Hello readers! It is Saturday again and I am writing you today as I am thinking about what it means to be "in someone else's shoes". We use that phrase a lot, but what does that mean? I am preparing to teach a Sunday school class tomorrow and I am going to be using the story of Mephibosheth in the Christian scriptures of the Old Testament. Mephibosheth's story emerges throughout all of 2 Samuel. Whether you are Christian or not there is a lot to learn from this story. If you read 2 Samuel you may not even remember this character because he pops in and out of the whole book of the Bible with no big influence (seemingly). However, if you pull his story together, an interesting story emerges. The whole point in doing a class on this is to show how important it is to understand, listen, and explore the different perspectives that exist in daily life. Without piecing Mephibosheth's story together it looks as if David was the one betrayed by Mephibosheth. However, by understanding the whole story, one might start to see that it was Mephibosheth that was betrayed by David. Now one thing you should know is that Mephibosheth is defined by his disability of being "lame" (he couldn't walk). While Mephibosheth's disability was not an issue for David at the beginning, the disability is what seemed to get in the way of David really trusting Mephibosheth.
It is very difficult for a person without a disability to truly imagine and understand what it would be like to have a disability in a society that has been created for able-bodied people. But what happens when we spend the time to listen and hear the stories, perspectives, and opinions of those in our community with a variety of disabilities.
This is clip helps to break the assumption that society has about people with intellectual disabilities. The assumption is that people with disabilities want to be "normal" and aren't happy with who they are. However, this clip shows that these people want what everyone else wants, to be nicer, sexier, wants a boyfriend/girlfriend, or to be a better person. There is not one person that mentions that they wish they didn't have Autism.
So what is society's obsession and religious communities' obsession with wanting to fix (heal), change, or correct people because "we" think "they" want it. How often do we ask the individuals what THEY WANT.
I know a girl who was so excited about being in the play at church. However, the director didn't want her to be in the play because she thought she would be distracting and wiggle/move too much. After some conversation with the parents the director said okay. This little girl has a lot of energy like many other kids and likes to show her enthusiasm when she is excited. She has a wonderful cheerful personality and communicates best through ASL (American Sign Language). So she worked hard at learning all of the signs to the songs the kids were going to sing in the play. The day of the play the director had the children standing next to the little girl hold her hands so she wouldn't move "too much" and be "disruptive". The director didn't realize that by doing this, she was taking away the voice of the little girl because she couldn't use her hands to sing.
Now first I want to clarify that it wasn't because the director was trying to be hurtful. The director was concentrated on creating a play to her standards. However, by the lack of communication, understanding, and getting to know this little girl, she didn't understand why this could be traumatic for her.
So today my thoughts are in regards to what it means to have a perspective and how do we widen our perspective to think about others. I don't think it is possible to know what others are thinking and feeling or read people's minds. What I am going to try harder to do is find the time to talk to people, and get to know people. I want to ask questions when I don't understand even if it seems like it might be awkward; because I think it would be more offensive to not ask and assume wrong, than to ask and have an awkward moment. Congregation leaders should realize you can only truly understand your own perspective, but what you can do is acknowledge the variety of perspectives that exist in your congregation and community.
I invite any comments, questions, thoughts, or concerns.
Peace
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