A couple of summers ago, I realized that everyone at Hope Heals Camp entered every camp building through an accessible front door. My friends who use wheelchairs could come in right alongside me. They didn’t have to “find an entrance around the back by the trash.” The way we design buildings and communities communicates who belongs. I loved talking with Dr. Amy Kenny, author of My Disability Is Divine, about how disability challenges our assumptions about God and what it means to be human:
“That disabled folks are made in the image of God should not be controversial.” I loved talked with Amy Kenny, author of My Disability Is Divine, about how disability challenges our assumptions about God and what it means to be human:
1. “There’s no hierarchy of humanity.”
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2. “Jokes are a joyful resistance to the idea that my life is not worth living.”
“Whenever joy is left out of a conversation, we can begin perpetuating the ableist nonsense of thinking that disabled folks are lacking or are slacking in some kind of way when we’re using productivity as a measure of worth.”
… “Joy acts as a community builder. It connects us to one another. It invites people in instead of canceling people out.”
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3. Accessibility is a practice of belonging – “Start tearing down structures.”
“Imagine if we could create a community where we didn’t have to earn rest, we didn’t have to perform our worth. A place where access invitations, ASL interpreters, fidget spinners, visual descriptions, captions, and ramps run rampant. Don’t you want to live in that community?”
“If you want to create a community where all can get to Jesus, then literal and metaphorical, start tearing down structures that bar us, that create inaccessible environments. That takes a lot of humility. It takes care. It takes a commitment to one another over a commitment to what has been.”
Hear more from Dr. Amy Kenny: How Disability Challenges Our Ideas About God • Amy Kenny, PhD • S11 E2
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Amy Julia Becker desires to challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and help us envision and build a world of belonging where everyone matters. Amy Julia invites people to reimagine the good life through her writing and speaking on disability, faith, and culture. She is the author of several books, including To Be Made Well, White Picket Fences, Small Talk, and A Good and Perfect Gift. She is a guest opinion writer for national publications and hosts two podcasts: Take the Next Step and Reimagining the Good Life. Becker is a graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv). She is a member of the Disability Ministry Network and the Alliance for Disability Justice and Ethics in Reproductive Genetics. She lives with her husband and their three children in western Connecticut.
