looking for CONVERSION STORIES.....

       We bloggers, who have compromised and disabled sons and daughters, write for a variety of reasons: some conscious others unconscious.  We hope to share our stories, our commitments, our joys and our moments of exasperation with whomever will listen.  We hope to inspire newbies to the world of disability and to learn from the loving care-giver pros.  We hope to engender an understanding of the human face behind disability and the indomitable spirit of the disabled.  We confront those who ignore, abuse or are indifferent to our disabled children.  We write to preserve a semblance of sanity for ourselves and self-imposed respite.  Some blog for the pure joy of writing. These are all conscious acts.  There are many other reasons.

   
        We write on another, perhaps less conscious level, and I could be wrong and only represent myself.  I believe that some of us (me) attempt to convert, to educate and evangelize.  We become missionaries not of religion but of disability, a church we worship in.  Too often, however, we find ourselves unsatisfied and we readily acknowledge that we are "preaching to the choir"; evangelizing the saved.  Those who we hope to reach have long passed consciously into the state of being unconscious. They have become unavailable for baptism or initiation.  The question always remains:  is it ever possible to change the heart of those who should deeply care, but do not?  Is it possible to bring friends into the lives of our children?  Is it possible to move a person from a position of being uncomfortable with our children to embracing them wholeHEARTedly?  Selfishly, I wonder why people never offer to care for Adam for a weekend so Sharon and I could get away?  I mean people all know we have never had a vacation without the boy for 13 years!  No pity, just wondering....

   
        I am ready to believe that I could convert masses to Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism, or even Wicca or even atheism more readily than I could convert a person to care about Adam (and the many other Adam's)  and embrace him in a human, loving, concrete way.  I have been unable to convert fear into open arms, to convert staying away to being present, to convert ..... in anyway.  Gentleness, patience, guilt, morality, education, family duty, a willingness to teach and explain have not worked.  Asking directly has never worked.  My batting average is .000 and that would get me thrown off the team.
   
      I would absolutely love to know and read stories where change of attitude and action was really affected. I have heard, at funerals of very compromised children, close family and friends stand and wail and bemoan their lack of presence because there was so much to learn from these kids, a missed opportunity...a tad bit too late.  Regret at the gate of the crematorium is lacking and empty, but perhaps self-satisfying.

   
  If you have affected significant change in a person through words, writing, mentoring or any other medium, please share.  I would love to know how it was done, how it affected you life, how it affected the other person's life.  Comments, guest blogs, anything on this subject are so welcome.  I know that many of us would like to learn about the keys to the kingdom.

Just wonderin', that's all............"They shoot horses, don't they?"

Whatever Became of Sin?

     In 1973, psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote a book which he entitled, "Whatever Became of Sin?".  Earlier in 1960, Thomas Szasz (1960) wrote "The Myth of Mental Illness."  Both psychiatrists bonded in a vaguely similar belief that the pseudo-sciences of psychiatry and psychology do far too much to explain away wrong and evil and that they underplay the role of free will in human interaction and society.
      Conceptually, both would agree that psychology and psychiatry actively obscure the difference between wrong, (mis)behavior, evil and disease  in a quest to help or harm parties to conflict.  By calling people "diseased" or mentally ill or incompetent, these fields of study attempt to deny people responsibility as moral agents.  Have we continued to explain away wrong, bullying, murder, discrimination and a host of evils by maintaining a psycho-social belief that we are solely the product of nature and nurture, devoid of free will and responsibility to our every action.  Isn't it a choice to hurt someone or to be indifferent to their angst?

      Asking whatever happened to sin may appear to be a strange topic in a blog on disability and healing and empowerment.  Nonetheless, the central question directly relates to society's excuse about the lack of full embrace of the severely disabled and their protection.
       Yesterday, I read an article in the Boston newspapers about  a Bridgewater, Massachusetts middle school where three students cornered a special education student in a bathroom.  He was held down and pummeled.  This is in the context of Massachusetts recent anti-bullying laws in schools.  There are no facts in controversy as the incident was recorded on a security camera.  The consequence was a suspension for the three students.  Neither the victim's parent, the school administration nor the police would file criminal charges.  Doesn't an attack on a special needs child warrant an appearance in a court and punishment?  When is an assault not an assault?  When does no one learn a lesson and punishment become a deterrent?  Whatever happened to sin?

