To Forgive Is Human

Since it is Good Friday and Easter weekend, I want to take this time to write about Jesus and forgiveness.

Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.

How could a man hanging from a cross utter these words, especially after all he had endured? Many Christians believe Jesus was capable of saying it and feeling it because he was not just a man, but God; that God came to earth as a human to teach us about sin and to be a sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. Other Christians and also non-Christians believe that he was not a human sacrifice; that he was a man who tried to teach us about the Christ in all of us. Where ever your belief falls, if we say it is his godliness that makes his teaching great, it diminishes his teaching, in a way. For the purposes of this post, I want you to temporarily forget that he is God, if that is your belief, and while you read it, I only want you to consider his human-ness and what it means that he was human because, whether you believe he was God or not, he was human.

Imagine this man lugging that cross through the streets, wearing that crown of thorns, blood dripping, being taunted by the crowd, after having been beaten and abused.

Arriving at the destination. The spikes are driven through his hands; through his feet. He is hoisted up into the air where he hangs.

Now imagine this man hanging there, the spikes through his hands and feet, feeling the weight of his body, with others on the ground watching his suffering.

Now picture him saying and truly meaning these words,

Father, forgive them! They know not what they do!

Could you ever imagine yourself praying for your tormentor, your abuser, your enemy, your murderers to be forgiven, while in the midst of torture and death?

Jesus could imagine you doing it. This is what he wants you to know. Not only are you capable of it, you are called to do it. He is calling us to forgive.

I could not do that, you think. I am not the son of God, the daughter of God in the same way he is. I have no special power like he did. I was not born of a virgin like he was.

If that would be your response, you diminish his teaching.

You just took everything he ever said and decided that he is a god with greater than human powers, which makes it true for him, but it could not possibly be true for you. It is as if he says to you, “The light that is in me is also in you,” and your response is, “Yes, but you are human and God while I am just human, so I could never do what you are capable of.” You gave yourself an excuse for not being peaceful, for not being loving, for not holding yourself to his standard.

 What he did was so astronomically great and strong and loving and powerful – asking for his murders to be forgiven while he hung there in agony – that we cannot imagine doing it ourselves. We cannot image a human being doing that. But that is exactly what a human being did. He tried to tell us that he has no special connection to

God that we, ourselves don’t also have.

My father is your father.

If we want peace in this world, as we say we do, we must understand that we are just as capable of forgiving as Jesus was. It is within us. It is up to us to find the kingdom of God within us and to believe what Jesus told us.

We say God came to earth and dwelt in a human body for a purpose; to die for our sins so that we may be forgiven and enter heaven. What if he also came to show us how it’s done?

And that it is possible for everyone to forgive anything, just as he did?

And that we enter heaven when we forgive?

And that there is never anything that needs to be forgiven because everything is as God made it: good and evil, right and wrong, grace and lessons.

And that God, already, has forgiven us even before we mess up?

What if all those things were true? What if we actually believed it? What if we believed we were capable of living up to his teaching and to the examples he showed us in his life and in his death?

He was our teacher right up to the moment of his death and beyond, but more than 2000 years later, we still don’t believe him. We say we do. We worship him and praise his name. We weep over his death and rejoice over his resurrection, but still we believe that we are not capable of being like him. He knew Christ was within him and that Christ is within us. He believed in a love so deep and so pure and a peace so infinite that he proved it throughout his life and during the events of his death.

The grace with which he lived and died: non-reaction, non-violence, forgiveness, love, and acceptance of every moment just as it was during the beatings, during the procession, during the nails being driven into him, while he hung there waiting for death to take away the pain of his body, begging for the terrorists to be forgiven, knowing that his death would not stop them from terrorizing others, and loving them anyway, is our example of the peace we can have even in our worst moments.

A moment of human weakness in suffering:

Why hast thou forsaken me?

Why, God, why?

To this, we can relate. The flesh is weak, after all. Being human is not easy.

Yet clinging to his Truth; our Truth...

Father, Forgive them…

His life and death are examples of what a human is capable of. He teaches us that we are no different from him and capable of the same things.

Oh, ye of little faith…

OUR Father, which art in heaven…

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, YOUR heavenly Father will also forgive you

YOU are the salt of the earth

YOU are the light of the world

For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my

            brother, and sister, and mother

In forgiveness we fear a wrong may never be made right, but if that were true, would he have died for us? Did he fear our wrongs would never be made right? Was revenge part of his agenda?

Forgiveness and peace for all of the world were his agenda.

