One night, she mentioned that she was going out with several Capernaum friends. “That’s wonderful that you’re going to give up your evening and spend it with them,” I said. She gently responded, “Mom, they’re my friends. I’m going out with my friends.”
Don’t lose sight of the great gift that the disabled can offer: a love for other people. The website of L'Arche, a network of residential communities that brings together those with and without disabilities, captures beautifully what we should all have: “inherent qualities of welcome, wonderment, spirituality, and friendship.”
We fear what we don’t know. Spending time with the disabled helps to dismantle our personal fears of interacting with them. And when we do, the ugly barriers that divide “us” from “them” come tumbling down. Precisely because children like Michael are not “perfect,” when we will but open our eyes, they can help us experience “what is most important in life: to love and to be loved.”
When more of us see this beauty, perhaps then we can help to destroy the culture of death that surrounds the youngest and most vulnerable among them.