Another perspective on disability and spirituality
Well, folks, it's like this. Of all the lectures I have had to write for this
class this is turning out to be the most difficult one. I deleted the pages I
already wrote and am starting over again.
The main contributor to my
struggle deciding what would be helpful for you to know is that I am an ordained
minister in the United Church of Christ. I have Been ordained for almost twenty
years and I specialize in issues of disability and religion. Since I know a
great deal about this topic I keep losing myself in waves of verbiage. It's a
drawback of preaching -- my capacity for discourse is unlimited.
To get us started I decided to cut to the chase. People with disabilities in
this country have a general distrust of organized religions. Obviously there are
those who find spirituality and religion to be meaningful and feel it enhances
their lives. For the most part, however, people with disabilities stay
away.
I believe that people with disabilities shy away from religion
because they feel very, very judged and these feelings are so loud that it is
easier to just avoid the arenas of spirituality and religion. I think of
spirituality as an individual's direct and personal relationship with his or her
higher power (however they define it). Religion is the system structure in which
people may choose to exercise their spirituality.
It helps to know that
pretty much all religions have some kind of belief system in place to explain
the presence of human disability. For many religions that explanation is the
condition is a result of sin. In some religions the oral history around the
concept of sin says that if a person stops sinning the "physical mark" of the
sin will disappear. Often the ending of a sinful pattern is tied to the
religious view of "healing." Even if the disabling condition is not regarded to
be a direct result of sin there is often some kind of division between those who
are "healed" and those who still require "healing."
Blindness and visual
impairments rank way up on the list of signs of sinful behavior. Both the Hebrew
Scriptures and the New Testament are filled with references to blindness and
sight. Also darkness and light imagery are very powerful metaphors used to
illustrate all sorts of beliefs and behaviors.
The language and imagery
is so strong that it is almost impossible to discuss it. Basically the flow
pattern in the language says that if you are blind you are out of the realm of
the redeemed and if you are sighted you remain within it. It is very difficult
to find a way to embrace the position that there can be anything good coming out
of the experience of visual impairment when the religious tide says
otherwise.
I am using very broad strokes of my brush to paint the
overview of the connection of religion to people with visual impairment's
self-esteem. Pleas understand that I am not criticizing anyone's religious
beliefs. I respect all religions and I know each one of them has value. What I
am showing you is the extreme side of this situation. People with disabilities
and especially blind people have a hard time finding ways to express their
spirituality while defending themselves against the thought forms being
generated by certain religious systems. The issue here is how to handle the
strong beliefs coming at them - Not whether or not the viewpoint is
accurate.
One way we can begin to address the self-esteem of people with visual
impairments through their spirituality is by not challenging how they feel about
themselves Or their spiritual nature. Whatever they feel about their blindness
is what is true for them in the moment. I try never to step on a person's
beliefs because I do not want that individual to think that I am competing with
them through my own belief system. I think that whatever someone believes is
what's real for him or her.
The next thing I want to show you is the work
of Susan Hanaford. Susan wrote a book a while back in which she pointed out that
three different institutional Systems were created to respond to the needs and
issues of people with disabilities. The Medical system, The Charitable system
(which includes religion), and The Social services system (which also includes
vision rehabilitation).
What Ms. Hanaford stated in her book is that
these systems are forced to keep the experience of disability in a dependent
position because these systems could not continue to exist if the human
experience of disability was resolved. Her viewpoint (or thought form) at the
time of writing this book is that the systems can never let people with
disabilities be themselves because there would be too much loss for the
institutions.
From our viewpoint now we can consider that these systems
were designed to support people with disabilities even if there has been some
kind of breakdown and they now depend on disability being seen as some sort of
problem to be solved.
I think there is some truth in what Susan puts
forth, but I also think we can upgrade her truth with our own. An upgrade of her
truth is that all people deserve support and that these systems can evolve in
their services without any loss as people with disabilities evolve in their
self-understanding of what it means to have a disability in this
country.
Another way we can upgrade the religious view of people with
disabilities carrying the marks of sin is to notice that for some people having
any explanation at all for their blindness is comforting. If blindness comes as
the result of sinful action that could be seen as being less personal by the
blind person. What I mean is if I as a blind woman thought I had done something
wrong and I am being punished because of it with the lack of vision it might be
easier for me to handle it if I believed that all blind people sinned in some
way. It means that I am not alone and that there is an explanation as to why I
am the only one in my family who became blind.
