Review Minorty Body by Elizabeth Barnes

In her book Minority Body Elizabeth Barnes in my opinion both makes a prescient observation, those with a physical handicap are onto themselves a minority population that is no better or no worse than any other minority, while also making her argument by means that are deeply disturbing and flawed.  For full disclosure, I consider myself mildly disabled white man.  I  have hemispherical Cerebral Palsy which is by and large limited to my right hand. Over my 40 years on this planet I have had 8 surgeries on my hand.  But my understanding and reading of this book is also seen through the lens of my personal faith— orthodox, evangelical, anglican Christian.  Dr. Barnes writes, as evidenced from her work from a secular, postmodern narrative.  Our differing points of view contrasts with one another in significant directions.
Barnes, rightly I believe, discusses the hermeneutical injustice that is a constant feature of those with a disability.  I have been addressed in ways that discount or discredit my experience.   “Well just act normal.”  “Don’t be defined by your disability.”  I have experienced  bullying from one particular religious leader who insisted that I shake hands with my disfunctioning hand.  He assumed that not greeting others with my broken hand was a sign of  internal self loathing on my part.  There is a reality, that one can not speak to a person’s experience of disability, and here we could extend it to any minority experience, unless one has lived it. My accomplishments and successes are somehow more stunning because I have a handicap. But in such a thought is assumed something about how little people expected of me in the first place. They assumed I was incapable of accomplishing “the normal things in life”  because of my disability. There are assumptions being made by the abled majority about what it is and is not meant to experience disability. Not all parts of the disability experience as Barnes points out are necessarily all bad.  There are ways in which disability positively shapes a persons life and outlook.  From my own experience, I have a greater intuitive understanding I believe of other minority experiences.  I can make the epistemological leap in a way many others are not.
I am grateful for her articulation disabled and abled are indeed shaped in much the same way by their bodies.  In other words a man who stands 5’4” will not likely have a career in the NBA simply because his body dictates other choices.  Our culture tends to over look and underestimate the importance our physical being plays in shaping life outcomes.  Barnes makes clear  that all of humanity is shaped by their physical, bodily existence.
 In relation to this point is her excellent job at the beginning of her narrative of demonstrating how difficult a precise definition of disability is to articulate. One cannot simply declare that it is the absence of something, limbs or sight.  For in doing so one eliminates those who like me have Cerebral Palsy whose limbs are intact but we can not control them. Even to include cases of CP and the like in our definition would still exclude those whose condition are temporary (epilepsy) or indeed invisible (lupus). Disability is far more complex than what it might first appear.
However the ease at which she conflates gayness and disable-hood seemed to me to undermine her argument. Not with standing an orthodox Christian view of human sexuality as condemning sexual relations and acts between two people of the same sex. Whatever the particular reality of gayness is, it has to be far more complex of a reality than mear physical disability. There seems to be both physical, emotional and environmental factors in a person’s sexual identity and behavior. That there are personal narratives that defy the majority gay story, see Wes Hill and Rosaria Butterfield,  should give one pause. To not see that physical handicaps are just that, primarily physical with social and and behavioral issues arising primarily out of the reality of one’s physical condition seems misrepresent both minority groups.
   Still further is the intellectual (and admittedly emotional) discomfort with her argument concerning her doubts with the idea of a ‘cure’ for disability.  On the very next to last page Barnes quotes Chicago Disability Pride founder Sarah Triano. “Disability is a natural and beautiful part of human diversity. . . . Stereotypes the parade  refutes by giving us a time and space to celebrate ourselves as we are.” And then in the final paragraph of her manuscript Barnes writes, “the point is not that there are no bad effects of disability.  We are, all of us, limited by our bodies. . . .But the disabled body is a pathologized body.  It’s a body that departs from the ‘normal’ in ways we assume are bad or suboptimal.”
I am tempted at this point  to respond with a theological argument, and maybe there is simply no way not to object except on theological grounds. But even without a view of a ‘fallen’ or broken world, is in not safe to say that the world as it is, is not the world that we would hope it would be or even be one day in the future? Even as one needs to treat the disabled as a minority, one can not also treat the disabled as one would treat an a person with black or brown pigmented skin. It is not the dark skin tone itself that is hindering a person in society, it is societies reactions and actions toward the person with a dark skin that creates difficulties. A disabled person on the other hand is different. As Barnes points out there are indeed bad effects from the disability itself. From my own subjective personal experience even as disability has opened doors for me it has overall been something that has closed more than it has opened. Why then would we consider that which causes bad things in very specific ways to be  ‘normal and beautiful?’  Please understand I am not calling the person with a handicap unnatural or ugly. I disagree that disability is value neutral as she here argues.  Admittedly this simply may be a case of faith over philosophical speculation, but I will take it over Barnes’s noble but ultimately disconcerting argumentation.

Untitled Poem Rhyming Exercise

Pry open the souls of men. Their blackened ears,

Their broken pain, their dying lives can not hold the tears.

