Penny and I went to a birthday party yesterday, and I met another mom. She said, “I have a child with special needs, too.” She pointed out the window. “My daughter is ten. She’s the one with the walker.” Over the course of the afternoon, I found myself watching this woman’s daughter, whom I will call Abigail. Abigail fed herself pizza and meatballs. Abigail’s body looked like spaghetti. She could crawl, and walk with the walker, but she couldn’t navigate... Read more

“Architecture is evangelism.” The person who said it was talking about churches and the way in which they welcome (or fail to welcome) people with disabilities. When the ramp for wheelchair access is around back and hard to find, what message does it convey? Architecture is evangelism in more ways than one. For more thoughts, see “God in New Orleans (with Brad Pitt to boot),” a new post on the Park Forum. Read more

Margot Starbuck, author of The Girl in the Orange Dress: Searching for a Father who does not Fail, spoke at our church last night. She brought a banner–about twelve feet high and six wide–constructed of brightly colored and different patterned squares with the words, “I am the one who is WITH YOU and FOR YOU.” She explained that it took her a long time to recognize that God is FOR us, cheering us on, believing that we are valuable, naming... Read more

I could care less about baseball. (Or is it, I couldn’t care less about baseball?) Either way, baseball to me signifies two things: rivalry between my husband (a Yankees fan) and the rest of my immediate family (Red Sox die hards), and late nights in October. At breakfast this morning, our daughter Penny, age 3, looked up from her yogurt when her dad walked in. “Let’s go Yankees!” she said. And then she chanted, “Derek Jeter,” and tried to clap... Read more

Ellen Hsu has written a narrative of learning that her son, Elijah, had Down syndrome. It is available here. My comment (also posted on the other blog): I also have a child with Down syndrome, a daughter, age 3 1/2. And we too were shocked to discover, upon birth, that she had an extra chromosome. She was born around Christmas time, and one of the refrains that ran through my head was from “O Little Town of Bethlehem:” “The hopes... Read more

Does it matter how we care for those who have died? New post on the Park Forum: The Moral Implications of Mourning Read more

This post appeared yesterday on the Park Forum, and the issues it raises are important enough to me that I wanted to repost it in its entirety here, with some additional questions at the end: The title of the article gives away much of the content: Three Babies Aborted Every Day Due to Down Syndrome. The study took place in England and Wales, but researchers have found similar results in the US (given a higher population in the US, however,... Read more

New Post on the Park Forum: “Private Love and Public Hope” about the Obama’s marriage. Read more

“Because we are mortal, and because all religion responds to mortality, our intimations of the sacred arise from our experience of the tension between the mortal existence of humankind and the eternal life of God.” –David P. Goldman, in “Sacred Music, Sacred Time,” First Things Even Adam and Eve weren’t created immortal. Mortality is constitutive of our humanity, and yet we long to live on. Is this response a wrongful fear of death? Or a rightful recognition of the gift... Read more

I was drinking a hot toddy (is that how it’s spelled? and, yes, I had a bad cold) with a friend in Boston last week, and we were talking about education. I told her that Peter and I have been particularly interested in a fledgling movement in public school education whereby cities have established urban boarding schools. There are ten so far. Charter schools, funded by the public and by private grants, that educate during the day, and during the... Read more