Another aspect of the view
of a person with a disability suffering is that many religions set forth the
belief that a person's disability will be resolved at the point of death. This
implies that there is a resolution to the perceived difficulty of being
disabled. This perspective is very comforting too many people with visual
impairments.
As part of my work as a minister I proposed another view to address the
experience of disability. This is coming out of the Christian belief system and
I hope it have applications for other religious views.
I offer the
possibility that each disability has a "key to the kingdom" buried within it. I
believe that each disability experience has something special and unique
associated with it. We wouldn't be so concerned with whether or not a disability
is the result of sin if there wasn't something else going on with it. For people
who are visually impaired or blind this could mean something like blind people
know a lot about how to go forward in the dark. It could also mean that we know
a lot about the nature of light since we are still capable of functioning when
we can't access it easily. This has both literal and metaphoric connotations to
it.
To expand this little more people who can't walk may know a lot about
moving over the earth. Deaf people may know about the vibrational communication
of sound. What If each disability has a very special association with Divine
Truth?
Many years ago I did a presentation on spirituality and disability
for a Hispanic congregation. I loved it because everything I said was translated
into Spanish and I got to hear how my words flow in another language.One of the
questions I was asked was very profound. Someone got up and asked if I sinned
less because I couldn't see. I have never been asked this question before or
since.After I finished blushing I said that blindness has nothing directly to do
with sinning and that if it is true that I don't sin as much because I don't see
it is just because of a lack of opportunity.
My story is important because it points to the value of examining the other
side of the religious views of disability. Many people with disabilities benefit
in this culture from the people around us having a belief that it is a
charitable or holy thing to assist someone with a disability. I have had people
help me out on the street and then tell me that I was there good deed for the
day. Sometimes for the whole week. They are laughing when they say it, but there
is some truth in their words. Right after September 11th happened I had people
helping me constantly for weeks. They were performing acts of kindness Because
they were frightened and they were relying on their religious beliefs to support
them during that troubled time.
People with disabilities may not like the
view that we need help, but it can be difficult to walk away from a high level
of assistance. We can't very well criticize religion for promoting a less than
positive view of which we are without being sure that we can live well without
the support the belief system generates. This is subtle, but a very potent
aspect of the social interactions in our society.
One spin-off of a
religious view which blind people carried for a long time is that we are
psychic. No one really talks about this anymore, but it still hangs around the
edges. In a way it is a compliment because it lends itself to the awareness that
visually impaired and blind people have well-honed sensing abilities. It also
harkens back to the time period in human history when blind people did have a
great deal of insight and acted as oracles for the tribe or community in which
they lived. I believe that everyone is a little bit psychic and it is not all
that strange for people to entertain the possibility that highly developed
sensory abilities can be expanded in new ways.
Some of you touched on
this a bit in your movie reflection papers when you talked about Frank Slade's
ability to identify perfume by its scent. Most of you thought that this was
magnifying a blind stereotype of a highly developed sense of smell. Actually I
think it is a pretty normal thing for a man to do if he spent time at a perfume
counter. I can also tell some perfumes by the scent and I haven't put in any
quality time at the local perfumery.
An interesting little twist for us
to think about in the conversation about blind people being psychic is that it
could imply that the experience of blindness contributes to a person's life and
well being. Perhaps it says that blindness carries with it some elements of
empowerment. It might be said that when one of the sensory abilities goes down
others come forward and assemble themselves in ways that create expanded life
experience.
It is also true that in some shamanic tribes a physical or
mental disability is held as a sign of divinity. Blind people can be elevated to
the position of the shaman or the tribal leader.
Within the Egyptian
pantheon there is a god known as Ammon Min. When all the men of his village went
off to fight a tribal war he stayed behind because he only had one arm and
couldn’t defend the village effectively. The other men were gone for several
years and when they returned they discovered that their wives had given birth to
a number of new children.
The men grew angry and dragged Ammon Min off to
kill him. After they calmed down a little they realized that he kept the village
alive and their wives happy so they elevated him to a god.
This goes to
show that everyone’s view is perfect for them and spirituality is very
individual.