Seeing Delane as One of Us

May 25, 2012 By Amy Julia Becker 2 Comments

I received an email from a reader of this blog a few weeks ago. Lois Uptigrove shared her eulogy for her friend Delane with me, and I asked her to edit it a little bit so you could enjoy this portrait of a life well lived as well.

Delane Ohlhauser was born in 1932 in the farming town of Carbon, Alberta, Canada, the 6th child of Jacob and Pauline Ohlhauser. He was an active healthy child until three years old when a bout of meningitis with a high fever left him with lifelong brain damage. Life then unfolded differently for Delane. Opportunities for education, social inclusion and employment were very limited in those times for people with disabilities. But work is natural for all people, and Scripture is clear that having  purpose both builds up individuals and strengthens community: “Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives” (Titus 3:14).

In 1968 Delane began work at the local Baptist church as the assistant custodian and for almost 30 years he found joy in his work. Many people with Delane’s challenges don’t have the opportunity to find a job that helps build dignity, but the church was able to stand in the gap to help Delane lead a happy and productive life. If the doors of the church were open then Delane was there. Setting up chairs, warming up the gym for floor hockey or finding the storage location of absolutely anything people could ask for – these were Delane’s specialties. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Disability, Faith, Perfectly Human 2 Comments

Upcoming Events: Germantown, MD, New York City, and Chicago

May 24, 2012 By Amy Julia Becker Leave a Comment

For any of you who have checked my website lately, you might have noticed it’s been a bit static. My web designer is closing shop, so I’m in the process of moving to a new site. Although the current site is still worth your time as far as seeing a slideshow of Penny as a baby (scroll to the bottom of the home page) and lots of articles I’ve written about prenatal testing, Down syndrome, spirituality, and more . . . one area of the site that isn’t helpful at all at the moment is my events page.

I’m winding down my speaking events for A Good and Perfect Gift in light of our upcoming move, but I do have three more:

This Saturday, May 26th, in Germantown, Maryland at Neelsville Presbyterian Church. I will be speaking on “Rethinking Perfection” at 11:00 a.m. and then on “Identity and Ability” at 1:00 p.m. Lunch will be served in between. To register, click here.

Wednesday, June 13th, I will be discussing A Good and Perfect Gift at Gigi’s Playhouse in New York City at 6:30 p.m.

I will also be heading to Chicago from Tuesday, July 17 through Thursday, July 19th. I will be speaking on Wednesday, July 18th at the Summer Institute on Theology and Disability at Chicago Theological Union. I am available for speaking engagements on both the evenings of July 17th and July 18th.

Filed Under: Disability, Down Syndrome, Faith, family Tagged With: , , Leave a Comment

My Next Book? What Every Woman Needs to Know About Prenatal Testing

May 23, 2012 By Amy Julia Becker 14 Comments

I’m working on a new e-book with Patheos right now. It’s tentatively titled “What Every Woman Needs to Know About Prenatal Testing.” I’m writing it in an attempt to offer a relatively short and accessible guide to pregnant women who want to know what questions to ask and how to make decisions when it comes to the array of prenatal screening and diagnostic tests available. This isn’t a pro-life or pro-choice book. It isn’t supposed to tell women what to do when faced with a series of choices. But it is an attempt to take my experience and offer guidance.

I knew very little about prenatal testing when I was pregnant with Penny. I stuck out my arm for the blood draw at 16 weeks because I thought information was neutral, and we could figure out what to do with the information when it came back to us. But now I know that information always comes in a particular context, and I wish I had been more thoughtful in my approach to prenatal testing in that pregnancy.

In large part because Penny was born with Down syndrome, I was forced to consider the purpose of prenatal testing and the ethical choices involved in the testing we chose during subsequent pregnancies. Along the way, I learned a lot about ethics, medicine, disability, and the prenatal testing industry. I’ve written about these decisions in the past, so often in fact that it’s hard to decide what to link to right now… (type prenatal testing in the search this blog box and you’ll come up with plenty). This book is an attempt to bring the thoughts together under one roof, so to speak.

Are there any questions you’d like to see my consider? Points you hope I’ll address?

Filed Under: Disability, family Tagged With: , 14 Comments

Some Thoughts on Marriage

May 23, 2012 By Amy Julia Becker 1 Comment

I have the privilege right now of doing premarital counseling for a young couple who plan to wed in October. I’ve never done this type of counseling before, but it has been a wonderful way to reflect upon our own marriage and try to offer some words of practical advice and wisdom to them as they set out in life together. In preparation for our first session, I asked them to read the first half of Mike Mason’s The Mystery of Marriage: Meditations on the Miracle (apparently he REALLY likes alliteration). It’s a beautiful, dense, theologically rich contemplation on just what exactly it means for two lives to become one. So today you get to read some of his wise words:

A marriage, or a marriage partner, may be compared to a great tree growing right up through the center of one’s living room. it is something that is just there, and it is huge, and everything has been built around it, and wherever one happens to be going–to the fridge, to bed, to the bathroom, or out the front door–the tree has to be taken into account. it cannot be gone through; it must respectfully be gone around. It is somehow bigger and stronger than oneself. True, it could be chopped down, but not without tearing the house apart. And certainly it is beautiful, unique, exotic; but also, let’s face it, it is at times an enormous inconvenience.

He wants us to learn to pay this same undeserved and unqualified compliment to others, the high and magnanimous compliment of regarding others as being every bit as real and important as we are, which is to say, loving them as we love ourselves. This is the path of perfection that the Lord has set in our hearts, and of all the experiments men have made in the following of it, none is more radical than that of marriage.

…original sin did not enter into the comparative simplicity of Adam’s solitary life in Paradise, but rather into the complex world of relationships…The essential task at which man failed was not that of living in peace with God, but of living in peace with another person before God, in the presence of temptation…

Love is more than the way we practice for the world to come: it is the world to come.

Filed Under: Faith, family Tagged With: , , 1 Comment

What do a pig roast, a dance recital, premarital counseling and my father-in-law have in common?

May 22, 2012 By Amy Julia Becker 1 Comment

On Friday night, Peter was on duty in our dorm of thirty boys. As we sat down to dinner with a dear old friend who had flown in from Denver earlier in the day, there was a knock on the door. The knocks continued throughout our meal, with Peter popping up to answer a question or adjudicate an absence. At some point, he said, “Oh, by the way, I need to go get the pig from the Amish market tomorrow morning.”

“Excuse me?”

“The pig. We’re having a pig roast tomorrow.”

“Whose idea was that?”

“Um, mine. Anyway, I need to pick up the pig and the roaster. I got a truck from B&G.” (B&G: Buildings and Grounds)

“I have to take Penny to her dress rehearsal for dance tomorrow morning, so you’re responsible for William and Marilee.”

“Right. I figured I’d just put them in the truck with me.”

I’m not sure I said anything before he said, “Not a good idea?” [Read more...]

Filed Under: family 1 Comment
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