I'm a person people!

Jurgen Moltmann states:

"I begin with the conviction that there are fundamentally no “persons with disabilities” but rather only people: people with this or that difficulty on the basis of which the society or the strong and capable declares them to be “disabled” and consequently more or less excludes them from public life. Yet they are people with the same human worth and the same human rights as each and every person. We need to stop focusing on only the problems of the other and stop labeling him or her in terms of a problem by referring to them as ‘disabled’.” Instead, we need to begin to discover in the “disabled” person selfhood and honor his/her dignity, for he/she is in fact just like you and me".

These are powerful words with considerable implications for how we engage with those who are identified as ‘disabled’ by our society. If we begin with the fundamental conviction that there are “no persons with disabilities”, but rather only people, the how and why we ‘serve the person with exceptional needs’, is deeply informed. Moltmann is correct when he states that our purpose is in the ‘discovery’ of the ‘disabled’ person’s selfhood – and to honour his or her dignity. We must begin our ‘serving’ with this knowledge – everything we do is about that journey of discovery. It directly connects with our Value Statement: “Value People”. You see, in God’s mind, dignity, worth and rights already exist. To further Moltmann’s thought, disability is a judgment of man, not a proclamation of God. Think about that for a moment. God has created all in His image, created all to have full value, full worth, and the full right to be included in His kingdom. Barriers and exclusion are neither created by God, nor the person with the difficultly themselves. The barriers are constructed by other persons; other persons who exclude those with this or that difficulty. Who are those other persons? Well, sadly, often you and I. Disability is a judgment of society, not a proclamation of God. All suffer under one disabling condition. That condition is Sin. The sins perpetuated by a judging society are exclusion, segregation, labeling, erection of barriers, rejection, attitudes and behaviours. God’s proclamation is that “whosoever will…”, “come all…”, “all have been given the right to be called the children of God”, “the last will be first, and the first will be last…” On and on we both see and hear the heart of God in Scripture. In fact, God’s greatest judgments seemed to be reserved for those who engage in the sins of exclusion and rejection of others (see Jer 7).

Moltmann further reminds us that,

"Wisdom is part of servant love; it is the wisdom to differentiate between the responsibilities to alleviate the need of the other and respect for the personal life and autonomy of the other. Love, responsibility and care-giving find their limits in the independence of the other person. The responsibility one has assumed for the other must be withdrawn the instant the other comes to himself and his own life returns. Otherwise responsibility can easily become a hidden form of domination".

Here lies the challenge we face each and every day as we seek to serve others. This differentiation does not come easy – it is a constant realization and readjustment of our ‘acts of serving’. Always, we must serve with the intent of releasing the independence of the other person rather than limiting. The temptation is always to ‘limit the other’ because it makes it easier and more efficient for us who serve. People who are independent make demands, consume much more time, slow us down, make things complicated and complex, get in the way of the ‘job’ I need to get done. We as ‘servers’ can perhaps become manipulative in our serving as to ‘protect’, or make the person more “manageable” and thereby happier. But again, this creates the idea of disability as something that needs to be managed by others, rather than the truth of a person who has ‘this or that difficulty’.

We serve the person first. It is less significant that these persons sometimes have a ‘difficulty’ that attends having an exceptional need. But in the end, we are all, only people. We serve people, created by God, fully valued, fully worthy, and fully included in His Kingdom. We align ourselves with God when we live out His Kingdom now, especially with those the world has sinfully excluded.

Anyway, I was just thinking.

Neil