow did not die then or ever but lives on in our bodies which live in God.”[iii] This is what overthrows the spiritual boundaries from before Jesus’s time on earth and allows us to be in a relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Thanks be to God!

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for overthrowing spiritual boundaries and allowing everyone and anyone to know you. Help us to break down physical boundaries, which prevent anyone with a physical limitation from entering the church. Help us to break down psychosocial boundaries that keep us for welcoming strangers. Lead us to welcome those different from us. Thank you for becoming human and taking on our pain and suffering. Amen.

Reflective Questions

Please answer the following reflective questions in the comments below. Please agree to disagree and be respectful to each other. (If you have not already done so, please also take a moment, to sign the behavior covenant by commenting on it.) You can answer as many questions as you would like.

  1. How can you make your church more accessible for people with disabilities?
  2. How do you welcome those different from you into the church?

 

 

[i] Nancy L. Eiesland, The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 109.

[ii] Nancy L. Eiesland, The Disabled God, 70.

[iii] Quote from Nancy L. Eiesland, The Disabled God, 99.

Letting the Lord Take the Lead

Reading for Fifth Sunday of Easter

Acts 8:26-40

Devotion

Peace be with you!

The Lord leads you to places you would not go otherwise. I went to a conference one year without a personal caregiver or a plan as to who would help me eat each meal. I ended having meals with colleagues I would have never thought to ask for help. Because of this, I ended up having important conversations about faith, major life changes, and language around disabilities. I was glad I had listened to the Lord by going where he was sending me.

Philip must have felt the same kind of anxiety when the Lord instructed him to go to Gaza from Jerusalem along the wilderness road (Acts 8:26). Philip must have questioned what he was doing in such a place, especially when the Lord told him to approach an unknown chariot (Acts 8:29), which could have belonged to anyone. Despite any anxiety, Philip went up to the chariot and heard the passenger, an Ethiopian eunuch who was in charge of the queen’s entire treasury, reading Isaiah (Acts 8:27, 30a). As an Ethiopian court official, the eunuch was an outsider—as a foreigner who choose to be castrated to show his loyalty to the queen—to the Jewish ways and was probably not permitted to enter the temple in Jerusalem.

When Philip approaches the chariot, he hears the eunuch reading Isaiah 53:7:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,

and like a lamb silent before its shearer,

so he does not open his mouth.

In his humiliation justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation?

For his life is taken away from the earth” (Acts 8:32-33 NRSV, quoting Isaiah 53:7).

Philip asks the eunuch if he understands what he is reading, and the eunuch tells him he needs instruction to know what the text is saying. The eunuch invites Philip to join him in the chariot (Acts 8:30-31). The eunuch asks if the prophet Isaiah is talking about himself or someone else (Acts 8:34). Philip takes this opportunity to share the good news of Jesus Christ with the eunuch (Acts 8:35).

The eunuch is the first recorded African to hear the good news. The Lord commissions Philip to share the good news with a foreigner who is unlike anyone he has encountered before. The physical and psychosocial boundaries of the Jewish traditions no longer apply to the Christian church. The good news is breaking down the boundaries. What prevents the eunuch from fully participating in the Jewish traditions—his heritage— now is not an issue. Everyone (Jews, Catholics, Gentiles, Samaritans, blacks, Caucasians, Indians, Hispanics, and all other people) is able to know God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit through the work of Jesus Christ. In the middle of the wilderness, Philip and the eunuch find water and stop the chariot. Philip baptizes the eunuch. Then Philip disappears, and the eunuch worships the Lord (Acts 8:38-39).

You never know when you are going to get the chance to share the good news with an outsider—someone who does not know the Lord. Introducing someone to the Lord furthers the work of Jesus and spreads the good news across the world. A fifteen minute conversation with a stranger can change the course of their life and the lives of others with whom they then share the good news. When you allow the Lord to work through you, he leads you to amazing places and introduces you to amazing people.

Thanks be to God!

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for the person who introduced me to you. Lead me to the individuals who need to hear the good news. Open my heart and mind to your plan for my life. Help me to step out in faith. Thank you for the many ways you use me to further Jesus’s work. Amen.

Reflective Questions

Please answer the following reflective questions in the comments below. Please agree to disagree and be respectful to each other. (If you have not already done so, please also take a moment, to sign the behavior covenant by commenting on it.) You can answer as many questions as you would like.

  1. Who introduced you to the Lord? Write them a thank you note.
  2. Where is the Lord leading you?