Where Is Good News For The Disabled Today?
Looking Towards A New Body And New Church
“Shalom is God’s dream for the world as it should be: whole, vibrant, flourishing, unified, and yes, at peace. Shalom is God’s dream for his love to bring wholeness and goodness to the world and everything within it, including you and me.”
— Osheta Moore, Shalom Sistas, Quoted in Willems, Kurt. Echoing Hope: How the Humanity of Jesus Redeems Our Pain (p. 13). (Function). Kindle Edition.
It seems difficult these days to find good news in our world? Highlights (or maybe, lowlights) include political polarities ripping family and communities apart, environmental extremes (whether human caused or natural) causing catastrophic damage to our beautiful nature lands and city neighbourhoods, increasing homelessness with a never ending housing crisis, a growing poverty rate, religious and various other hatred and bigotry being cited in our streets, a decaying healthcare system into a culture of death management… and on and on and on it goes. On a personal level, these issues then seem compounded while looking at my wife’s and my disability challenges as people with spinal cord injuries.
So where can we as disabled people find good news? Before answering that, perhaps we should actually ask first, what is good news for disabled people?
I’m hoping some of my personal reflections might connect with you. But some possible answers might include working towards:
Building a Community of Inclusive Belonging… Disabled people don’t want to feel simply filed away and segregated into subcategories of community titled “Disability Ministry Group” or “Special Needs Community”. We desire the inclusive relationships of diverse abilities and the unique experiences of what it means to be human beings living communally all together.
That doesn’t mean we are to ignore the unique needs and characteristics of disabled people. It means we are willing to learn about their unique needs and characteristics while incorporating them inclusively with community life.
Nor does this mean that inclusivity must reflect a sense of everyone being the same. Diversity is not the breakdown of relational belonging, but rather the natural encouragement for healthy attachments to grow and strengthen with time. In ‘Embracing Life, Embracing Hope’, Fern Buszowski describes that:
“We have imperfect relationships because we are imperfectly human. Therefore, the attachment styles we’ve developed may not always be secure; they can affect how we see ourselves, others, and even God. The good news is that they can change over time in healthy, safe relationships.”1
By building a community of belonging with disabled people, while recognizing their unique strengths and weaknesses or limits, we also see ourselves, God, and the world through greater perspectives and strengths. We discover the good news of a greater humanity within all creation when we give the time and effort of living together.
Universal Access and Design… This is more than just making sure there are ramps to your front door or wide enough stalls in your washrooms.2 Universal access and accessibility goes beyond structural design and social development. It is taking into account the needs disabled people have when planning social group activities so they might be part of the experience.
It is a pet peeve of mine and an injustice when churches are more concerned about disabled people being able to access Sunday morning services and the passing of the offering plate then they are of taking interest and planning for our inclusion in youth or adult community outings, retreats, and community social adventures.
Using the words of Judith Heumann, "It is easier to change the design of the environment then to change peoples attitudes." If we are to bring good news to people of disability today, it comes in the form of seeking universal access to the whole community experience.
Building Safe and Trusted Care Models Within Community… I recently read a blog post by Micha Boyett in ‘The Slow Way’ where she began exploring the prophetic imagination for social justice and our need to…
“… find trust that our caregivers will be available and responsive to us when we need nurture or support.”3
Her use of the word caregivers prompted me to write this as a social response:
Caregivers… This is a word which has nuanced meanings to the disabled. A person who builds a foundation of trust in which life-giving care is given to the other in deeply vulnerably and personal ways.
It does not seem today’s AHS our community “Caregiver” agencies seem to recognize this definition. Instead, caregiving is built on a foundation of profit margins and what best keeps money funnelled to third party privatized business ownership. There is no desire or attention given for or to clients or community members to have attachment relational trust in their caregivers and the constant stranger in our homes is considered “good enough” for personal exposer to fulfill any care needs.
How might the Church and Christ’s followers remind our governing leaders of a proper caregiving understanding and speak with prophetic imagination? How might the Church embody good news for the disabled and become the greater example of trusted caregivers?!
