My friend and fellow Patheos blogger Ellen Painter Dollar has written a book about reproductive technology in the context of faith and contemporary culture. It’s called No Easy Choice: A Story of Disability, Parenthood, and Faith in an Age of Advanced Reproduction, and today I have a review of the book on her.meneutics: Bearing Life in a Broken World. Later this afternoon, I will post a Q and A with Ellen about the book and ethical gray areas, opting out... Read more
When the topic of friendship and people with disabilities came up in a discussion several weeks ago, I immediately thought of my friend Tryn, whom I have known since the winter of the Indonesian tsunami. Tryn and I met at the church of a mutual friend. Although I was visiting California from Brooklyn, my trip was long enough for Tryn and me to forge a connection that has lasted more than seven years. I had never had a friend with... Read more
In my years of growing up with a disability, it has been difficult to make friends because I looked different than normal people. I was always the one who people treated differently. It was very challenging to make friends. Once I got to know people who took the time to get to know me, friendship started to reveal itself very slowly. In the end, I started to progress more on making friends who looked beyond an image and got to... Read more
(This post is Part 2. Read Part 1: Can Kids with Disabilities HAVE friends?) Many academic journals and therapists suggest that since poor social functioning is the primary impediment to social connections for youth with developmental disabilities, then the youth with developmental disabilities should be trained in skills that will increase the possibility of social integration and mitigate potential rejection by peers. This is the wrong place to start. Matt has enough to deal with. Others suggest “best practices” for... Read more
I had the pleasure of speaking with Lynne Ford of Mid-morning, a radio show in Indianapolis, yesterday about the themes that come up in A Good and Perfect Gift. She asked wonderful questions about our experience with Penny, about language and Down syndrome, about sin and grief and joy, about parents and children and control, fear of the future, and about how all these things connect to all of us, and not just mothers of children with Down syndrome. If... Read more
I usually visit Matt during his lunch break in a busy school cafeteria where he sits alone at one end of a long table, clusters of students buzzing with interaction and conversation surrounding him. When I see him at one of our ministry’s events or at his house he is confident, witty and at ease. At school he simply looks deflated. “What’s the use?” he asks me. The promise of life after middle school, where kids wouldn’t tease him anymore,... Read more
One of my earliest fears for Penny, and consequently one of my earliest prayers, had to do with her ability to make friends. My fear has softened over the years. There are the buds of friendship she’s growing in kindergarten. There is the ongoing friendship with William. And there are the stories I hear about adults with Down syndrome and their friends, whether those friends are typically-developing or have disabilities of their own. With that said, I’m also aware that... Read more
Penny and William and I were reading Thomas the Train a while back, and Thomas faced a conundrum. He desperately wanted to get back to the station so he could be the train to take a group of children home from a school trip. But as he chugged along he noticed a bus that had broken down. Should he hurry on to the station? Or should he stop and help the bus passengers? I paused before we turned the page... Read more
Brokenness and limitations are not the same thing. Brokenness, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, is not good. It comes as a result of sin in our world. As Jesus demonstrated throughout his ministry, God wants to heal broken bodies, broken minds, broken souls, and broken communities. God wants to heal our broken world. But limitations existed before sin entered the picture, and limitations will remain. Limitations are a part of what make us human. They keep us both dependent upon... Read more
Mother’s Day is coming up. And a friend recently suggested I offer a shameless plug for A Good and Perfect Gift as a perfect (pun somewhat intended) Mother’s Day gift. I do hope you’ll consider buying it for your mother, or for your friends who are mothers, or for your friends who one day hope to be mothers, or even for some fathers who might feel neglected on Mother’s Day. So there’s the plug. But here’s a guest post from Barbara... Read more
Thin Places-Faith, Family and Disability
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In