Warfare, The 1st Sunday In Advent, & Hope For Those With Disabilities

It seems inescapable these days. Images and news about war and gun violence is everywhere. A few weeks ago I was watching as pictures of children in the middle east, bloody and crying in pain, were being carried frantically to any place of refuge that might be found. With horror flooding the pit of my stomach, I began asking myself the question; what happens with the disabled in places of violent war?

The landscape of any war zone presents terrifying risks of navagation for the averge population. But the disabiled face far greater difficulty being able to move from one place to another while trying to avoid debree fields and weaponized landmines. At the very least, they cannot be expected to go anywhere without the help of an able bodied person going with them. Being told to seek safe shelter in supposed safe zones is not an easy task of just grabing your belongngs in hand and heading in anygiven direction.

As the Europian Disability Forum also points out, “The lack of inclusion in humanitarian response is firstly translating to a common problem recorded across Ukraine with the inaccessibility of shelter and temporary modular housing.” Any place of designated safety most likely was quickly built without any consideration of mobility issues or disability. I highly suspect that the crisis in Gaza has had no time or space to even consider the shelters themselves, let alone the accessibility of such spaces.

Many disabled populations depend on health care workers, particularily in the community. With a dispersed population, I am sure many health care aids and nursing practitioners are stretched so thin, that in some places they are perhaps even non-existant. The needs of physically disabled falls upon the willingness and virtue of a person’s surrounding nieghbours. Living in Canada, I cannot lie. It horrifies me to think of asking my nieghbours to do even a little of the care needs that I have as an incomplete quadreplegic, not to mention some of the far more intimate and personal needs. This also creates a level of vulnerability to those with complex physical needs in this situation and potential risks for abuse.

Communication becomes even more broken down as those with hearing or sight disabilities have little to no access to news and vital information. With Braille, sign language, and subtitles often not included with local reporting, most disabled are only able to seek dicernment from what is right before them. There is no warnings of missles, bombs, or sirens to tell them to seek shelter or call for help. It seems also inhuman when countries cut power and internet to specific regions making the availability of awareness virtually inaccessible to those confined to their homes due to mobility issues.

With these and more challenges I have yet to mention, people with disabilities often are either left behind or slow in being able to seek refugee movements. As such, the legal proceedings required of such individuals becomes a voyage of great risk. Also being reported by the European Disability Forum, it is recognized that, “With many courts now in occupied territories and several more either temporarily closed, damaged or destroyed, persons with disabilities applying to the court are exposed to long and dangerous travels that add to the already systemic issues with the quality and duration of court proceedings.”

On a personal level of experience, the access and cost to health care products required by those in the disabled community has become scarce even here in North America. The products and medications I depend on to survive have risen in dramatic fashion and on many occations are unavailable or too costly. I can only imagine that in war torn countries, this issue is ampliffied exponentially resulting in widespread inffections and disease amongst those with physical disabilities. Tears flood my eyes as I imagine the smells, pains, cries, and grotesque images endured by those in these places.

Today is the 1st Sunday in Advent and I felt particularily moved while reading Amy Bratton’s Advent reflection ‘Starful Surprise‘; particularily as she spoke about today’s scripture reading:

“He will judge between the nation
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.

Come, descendants of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

— Isaiah 2:4-5

Perhaps not pointedly at the war torn environments of our world today; but she highlights, “I’ve been reflecting on how darkness need not hide danger, but instead inspire awe and beauty.” I paused myself to reflect upon the response of hope to those with disabilities in war torn and violent places; what is the response for us to those who are disabled and in places of violent war?

Let me try to share some ideas…

Become a voice of advocacy and education. Wherever possible, find out who they are and tell their story. No matter how hard it is to speak the truth, help those people in these places be seen by the world! As a person with disabilities, I and others have a unique insight on what those people may be going through. As such, by sharing our own reflections (such as I did in this post), or sharing stories and articles about those with disabilities in war zones on our social media platforms, we can reveal even deeper the need for humanitarian intervention in these places.

Talk with the organizations that are giving humanitarian aid and ask if they are seeking out those with disabilities. Give financially and volunteer where possible with these groups. Some possabilities include:

• World Vision
• United Nations
• International Community of the Red Cross
• Europian Disability Forum

Perhaps you maybe able to find others.

Promote peace and the ingenuity of dismantling and repurposing weapons of war. It seems an awe inspiring thought that by beating our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks we can actually put greater effort into agricultural and social creativity towards bettering our society for those with disabilities. Their is a huge need for disabled and accessible developments in technologies, health care, community design, and life giving mobility aids. Imagine if we stopped throwing bombs and started inventing new ability aids.

Pray for and recognioze the love God has for all people while holding up their humanity. It’s hard to put this one in words but, recognize the role our spirituality has in linking our story with those who are in war zones. We are each others keepers and have responsability towards caring about the least of those in war torn regions; even if we are thousands of miles away.

As I close this thought and this week’s post, let me share the words given to me this past week as they were first spoken by Yuval Harari in an article from Time Magazine:

“Many Israelis are psychologically incapable at this moment of empathizing with the Palestinians. The mind is filled to the brim with our own pain, and no space is left to even acknowledge the pain of others. Many of the people who tried to hold such a space… are dead or deeply traumatized. Many Palestinians are in an analogous situation — their minds too are so filled with pain, they cannot see our pain.

But outsiders who are not themselves immersed in pain should make an effort to empathize with all suffering humans, rather than lazily seeing only part of the terrible reality. It is the job of outsiders to help maintain a space for peace. We deposit this peaceful space with you, because we cannot hold it right now. Take good care of it for us, so that one day, when the pain begins to heal, both Israelis and Palestinians might inhabit that space.

The only way to predict the future is to create it, and the power to do so will come from those who are unbounded in love.”

— Yuval Harari

Perhaps that is the greatest thing we can do for those who are suffering with disabilities in war torn zones today… Practice the greatest of empathy and unbound love for all of them while seeking to create a future of peace.

God, these are darkening days, with little hope in sight. Help us in our fear and exhaustion. Anchor us in hope.

Blessed are we with eyes open to see the accumulated suffering of danger, sickness, and loneliness,
the injustice of racial oppression,
the unimpeded greed and misuse of power, violence, intimidation,
and use of dominance for its own sake,
the mockery of truth,
and disdain for weakness or vulnerability
—and worse, the seeming powerlessness of anyone trying to stop it.

Blessed are we who ask:
Where are you, God?
And where are your people
— the smart and sensible ones who fight for good
and have the power to make it stick?

Blessed are we who cry out: Oh God, why does the bad always seem to win?
When will good prevail? We know you are good, but we see so little goodness.

God, show us your heart,
how you seek out the broken.
Lift us on your shoulders,
and carry us home—no matter how strong we think we are.

God, seek us out, and find us, we your tired people,
and lead us out to where hope lies,
where your kingdom will come
and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Fill us with your courage.
Calm us with your love.
Fortify us with your hope.

P.S. Open your hands as you release your prayers.
Then take hold of hope. As protest.

“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.” — John 14:1, NKJV

— Bowler, Kate; Richie, Jessica. The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (p. 215). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.