Roadblocks and changing hearts? - Tim Vermande

This entry was written for a political science class at my school, as a guest writer. I have left it largely intact.

Y’all recently read a blog post about customs in conflict in Saudi Arabia (women wearing head coverings). I’d like to ask you to think about another area of conflict today, one that is closer to home. The Americans with Disabilities Act is twenty-five years old this year. It provides legal protection for a variety of civil rights related to people with disabilities. 

The Census Bureau states that 1 in 5 people live with a disability. This number may be low—many people do not want to consider themselves “disabled.” Sometimes this is because a chronic illness, such as asthma, does not interfere with life most of the time, or can be controlled through medication. Similarly, conditions such as poor eyesight, readily corrected with glasses or contacts, don’t cross our radar as disabilities. And some people just don’t want to be labeled that way because of perceived social stigma.

The ADA has meant a lot to me. I was a difficult birth and then apparently contracted polio. When I was older, I was in accident that injured my back. Yet I have been a photographer (including for several fire departments), photo lab manager, and have attended college and graduate school. Now I teach at our famous Art Institute of Indianapolis and as an on-line teaching assistant at United Theological Seminary. These days, people who do such things get media coverage that goes viral on Facebook or YouTube. But many of us were doing these things long before they became fashionable. 

Some of these activities have been a struggle. I ended up attending a local college, even though several top-ranked colleges sought me out—but that was before the ADA, and the invitations disappeared when I asked about stairs and the like. Even after the ADA was passed, schools dragged their feet on physical accessibility. One listed the ability to carry 50 pounds up a flight of stairs as an essential part of being a professor (and thus not subject to accommodations). Another wouldn’t take me on to teach history because the position also required coaching football (even though that wasn’t stated in the announcement). 

And it continues. As I’ve often remarked in my classes, laws just show the points of need—they don’t change hearts. And, something I’ve mentioned in my classes: there are often unintended consequences. I have an example of each that we’d like to ask you to comment on. 

The first is with businesses that continue to be slow about accommodations—or don’t have their heart in it. You may have heard of “serial” lawsuits, where a lawyer and person with a disability file several lawsuits in a particular geographical area. While these are presented as overblown or picky, how would you feel if you went to board an airplane and were either denied boarding (after paying for a non-refundable ticket), forced into a seat assignment that you can’t physically get to, or find that your wheelchair was damaged by handlers, and the airline refuses to pay for the repairs? Or, rather than being seated in a convenient front area of a restaurant, you’re herded through a maze-like trail to a seat next to the take-out door and kitchen? Or you need to use the restroom and can’t get through the door? Just to finish the sequence, then your shuttle comes—and you have to crawl in because it doesn’t have a lift. All of these have happened to me. And it’s been 25 years—will a police officer let you out of a ticket because the speed limit changed 25 years ago? 

An emerging problem is with service animals. The ADA provides that service animals may go anywhere their human does. Yet I hear every week of someone who is denied entry to some business because of their dog (and by the way, the law does specify dogs, you can’t claim a snake or rat as a service animal).

Yet what happens if I should someday need a service dog (they can pull wheelchairs, pick things up, carry bags, and so on) and one of you in the class is allergic to dogs? Or, since no documentation or certification of status is required, what if someone buys a fake service dog vest on the internet and shows up in class?

Managing conflict and dealing with unexpected consequences are important skills in life. How can we best handle them?

Being different - Diane Mettam

This is an interesting time in the seasons of the church.  We have experienced the anticipation of Advent, and the joy of Christmas.  In the Lectionary we are greeted by the “suddenly” gospel of Mark, who portrays Jesus dashing from place to place, healing person after person.  And in a couple of weeks, we will suddenly be in Lent, joining Jesus on the long, sad journey to the cross.  His short time with us as a human feels particularly short to me this year, and I ponder what this means to me and my Christian walk (roll).

I have thought lately about some of the people who tried to harm me, who set obstacles in my way, who rejected me for my disabilities, who were unkind, and I find that it no longer matters.  I find that they too have disabilities - of the heart.  We are all broken in some manner, and I found the best way to live with hurtful people was to look at them the way God looked at them.

It was hard at first, but I learned to see them as God might - smiling, happy, innocent, beloved children.  If I could picture them that way they no longer frightened or upset me, and I could pray for them sincerely.  In time I could even be with them without fear or discomfort. 

I think this is something the world doesn’t understand about Christianity, and perhaps something it fears.  As a young girl I actually said “I never hold a grudge after I get even.”  And that is the world’s way.  I rejoice that I am no longer that person.  That is the gift of Jesus.  We don’t need to “get even.”  We just need to “get over.” 

