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By Dale, on January 21st, 2012 I’ve long held that disabled persons have a gift.
Albeit is is a gift that few if anyone want. But some of the most mature, caring people I’ve known (in my youth work and elsewhere) have been people who have had the privilege (one nobody asks for) of having a sibling or child who is disabled. Disabled people teach us to care.
But in this post, I wanted to record a different thought I had related to disability – and it might have the potential to be a bit controversial.
I’ve noticed that there is much effort to help disabled persons to be as ‘independent’ as possible. To live in their own place, to get their own groceries, to drive their own car – that sort of thing.
I guess my question is when does the good, humane task of helping someone ‘stand on their own two feet’ (so to speak) become something that ‘helps’ them into a lifestyle that is isolating, individualistic and thus inhumane?
I have a conviction that humans are made to be burdens to one another, and yet it is resisted both by those who fear being the burden, and by those who fear bearing the burden. This resistance, I’m convinced (and admit to in my own experience and choices), is part of the pressure of living in an individualistic society where ‘freedom’ is defined by how many (often consumer) options one has.
More choices, though, can be an enslaving thing. I know a disabled person who has (again) been placed in a living situation that isolates them, makes them feel intensely lonely, and contributes to them seeking out friends that encourage behaviour that has got them into legal trouble multiple times.
But this person, like all of us at times, resists the help that they need so much. I once threw out my back trying to – at the last minute – shift all my possessions between dwelling places. Help is not easy to ask for – disabled or not. And help is not easy to give.
So I’m just wondering. Should we ‘help’ disabled people to become like us? People who too often don’t know how to ask for help? Thoughts welcome.
By Dale, on January 14th, 2012 When people rant about “organised religion” they may or may not know what they are dissing.
Westporo Baptist Church (the infamous “god hates fags” church) has no official (or unofficial?) ties to ANY denomination or other church(s). There are untold thousands of less-controversial churches and preachers, which nonetheless stray off into variously worrying forms of fundamentalism.
For these kinds of . . . → Read More: “organised religion”
By Dale, on January 9th, 2012 (The excellent documentary that got my brain going down this – excellent or not so excellent – train of thought is ‘Consumed: Inside the Belly of the Beast‘)
Erich Fromm is known in large part for his contrast between the ‘being’ and ‘having’ modes of existence, as expressed in his 1976 book (partial preview here), To Have or To Be? . . . → Read More: beings that have – or havers that are had
By Dale, on January 6th, 2012 Three recent events, a complaint about a sermon, a movie about Margaret Thatcher and a FB conversation about gun laws, have me reflecting on the tendencies of ‘left-wingers’ and ‘right-wingers’. Both left and right folk will express concern for both ‘rights’ and ‘responsibilities’, but at different times.
On the topic of social welfare: the left emphasise the ‘rights’ of the . . . → Read More: rights and responsibilities
By Dale, on December 30th, 2011 Some presentations and presenters of Christianity are, in my view, overly obsessed with the Death of Jesus such that they over-emphasise it, and end up marginalising the Incarnation of Jesus, the Ministry of Jesus, the Resurrection of Jesus, the Ascension of Jesus and the giving of the Spirit of Jesus. It probably wouldn’t be fair to use any label for . . . → Read More: full gospel
By Dale, on December 30th, 2011 I’m probably the only worship song leaders who, during a Christmas day worship service, introduced the song “O Holy Night” by way of a reference to the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, which recounts his experiences in the death camps Auschwitz (which I’ve visited and will never forget) and Buchenwald.
The juxtaposition is too profound to ignore. On the one . . . → Read More: night
By Dale, on November 17th, 2011 Epistemology is the most foundational of topics in philosophy. How trustworthy is human knowledge? Or worded another way: How much ‘faith’ (Greek ‘pistis’ for ‘trust’) can we put in what we think we know? At one end of the spectrum, you have narrow, ‘verificationist’ epistemologies (such as: logical positivism & naive realism) that only trust knowledge that can be ‘verified’ by . . . → Read More: a trinity of ‘knowledge-lights’…
By Dale, on November 8th, 2011 Well, it’s been a good little while since I’ve posted, because I’ve been finishing my undergrad degree I’ve turned in my last essay just this Sunday, which was one of two larger (6,000 word) research projects. I attach links to the PDFs below.
Upon graduation in March, I will officially have three qualifications, one related to building houses, and two . . . → Read More: finished
By Dale, on July 3rd, 2011 how much… destruction is at work in the ‘best’ of people… and how much… grace is at work in the ‘worst’ of people.
in other words…
you’re never so good that you’re beyond the influence of evil and… you’re never so bad that you’re beyond the reach of God.
By Dale, on May 23rd, 2011 I’ve long held the view that God doesn’t always get what God wants/wills/desires. It seems fundamentally basic to me.
Because, there is more than one way to be omnipotent.
By way of analogy, take my non-omnipotence… my mere potency. I possess the ‘ability’, or ‘power’ or ‘potency’ to do this or that thing. I am, within the laws of physics, . . . → Read More: lamb power
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threshing floor