Learning to live with limitations

This year we have spent some time thinking about disability justice at both Graduate Christian Fellowship and Wine Before Breakfast. In doing so, we have focused on learning from those with disabilities. One lesson we have learning is about how good and holy it is to live within our limitations as human beings.

One source of learning has come from Amy Kenny’s book, My Body is not a Prayer Request. We have joined a number of Christian Reformed churches in doing a book club on the book. You can also watch a video of her presentation at the Calvin University January Series.

We have also been listening to the voices of people who have a disability. One example of that is Hannah’s preaching at Wine Before Breakfast on God as disabled.

One final possible source of learning is a talk by Jane Grizzle, “The Grief and Gift of Bodily Limitations.” While the focus is more on injury and illness, it highlights our relationship with our bodies and the goodness of learning to acknowledge our limitations. The talk can be listened to here or read here. The following are a few quotes from the talk to give you a sense of the presentation:

Her friend who is a counselor told her that ” without fail, if her clients talk about their bodies, they cry every time. It is a place of great vulnerability.”

“Illness and injury require us to slow down, to take a different path, to rest. In some ways, these limitations are a spotlight on our priorities. And when we are forced to slow down and take a look at our lives, what we see may not be pretty. Limits are another word for interruptions or dead ends. When I think about times in my life when I have hit one of these limits, I dislike them for one of three reasons: they are humbling, they are isolating, and they are disorienting.”

“In his book, Being Human, Rowan Williams writes that if we believe we are in charge of our selves and our bodies:

[We] drift towards a steady expectation that the best relationship you can be in to the world is control. The best place to be is a place where you can never be surprised. We want to control what’s strange and we want to control what doesn’t fall under our immediate power. We’re uneasy with limits that we can’t get beyond because limits, of whatever kind, remind us that there are some things that are just going to be strange and difficult wherever we are and however hard we work at them.

[But acknowledging our limits exposes something very true about us]: “we depend on what is not ours, what is not us, our will, our hope, our achievements…Christians are adopted into a dependent relationship to that which Jesus calls, Abba, Father.”

Prayers for Michigan State

Please pray for the students, faculty, staff, and all others affected by Monday evening’s shooting at Michigan State University. We ask that you specifically pray for the campus ministers, including Dara, who works with a Christian Reformed campus ministry similar to what we have here in Toronto.

To help give you words to pray, the following are prayers provided by the CRC’s Do Justice website:

“On February 13, 2023, a mass shooter at Michigan State University in East Lansing killed three students, and injured five more. The gunman later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound when he was confronted by police off campus.

Jesus you are with the wounded, the anguished, the broken-hearted. That is where you’ve said you’ll be and that is where we find you. Where the wages of sin, of indifference, of violence and despair are truly brought to bear on your creation is where you are. Be present and tangible to those grieving loss of love, and the loss of their safety and help the community heal and support one another. 

Lord, in a country where going to the theatre, the grocery store, a dance club, to work, to a prayer meeting or to school as a kindergartener or a university student could be a death sentence, may the fear and terror of living not rule us.  But make us able to see clearly.  

How Long is a question we ask knowing that there are things we could do but haven’t. How long till those words do not ring hollow?

God as disabled

The following are excerpts from a sermon given at WBB on January 31 by Hannah, a writer, MFA student, and regular participant at GCF.

“In John 20, Jesus has to prove himself wounded. Despite being raised from the dead, he still bears the wounds of crucifixion – the ones Thomas could see and maybe some of the he couldn’t.”

“What does it mean that Jesus was still injured after being resurrected? After ascending into heaven? It means he was human. His body was fallible. He was like me and you. Able-bodiedness is only temporary. If you’re not disabled now, you will either become disabled or die first. Jesus did both.”

“What I take from this passage [John 20], from Jesus as a Disabled God, is that I don’t need to be healed to be forgiven. I do not need to be healed to be liberated. I am not a symbol of salvation. I am someone that needs to be liberated by removing barriers.”

“I would challenge you to consider how disabled people around you are invited into leadership and participation… How are we enabled to lead, speak, and offer our gifts, whatever they may be. One way would be to have information available online that details the physical and verbal specifics of worship, and the specificities of accessibility, so we can ‘stroll’ in just as confident to be there as anyone else, knowing that we are in a community that affirms that we do not need to be cured or fixed to be accepted.”

As quoted by Hannah: “In presenting his impaired hands and feet to his startled friends, the resurrected Jesus is revealed as the disabled God. Jesus, the resurrected Savior, calls for his frightened companions to recognize in the marks of impairment their own connection with God, their own salvation. In so doing, this disabled God is also the revealer of a new humanity. The disabled God is not only the One from heaven but the revelation of true personhood, underscoring the reality that full personhood is fully compatible with the experience of disability.” Nancy L Eisland, The Disabled God (100)

Cross-posted on our Instagram account.