Disability: What do you see?

I recently saw a social media post from a well-known disabled person. He’d been out for a meal with friends, one of whom was also disabled. They’d sat outside the restaurant for their meal - possibly because that was more accessible for them.

One of the restaurant workers came out and asked them to leave. They’d done nothing wrong; they were just a group of friends enjoying each other's company.

Apparently, one of the restaurant’s customers sitting inside didn’t like looking out of the window at disabled people.

What do you see when you look at disabled people and those with additional needs?

I say this having had a week of yet more families of children with additional needs telling me that they have been forced out of their churches due to their child’s needs... Children who have suffered trauma in their young lives and have been adopted into a Christian family... Children with types of neurodivergence whose families also have the same types of neurodivergence.

In the last year, I’ve heard so many people ask why we bother teaching adults with learning disabilities about God, Jesus and the Bible because, "Surely they can’t understand."

I’ll ask again: What do you see when you look at disabled people and those with additional needs?

I see God’s creation, with a disability or additional need that has not taken God by surprise.

I see holiness. I see their faith and possibilities.

When I go into the "Count Everyone In" programme at different festivals - programmes designed specifically for adults with learning disabilities - it’s like walking on holy ground as I listen to them sing and sign their worship, learn together and support each other.

When I see a child in a children’s programme, dysregulated emotionally because it’s too much for them, rolling around on the floor with a bluey toy to help them regulate, I see holy ground - I see a child loved by God. I see their faith when they ask the awkward questions - questions that have often come from pondering the teaching they’ve heard. A faith few people expect them to have.

It takes a lot of faith to live with a disability. It takes guts to keep going when it seems the world is trying to strip you of your God-given dignity (this is not hyperbole, this is the reality of being disabled today - people trying to take away all that is needed to live life with dignity).

In church, we recently sang the song "Holy Forever." I was struck that we were singing about the whole of creation crying "Holy!" I thought about the beautiful Robinia tree in our garden, clothed in all its wonderful shimmering leaves, crying “Holy!" In an instant I felt a whisper that said: “And it still cries holy when it has no leaves and looks like an ugly cropped stick."

For clarity - I don’t see any physical or neuro difference as ugly! A Robinia tree is still a Robinia tree with or without its leaves - it’s just different. It still cries “Holy!”

So, for the third time I’ll ask: What do you see when you look at disabled people and those with additional needs in your church?

An irritation, a risk, an inconvenience... or... holy?

If the answer is "holy" - spread the word!

If it’s one of the other words - look more closely.