Silent Answers

I'm not the kind of person who does those cheesy, overdone blog posts like: 30 Things I Learned Before I Turned 30 or 10 Ways I Improved My Life in 10 Days.  That's just not my style.  Yet, as I sit in a very quiet library during a very long, low-traffic period behind the circulation desk, my mind has begun to wander into realms of contemplation I rarely have time to explore, much less put into words. 

What have I learned in the last 5, 10, 20 years of my life?

Why am I where I am right now, in this very place and time and season?

What am I to do with the amount of silence I currently seem to experience, both in reality and spiritually, and why does this silence no longer scare me?

And in the midst of these thoughts, one question which has been a constant companion from the first time I ever heard until now remains:

Oh Lord, our Sovereign...when I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?

Such questions as these are insulted by shallow platitudes or answers full of their own morality.  Instead, these queries deserve to be chewed on, experienced, appreciated from all angles, and given the two-fold power to attest to change and enact change on and in the inquisitor.   

In allowing this process to occur, no matter how joyful or painful, tense or relaxed it may be, I come to an answer (not the but an) for a very small portion of my questioning thoughts: why does silence no longer scare me? 

As a child, silence was a fertile ground in which fear grew.  I would wake up in the middle of the night when the house was dark and everyone else was asleep and be overwhelmed with the vastness of the absence of light and sound.  I look back at that 7-year-old hiding under the blankets, starting at every little noise, and long to take her into my arms and tell her that the thing that brings her fear is, in the end, a place of comfort and rest before God.  What my young mind and spirit could not grasp in those moments of fear is that silence and darkness are frightening places to be, because they strip us of every distraction and separation and place us vulnerable before the Most High God, the all-powerful, all-loving Sovereign Lord.  Silence draws out the question: Who am I that You are mindful of me? 

The answer to this question is not so important as the genuine asking of it.  To ask is to open oneself to wonder, to inquire, to search deeper for what God's response might be.  And in God's goodness, the answer is an ever-deepening richness of relationship with the Triune God. 

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!

Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!

Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love

Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!



Self-Insufficient

A wonderful friend of mine made an interesting comment to me this week that I have been mulling over in my head.  Disheartened at not seeing her as often as is usual but understanding that sometimes life just gets in our way, I decided to step out and question the status of our relationship, really just wanting to make sure it was life "intruding" and not something else.  She assured me all was well, and admitted that sometimes she could be quite self-sufficient, which could put forth an unintended vibe.  This got me to thinking, what is the the value of self-sufficiency?

(Before I delve into this, whatever the outcome of my argument may be, it is in no way a personal reflection or judgment on a friend who means a great deal to me.  This is intended as an unraveling of my own thoughts and feelings as to how this topic has been presented to me in the past, and what place it has in my life now and in the future.)

I must honestly and sincerely confess to being envious of my friend.  Self-sufficiency is a thing which I think I have and still long for in greater measure.  Various factors throughout my life have led me to believe that an independent nature--being able to take care of myself--is the ultimate sign of adulthood, the epitome of what it means to be a grown-up, respected human being.  Indeed, the idea that self-sufficiency means I rely on no one but myself and my immediate family (i.e. Justin) seems to cater to my introverted personality.  And let's face it, independence/self-sufficiency is a driving force behind the "American Identity."  You don't see us celebrating Dependence Day, do you?  I grew up believing if I could achieve self-sufficiency, I would unlock the door to the future I wanted: financial stability, congenial relationships, etc. 

But, look at me now...

My marriage is both a testament to my independent nature and the depth of my necessary dependence on others.  Where my independence is concerned, I think I would rather call it self-strength (although even this does not wholly express what I wish).  Life with Justin has brought forth in me a strength I didn't know I had.  The "me" who once feared talking to strangers and making waves now has no problem taking charge of social situations to see to Justin's comfort.  The "me" who never could have dreamed I could carry the emotional and physical weight of being a caregiver, now performs those duties every day.  But even in this, I do not do it alone.  We have an attendant who comes and helps Justin in the mornings, we have family who help us meet needs when we are unable, we depend on government programs to help provide proper medical care for Justin.  And still, in the lonely moments when there is no one else and it is all on my shoulders--I am still not alone.  God is with me. 

