As it happens, last Sunday was also the end of a long personal Advent for me. I have been a member of my church for 24 years. For almost that long, I have been asking, prodding, reminding my faith community that our mostly accessible bathroom needs an automatic door. Last Sunday, my Christmas came early. The bathroom now has an automatic door!
I share this news for several reasons, one of which is I'm proud of my church. They clearly love me, and live a commitment to justice for marginalized people. They live the gospel in so many ways that when I preach, it's hard to discern where they need to be challenged. It will be even harder now that I can open and close the bathroom door by myself!
Being able to open and close a bathroom door is no small matter in the life of someone with a disability. Many of us, myself included, need assistance with intimate care. Getting that means we must often sacrifice something called privacy. As I celebrated with my congregation, I also issued a challenge I think more able bodied people need to hear: The next time you feel your privacy threatened or watch it slip away, take a moment to be in solidarity with those of us for whom privacy is of necessity a rare commodity.
I write this in the middle of what has been a very difficult week for this country. The decisions in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases have evoked passionate feelings about the realities of racism and distrust of the criminal justice system in America. Solving these issues, creating a climate of fairness and trust, is even harder-- a lot harder-- than getting an automatic door. But as I ponder the convergence of Advent, a door, and the legacy of racism, I see a symbol of hope in the midst of a far too long Advent for people of color. The door reminds me that hope still lives. Advents can end, justice can come, and trust can happen. However long it takes, may it be so.
P.S. The photographs at the end are amazing as is the way you blended and seamlessly wove the two stories together.
ReplyDeleteWhat an evocative piece, Mary, thank you. I remember your telling me some time ago about the bathroom door at your church, and I think you were wondering if it would ever be replaced with an automatic one. How amazing that they finally heard you and acknowledged and appreciated your membership in such an impactful and necessary way.
ReplyDeleteThis morning about an hour before I left the house for Meeting for Worship (with Quakers) I read a Facebook post by a friend of mine who lives in Australia. It was in response to my posting an article about yet another young black unarmed man who had been killed by a white policeman. My Australian friend asked, "When do we call it genocide?"
I tried to think about that question but found it quickly overwhelming. I guess I don't know if these inexcusable killings qualify as genocide. I know they qualify as massive injustice and the signs of a seriously impaired justice system.
As I thought about that, a thought came to me that has probably come to many people already, I may be coming very late to the game -- that there are media outlets who spread fear about the black man in the White House, and I wonder to what degree many conservative-thinking policemen have been so conditioned to think with fear of the black man in the White House that they are far more likely to be afraid of a black man they encounter on the street even when he isn't actually threatening them.
On the topic of personal privacy, that sounds so hard to have to be cared for in a way that invades your physical privacy. I wonder if there are ways you can guard your spirit so that only the privacy of your body is invaded and not the privacy of *you*. Some years ago I had to appear in front of a judge in a court case, and there was the possibility of being shamed by the other party in the case. A wise aunt suggested wearing an amulet in front of my heart to symbolically protect it from emotional darts. I found a small leather bag, and I put several small stones and other objects that had meaning to me, and I wore it over my heart, under my clothes, and I pictured it as a kind of shield. One of the objects was a small stone carving of an armadillo, an animal that carries its protection with it always. Having the amulet there gave me confidence. I wonder if something similar might be helpful to you.
Hmm. . Something for us to think about together? Not sure how I would wear something in the shower and keep it private. Actually, I'm so used to this situation that I've developed a kind of psychic shell surround myself about it. I'm very pragmatic about it. Sometimes I see myself sort of throwing feelings of discomfort about it over my shoulder and sort of saying, "Just get on with it.. ." Most of the time it works.
DeleteThat's a good point. It sounds like you've got what's more valuable, a psychic shell that surrounds you. Your throwing things over the shoulder for some reason reminds me of something a friend of mine used to say, which he used when faced with a difficult decision -- It's time to get busy living or get busy dying. I interpret that to mean, If I must do this in order to keep living, then let's get on with it.
DeleteYep, that's pretty much what I say.
DeleteThanks Marlee. That means everything coming from a writer whose giftedness and spirituality I respect so much.
ReplyDeleteI visited an elderly friend in a rehab center yesterday. She's got several maladies including a broken leg and isn't doing real well, and I'm sad for her that she's there instead of home at Christmas. She mentioned that she'd been given a shower that morning by a male caregiver and it hadn't phased her much, which seemed to surprise her. I found myself wondering if she might have actually enjoyed revealing her body to a man -- she's married but she's been so ill for so long that I wonder how much intimate time she's had with her husband for some time. It reminds me of a line from a song Donovan sang about a seaman's widow -- Dear wind that shakes the barley free, Blow home my true love's ship to me, Fill her sails, I aweary wait upon the shore. . . . For seven years and seven days, no man has seen my woman's ways, dear God, I aweary wait upon the shore . . .
ReplyDeleteShe's quite overweight, and as I picture the shape of her body, which is so out of tune with today's culture of thin, she seems to be the same shape as those little carved fertility symbols that archaeologists say date back thousands of years.
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