These are not easy questions to answer while seeking good news. But perhaps like the early church, we need to be willing to develop a radical imagination around the need for trusted caregiving for the disabled in our communities and not just leave it up to institutional or government agencies to fulfill; particularly ones which are more driven by self-profit then client or human care.
Financial Support and The Sharing of Equity… A quick Google search shows easily how in Canada, the poverty rate for people with disabilities is around twice as high as the poverty rate for people without disabilities. The poverty rate for people with disabilities is also higher for those living alone.4 And these statistics are growing.
Compounding this reality is how medical supply costs, the privatization costs of personal caregiving in the community, the minimization of proper Disability Benefits to individuals below the poverty line, and the unavailability of employment due to accessibility barriers and discrimination continues to also grow making escaping this reality impossible.
Good news comes when employment is made to be accessible and inclusive while proper and fair financial supports are given to those struggling in difficult situations.
That is a lot of Good News to work towards!! And I still haven’t even began to explore Leadership Development & Equipping, Technological Ingenuity & Aid Development, Healing & Medical Advancements. Are there more?
Without wanting to exhaust you, let me go back to our first question. Where can we find good news for the disabled today?
Jesus spoke a lot about good news in his life. Perhaps most pointedly when he came to his home village of Nazareth and spoke at the local synagogue. Reading from Isaiah he said:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”5
And then he spoke these powerful and embodying words…
“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Good news is not just a superficial surface oriented platitude or volunteered commitment offered for a few hours a week. Nor is it an oversimplified ideology that says it will be better for you once you are dead and cured in the next life. We cannot just give good news to disabled people. We must be good news to them. We must embody good news so as to say, “Today good news is being fulfilled within our living together!”
In the very personal sense, we embrace good news through our radical transformation into a new body that lives with and in disability inclusion.
Of course, personal responsibility to good news is equally shared with an embodying community. Jesus and his followers called this his Church. In the very simplest understanding, a church is a group of people following a way of life together. Described in the book of Acts:
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.”6
What an incredible look into the daily lives of Jesus’s earliest and closest followers as they together embodied good news and became a radical expression of inclusive living! Good news is found in the learning from all members equally as they build strong relationships in the foundations of worship and prayer. Good news is found in the hard worked miracles of figuring life out amidst some of its greatest challenges. Good news is found in building commonality amongst diversely different people. It is in sharing with equity amongst all members and giving openly to the physical needs amidst them. It is being radical in hospitality and merciful to those oppressed by others.
In the very communal sense, good news is embodied in a people that become a radical new church amongst an empire of old oppressing traditions.
Do you ever ponder how this would have looked like with the disabled members of their early communities?! What lessons about life and themselves do you think they learned? What shared needs did they fill for one another? Was their understanding of good news for the disabled any different than the one we have for today?
Over the course of history this gathering of Jesus followers has taken many forms including a rather resent group from the 18th century which takes the actual Greek words for good news to frame the name of their movement. They call themselves Evangel… Yes, that movement.
I don’t honestly know if your church embodies good news for the disabled in the radical ways Jesus envisioned it as I described both in the personal sense and the community. But maybe take a moment here, pause, and take a breath while asking honestly… Is my church modelling good news for disabled people today?… Am I embodying good news for disabled people today?
It is my hope that in sharing this vision with you, together we might explore and find renewed ways of becoming New Body’s and a New Church filled with Good News for disabled people of today.
“Hope is found in the realization that our choices and actions matter. While an uncontrolling God can't stop evil and suffering single-handedly, people can participate in the Divine nature.”
— Micheal Rose in his post ‘Guarantee On A Box?’
Embrace Life, Embrace Hope: Cultivating Wholeness and Resilience through the Unexpected by Fern E.M. Buszowski
For a fun podcast episode to listen to on Universal Design, check this out:
The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Lk 4:18–19). (1989). Thomas Nelson Publishers.
The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Ac 2:42–47). (1989). Thomas Nelson Publishers.