I learned a long time ago that carrying around all the past hurts was like carrying around poison.  I had swallowed it, and I was waiting for the other person to die!  I had to rid myself of these horrible feelings, and the only way I could do that was to forgive the people who had hurt me, and what they had done.  It didn’t mean I condoned it.  It didn’t mean these people were now my best friends.  But it did mean that I could greet them as fellow children of God, as broken as I was.  I could protect myself around them, while showing them God’s love.  It’s a peculiar road by the world’s standards, and I must always remind myself that I am not of the world. 

As people with disabilities we are usually seen and treated as “different.”  Some want to see us as “inspirations,” rising above our circumstances.  Others see us as “less than,” as if an unbroken body or mind symbolizes superiority.  Some resent the courtesies (dare I say necessities) of accessible doors, ramps and parking spaces, Braille signage, tactile paving, and chirping crosswalk signals. 

We must present ourselves as we are, made in God’s image and proud of it, gracious in our acceptance of all of our differences.  “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.” Matthew 5:14-15

Dear Creator God, We thank you that you not only made us in your image, you gave us the capacity to forgive and forget when others hurt us, and to use our gifts to bring others to you.  Help us to keep our lanterns lit, to bring others to you, and to keep ourselves strong in your World and in the world.  In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

The Color of Water - Diane Mettam

When I was growing up, all the Nativity sets I saw had fair-haired figures.  It didn’t start to bother me until I was about nine or ten, the age when I was exposed to the civil rights movement.  Why, I wondered, did Jesus have golden hair if he was born in the Near East?  I grew highly critical of European nativities, and then European religious paintings, particularly when they were clad in what was contemporary clothing for that time.  How dare Michelangelo depict God as an old white man, I wondered?

But as I grew as a person and as a Christian, I understood that I was looking at things all wrong.  I think what that helped me understand was a set of Chinese silk paintings I bought at a yard sale.  They were religious in nature, and one depicted the Holy Family.  There, with Chinese faces, dressed in traditional Chinese dress, were Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus, adorned with halos and surrounded by tiny winged Chinese angels. 

And then I remembered my small creche from Mexico, with its traditional Meso-American painting, animals and figures, and my carved creche from Africa, with its native figures and animals.  Every culture looked at Jesus and the Holy Family as belonging to them.  In a way, this is good.  God is accessible.  When you are in a homogenous culture, God is inclusive.  But when you live in a modern, heterogeneous culture, this can be dangerous.

The writer Anne Lamott wrote, "You can safely assume you've created God in your image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do," and modern culture and faith traditions have certainly used God as a way to determine who is good and who is bad.  Anyone not like you in terms of race, faith, income, ancestry, appearance, or other arbitrary factor is therefore not like God, and therefore open to neglect or mistreatment. 

Since Biblical times people with disabilities have been seen as something “less.”  When Jesus was presented with a man who was born blind, the apostles asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  John 9:2   The mentally ill were “demoniacs,” who lived among the tombs. Matthew 8:28 

I love the author James McBride’s sharing of his mother’s description of God.  McBride’s father was black, his mother an Orthodox Jew who converted to Christianity.  God, she declared, is “the color of water.”  God, I believe, is also sighted, blind, hearing, deaf, able-bodied and uses a wheelchair, developmentally disabled, places on the autism spectrum and is mentally gifted.  God looks after each of us, and looks like each of us.  God has no ethnicity, and is every ethnicity.  If we truly believe we are made in God’s image, and God makes no mistakes, then God is a gloriously diverse God, with gloriously diverse dis-capacities, as the word translates from Spanish.  And aren’t we blessed to have such a God on our side? 

Prayer update from Terry McDorman of the Northern Illinois conference Accessibility Ministries committee regarding the effectiveness of their November accessibility conference:  “Since the Conference, I have nine request for teams to go out and meet with Boards of Trustees to do audits and assist them in setting visions and goals to make their church buildings as accessible as possible. I have also received numerous inquiries regarding personal hearing devices, large print materials and similar items. We even have a request for the architect that was at the event to design a new church that is accessible. So, God was working that day.”

Praise indeed!  Please remember you can submit your prayer requests, or your praises.  We are a mighty force when we work together. 

Dear God, We thank you that we are fiercely and wonderfully made in your image.  Remind us that we are yours, that we are never alone, and that when we step or roll out in faith to do you work, we will be successful.  We might be just the sowers of seeds, but we trust you that they will find fertile soil and bloom.  Thank you for choosing us and using us.  In the name of Christ, the Master Gardener, Amen.