Tuesday 29 January 2013

PEOPLE

'The gospel teaches, not that we are equal, but that we are all incomparable. Each person is unique in the eyes of God. All people, regardless of how they score on the popularity rating of "normalacy," are of infinite value, are infinitely treasured, and are infinitely interesting....So the problem is not with people with disabilities. We are all disabled in significant ways, and who is to say what is the more severe disability...The problem is rather with the idea of normalacy itself. Those with disabilities are a continual accusation to those who have sold their souls to normalacy. No wonder people with disabilities are sometimes hated, shamed or ignored. They are an ultimate threat to a "normal" person's very self-definition. Their very existence is a mute reminder that the "normal" person has lost what is most precious, most incomparable, about themsleves in their very anxiety to fit in.
So the world is divided up into two groups after all. Not, however, the normal and the abnormal, or the able and the diabled. Rather, the line is drawn between those who are aware of their disabilities and those who are blind to them.'
Walter Wink in Michael S Beates, Disability & The Gospel, p.120.