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To listen to Kathy's sermon, "Welcoming the Stranger," go to this link."
Listen
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What's New.
From The American Baptist Church National Ministries' Workshops for Church Life and Leadership: "Families that live with disability have a deep need to be welcomed and accepted, as well as a need for practical assistance from their church families. This workshop, designed to be used in conjunction with the handbook A Place Called Acceptance: Ministry with Families of Children with Disabilities, will raise participants ' awareness of the impact of disability on the family system and will provide practical suggestions for welcoming children with disabilities and their families into the life of the church."
Becoming a Place Called Acceptance PDF
Read Kathy's article, "Inclusion: Family Style" in the Fall/Winter 2008 edition of The Children's Corner, a publication by the American Baptist Church. The theme of this issue is "Children with Special Needs." Download the entire issue for a host of great articles on how to include children with disabilities in your church.
Read about God's faithfulness in Kathy's article, "His Unlikely Friend" from the April 2008 issue of Guideposts Magazine.
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The Labyrinth Society: First Place Essay
One Foot in Front of the Other reminds us that we can let go our stranglehold on our worries and let the labyrinth bring us back to center.
From the up-coming book, Autism and Alleluias: Lessons From an Unlikely Teacher
The Band-Aid
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27
I sit in the wingback chair beside the front window, tensing and relaxing each major muscle group, willing my body to let go of tension that has been steadily building like steam in a pressure cooker. Once a teacher of meditation and relaxation techniques, I’ve come to a place where relaxation is a forgotten art. I close my eyes and attempt to center myself in prayer. Instead, a petulant five-year-old surfaces, shaking her fist at God.
“Lord, I can’t face another school year like the last one. I can’t! I won’t!”
Deep into the dog days of August, school looms just ahead for my youngest son, Joel, who is challenged by autism, mental retardation and an anxiety disorder. Like the thunderheads that have been gathering outside the window all afternoon, the coming year threatens heavy weather.
Visions of last year’s monthly behavior meetings float before my mind’s eye. Six, seven, eight people crowded around a table in the school’s conference room. Sheets of behavior data passed from hand to hand. Joel’s days charted and graphed and printed out in full color for all to see, analyze and discuss. Some months’ data showed up to 50 aggressive incidents per day. Hair-pulling, kicking, hitting, cussing, yanking glasses off of people’s faces. The graphs showed a definite cycle. Four fairly calm weeks, followed by two weeks of intense agitation and aggression. Month after month it remained the same, regardless of positive interventions, consequences, staff changes, medication adjustments.
It is the same at home; four good weeks followed by two intense weeks of disrupted sleep, constant motion, tantrums, and aggression. Hyper-vigilant, I keep constant watch over my son, anticipating every move, reading his moods like an investor watches the stock market. Support staff come and go, only the hardiest few—those with a true sense of commitment—hanging on for the rough ride. Exhaustion has become my constant companion.
The querulous five-year-old quits shaking her fist and crumples in a dejected heap.
“I can’t do it anymore, Lord. You take him. He’s all yours.”
No sooner does the thought cross my mind than a golden light, pulsing and alive, fills the darkness behind my closed eyes. It floods my entire frame—my exhausted, depleted frame—warming, renewing, recreating. As quickly as it appears the light is gone, followed by an intense silence; a silence louder than any human word or sound. The parched ground of my being opens to the Spirit’s life-giving waters.
The thud of the mailbox outside the window brings me back to the world in which I’m planted. I reluctantly stand and stretch my hands to heaven before opening the front door to scoop up the mail.
I linger on the porch in the storm-charged air and absent-mindedly flip through the envelopes. A hand-written address among the junk mail catches my attention. Sister Mary Grace! A long-distance friendship with this talented artist, a cloistered Dominican, one of the blessings I’ve received since the publication of my book, His Name is Joel: Searching for God in a Son’s Disability.
Sister Mary Grace had written to me months earlier after reading about my faith journey with Joel. After thanking me for sharing my story, she said that she’d been especially moved by a chapter detailing a vision I’d had of Jesus in the midst of Joel’s multi-handicapped classroom, where I saw Joel lovingly place a Band-Aid on the wound on Jesus’ hand. She said she hoped to create a painting of my vision. With that letter our friendship began.
Thunder mutters overhead as I open the envelope, and a gust of wind catches the tri-folded letter, sweeping a photograph to the ground. Hurriedly, I run into the yard to retrieve it. She’s finished the painting! In the center is Jesus, his head encircled by a glow of golden light, surrounded by a group of children with multiple disabilities—autism, cerebral palsy, seizure disorder. One child wears a helmet, while others wring their hands or flap them in the air. The boy to Jesus’ right sits in a wheelchair, while a boy off to the side stares into space. Kneeling next to Jesus, placing a Band-Aid onto His wounded hand, is Joel.
Sister Mary Grace Thul
www.sistermarygrace.artspan.com
It is just as I saw it in prayer several years ago. I hold in my hand an artist’s rendition of my vision— Jesus in the middle of Joel’s classroom. Jesus, who has been present with Joel all along. Jesus, who promises to walk with Joel into this year’s classroom. Jesus, who will be present with Joel. Always. No matter the outer circumstances of Joel’s life. I hold in my hands the visual promise that Jesus will be there.
As I look at Joel placing that Band-Aid with such care and concentration onto Jesus’ wounded and resurrected body, I know there is no pain, no humiliation, no anxiety or fear that He has not faced in His time on earth.
I lift my eyes to the sky. Roiling, black clouds have rendered mid-afternoon into near night. I stand for several moments, watching the trees dance and bow in the gusting wind. A bolt of lightening sizzles in the woods behind the house, answered by a ear-splitting crash of thunder.
I turn and open the door, my spirit singing a song of peace.
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| The photograph of Joel and Kathy is courtesy of The Cincinnati Enquirer. |
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