Their bodies purchased and sold by deviant cashiers

Who seek will gleeful will to break all hope like plundering buccaneers.

Two Untitled Poems

POEM 1

It is in the land of the human heart

Are were the greatest battles are fought.

To the depths of the broken being, 

On a Ridgeline of identity,

Searching shards of childhood’s memory.

For the signs of wholeness, which are like the signs of mouse trails.

The landscape of self burned and shattered by words thrown 

As ignited daggers at the image of red pine innocence.

POEM 2

Pry open the souls of men. Their blackened ears

Their broken pain, their dying lives can not hold the tears

Their bodies purchased and sold by deviant cashiers

Who seek will gleeful will to break all hope like plundering buccaneers

Collects for Diversity and Faithfulness

Collect 1

Father of all the Nations, You have sought from the very beginning for mankind to diversify and multiple across the many borders of our world.  Humble your servants that we may see in every tribe tongue and nation your work of sanctification in the Church.  So that we might glorify your Holy name as the creator of and sustainer of all humanity. We pray this through Christ our Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Collect 2

Heavenly Father, You have set the course and boundary of every individual’s life. Give to each man peace and faithful trust, so that each of us may faithfully run the course you have laid out and thus bring you honor and glory by the power of the Holy Ghost and for the name Christ our Lord. Amen.

First Date

         The young man approached the door deliberately, forcing his will to make his body move across the pavers.  He paused a moment to look back at his father sitting in the black sedan, his clerical collar clearly visible through the open window. His father stared at him and smiled.  

        The young man’s ivory colored scarf flopped to one side. He then awkwardly threw it backwards over his shoulder and proceeded to walk under the yawning of the porch. With one hand he opened the screen door. With the opposite hand he rang the door bell.  The knuckle of his index finger pressed the dirty white door bell. His other fingers griped the hastily wrapped gift in he had bought that afternoon. A quick pause and deep breath before the door opened. 

        “Hello Michael, come in. Amber will be down in a moment." The middle aged woman with a pleasant alto voice and neck length auburn hair pulled behind her ears gestured him inside. 

       “Thanks Mrs. Kohlberg.” Amber’s mom gave a motherly but knowing smile at her daughter’s date. Michael seemed oblivious to how much Mrs. Kohlberg could actually sympathize with Michael and understood the first date jitters. 

        “Do you know what movie you’re going to see?” 

        “Amber wants the new Pixar movie. I was hoping to talk her into the latest Marvel movie.” Michael paused, looked down at the wood floor and continued. “However, dad said it is better to watch what the date wants to watch, be a gentlemen, Dad said.” 

        “Father Schiano’s right, Mike.” Amber’s father could be heard entering from the den. His deep baritone had aveneer of good natured teasing to it. 

“Spence, don’t do this to the poor boy.” Amber’s mom light heartedly laughed, tapping her husband on his should before walking up the main stairway. 

“Do not piss off the Jr. Warden, and the date’s dad?” Spencer’s hand firmly planting on Mike’s shoulder before it he moved off and was offered up in a handshake.

The Rebel and The Brown Coat

          Harry placed his craft beer on the table. The dark hewed bottle nearly matching his own darkly colored skin. He adjusted the Rebel Alliance cuff link so that it was parallel with his wrist. He looked up. His two best friends had found the dance floor too enticing not to try. As a consequence Harry was left alone at the four person table with the blush wine and glass of whiskey.  The Aloe Blac slow jam remix  was playing just above the level in which one could have a conversation without the need to yell at the one you were talking to. 
           He looked around at the other 30 somethings who had gathered at Soul Sushi to enjoy their Friday night. Amanda and Frank had a knack for finding the quirkiest food fusion restaurants in the city. His closest white friends since college, Amanda and Frank had never been able to understand that some cultures really were never meant to come together.    Nowhere else could he imagine ordering a Tuna roll with an option of collard greens as an appetizer.  “How did I get myself talked into coming to a place like this?” Harry muttered.      
          “Because we were tired of seeing you mope around your apartment Friday night after Friday night.”
          Harry nodded as his two friends returned.
          “It’s been six weeks since Janel left.” Amanda’s voice high and all of a sudden to loud as the DJ fumbled with turn tables. “She made her choice, a dumb and shitty one, we can all agree. But the two of you were never right for each other.”
          “Just like all the other ex’s.”Harry sneered as the music started up again. “Not enough this, not enough that. If not one thing, another.”
           “You’re different, we all knew that the moment you and I  became dorm mates in Watson Hall. But cheer up, the one you looking for is bound to be out there.”  Desperate to change subjects Harry noticed Frank’s Whiskey was nearly empty. “Do you want another?” pointing to the glass.
           “Yes, but that is my last for now. I don’t want to get to the Restaurant and be tipsy.”
           Harry weaved his way through the crowd to the bar, and waved a hand at the bartender. He placed the empty beer bottle next to the glass, “Jamison on the Rocks.”
          “You want another one?” The bartender pointer gesturing to the bottle.
          “A glass of water this time.” Harry caught the bartender’s momentary frown of disapproval.
          “Nice cuff-links,” said a woman to his left.
          “Thanks.” Harry said flatly, looking in the direction of the woman briefly. He did not intend to give more than a glance toward the women. But he glimpsed just above her left breast at a pin. It was  yellow and orange concentric circles with Chinese characters and the word “Serenity” in the near ground. 
          “Your’s too.” Harry scrambled to say something else, “You aim to misbehave tonight?”
He regretted it the second he heard himself say it. But to his surprise, “Why? Do you want to be bad guys?”
         Both erupted in laughter.
        “Ok, that was admittedly the worst, or at least nerdiest pick up line ever. I apologize.”
         “No I have heard worse, you should hear the ones I got at Comic-Con last year. My name is Samantha.” Samantha extended her hand out in greeting.
         “Hi, um” Harry’s mind stumbled again as he finally really sized up the woman he had just met. She was a few inches shorter than he was and her skin tone was also a few shades lighter, almond colored verses his dark mahogany. She had a oval shaped face with bleached blonde cropped hair. Her lip stick was a mellow pink.
         “Hey, your drink.” The bartender, grabbing his attention, interrupted his train of thought.
        “Oh, yes. Thank you.” He said to the bartender and then turned back to Samantha, “Harry, name’s Harry. My friends are over there, you want to join us?”

