Where are you?

     Last Friday, I was on my way to attend a painting class.  There was another event in the Town Center and it was crowded.  I found a place to park on the second floor of the public garage.  There were two elevators to get to the first floor.  I use a scooter and I waited at the elevators as car after car arrived but was full.   Just when I felt I would never be able to get to my class, an elevator arrived which was about half full.  As I entered the elevator, a person on the elevator sighed loudly and said, “Oh, God!”  Welcome to the world of the disabled. 

 

 

    

     As the result of an automobile accident 15 years ago where my knees were crushed into the dash of my car and accelerated osteoarthritis, I have found myself exiled into this world.  I have struggled with adjusting to a place without my familiar strengths and abilities.  I have a new image of my future possibilities.  I have resented and resisted accommodation for my needs.  Letting go of the past and looking forward to a different future than I had envisioned continues to be a struggle.

    Many people believe that the issues that affect the disabled don’t really concern them, however, with an aging population and advances in medicine, more and more people are finding themselves challenged and attempting to live in the world where they don’t fit in and their requirements are a nuisance to themselves and others.  Often they ask God, “What am I doing here?  Where are you?”

 

 

     Reading  from Isaiah brought to mind the concept of living in exile.  In my study of Hebrew bible I was impressed by the period of the Babylonian exile.  I attempted to understand what it was like for the Israelites to be banished from their home.  The importance of tradition, the importance of the past, the complications of the feelings of guilt, and how they would reconcile the concept of being "chosen" and yet finding themselves in such a difficult situation.  The prophet recounts and refers to the past and yet in verses 18 and 19, the prophet calls to forget the past and to perceive this new thing that God is doing.  Are the Israelites being asked to remember the past or forget it? The imagery recalls Exodus and the years in the wilderness.  The form of Isaiah is poetic.  It seems to me that this section could be part of an epic poem about the challenges to the Jewish nation.

   

     The context of these verses is Israel in captivity.  There are very few records concerning the exile of the Jews in Babylon. Murphy notes that the exile is not “just material devastation but a challenge to its entire world view." The Jewish god no longer has the temple and god's people are disbursed. There is no monarchy.

 

 

 

The Jews were troubled about how to continue to worship their god when so many of his promises apparently had been broken."  The role of the prophets is to penetrate the despair and hopelessness of the situation.  In second Isaiah the prophet attempts to bring hope to the people by reminding them of the faithfulness of god in their history.  The verses and symbols which call to mind god's rescue of the Israelites from Egypt tapped into the identity of the people.  The phrase “I will make away in the wilderness" brings to mind the years that were spent in the wilderness on the way to the promised land.  Wilderness has a special connotation to the Jewish people.   The prophet also speaks of the lord making " away in the  sea" all these words and phrases have had the meaning  for the Israelites.  It is impossible for the Jewish people to forget their past history and their relationship with god.  In verse 19 where the prophet speaks of the new thing springing forth offers hope.  Those things that are remembered as showing god's love and care and power will be diminished by the plans that god and the actions that god is taking now and in the future to care for his “chosen people".  This time god will give his people water in the wilderness in abundance.  There will be "Rivers in the desert".   The Israelites no longer have or need an earthly king, their king is the creator.  Their king is god.  The prophets use words to overcome despair and create an alternative vision of hope.

 

    

       Chapter 43 in Isaiah can be a spiritual resource for inclusiveness of the disabled in the church community.  Isaiah 43:8,9 states “bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears!  Met all the nations gathered together and let the people's us amble" is cited as an old Hebrew scripture passage pointing that the will of god is that all people be included are included as his chosen and created.

    I had an interesting experience when I was being treated at the National Rehab Hospital.  I was in another world.  Nearly every patient there was using a mobility device. In this setting I was normal.  To the staff of doctors, nurses and therapists I was nothing unusual.  I was not defined by my disability.  My identity didn't start and end with my use of a mobility device.  It was a minor aspect of my treatment.  I felt relieved not be a spectacle or something to be commented

on.  My inabilities were not in the forefront in any interaction that I had with others.  This experience was a revelation to me.  It challenged me to consider a world without boundaries.  It made me question how much of my limitations were from without and from within me.  I had a glimpse of a reality were everyone was just a person.  They were not defined or limited by ability or gender or size or color or background.  We waste vast amounts of time and energy placing people in categories.

     This brings me to consider myself and my ministry.  I work as a chaplain at a hospital and regional trauma center in Central Pennsylvania.  As result of my ministry I engage in attending to those hospitalized and their families.  I am called to hospital rooms, the emergency room, the trauma center, the outpatient chemotherapy areas, the heart procedure floor, palliative care and in labor and delivery.  Each of those persons that I meet is being challenged with exile from their former life.  They are adjusting to being an inhabitant, whether temporary or permanent, in this 

different world where body or your mind or someone that you love is in a new world.  Like the Israelites they wonder, “What have I done to deserve this? Why me?  If God loves me and cares for me, why is my child so ill? Why is my husband’s heart failing?  Will my mom die of this overdose?  Am I here forever?”  I don’t pretend to have the answers.  Their time in exile may be temporary or permanent.  I’ve been doing this long enough to know that the best gift I can give to them is to listen attentively and without judgment to their fears and laments.  And I do not preach.  My mission is to be the presence of God in the situation.  I listen attentively to their thoughts, worries and concerns.  Usually at the end of our meeting we pray.  I may be incorporating some sections of Isaiah into the prayers.  The reassurance that the prophet gave to the Jews as a message from God is valid thousands of years later.  When we are isolated in a threatening place the knowledge that the Creator is present and cares is powerful.  The message “Behold I create something new.  Do you not perceive it?” resonates in 21^st century Pennsylvania as it did in 6^th century Babylon.

     This is also an important message to me.  In spite of the disdain or disregard I sometimes receive from those who are certain they will never be in my place I have trust and joy in God and God’s plans for my life.   At the beginning of my physical challenge I could never have imagined the new thing that God had created in me. I could not perceive it.  However, now as an elderly, disabled chaplain I find fulfillment that I never experienced in all those years of chasing paychecks and promotions.  I hope that the person on the elevator may never discover what it is like to find them exiled to my world.  I would encourage them to use those hearty legs to walk down that one flight of steps with gratitude.