But [God] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.  2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Difficult as it is to admit, my longing for self-sufficiency in the way I have understood it in the past is nothing less than a slap in the face to what God has done, is doing, and will do in my life and the life of all God's children.  The way I was brought up to view self-sufficiency leaves no room for the in-breaking of God's grace or God's call to community.  It is a scary and trepidatious thing to be vulnerable before God and our neighbor, but vulnerability is a necessary element to loving both of them, which is the summary of the Law given by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke.  Vulnerability admits weakness, revealing the cracks the plaster of my self-sufficiency and independence covers up only poorly.  I was raised to believe the strength of independence would make me happy, successful, and wise.  Oh, how easy it is to forget that the better way is weakness, the wiser path is vulnerability, the strongest way is dependence. 

Fairy Tales and Faith

The other day on NPR, I heard an interview with an author who recently published a book discussing people's perception of themselves.  The author's conclusion was that most people hold an unrealistically high view of self.  The author explained that most people will describe themselves as average or above average in categories such as appearance, intelligence, interpersonal skills, etc.  But realistically, only 49% of the population can be above average, meaning there is a 51% out there that are average or below average in any one of these areas.  Yet, the majority of people look in the mirror, see their faults and their strengths, and think, "Well, at least I'm still above average."  Interestingly, the author shed light on the fact that those who see themselves most realistically are inevitably prone to clinical depression.  Thus, there is something mentally healthy about seeing ourselves in this slightly (or not so slightly) skewed and irrational manner.

With this information swirling in my head, I started reading G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy again, and became entranced with the chapter entitled "The Ethics of Elfland."  In this section, Chesterton upholds the fairy tale as a formative force in his life, explaining that to him, the language of the fairy tale is the most rational and agnostic.  Through fairy tales, Chesterton gained two convictions:
1. "that this world is a wild and startling place, which might have been quite different, but which is quite delightful"
2. "that before this wildness and delight one may well be modest and submit to the queerest limitations of so queer a kindness."

Let us look at an apple tree as a point of reference for understanding Chesterton's thought.  On the first statement, the very existence of a tree of any kind is a wondrous thing.  It matters not how the tree got there.  In fairy tales, the existence of the tree is both wonderful and full of potential.  It could very well be that this tree could grow glass slippers or gold coins because all existent things in fairy tales have the opportunity to surprise and startle.  Thus, an apple tree could very well produce something else, but it doesn't.  It produces delightful apples.  As Chesterton says, in fairy tales there are no scientific laws, only "the science of physical facts, in which there are no laws, but only weird repetitions."  Thus, though a result may be repeated, one is left open to the wonder of something new and unexpected at every turn.  On the second point, let's turn to the apples produced by this tree.  What if you were told to only eat one apple a day or else the tree would die, but if you only ate one apple a day, the tree would go on forever giving you sustenance and delightful satisfaction?  Even if the fruit were so delicious and your craving so intense, would it not make sense to allow the tree to go on forever producing its wonders rather than gorge yourself one day to only be deprived of the delight for the rest of your life?  In fairy tales, rules, however strange they might seem, are meant to keep human fallacy in check.  Would Cinderella have really been sure of her prince's love if he had not been made to search high and low for her?  Would the fairy godmother's gift have been so precious if there was not a moment when it was removed in order for a more lasting joy to take its place?  Is there not some grace that the glass slippers did not disappear, the most brittle and fragile part of the ensemble, the precious carrier of a more precious person? 

The last few days, Chesterton's fairy tales and the NPR interviewee's rationalism have been swirling in my head, and I think I'm finally ready to write down my thoughts on these two authors' interactions.  The human  mind can only handle so much reality before it starts, in some ways, lying to itself in order to maintain mental health. Boiling down our lives to scientific laws denies the real wonder of existence.  If faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen, then faith is the foundation on which the wondrous repetition of a tree producing apples is all the more wonderful because it might have produced glass slippers.  Faith is the foundation on which a King sends his Heir, the Prince, to the lost at a terrible cost, in order that the lost might indeed be fitted with their own glass slippers and brought into their own inheritance as the precious beloved of the King.  So, maybe we're not lying to ourselves at all.  Perhaps faith gives substance to the ethereal ethic of the fairy tale which says that all of us are above average because all are startlingly and wondrously drawn into the embrace of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

