The Works of God

I have no doubt that the motives were good, even pure, when this exercise was developed to help people learn about disabilities:

Help the children of the parish experience what it is like to have a disability. Blindfold some of them. Have wheelchairs, cane, walkers, and braces available for others to use. Place cotton in the ears of a third group, and tell others that they cannot talk and so must find other ways to communicate. Make sure that the space used for this exercise is safe for everyone. Leave time to listen to what the children learned and how they felt as people with disabilities.

I’ve run across this exercise a number of times with schools, so I’m not making fun of the Episcopal Church, where I found it listed as part of their 10 Ways to Build a Disability Ministry.

But it isn’t a very good idea.

First, it is encouraging something that is impossible – mainly that a non-disabled person can ‘understand’ disability.  I’ve lived with a multiply-disabled boy for more than 14 years and I can honestly say I know nothing about being blind or autistic.  I know a lot about him and how he negotiates life, and I’ve read lots of materials on blindness and autism, but actually being blind or processing the world through the lens of autism?  My imagination isn’t that good.

Secondly, it focuses entirely on deficits.  Of course if you put a blindfold on me for 15 minutes I’ll be anxious about getting around a room, or I’ll be frustrated if I can’t talk to communicate.  But watch a normally developing teenager who happens to be blind and you’ll be impressed (if he has been trained well) by his ability to get around independently with a cane or a service dog.  Years of practice at anything will make a huge difference in confidence and competence.  But my ‘experience’ as a person with a disability for a few minutes only makes me feel even more sorry for ‘those’ poor people.  How does that help?

Third, these exercises focus on disability and not on the unique giftings, personality and characteristics of the person with the disability.  I’ve met kids with exactly the same diagnosis of disability who behaved in very different ways.  Both children were created by God for a purpose, and both are far more interesting and complex than their similar diagnoses.  Knowing something about their disability is helpful, but it hardly scratches the surface of who they are as people.

So why did the presence of wheelchairs at Joni Camp turn out to be so positive?  I think there were a few reasons:

1. The wheelchairs were just there for anyone to use, and all for recreational reasons; ‘learning about disability’ was not the focus.  The chairs were interesting and the non-disabled kids actually did ‘normal’ things in them – like see who could go the fastest, or turn the most quickly.  I saw a lot of spills – and a lot of laughter.  Yes, they had a good time, but they also got better at using the chairs even after a few tries. 
2. There were adults (young and not so young) who used the chairs with great skill.  Watching someone who can, without seeming to use much effort, get a wheelchair to do exactly what they want (especially when I couldn’t) generates respect rather than pity.
3. We were hanging out with people experiencing disability, sometimes in themselves but more frequently it was their children who had disabilities. Real people with real names and real suffering and real hopes and real desires and real joys.  Not scary people at all, even if some of their situations were pretty rough.  

So, I suggest avoiding the exercise above, and focusing more on the greater calling of God on our lives when dealing with other people, with or without disabilities:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  1 John 4:7-11