I used to think Jesus asked for his killers to be forgiven because he knew they did not know the enormity of their actions – that they were killing God’s only son. However, I don’t think it had anything to do with him being God’s son. He asked for them to be forgiven because he knew the cause of their actions; not the reason for it, but the cause. He knew they were acting from ego (what he would call the devil) rather than their spirit. He understood the devil is fear. He knew that humans are constantly living in a state of fear with the devil whispering in our ear. He wanted to free us from our fear. He was our example of how to free ourselves from the fearful ego and take each moment as it comes without resistance no matter what is happening; no matter the horror of the moment or of the hour or of the day…

 I know he prayed for his killers to be forgiven because he truly loved them and truly wanted peace for them and all of the world. He knew they were living in fear and not at peace in their hearts. He knew the only way to bring peace to the world was through forgiveness and releasing the negativity inside of himself at that moment. He became the change he wanted to see in the world. He understood that to feel the peace of God, he needed to want it more for his killers than he wanted it for himself. Striving for peace in every moment, no matter what the circumstances are in that moment, is his message to us for the way to bring peace to the world. There will be world peace when each of us has enough compassion to see others as if they were Jesus the Christ; to know their bad behavior is caused by their fear. World peace will come when we can pray to the Father for all to be forgiven even as we suffer the pain and the heartache of the moment.

This Good Friday and Easter Sunday, remember what this human being taught us about love, about accepting everyone, about forgiveness, about the equality of every human being. We are not hanging on a cross, so why must we make forgiveness so difficult?

May your enemies be forgiven for all of their wrong-doings. May you know that you already are.

Happy Easter!

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Click here for books I love. I hope this blog helps you to create a more peaceful life. Keep in touch by the following methods: Use the links under the archive menu to subscribe or follow by e-mail. Help me get this message out by sharing it with your friends on social media! If you enjoyed it and were helped by it, they will, too! Comment by using the comment link below or write to me with your comments and questions at mindchange4all@gmail.com  I look forward to hearing from you!

Ableism

We often hear about ageism, racism, white privilege, sexism, and gender privilege, but one thing we do not often hear about is ableism and able privilege. Before I was the mom of a child with special needs, I was oblivious to all of the physical, mental, and emotional barriers faced by people with disabilities. I remained oblivious for several years after becoming Joshua’s mother because I did not recognize biases within myself or within our systems. There are things that seem perfectly logical on the surface, but the reality for people with disabilities is that they may be practical, financially and socially, but that does not make them fair. People with disabilities face discrimination based on practicality in large and small ways on a regular basis. In this post, we will explore some individual biases and privileges, based on my own experiences with my son, and we will briefly explore societal and systemic ableism and privilege.

Ableism is a bias, intentional or unintentional, towards people with disabilities or perceived disabilities that often leads to discrimination, devaluing, or limiting the potential or experiences of people with disabilities. A privilege can be considered in a couple of ways: 1) A special right, advantage, or immunity available only to a particular group of people – in this case, the fully abled; 2) a psychological edge you gain when you have the luxury of being oblivious to other people’s reality. In other words, the stuff we never have to think about when we are fully able. These biases and privileges take place because people with disabilities are in the minority, but sometimes it is due to our own desires or ignorance, as we will see.

As Joshua’s mother, I have unwittingly engaged in able privilege by being oblivious to his reality. We do this when we do not realize that others do not have the same experiences we have. Even when we do realize it, it is easy for us to forget because we are not experiencing it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For example, when speaking to my son, I used to assume he has the same experience of hearing and comprehending that I have. In reality, I can’t really know what hearing and comprehending are like for him because I am not him. Whether it is due to his limited cognitive ability or his auditory processing, he simply cannot process language the same way I do. This is something I have to constantly remind myself when I speak to him. I have to give him time to process what I have said because it is not instant for him like it is for me. I have to remind myself that repeating it to him over and over when he does not respond immediately only makes it more difficult for him because he has to process it each time I repeat it. If I can remember his reality, life is easier for both of us. Another example related to communication is when a deaf person’s family does not learn sign language. I have heard several stories of families doing this because they can hear and feel it is unnecessary to learn it, even though it would make communication with their loved one much easier. Here is a short video made by some brothers who are deaf: Things hearing people don't have to think about

