temporarily abled

“All of us are only temporarily abled.” Al Hsu, an editor for InverVarsity Press and author of “Suburban Christianity” made this statement in the latest issue of Christianity Today. He was reflecting on the experience of having a son with Down syndrome.

As my fiftieth birthday approaches the phrase “temporarily abled” really hit me. For most of my life I’ve been trying to become more abled. When I was in grade school I was a runt, smallest in my class, last one chosen for sports teams, getting by on my meager charm because of a lack of physical prowess. I barely survived my junior high years at one of the roughest schools in the City, next door to a high school that had been the scene of race riots only a couple years before. Ironically I finally started to get some height when my parents (at great sacrifice) put me into a private Christian school for high school (possibly for my own survival).

But now the temporal nature of my physical abilities is catching up to me (and a lot of my friends: you know who you are!). It gets harder and harder to maintain, let alone increase, my “abled-ness”. Not that I’m giving away my elliptical trainer! We shouldn’t disregard the physical abilities that God gives us. These are gifts, and gifts are meant to be enjoyed and used well in gratitude to the Giver. But they are temporary.

We all long for the day when “this mortal shall put on immortality” and there will be no more pain or tears or sucking wind in the middle of a fast-paced basketball game. But that’s a hope that’s not yet realized and will be realized only in God’s time. While we’re stuck with the bodies we have now, let’s allow them to be a reminder of what Joan Mahler of L’Arche USA told Al Hsu: “All of us are abled in some ways and disabled in others.” One way that the world will know the love of God is by how I treat the disabled around me while I remember that I am only temporarily abled.

On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. 1 Corinthians 12:22-23

physical spirituality

Last week, I was privileged to participate in a retreat for those in occupational ministry. It was run by 5 spiritual directors and was the kick-off for a 9-month program called SoulCARE that includes monthly spiritual direction coupled with monthly mini-retreats and longer retreats at the beginning, middle and end. It was great to be taken care of for a couple days, instead of trying to take care of myself. They put together spiritual exercises, times of solitude and times of worship and celebration together that were hugely refreshing.

One thing we did was to have communion individually. At the end of the first evening together we were given a chalice of white grape juice (in case we spilled!) and a small loaf of crusty sourdough to take back to our rooms. We were also under a discipline of silence until after breakfast the next day (it was liberating to not have to make conversation at breakfast and it leveled the playing field between natural talkers and the more introverted). So I went back to my room and prayed and journaled while munching sourdough and sipping juice. The tactile-ness of having to rip the crusty bread, tasting the tang of the sourdough, and smelling the fruitiness of the juice focused me on the physicality of Jesus’ presence with me and his love for me. In spite of the fact that Jesus used unleavened bread at the Last Supper and not the wonderfully substantial San Francisco sourdough we were given, it was still a very spiritual experience. In fact it was spiritual in large part because of its physicality.

like a child

After the 10th anniversary celebration I was in the sanctuary putting things away and noticed that the kids were drawn to the leftover Hawaiian bread we’d used for communion. They were hungry and the bread was tasty. So they shamelessly followed Jesus’ words to “take, eat”. And they enjoyed it immensely. It made me think: do I have such a hunger for the Bread of Life that I eagerly put aside any inner voices of social propriety and just eat, relishing the taste of that which sustains me?

P.S. Our 10th anniversary celebration has been a front page article on PSWC.org since 9/16/08.