Beauty and the Beast: Love and Disability

While marking books and finishing the preparations for writing my final paper for Intro to Theology--Prolegomena to a Caregiver Theology: Current Works on Disability Theology in Dialogue--I decided to drown out the baseball game in the other room with one of my old favorites, Beauty and the Beast.  (Note: the title for my paper is still in progress.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know!)  From a very young age, I found that I worked better with a movie that I knew very well in the background.  On the list of study movies is You've Got Mail, Beauty and the Beast, Sound of Music, Pride and Prejudice (A&E version, the Keira Knightley rendition makes me too mad), Amazing Grace, The Little Mermaid, 10 Things I Hate About You and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.  I know it's a bit of an eclectic list, but all of these movies share one critical feature: I know them so well, I can be reading intense discourse on subjects such as "God is the pure possibility of being" and still be able to anticipate the next line, song, or action of the movie without ever looking at what's on the screen or being distracted from the topic at hand.  All this said, it's no surprise that I would choose to put Beauty and the Beast on while I did my work this evening.  But, as God is apt to do, even this small, mundane choice served a divine purpose that I am still unpacking.

I had a brief thought as I got started on my work this evening that started a whole train reflections.  To begin with, I think I'm a lot like Belle.  I may not be perfectly proportioned or walk around with my nose in a book without ever running into something or hurting myself, but Belle and I, I like to think, share an independent streak.  I'll admit, when I was in high school, I wished for an independent streak without every realizing I already had it.  In fact, it probably wasn't until I started dating Justin that I really identified with my own sense of self-strength and independence.  (As a side note, I find it enlightening and refreshing that I connected with this part of myself in a deeper way the more vulnerable I became with Justin--isn't it wonderful that this is even more true with God?!)  I see this in Belle in a remarkable sense: she longs for an existence outside "the normal," she sacrifices her own freedom for her father's--which is, significantly, in a different mode than the "normal" female sacrifice of identity for the sake of her male authority figure--and she dares to see something lovable and dear about a man in a different shape than the "norm." (Are we noticing the abundance of "normal" talk here?)  All of these steps requires a strong sense of identity and an independent spirit.  All of these are steps I, in some for or fashion, have taken in my life. 

Yet, in this identification with Belle, I noticed something troubling:  the potential for long-term issues between Belle and the Beast goes away, all because she says "I love you."  Now, don't get me wrong, I think this story has a very important lesson to teach young girls.  But, like most Disney fairy tales, it also neglects a very important aspect of life: love only makes thing more complicated, not less.  And, the more "different" the object of your love, the more complicated life can become.  I love my differently-shaped, disabled, and dear-hearted husband, and our love is complicated.  Sometimes it is complicated by us, sometimes it feels complicated by the world in which we interact.  Either way, the wheelchair that has scratched up my walls, run over my toes, and "broken in" many of my shoes did not disappear the moment I proclaimed my love for Justin or even when we said our wedding vows. At the end of the fairy tale, Belle and the Beast--now a tall, strong and capable man---look "normal" together, dressed in their finest and dancing with all the grace a beast can't quite manage.  But, I wonder about Belle's sense of self. The ending of the movie can be read as "Look, girls, have a sense of identity and independence.  Choose to love the unlovable, and you will be rewarded!  All will turn out right in the end, and the man of your dreams will appear to protect and love you properly so you won't need to be independent any more."

I know this is a rather cynical reading of what might be an innocent fairy tale, but for once, I'd like the Beast to remain as he was.  To discover and grow in love in the midst of and through the "beastly" is the reality of my existence and that of many others.  I wouldn't change it.  I think Belle was on the right track when she said, "I want adventure in the great wide, somewhere...and for once, it might be grand to have someone understand, I want so much more than they've got planned."  Oh to be brave enough to embrace our grand adventure as it comes with all its twists and turns, its wheelchairs and impairments--how could it be a grand adventure without them?!

Disabled Living

What an interesting semester it has been!  With all the craziness of running between the seminary and the music school, sometimes I feel dizzy with the multiple fields of study I have to hold in my head at the same time: organ performance, service playing, organ literature, academic theology, liturgy and liturgical theology, much less taking care of my husband and our home..."overwhelmed" often feels too soft of a word for the daily realities of life.

