Scotch College

Enabling the Disabled

In the Boarder's Review there was a skit with two newsreaders (Phil and Paddy). They began reading items that one could understand, but which became increasingly unintelligible. It was a sort of audio-dyslexia.

It reminded me of boy I had been reading about, called David. His early life was pretty idyllic, but school brought problems, he couldn't seem to learn to read or write. When he looked at the page he saw rivers of white. Only the spaces stood out. By nine years of age he was the class dummy. One teacher in particular humiliated him constantly. Believing what he was told he felt a total failure. At 14 he was diagnosed with severe dyslexia. In addition his dad died tragically when he was 16 yo. He never learned to read or write, a devastating communication disability.

In 1967 Buffalo Springfield recorded a song which opens with these (probably) familiar words; 'There's something happening here/what it is ain't exactly clear/there's a man with a gun over there/telling me I got to beware.' Stephen Stills' lyrics brilliantly depict another deadly communication problem in contemporary U.S. Devastating, and even deadly, communication issues affects us all, from family affairs to international relations.

Dyslexia may be thought of as a paradigm of social communication. Poets, singers, storytellers all think about such problems. Economists figure economic solutions. Politicians seek legislative answers. Counsellors expertly counsel the hurting. Communication dyslexia is so human we may treat it as unexceptional.

However, Christians must consider it a matter of real concern. Two reactions to this communication breakdown feature in the apostle's letter to the Ephesians. One is anger. Yes, God gets angry about it; angry at the hurt, the pain, the 'chaos of our lives' (Carol King). God's other reaction is rich mercy and great love beautifully expressed in the U2 song Grace- She takes the blame/She covers the shame/Removes the stain/It could be her name/Grace/It's a name for a girl/It's also a thought that/Changed the world. How does God's grace achieve all this? It's by the incarnation, in person; 'in Christ' is the apostle's emphasis.

It was a help to 14 yo David Pescud when he knew his problem, but his life didn't start to really move forward until he experienced love in the person of a girl called Margaret, who became his wife. Her practical help and the counsel of others helped him come to terms with years of psychological abuse as a boy and the traumatic death of his father. He retired at the age of 44, still unable to read or write, from his successful business ventures.

Perhaps you've met Jesus, the once homeless one, the refugee, the friend of lonely men and abandoned women. We did not seek him, but he found us. Some of us he awoke gently, some he overwhelmed. He experienced isolation, even abandonment. In our dyslexia he comes as love and light.

The most important thing is that we discover we are loved. God incorporates us 'in Christ'. Trust reconnects us. God's grace has made us alive to things we couldn't see before (so we rejoice - arrogance is totally excluded). The apostle, using metaphors of reconnection and rebuilding, says, 'We are what he has made us'; created in Christ Jesus for 'good works' - a life giving way of living.

How might we live it? David Pescud started an organisation called Sailors with disABILITY. They have sailed the Sydney to Hobart (including 1998) sponsored by Aspect Computing, with a crew of 'disabled' people. Sailors with disABILITY recently broke the record for sailing round Australia. Like David Pescud and his crew, we each have areas of disability. Grace will restore our ability to communicate, lovingly reconnecting us with God and with each other. Patterns of living, which showed signs of critical disability, can be made new.

This Advent may the Scotch Family draw near to God as never before, and discover the good things God has for us to do.

Graham Bradbeer
Chaplain