       This week in two blogs, readers wrote of the death of an autistic boy in a group home when he was killed by intentional asphyxiation by a worker.  Others there were beaten with sticks and the abuse went unreported.  Whatever happened to sin?
       Several months ago, I posted a blog about rampant unreported abuse in New York groups homes for the severely disabled.  Part of the blog excoriated unions for their protection of perpetrators because of union contract protections.  What ever happened to the concept of wrong and punishment?  Is it possible to rehabilitate those who abuse the most fragile in our society?  I do not believe that rehabilitation is possible nor should it even be an option.  Who will stand up for the disabled?  Unions?
      And then again in Massachusetts we have the Judge Rotenberg Center which houses many people with developmental and behavioral disabilities.  The preferred method of behavior modification:  electroshock to skin areas.  When is abuse not abuse?  Is abuse allowable when it it is a form of behavior modification?  Why have Massachusetts legislators and judges and parents allowed institutional abuse to continue?

       Stories like these are legion and a daily occurrence. Reports surface on a regular basis.  Abuse of children, the disabled, the elderly, the infirm, the aged.....no group, except the powerful or the perfect, are exempt.  We use the psychology of genetic predisposition and early learning experience to explain away evil.  We use poverty, unemployment, the ghetto, the race, etc to explain away evil acts.  Counseling is too often a response  to wrong doing and it does not work.  Imprisonment often results in high rates of recidivism.  What has become of sin?
       I am not a religious person and do not use sin in a religious sense. I do not believe in a personal god, because a god would not allow this evil to exist.  Sin is an objective act of wrong against a person or humanity.  Sin can be a free purposeful act or an act of indifference to the plight of others.  Can a person have millions of dollars, vacation monthly and have his neighbors be homeless and hungry and not sin?  Can a Massachusetts governor  give raises to his state managers when day habilitation hours for the disabled are reduced  and not sin?  Can a school superintendent provide generous raises to his central office staff and reduce services to students with disabilities and not sin?  Can a student bully another student and not sin?  Can a student bully a special needs student and not mortally sin?

       We, as a society, flee from the notion of objective wrong and work hard to explain why things are the way they are.  Should we, based upon a simple belief in our inter-connectedness simply devote life to overcoming injustice and oppression and simply doing good?  Whatever became of sin?

On Human Indifference . . .



One of Adam's ABR sessions

        Expectations drive our lives.  We expect our actions to produce certain reactions.  Of course, when those actions fail to produce what we need, we experience disappointment, grief and disillusion.
        Sharon's new book, Ceramic to Clay,  seeks to encourage people to understand trauma, to learn about authentic healing, to empower people to embrace their journeys and  to understand their calling at a deeper level.  She wants to share her story with those who have experienced life altering events and with the people and the communities who surround them.  Her expectation seems clear and, hopefully, will be realized.
        My expectations are different.  Given the promotion of the book, articles and photos in our hometown media (where Adam spent his first 21 years), announcements through social networking, I expect a resurgence of humans into Adam's life.  His many classmates and a plethora of teammates, his teachers and therapists, our friends and many family members .  . . I expect them to rush here, to call, to send a card  to celebrate the life of a thriving, joyful friend and relative.  One old friend did immediately visit and it was so good for Adam.  Are my expectations unrealistic or hasty?  Is it because Adam is non-verbal and non-ambulatory?  Are people afraid of a very challenged friend and  don't know what to say or do?  Is it because (12 years ago) many promised to walk by our side for as long as it takes and disappeared?  Do they reject our path and did they hope that we would usher him into an institution?  Will they make up "justification stories" to themselves? Am I wrong to have expectation? Or, is it  simply the plague of indifference?
        
      

     "What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil. What are its courses and inescapable consequences? Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable? Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue? Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?

Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, our dreams, our hopes. It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair. Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence. And, therefore, their lives are meaningless. Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the Other to an abstraction. " http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ewieselperilsofindifference.html, Elie Wiesel, 1999 (speech in Washington, D.C.)

       So many of our severely challenged children and adults are pure and rich human beings whose lives are often re-defined by the stares, the avoidance, the pity, the indifference of their fellow human beings.  There is no higher place in the universe than that reserved for those who honor the lives and the value of the resilient spirit of the profoundly affected by trauma at birth or by accident.  And, for those who promised to be with the disabled and their caregivers for the "however long it takes" and either passively and indifferently disappear or actively "make up a story" about why they cannot or will not, well, it is not about getting over it, or moving on,  for me it is about confronting  their indifference.