When Josh was a little boy, he was terrified of strangers. He would be fine unless someone tried to say hello to him or shake his hand or pat him on the head. Then, he would recoil and start to cry. This was also true of doctors and nurses. When they entered the room, he cried and fussed with a look of terror on his face. He did not want to be touched or spoken to. He was fine with people he knew, though. He had been diagnosed with mild A-typical Cerebral Palsy, but for a few years, I had been wondering about autism. I read as much as I could about it and felt that I understood it fairly well. I had begun to really think that Joshua was autistic. I knew some autistic people were fearful of strangers and I knew some did not like to be touched. Still, I never put it together in my mind that he was displaying an autism characteristic when he recoiled from strangers. All I thought about was my embarrassment and frustration because people appeared to feel annoyed that he did not welcome their kindness. I had the luxury of not feeling my son’s feelings because I could not relate to what was going on inside of him. The day I finally put two and two together was the day he was diagnosed with autism. I was frustrated at the doctor’s office because Josh cried from the moment the doctor walked into the room. I told the doctor I thought Josh was autistic and he agreed. Then, he tried to speak to Josh. He got nowhere, of course, because Josh started crying louder and backing away from him. I made the offhanded comment, “I don’t why he does this.” The doctor’s response was, “That’s autism.” Light bulb! We have to look at each behavior and relate it to the diagnosis. That is not easy when we are used to going through life without having to do it, but the people we love will have much less stress if we can learn to do it. It requires that we learn about the diagnosis, however, and not everyone is going to want to spend time learning about it. That is an example of able privilege. We don’t feel it, so we choose not to learn about it.

My privilege allows me to hide things from my son. I don’t do it to annoy him or to frustrate him. I do it for my own sanity. I hide photos from him because he becomes obsessed with them, constantly wanting me to name the people in them. I hide his hats when he is in the bathtub if they need to be washed because if he sees them after his bath he won’t give them to me. In a way, I feel bad for doing these things, but I don’t know what else to do to help us live together peacefully. To me, it is trivial that I hide things from him, but I have the luxury of not feeling what it is like for him. To a person with disabilities, it is the little everyday things that add up to a whole lot of frustration. Here is a short video to help us understand: What it’s like to be autistic

We can recognize ableism when we hear stories of people with disabilities being taken advantage of financially. There are also times when we are confronted by ableism through bullying. I was at a meeting speaking with another mom when Josh was playing in the hallway with some other children. I thought it was nice that they were playing together. Some of the children had disabilities and some were their siblings. A minute or two passed and I walked into the hallway, preparing to leave. The children were on the elevator, giggling and trying to coax Joshua onto the elevator. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach as I realize they were either going to ride up with him and leave him on another floor, or they were going to get off and make him ride up by himself. They gave themselves away when they suddenly stopped giggling and looked at us with guilt on their faces. I have always known how vulnerable Joshua is, but this incident made me realize he is vulnerable with people I would never think would harm him, or trick him, or bully him. People with disabilities and their siblings can be cruel to others just the same as people without them, showing us that no one is immune to able bias or able privilege. Unfortunately, biases do not naturally stop as a result of aging.

Parents of typical children sometimes do not want students with disabilities in inclusive classrooms because they claim it slows down their child’s progress. This bias hurts everyone involved, including their own children. It teaches children that difference is something that does not have to be tolerated and it ignores the compassion and empathy typical children can embrace by having peers with disabilities in their classrooms. Furthermore, it places competition above human decency. Sadly, it is not just parents of typical children that promote able privilege. Sometimes parents of children with special needs use it to separate their children from others whose abilities do not match the abilities of their own children. Again, everyone loses when this happens. Sometimes, as parents, we don’t realize that our kids internalize more than we think and they are listening, even when we don’t realize it. Impacting our kids in ways we don’t realize
15 Common Phrases (I have done a separate post for this link because it is so powerful! It is called Imagine Yourself in My Shoes.)

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was enacted to help people with disabilities overcome barriers in the community and in society. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was enacted to help people with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education, in the least restrictive environment. Both of these laws were intended to make life better for people with disabilities. Without them, we would not have made the gains we have made in our community. They are worthwhile laws, no doubt, but they have not ended discrimination or biases against people with disabilities in America. Although not always intentional, bias and privilege are hurtful, just the same, as we in the following examples of systemic ableism.

Our school district categorizes their students according to their graduation year, for purposes of notifying them of activities that pertain to each grade. In special education, students are given a designation of 21, rather than the year they would graduate because they can stay in school through 21 years of age. I was told that this is to keep a clean GPA for the regular education students and that if they categorized the special education students by their graduation year it would result in the special education students getting 4.0 GPAs (because of the grading system in special education), taking high marks and awards away from the regular students. I was also told, “it would not be fair to the regular education students who work so hard for their GPA.” This is practical, but fairness should work in both directions. This policy resulted in my son almost missing out on his senior photos. Luckily, he was able to get in on the make-up day, but I wonder how many other students with special needs were not notified of special activities for their graduation year.   