One significant development this semester is my choice to embrace disability and caregiver theology as a life work.  My final project in Intro to Theology is a paper outlining current work in disability theology, which I will use as a launching off point later on in my studies to develop a whole theology of caregiving in relationship to disability theology.  I find this work incredibly fulfilling and meaningful, and taking in the information and processing is a joy.  However, on days like today, the caregiving catches up to me and I encounter one of my own disabilities: a lack of courage to speak.

In Intro to Theology, we are currently reading Places of Redemption by Mary McClintock Fulkerson.  One of the central issues Fulkerson's text raises is how bodies in a church function based on the expectations of "normalcy" between different races and bodily abilities (able-bodied/disabled).  Portions of this text speak profoundly to me as she discusses a church that commits to minister to local group homes and "special needs" individuals.  Justin decided to come to class with me yesterday morning because he knew this was a topic we would be discussing and he was interested to hear what the professor had to say and give his own unique point of view.

I loved what Justin had to say during class, and I think it brought to the foreground issues that churches do not always think about unless those with disabilities are a constant voice of criticism, such as "This is a very poor place to put someone in a wheelchair because every time people stand up, I'm cut off from the actions of worship."  However, I caught myself wanting to temper what Justin said several times because I felt like people would listen better to him if he was more gracious with the able-bodied approach.  But then, when I thought that way, the part of me that realizes the need for the disabled to have a voice would fight back and say, "No! Let them deal with the honesty Justin is offering--the honesty he expresses is your daily reality, and you trying to protect them from your reality does no one any good!"

But, being honest with people in a class about the real-ness of life with a disabled man is an overwhelming and draining experience.  When the sucking sound of stress and busyness is already close at hand, trying to explain and justify my life experience is a disabling experience.  My classmates get to leave class and walk away from how the church should respond to the disabled and come back to it another time.  I don't.  How church and society respond to the disabled shapes how my husband and I function to such an extent that on the best days I have intense energy to bring change and on the worst days, despair seeps in through the seams of my exterior able-bodied armor.

I am disabled--I lack courage at times when courage is most necessary, and my words are crippled when I most need them.

Praise to the abundant God who injects life in our weakest places!

Mystic Theology and No-Makeup Days

I told a friend this blog would be a theological treatise on what I've spent the morning reading, but I'm afraid I may need to repent of this self-imposed expectation.  Not that what follows is not of some theological substance, but that this is not your normal "theological treatise."  In the last few weeks, I have come to more fully embrace what I think I've known for a very long--if I am anything, I am a mystical theologian.  I know for many the use of the word "mystical" is off-putting, because in our day and age such terminology usually conjures up images of witchcraft and other untoward spiritual practices.  Yet, in classic Christian theology mystic theology is associated with the exploration of God's ultimate mystery.  I find the following definition from the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church rather helpful:

Language connected with ‘mystery’ was widely used in the early Church, often in a fairly routine way; the use of such language depends on the conviction that Christian doctrine and liturgy involve matters known only by revelation, which are incomprehensible to, or which need to be shielded from profanation by, outsiders and those insufficiently purified by faith and moral conversion. The sacred words of Scripture and the deeds of God recorded in Scripture and enacted in the Eucharist (Lord's Supper, Communion in modern Protestant contexts) contain a ‘mystic’ significance, into which believers can be progressively initiated by Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit. The mystery of God remains mysterious even in its revelation, so that we need to ‘hear the quietness’ of Jesus as well as receiving His word." (Ignatius)

For the sake of this post, I make the point about leaning toward mystic theology to indicate the direction from which I am approaching the reading I did this morning from Pope Benedict XVI's The God of Jesus Christ: Meditations on the Triune God (referred to from now on as GJC).  The way I take in and chew on Benedict's words is not the same as how others may choose, and that is perfectly acceptable.  I merely prepare you, reader whom I value, for the experience and limitations of my own interpretation.  

