Mitzi Eilts is national coordinator for the UCC Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and
Transgender Concerns.
I’m almost fifty years old and have been female my whole life. For most of my adult life I’ve been at home (spiritually and emotionally) with the facts that my identity is not heterosexual and my life partner is another female. For all the rejection, oppression, and hatred that truth can evoke — coming home to myself has been a gift of God’s good companionship.
Are you wondering what all this has to do with disability? Coming to experience my whole identity as holy gift, including my particular embodiment as female, has been great preparation for coming home to myself as one with a chronic disability.
I have remitting-relapsing Multiple Sclerosis (MS), diagnosed four years ago. While I may escape significant deterioration of physical mobility, I meet chronic fatigue, sight issues, overt problems with heat and stress, and difficulties with hand coordination and cognitive dysfunction.
Neither my disability nor my sexual orientation is immediately obvious. Only when I make them known are others aware.
MS, like my sexual identity, has caused me to look deeply into who I am, the meaning of my life, and where and how God moves in all that. Through this journey I have gained new, different connections with the Divine, myself, and others.
Changed, not devastated, I made serious internal adjustments in self view and self-expectations. I learned about MS, what the medical world doesn’t yet know about it, and treatment options. Flexible health insurance gives medical choices and resources, an important factor in my ability to cope.
From the beginning, I refused to let any sense of shame, others’ or my own, make me hide what I live with. Informing people about my MS could negatively affect their view of me and limit their expectations.
So why do I share this information? In coming “out” of the closet years ago I learned that hiding parts of myself is dangerous and destructive to both my physical and spiritual/emotional self.
My soul is healthier in my body and spirit when I avoid expending energy hiding who I am and how I’m feeling.
My disability is somewhat invisible; as long as I don’t tell, it is assumed I am able-bodied. So I tell — neither for sympathy nor excuse but to be associated with anyone whose differences cannot (and should not) be hidden. I become one more “demanding” person seeking justice (accommodation and change) and a full place in society with all my imperfections and talents.
I have become sensitive to making the church (and all society) hospitable for all. I noted at the Coalition’s National Gathering how much all have to learn about making the church a place where everyone can come and be welcome.
From our first meeting, planners kept in mind hilly Seattle campuses. We reduced transitions between buildings. We budgeted for vans, ASL interpreters, and child care. We assigned persons to contact registrants indicating specific needs.
It wasn’t enough. We could have had a greeter out front to assist with problems. Lift-less vans were useless for wheelchair users who cannot step up. Ultimately, willingness to problem solve and authority to act will make the difference for what leaders fail to anticipate.
We must utilize the expertise of those trained to look at all possibilities and know the pitfalls of sincere but inexperienced solutions. That’s true whether talking about differences in abilities, race/ethnicity, class, gender and sexual identity, or language.
For me, the lesson is universal and obvious. The more diverse those who are included in being the church are, the more welcoming church can be.
With MS, I have found once again what it means to believe as I say I do. Loving God with my body, soul, and mind is essential to being spiritual. Loving my neighbor as myself is to be faithful. Working with my body and mind — in thought and spirit, connecting with others, with creation, with silence, with ideas — is where and how I encounter communion with God.
Persons with disabilities know in body and soul the struggle to love ourselves and to love God with our whole selves. We meet these realities daily, moment by moment. Although no one has all the answers, each has unique insights to bring to the mix of this reality that points to Truth.
