Disability
Stories, theology, and cultural commentary related to disability.
Fifteen months ago, this blog began with a conversation with Katelyn Beaty about my hopes and dreams for Thin Places. As I conclude this blog, we thought it fitting to have a concluding conversation as well. Katelyn and I had a chance to talk about the most exciting and most challenging aspects of ...
One of the wonderful aspects of blogging is that I get to write about pretty much anything that is on my mind and might connect with readers. Over the past 15 months of blogging for Christianity Today, I've written or edited nearly 200 posts. As I wrote last week, many posts soar to the top of ...
April is my bittersweet month, when the world turns blue for autism awareness, when it’s more conscious of the thing that is my constant companion. But after April, the world sometimes forgets.
I cannot.
When he was little, our neurologist commended us for being proactive in seeking Noah’s ...
For years, I have read news headlines in Christian and secular outlets, from conservatives and liberals alike, stating that “90% of babies with Down syndrome are aborted.” As I have argued before, and as a new study demonstrates, it’s just not true. Correcting this common misconception ...
In honor of autism awareness month, Jared Kennedy reflects on his daughter Lucy's experience as a part of a church community:
Kelly couldn’t wait to talk after the service. She met Megan and me in the stairwell on our way to the children’s wing. “I have to tell you about Lucy’s ...
I received a call a few weeks ago from a mother of two who was pregnant with her third child. “I just had a prenatal screening test and they say there’s a 99% chance our baby has Down syndrome.” She had spent most of the previous few days crying.
I talked to her for over an hour, ...
A few years back, friends of mine began an adoption process for a little boy with Down syndrome who lived in an institution in Russia. The adoption got caught up in the limbo of the dispute between Russia and the United States over adoptions, and Timofei never came to the United States. But the story ...
Pro-life legislators in Indiana recently introduced a bill to ban abortions based upon the knowledge of sex or disability. In other words, although the bill would not ban abortion altogether, a woman could not choose abortion based upon the knowledge that she was having a girl, say, or based upon ...
About six years ago, the Nelson family came over to our house for dinner. Holly and Eric Nelson have three children—Maggie, Mollie, and Sam. All three were adopted as infants, and all three have Down syndrome. I met them for the first time when they were teenagers, and when their family was about ...
When people discover that I have a child with Down syndrome, I often receive a murmur and a sympathetic nod of the head. I almost immediately feel something tighten inside my chest, as if I am steeling myself for a fight my opponent doesn’t even know they’ve initiated. Most of the time, ...
In some ways, the title of Ezekiel Emanuel’s new essay for The Atlantic says it all: "Why I Hope to Die at 75." But this already over-commented (2,500 comments and counting) and widely read article deserves some attention here because Christians have distinct reasons both to pay attention ...
A few weeks back, Richard Dawkins got the Twittersphere up in arms. When a woman asked what she should do with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, Dawkins replied, “Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.” He provoked a somewhat ...
My husband Peter and I were walking on the beach the other day. Even though she was far away, with her back to us and her body halfway submerged in water, we knew. She turned around and her face assured us. She had Down syndrome, just like our daughter Penny. We were away from our kids for a few ...
I first met Aaron Cobb online when he shared his eulogy for his son Samuel. Since then, we have corresponded every so often, and I was very glad when he told me he had decided to put his reflections about Samuel into a book. When I finished reading the manuscript of Loving Samuel, I wrote: "'A ...
Jokes are my brother's love language. If you know a good joke, or even an average joke, telling it to my brother Matthew is probably the best decision you could ever make. Even if you fumble the delivery, as I'm wont to do, Matthew won't hold it against you. His deep contagious laugh ...
I picked up No Greatness Without Goodness, by Randy Lewis, because I was intrigued that a senior VP at Walgreen's had successfully created hundreds of jobs for individuals with both physical and intellectual disabilities. I was even more intrigued to find out those jobs paid an equal wage to the ...
Yesterday I interviewed Cameron Doolittle, President and CEO of Jill's House, a respite care ministry for families with children with disabilities. Today's post is a follow up from that interview, focused on Oxygen3, the program Jill's House has developed so that other churches and individuals ...
I first learned about Jill's House—a respite care facility for children with disabilities—at a Q Conference in 2012. I've stayed in touch with Cameron Doolittle, Jill's House's President, since then, and I'm running an interview with Cameron today and tomorrow in which ...
I received a music video from a friend yesterday. It's about children with special needs, and the singer means well. She wants to affirm children with intellectual disabilities. She wants to reassure parents. She wants to cast a spotlight on her own flaws and failings and point out the good qualities ...
Eight years ago, when my three children were still very young, we traveled to Omaha for an Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) Foundation conference. Both I and my oldest daughter have OI, a genetic collagen disorder that causes brittle bones, short stature, and other symptoms. As we were checking in at ...