One of the most precious points in Benedict's treatment of Jesus, God the Son, is his examination of the childhood of Jesus.  Rather than examine the meager writings in the Gospels attesting to events in the childhood of Jesus, Benedict discusses what it means to be a child and how Jesus' treatment of children later in life is indicative of the value He places on children.  What stands out to me is Benedict's discussion of what Jesus inherited from His mother Mary, not only flesh and blood but also "the inheritance of his ancestors," meaning "he accepted in himself the whole winding path that leads back fro Mary to Abraham and ultimately back to Adam." By bearing "within himself the burden of this history, he transformed it by his own life and suffering." (GJC 50)  As a modern-day Protestant, I find it refreshing to hear how Jesus redeemed the past, as well as the present in which He lived and future generations.  We have a tendency to discuss salvation from a Jesus-onward mindset, but by taking the form of a child who was raised within a certain culture with certain rituals and traditions and ways of thinking developed over hundreds and thousands of years, Jesus shed light on that which was good and condemned that which was sinful in His culture of origin.  If He had come as a fully grown man, Jesus would not have experienced what it is to grow up and internalize the ethnic elements of Jewish society, so He could not have intimately known and therefore brought redemption to the history of God's people.  

Later in His life, after the beginning of His public ministry, Jesus brings visibility to the idea of being a child in his elevation/blessings of the poor.  Benedict makes the point that "this is no romantic exaltation of poverty...rather, what is concerned here is the very depth of what it is to be human. 'Being poor' lets us see something of what 'being a child' means: a child possesses nothing of his own." (GJC 52)  The intent here is not to admonish those who have possessions, but to drive home the point that to enter into the Kingdom of God, possessions must not control one's being.  Being a child, maintaining poverty of spirit, means continual dependence on a God Who holds the world in the palm of His hands.  The human tendency towards independence of God for the sake of wealth is not valued in God's economy.  

I feel like the topic of God's economy is often expounded in our churches, which then turn around and appeal for money from pulpit.  (Now, who is it that needs to let go of dependence on wealth?) With such an example set for us, how is it that we are supposed to be like children when even our churches are hurting for money and seem to be dependent on riches in order to do God's work?  Honestly, this is where my inner mystic rejoices at Benedict's words:

     "the astonishment in man must not wither away, this capacity for astonishment and for listening that does not merely inquire into the usefulness of things, but hears the harmony of the spheres and rejoices precisely at that which does not serve the practical purposes of man." (GJC 53)

Astonishment.  What astonishes you?  What strikes the very heart of your being?  What has no worldly value but feeds your very soul in an inexplicable but wondrous manner?  Whatever it is, that is the beginning of "being a child."  

A couple years ago when my niece was 3 years old or so, I was over at my mother-in-law's house while she was keeping my niece.  I think it must have been a Sunday because I was dressed up more than normal and my hair wasn't in a ponytail. But, even so, I had made no special efforts at putting on make-up or really dressing up, and at the time I was longing to put on some jeans and get dressed down again.  As my niece, my mother-in-law and I were hanging out in the kitchen, my niece turned and with a smile said, "Noni, doesn't Aunt Lisa look beautiful today?"  I don't know what it was about how I looked that day, but I knew, to me, I didn't look like anything special.  But, my wonderful child-like niece saw something wonderful and called it by name.  How I looked didn't have any usefulness to her nor did she really care that I didn't have any eyeliner on and my eyes probably had bags underneath them.  She was astonished and took great pleasure in sharing her astonishment with others.  

May child-like astonishment fill your day, and may it be a gateway into the mystery of God, so that through the mundane, the beautiful may be found.  Amen and Amen!

Late Night Adventures in the Land of Leprechauns, Unicorns, and Handicap Vans

When Justin and I started dating, Justin had this phrase he would use anytime the wheelchair made things awkward in "able-bodied" situations, "Handicapped people are like leprechauns, the tooth fairy or unicorns--people don't think we really exist."  And you know, it's amazing how true that phrase is in certain situations.  One of my favorites is when we're walking through a crowded hallway in a mall and people practically trip over Justin's chair because they weren't watching where they were going and then give him/us accusatory glances, as if to say, "How could you get in my way, person that I didn't think really existed or I wouldn't have run into your big metal chair!!??"

