Flap Your Wings

Sometimes the conversation for disability justice within spiritual community feels like a monumental task. It might be something akin to that moment when the miller’s daughter is asked to spin that pile of straw into gold. What seems obvious to me seems like just another item on a to-do list to someone else, or perhaps even a potential line item in an already stretched thin church budget.

Why does it matter?

The first principle of Unitarian Universalism is that all people are important. As a natural application of this principle, people with disabilities belong in spiritual community. Part of the reason is certainly for their own growth, but at the same time, the liberation and growth of the entire community depends on living its faith and not just knowing it or discussing it. That is, without living into its faith by including disabled members, a spiritual community is stunted, much like a plant growing in a pot. Once the roots grow to the edge of the pot, the roots send a message to the plant to stop growing, naturally limiting the size. When a spiritual community does not choose to grow and adapt to include the voices and bodies at the margins of the community, the growth of the community will be naturally limited—not just in numbers, but also in vision and in depth.

To reach out, to grow in vision and depth beyond customary limits might require some stretching. I know of a tiny church that really wants to live justly and have a spiritual community that includes people of differing abilities. They need a lift in order to make the upstairs of their building accessible. To make this happen, one of the things that they do is collect recyclable cans to return them. In Oregon, where they are, they can get five cents for every can they return. But even these tiny actions have positive effects in the world. MIT meteorologist Edward Lorenz, famous for the Butterfly Effect said, “[S]hould we make even a tiny alteration to nature, we shall never know what would have happened if we had not disturbed it, since subsequent changes are too complex and entangled to restore a previous state.”

In other words, while small actions may have large effects, Lorenz was actually pointing to the way that we cannot measure how an effect will impact a system. The lesson for you is to flap your wings. You can put more love into the system of which you are a part, more supportive acts, more openness, courage, or tenacity. Remember that what you bring to Beloved Community is according to your passions and your own gifts. Your contributions create a positive effect, even if you can’t measure where it is that your contribution will end or how it is that your contribution will grow. This is something to ponder when the task seems too large or the journey too long; flap your wings.