Looking with, not looking past

What disabled people can teach us about the perceived contradictions of Advent

As a visibly disabled person, I am used to being looked at, or past. Other people’s perceptions of what I can or should do affects what I am able to access and my experience of my own body. Often this betrays their own, very understandable fear about the limitations – present or future – of their own body, just because, out of necessity, my body’s limitations are more visible. I find this out later, sometimes. It is difficult to think or to express that the way things are now may change, and that reliance on one’s own strength will always run out. Advent asks us to look away from temporary things towards the incarnation and return of Christ, eternal God; from false to true certainty. The insight of disabled people, used to bearing faithful witness all year round amidst an awareness of their own body or mind’s fluctuations, is particularly valuable here.

Advent, and living with disability, both require comfort with perceived contradiction. Using my walking stick, I can get out and do more and suffer less afterwards. In a wheelchair, I can fully experience a gallery or museum, but my position is viewed as a limitation. When I don’t use mobility aids, I can be sprightly some days (“do you really need to use it, then?”), unsteady more often, but I am assumed to be able-bodied by those who do not see the pain later. Advent’s dissonances are many. It is a season of penitence and hope, death and new life, incarnation and return. The world has been, is being, redeemed, but it doesn’t always feel like it. Christ’s return will be wonderful, but it will be as destabilising as the first time: “there will be…distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves”, but “your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:25-28). In Advent, we look at the past, the present, and the world to come, and try to see God there always.

This is rather a lot to face alone. Christ understands this. He models interdependence: in the unity of the Trinity, in his life with the apostles, and in the Church as everyone baptised into the body of Christ. It must have been infinitely precious for God to be able to share food and drink with those he knit together in the womb. To be able to prove his divinity by his open, vulnerable flesh (John 20:24-29), and for that ‘weakness’ to allow him to be seen for who he is. Thomas does not look at, or past, his wound; it strengthens the relationship between God and mankind.

Even on his cross, Christ is not alone, crucified between the penitent and unrepentant thieves. Forgive me for the unseasonal scripture — Christ’s birth always looks forward to his death — but we see how living in community enables Christ’s obedience unto death. Faced with his imminent death, we see him, rarely, alone, and struggling: “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39). Then he returns to his disciples, and chastises them for sleeping, but then can accept: “if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (Matthew 26:42). Seeing and talking to those he loves enables him to see the necessity of what he must do.

Confronted by his own death, Christ returns to his friends. The sacrifice can only be his, but his cross is not carried alone. Knowing where to turn, one’s own limits, is disabled daily life. Mutual care is a rich fountain. I have been guilty of creating a weaker or imbalanced relationship because I won’t ask for help, meaning in some cases I’m not asked in return (though nothing makes me feel closer to God, others, and myself).

The pressure to be totally independent is unrealistic for anyone and not something even Christ could do – and clearly didn’t want to. In this season of Advent, I hope you will be able to look boldly into the face of death and eternal life, darkness and light, and know that Christ understands how difficult this is to do alone.

Christ’s life and return mean something different to each of us. For disabled people, it may be knowing that much of Christ’s ministry was dedicated to us, that we were part of Christ’s community on earth and so should be now in the Church. Faith amidst turmoil and practiced interdependence make us necessary in any common watch. Let us, as the body of Christ, live in the waiting together, looking for his return.

All scripture quotations from the Revised Standard Version.

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