Everybody belongs. Everybody serves.
Disability
Staci
Michele
Sonja
Richard
"People shouldn't dismiss people like me just because I sound different. In that sense, I'd like them to think of it as little more than an accent. However, I also can't get away from the reality that it is a disability, it has caused me to struggle throughout my life, just to communicate."
Let's not eliminate all segregated classrooms and sheltered work and congregate activities. Let's work against ableism, including the implicit ableism that in a patronistic way seeks to eliminate valid choices for activities made by some people with disabilities.
In 1867 San Francisco city leaders declared, “Any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, or an improper person to be allowed in or on the streets, highways, thoroughfares or public places in the City of County of San Francisco, shall not therein or thereon expose himself or herself to public view.”
This summer, synod encouraged all Christian Reformed churches to adopt a church policy on disability and to appoint at least one person in the congregation to serve as a church disability advocate. Has your church taken both of these steps?
What is your church doing in ministry with people who have disabilities that is newsworthy?
A campaign of misinformation brought about the defeat of the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in the U.S. Senate last December. Likely, a motion to ratify it will be brought to the Senate Foreign Relations committee this June. Now is the time to begin contacting Senators to correct that misinformation so the next vote to ratify will be successful.
In spite of the facts, the media, talk show hosts, humorists, bloggers, and uninformed citizens insist that people with mental illnesses pose a threat of violence. The myth that people with mental illness are violent creates demands for unwarranted limitations on their rights and freedoms.
Shortly after I started in July 2006 she initiated a meeting with me in which she told me who I needed to watch out for, who I could trust as a fellow advocate, and who and where I needed to “push.” I think that “push” was one of her favorite words. For me, pushing is going to be harder with Nella gone.
If United States can succeed in reducing gun violence (a much more public goal since the shooting in Connecticut), not only will deaths go down, but also fewer people will live with disabilities.
The 1956 law creating Social Security Disability Insurance, still in force, treats a disabled worker as an oxymoron. You are either a worker or you are disabled — not both.
Some may fear that this law will "dumb down" competition, but that's not the point. As with employment provisions of the ADA, kids must be able to play the sport well to make the team. However, certain conventions exclude kids with disabilities.
Kristin told me that they will have a dual emphasis on the sanctity of life at Messiah this coming Sunday: “tying in those who are at risk of being judged as ‘not contributing to society’ as well as the unborn.”
Shaio Chong suggests these are the 5 marks of an ideal church: everybody belongs; everybody serves; everybody discerns; everybody leads; everybody witnesses. What would be marks of your ideal church?
Just as psychologists have established criteria for diagnosing mental illness, we need criteria to identify when someone has slid so far down the path of moral unhealth that he would be called morally ill and in need of treatment. This approach would look for insights from various disciplines including theology.
I feel sad that my country, which has been a leader in legislation that positively affects the lives of people with disabilities, would turn down ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
It must have been a decision made out of desperation – as desperate as the new mother who leaves her child in a basket on the steps of a social service agency. In this case, the “child” left to another’s care is 21-years-old.
Thirty-three percent of families changed their place of worship because their child with a disability was not included or welcomed into the life of the congregation. Of these families who left, some of them not only left their congregation, but left their faith tradition!
Did James Holmes, described by a high school classmate as “really nice and sweet,” decide one day to become a mass murderer?
After finishing his Ph.D. cum laude, Herb Greenberg applied for 600 jobs, was offered 85 interviews, but when prospective employers found out he was blind, that number was reduced to three.
Diekema has identified for church leaders yet another gift that people with disabilities bring to their churches. They can challenge congregations for underestimating anyone who lives with disability, and they can serve as mentors to the entire congregation...
Don't get me wrong. I love our dog Marley. But I do not plan to see Marley again when Christ reappears and the heavens and earth are renewed. When he dies, he'll be gone except for our memories and our pictures.
Can you imagine the firestorm of criticism if some media outlet speculated about the state of this soldier’s marriage as a reason for his violent behavior? A firestorm would be justified. Yet no firestorm erupts when pundits speculate about his mental state.
In a recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, the authors, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, promote the idea that regions where abortion is legal should also allow the killing of newborn children. The Princeton University bioethicist Peter Singer put forth a similar argument a number of years ago.
Jeremy Lin, a point guard with the New York Knicks, has been in the news. Thanks to his fine playing, people are taking notice of him, and with that extra attention some commentators have engaged in stereotyping resulting in racial jokes and slurs about Lin's Asian heritage.
Steps toward greater unity will honor the Savior who came, bled, died and rose again for all of his chosen ones regardless of denomination.The CRC and RCA have engaged in mutual work together in many areas including Disability Concerns.