Terry DeYoung

Thank you for this beautiful and touching tribute to Ruth and to your life together, Ivan. You're a person of many talents and gifts! Reading this reminds me of times shared with you and Ruth at Disability Concerns Leadership Conferences in Grand Rapids, but also of Sunday afternoon dinner in your home in Pella. I'm grateful for all of them.

I'm reminded of another verse that describes my picture of our Lord's work in you: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (Matthew 11:29).

I've been a fan of Mark Pinsky for years — appreciating his writing and his public speaking — so I'm both pleased and hardly surprised to read your comments, Mark. With even more anticipation I look forward to getting his latest book.

BTW, I know of at least one story he's included about a Reformed Church in America congregation: First Reformed in New Brunswick, NJ.

Thanks again for whetting my appetite with this review, Mark.

Thank you for addressing these issues in such a clear, straightforward way, Peter. You have named several important challenges that many of us have discovered but have not articulated as you have.

As you've noted, the use of face masks is a particular challenge that will be with us for the foreseeable future, whether they're manufactured and sold commercially or are made at home. It seems the majority of people consider only the functional aspects ("Is this as protective as an N95 mask?"), or they try to make a fashion statement. For me, personally, because of physical limitations in reaching behind my head to secure a mask, I need assistance just to put on a face mask. Ever tried asking a stranger to help you put on your face mask, and in doing so compromise the six feet of distancing we're all supposed to practice?

More importantly, you have identified the incredible challenge faced by people with hearing loss: the inability to speech read and observe facial expressions, plus the muffled sound that's inherent in speaking through a mask. I have yet to see someone wearing a see-through face mask. Have you? They're not readily available—can you post some links to reputable manufacturers or distributors?—nor have I noticed anyone demonstrate or give instructions for making them at home.

Thanks again for posting this, Peter.

Steve, I can't say thank you enough to convey how much this piece touches my heart—and gets at the heart of what so many people with disabilities yearn and long for. (You could also be the poster child advocate for the vision of RCA/CRC Disability Concerns!)

I agree 100 percent with the essence of what you've captured so articulately here. It's about belonging and receiving and developing relationships, because those speak volumes and trump all the accommodations that are made in the built environment out of a sense of duty.

You're a gifted writer, and obviously you're an awesome dad and pastor. BTW, I hope to meet Vika some day and spend time with her, if she's interested.

I appreciate you and what you've shared here, Michele. Thank you for your ministry to Jack and to so many of us who feel lost and inadequate in know how to support friends who live with mental health challenges. Your post is helpful to me.

Mark, thank you for sharing these very personal reflections about Dylan and the agonizing decisions you and Bev made. I've heard you describe the circumstances before, but reading it now brings a fresh dimension of impact and makes it all so current, even 23 years later.

Thank you, too, for making the connection to Charlie Gard's circumstances, the contrasting approaches to healthcare, and the larger point about what generosity looks like in the context of limited resources. Particularly in light of the political drama still unfolding in the U.S., your prayerful reflections are so helpful in humanizing the challenges, the costs, and the ethics of healthcare.

I try not to be a one-issue voter, but an issue like justice for people with disabilities makes it really tempting to do so. The statistics are startling.

I am grateful for the leadership of IDAC (among others) on this. Thank you for taking the time to post this so it can be shared.

This has been an illuminating read in understanding some of the dynamics of anxiety and suggestions for how anxiety can be addressed and accommodated. Thank you Jarett, Josh, and Annika for sharing this and for your commitment to one another.

Thank you for writing this piece, Mark. With the links you included, it's a beautiful window offering a glimpse into Paul's remarkable life.

I'm grateful for the brief exchanges I had with Paul, who obviously made an impact on lots of people. While I did not know him well, the flood of comments from so many sources all seem to have a consistent sentiment expressed in them. I can't think of anyone for whom the "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your reward" salutation seems more appropriate.

You've done a splendid job of capturing not only our visit with Ralph but also the impression he's made on so many of us, Mark.

Ralph is one of the CRC disability advocates who early on made such a strong and positive impression on me as the RCA's Disability Concerns ministry began its work with CRC Disability Concerns. Like you, I've had the privilege of seeing Ralph's gifts and skills shine in many arenas since we met six years ago — chairing meetings, leading workshops, planning conferences, managing a business, gathering resources for mission, networking and making connections, mentoring others … (the list goes on). Each is noteworthy and commendable, but as you've so beautifully captured in this post, what many of us in Ralph's cloud of witnesses admire most are his deep faith, gentle spirit, and indefatigable approach to life in the face of mounting challenges.

Great blog post, Mark (from one who also was in the roomful of people captivated by Dan's presentation on disability attitudes a couple weeks ago).

I've heard various iterations of Dan's development of this topic in the past few years, all of which have been good, but the presentation at this summer's CRC/RCA Disability Leadership Conference was exceptional. It was so helpful and so on-target — not to mention so polished, so foundational to our work of advocacy, and so enjoyable to listen to. (BTW, in the 50 or so evaluations, it received the highest marks of anything that happend during the day and a half conference!)

I concur with Dan's discomfort about exercising care not to diminish the reality of a disability. Comparing a speech impairment/impediment to a Dutch brogue is helpful to a degree, but like all such comparisons it has a way of trivializing the realities and stigma of living with a disability.

Personally, I think I get what people want to convey when they say "everyone has a disability," but I also cringe. I've lived with an obvious physical disability since birth. I also speak in a monotone that may put some people to sleep, but I would not go so far as to compare that to Dan's speech impediment or even to Maas's Dutch brogue. It's just not the same.

Dan made two points in his presentation that I found particularly helpful in getting at this distinction:

• "Disability is not a blessing, but it is also not a curse,"

• "We are all disabled, but we are not all disabled."

Hair-splitter that I am, those distinctions resonate with me, even when I struggle to articulate them.