Well, last night we had one of those adventures that can only happen in the "fictional" world of the handicapped.  It started out like any other Tuesday evening in the life of the Hancocks.  After being at school a full day and working at church for several hours, it was finally 9:00 p.m. and time to go home.  Justin is attending a class on C.S. Lewis at a church close to campus, so he joined me at school for the afternoon and evening.  When his class let out, the first sign of trouble arose.  The wires connected to the automated door on our "pimped out" handicap van jumped the track, so to speak, and made it necessary to manually encourage the door to open so that the ramp could extend.  Now, though a sign of potential hazard, this was not overly worrisome because we have an appointment with the Handicap Van Mechanics (wonderful people!) on Friday, so we just need the door to continue opening and closing, somehow, until then.  So, we go on our merry way, with the only real complaint on our minds being the feeling of hunger developing in our stomachs since dinner was at least 3 hours ago.  With thoughts of popcorn and coffee filling our heads, we park at the apartment, I get out to further encourage the door to open, and I come face-to-face with a highly unfortunate circumstance--the wires have become so tangled the door will only open halfway, blocking the ramp from extending at all, and Justin is summarily stuck in the van.  One of the greatest travails found in the Land of Leprechauns, Unicorns, and Handicapped People--the failure of one piece of technology equals a major hurtle to the continuation of "normal life."  So, here we are at 9:30, sitting in the parking lot feet from our apartment with it's nice pantry, refrigerator and bed, and my husband is unable to get out of the van, at all!

Thankfully, having faced similar situations in the past, we had an ever-so-slight hope that the local handicap van shop has an emergency phone line for times such as these, and Praise Jesus! We were correct!  The downside--the handicap van shop is in Mesquite, Tx, 30 minutes from our apartment, and the mechanic on call who was willing to come out to us lives at least an hour from our apartment.  Wonderful people that they are, though, we finally arranged to meet the office administrator and her husband, who was going to cut out the nasty wires according to directions given to him over the phone by the head mechanic.  Granted, we had no idea how successful this venture would be or what state it would leave the van door/ramp mechanism in, but if it meant we could get Justin out of the car without asking him to attempt Rodney Dangerfield-like jumps out of the van with his wheelchair, we were willing to give it a shot.  Since it is not after 10 p.m., I filled the gas tank up, bought some peanut butter M&Ms for the road (because yes, we were still hungry!), and off to Mesquite we went.


Let me just say, you will never meet nicer people than the people of Advanced Mobility in Mesquite, Tx.  These are people who work day in and day out performing a very specialized service for a very distinct group of people.  They could charge whatever they want and treat us however they want because they are one of the only shops in East Texas that sells and provides maintenance for wheelchair accessible vans.  But, to their good credit, they treat us with dignity, respect, and kindness that is difficult to find in a world that doesn't often act like the disabled exist.  The two people who met us were concerned about Justin being trapped in the van and about whether I would be able to handle the van if I needed to pull out the ramp manually.  And you know, everything worked okay.  The only part we have to do manually with the wires cut out is help the door close.  Otherwise, everything works as well as it ever has.

I know that every person has moments of crisis and problems to deal with, but the unique nature of the kinds of problems that come with life in the disabled context are not only difficult to understand, but are also nearly impossible to foresee without firsthand experience and/or a large dose of empathy.  As I look back at last night, I have to laugh at the way God provided for us.  It may not seem like God was in the experience at all, seeing as Justin seemed to be hopelessly stuck in the for who knows how long.  But, to look deeper, He provided in extraordinary ways by enabling me to finish my homework earlier in the day so I had not pressing homework to do last night, by making the temporary fix so easy compared to past experiences with the breakdown of the ramp, and by providing Justin and I some unexpected time together in which we discussed all sorts of normal conversation topics, like Nietzsche's madman, Chesterton's Orthodoxy, and C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man.  (Maybe not typical for some couples, but the best kinds of conversation by our standards.)  You know, life on this side of the divide is pretty much the same as in the "real world"; you laugh, you cry, and the leprechauns really don't live at the end of the rainbow, because they're too busy guarding the Tooth Fairy's rose garden from the unicorns, of course.

Seriously, though, at the end of the day when the wheelchair is turned off and everything is still, it is comforting to know that we can say with all the saints who have gone before and come after, with all their varying abilities and disabilities: God is good, all the time and all the time, God is good.