In fighting False Idols and What To Do About Them

“If, then, any one reviles us, irritates, stirs us up to violence, tries to make us quarrel; let us keep silence, let us not be ashamed to become dumb. For he who irritates us and does us an injury is committing sin, and wishes us to become like himself.” Ambrose, On the Duties of the Clergy

In the mass shooting at The Pulse nightclub we are witness to an amazing work of cultural deconstruction.  The victims were in large measure gay men, many where young 20 somethings enjoying a night out with friends and partners. The shooter, a young man himself, proclaimed on the 911 call his allegiance to Islam and to ISIS.  His acts were motivated out of a radical religious hatred of these men and the lifestyle they engaged in. 

Regardless of our convictions toward the behavior of these individuals, both victims and shooter, we need to acknowledge the horrific loss. The individuals were each uniquely made in the image of God. Something has been taken from this Earth that can never be replaced. There life was unjustly taken from them before they really had a chance to live it. Even the shooter who is guilty of 50 cold-blooded murder is also victim of a much larger cultural force that has intellectually enslaved a vast  portion of the world’s population. 

One not familiar with the current culture war might be perplexed how the media has chosen to report the story. The larger culture has laid at the church’ doorstep the responsibility for the awful tragedy that was this mass shooting. The media has championed as war heroes men who where brought together because of very private, personal and intimate behavior.  The government and media has silenced, as best as they can, the religious core which sparked this violence.

       What are we to make of this reaction? Our first response, I suggest was what Russel Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention suggested 48 hours after the shooting. We aught to weep with those who weep. And acknowledge the fearful loss to those who were closest to the victims.  

There is a titanic internal struggle happening in the larger culture. Which golden idol must we/do we value more?   On one hand, The Pulse night club represents the most direct threat to the Judeo-Christian foundations of our culture. The gay community represents for many the fullest expression of the sexual revolution. With the shooting, that expression is threatened, and so too our larger culture’s desire for sexual liberty.  On the other hand, is Christianity’s and historically speaking Western Civilization’s “greatest” foe.  Islam has been masterfully portrayed as the ultimate victim of European and American culture. A historic set of slights that date back to 1099 and the first crusade.   We are constantly prodded to treat with kids gloves an entire religion. What we have seen in the media is a scramble to weigh which group takes center stage in our culture’s theater of grievances. 

Even if you disagree with my analysis, one is still left wondering what to do long term? Once the immediate grief, anger and shock has worn off, how must the church respond?  Bishop Ambrose in his book On the Duties of the Clergy suggests one strategy. Remain silent. Remain silent as to avoid falling into sin by saying to much. Remain silent as Christ remained silent at his trial.  What is happening in our culture is a clash of cultural false idols. As their struggle for supremacy continues, they will undercut each other, chopping both of them off at the knees. Neither Islam of the Gay agenda can stand the brutal beating of reality in God’s created universe. Both will fall and be destroyed. 

If action is required let it be inspired by the action of the cross.  It is not without irony and paradox that the most beautiful image in Christianity is also one of the ugliest, the crucification of Christ.  Makato Fujimura, artist, Christian, and director of the Brehm Center states that beauty appeals, delights, invites and refreshes the individual who beholds it. Works of beauty “are worth of scrutiny, rewarding to contemplate, deserving of pursuit.”  In a world filled with broken idols, the soon to broken idols, the cross, and the acts of beauty inspired by it, will be the only things left standing in the rumble.

Note: this Post originally published in the Tractarian a publication of The Anglican Cathedral Church of Ephiphany.