For Lent this year I am reading about disability. Reading about disability takes me back to the things in my own life I push through to be perceived as able, which makes me wonder why that is so important and how that might influence how I experience people who live with visible disabilities. The first time I really thought about disability, besides basic respect for the idea that people deserved to be treated equally and with accommodation to participate in life equally, was in engaging the writing of John Hull. There was a film made about him in 2016 called Notes on Blindness. His article “Open Letter from a Blind Disciple to a Sighted Saviour,” so profoundly changed how I read the Bible and use the language of blindness, that I re-read it annually for years. The title itself does most of the work, but the article is worth reading.
John Hull was a Bible scholar who, because of a degenerative disease, slowly lost his eye sight. He knew it would happen as it was happening and documents what it meant to him to go from being a person who read and studied words, specifically the Bible, to a person who listened for words, from a person who in no way related to the many blind people or the many uses of blindness in the Bible to a person who could not do a thing about the fact that he was slowly going blind. He then begins to turn over what some references to blindness in the Bible might lead us to think about, as blindness becomes his lived experience.
It is for me a challenging step into just the very shallow end of a topic I will never know well. Hull’s work has taught me to be cautious when I think I know about someone else’s experience, even when the Bible is my source. His rethinking of the blind leading the blind, still makes me tear up, probably in mourning for my own ignorance, but also in thanksgiving for a beauty I had only ever seen as comedy.
I invite you to close your eyes and consider the many ways we name what is fallen or broken or not enough, and consider that there might be a key there to a more profound understanding of the human experience, the love of God, and maybe most importantly ourselves.
Lent invites us to a place of modesty and curiosity. What a blessing. I hope you can take the time to explore something that piques your curiosity and awe.
The Ebenezer–St. Luke’s Lenten Book Study is one of those places for me. I am excited about what I will learn with you all on Wednesday evenings. I am enjoying being more in person than we have been and eager to have more voices in the pulpit and forum. I am curious if “trauma-informed” thinking will equip us to be a healthier and more resilient community for the long term. I am delighted to see kids coming back to Sunday programming in person and proud, in advance, to accompany choristers to Nashville at the end of the month. I am excited for 4th Fridays in the Park and the plan to find a way to develop the space around the playground for more gathering and community building. It has been great to see so many of you on Sundays, and as the days get warmer and longer, this year resurrection life around the corner seems about as concrete as it has ever been for me, but not quite yet. We are working on reviving Soup and Scripture, but as you can imagine, Covid realities have made some parts of our returning a little hit or miss. Thank you for your patience as we figure this out together.
Winnie