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I spent my mid-twenties holding my disability flag high, confident that I’d found my calling. This was my cause. These were my people. Wholly devoted to the disability community and its quest for equality, I wrote and spoke, adding my voice to the throng of those already raising the battle cry. This was where I belonged.
I was a disability rights advocate, and a proud one.
Continue reading “Faith Before Flags”
The walrus figurine sits on my bookshelf, dutifully keeping watch over the goings-on of the house below. Its tusks have broken off, leaving chipped paint and looking more like a seal than a walrus. Its body is lumpy and a bit misshapen, due mainly to the work of its creator. But there it sits, a permanent fixture of my home since its conception.
I crafted the walrus on a Sunday afternoon in my best friend’s pottery studio. The spiritual attack I’d endured that morning left me feeling terrified, vulnerable, and weary. As best friends do, she gave me a long hug and let me stay with her as long as I needed until I could face life again. I made it through that season thanks to her, and I have a broken and beautiful walrus to prove it.
Continue reading “Ageless Friendships”
I have a confession to make: I am a bitter disabled person. The media’s portrayal of people with disabilities had me believing that I’d forever be classified as either inspirational simply for existing, or pitied for being a helpless, worst-case scenario come to life. Add social media to the mix as a young adult, and the seed of bitterness that had been sown as a six-year-old cancer survivor was fed, watered and growing rapidly in my heart.
Continue reading “A Bitter Confession”
I stood on the sidewalk, preparing myself for the trek ahead. It would take all the courage I could muster to complete, and my heart pounded feverishly. I took stock of my supplies and, deciding I had no reason to stall further, took a deep breath and set out for the post office. Ten minutes later, I was home, holding the stamped envelope as proof. Operation Walk-to-the-Post-Office-Independently was complete, and I happily accepted my husband’s praise while congratulating my guide dog for a job well done.
Continue reading “The Eternal Value of Travel”
I received my first Bible when I was seven years old. It arrived book by book as each volume was produced in Braille. The first were the Gospel of Matthew and Acts of the Apostles, and I read them voraciously until the next ones arrived. When they did, I stood back and gazed admiringly at my bookshelf, four cubes housing the entirety of God’s Word in a format I could read all by myself.
Continue reading “Would You Pay $900 for a Bible?”
When a close friend began to follow the teachings of a faith healing ministry in Texas, I was guarded and suspicious. I had a vague idea of what they would say – that disability was the result of sin and if you prayed hard enough, you could be healed – but I was shocked by how unapologetically they preached their message. But more than that, a wrenching fear gripped me: would my friend adopt these beliefs? Would this change how she saw my disabled body?
Continue reading “The Prosperity Gospel Hates Disabled People, But God Doesn’t”
Ableism had left its mark on my disabled body long before I knew its name. As hard as I scrubbed, I couldn’t rid myself from the sticky residue on my skin, or remove the thorn that pierced clear through to my bones. It was a part of me as much as Jesus was, but I had no awareness that the ableism that stung the most came from those who claimed to love Jesus, too.
Continue reading “Is Christianity Ableist?”