IDEA allowed children all across America to enter schools and receive an education appropriate to their individual needs, but it certainly did nothing to expand some of the educator’s awareness of their able privilege. In some cases, people found a way to get around the law. On two separate occasions, Joshua experienced ableism by speech therapists. These individuals seemed to think they should only have to teach him how to talk rather than teaching him other ways to communicate. They emphasized his non-compliance towards making the sounds they wanted him to make and they spoke of his lack of cooperation - rather than their lack of creativity and knowledge - when trying to take him off of their schedules. They had the luxury of not having to consider Joshua’s reality. He could not communicate and needed a way to express himself that did not require speaking. They were oblivious to other ways to communicate, or they seemed to be. Feigning ignorance may have been a way to save money by refusing services for a child in the special education system. On another occasion, Joshua was not receiving the physical therapy that was written into his education plan because his therapist was on maternity leave. The school did not provide a substitute for her, so we required the school to make up the therapy during the summer school program, after her maternity leave. On yet another occasion, we were not informed that the school district had no speech therapist for any of the children requiring speech therapy, so once we found this out, we found a speech therapist outside the school system and required them to pay for it. They were able to get away with failing to provide it for all the other students, however. Some educators take advantage of a parent’s lack of knowledge regarding the law, so make sure you know the law! Click the link below to read about the reasons for parent's frustrations in the school system. 
How School Systems Create *That* Parent

As I said earlier, the ADA helped to break down barriers for people with disabilities, however, within the laws themselves we can see examples of ableism and able privilege. The easiest example I can think of is that the ADA requires businesses to “reasonably accommodate” people with disabilities. This means they need to do the least thing possible to accommodate a person’s disability, but if the least thing is not possible, or creates an undue financial burden on the business, the business is excused from complying with the law. This is practical for the business but does not help the person with disabilities to utilize businesses or services available to every able person. It limits them. In fact, even when updates take place in the law, there are biases built in allowing for a level of discrimination to continue. I found this on the ADA’s website, regarding ADA revised standards for 2010 which took effect March 15, 2011.

Barrier Removal Before March 15, 2012

Businesses removing barriers before March 15, 2012, have the choice of using either the 1991 Standards or the 2010 Standards. You must use only one standard for removing barriers in an entire facility. For example, you cannot choose the 1991 Standards for accessible routes and the 2010 Standards for restrooms. (See, ADA 2010 Revised Requirements: Effective Date / Compliance Date at www.ada.gov/ revisedeffectivedates-2010.htm). Remember that if an element complies with the 1991 Standards, a business is not required to make any changes to that element until such time as the business decides to alter that element.

If you have a disability or love someone who does, it probably seems outrageous to you that for a period of one-year businesses, who were doing updates during that year, were allowed to choose a standard that was 21-years-old while a newly updated standard was in place. The ADA is 25 years old now and to this day, we still have businesses that are not accessible to people with mobility issues because it is deemed unreasonable (financially) to accommodate them.

What can we do? We could get creative in figuring out a way to pay for the accommodations that would make our communities completely accessible to everyone! We could check for the availability of grants and apply for them. We could get crowd-funding and other donations from the community or churches. Where there is a will, there is a way. We just need more will.

When it comes to living together, we have a right to have things as we want them, but we must ask ourselves if our rights outweigh someone else’s rights. How do we decide what to do? It can’t always be that the majority prevails because, if that is the case, people with disabilities will lose every time. We think it is unreasonable to expect everyone else to accommodate a small minority of people, but instead, we might begin to think of it as compassionate and empathetic for everyone else to accommodate those who want to participate but cannot due to a disability. Becoming aware of our biases and privileges is not something that is easy for us to do. We do not like to admit our shortcomings even to ourselves. Often we are not aware that we are engaging in a privileged attitude or a bias, so how can we change something we cannot even see? The answer is simple. In every situation, move towards love, inclusion, and a solution that works for everyone -  not just the majority. Inclusion and acceptance are about more than tolerance. They are about loving our fellow human beings and allowing them the opportunity to experience life at it’s highest potential in every situation. Until we do that, we will not be experiencing life at our highest potential. A solution that works for everyone may not be possible is every situation. And, people with disabilities have so much love for others that they will not want to take away from someone else’s experience if no solution can be found. It would warm their hearts, however, if they could, at long last, see that everyone was trying to come up with a solution to include them rather than simply throwing up their hands and asserting their able privilege.

I have a Facebook page called Love Button Worthy! It features photos, blogs, quotes, and other content full of positivity and inspiration. Click here to check it out. Please like the page if it suits you and don’t forget to invite your friends to like it, too.  

Click here for books I love. I hope this blog helps you to create a more peaceful life. Keep in touch by the following methods: Use the links under the archive menu to subscribe or follow by e-mail. Help me get this message out by sharing it with your friends on social media! If you enjoyed it and were helped by it, they will, too! Comment by using the comment link below or write to me with your comments and questions at mindchange4all@gmail.com  I look forward to hearing from you!