On travel while at ITD: reflections after day 1

My dog continues to act like a travel guru who has had thousands of hours of travel even though we spent two and a half years doing nothing but doctors’ offices after our first academic conference. Perhaps going out of state to the eye specialist has its advantages. I brought a roll-up dog bed, and […]

ITD day 1

I am attending the conference for <a href= I am attending the conference for the Institute on Theology and Disability. This is a group of scholars, pastors, and other people with various kinds of interests in theology that has anything to do with disability. Their past presentations are viewable on their YouTube channel, linked above. […]

ITD day 1

I am attending the conference for <a href= I am attending the conference for the Institute on Theology and Disability. This is a group of scholars, pastors, and other people with various kinds of interests in theology that has anything to do with disability. Their past presentations are viewable on their YouTube channel, linked above. […]

Job Descriptions, Inclusivity, and Equity for People with Disabilities

October is Disability Employment Awareness Month. October 15th is traditionally White Cane Safety Day. This is a day that should bring awareness to the importance of the travel ability and needs of all people who are blind. This is important because it has to do with how we get to work and the increasing role […]

Disability and Church, Intersection

I hope people who read my site will take time to watch this. The disability community is diverse in many ways and disability intersects with other identities that a person holds. I believe that you will learn a great deal from this webinar, and from others in the series. https://youtu.be/EQ_8KbhRvDQ Disability and Church, Intersection

Reflections on Life with Blindness, Independence, and Expectations of the Sighted Community

Reading a recent reflection from Connor Scott-Gardner on thoughts on blindness after blogging for 11 years made me think about my own experiences and reactions. I once wrote quite prolifically about my thoughts about blindness but have been rather quiet in recent years. Perhaps it will be useful for me to write something in response […]

A Week in the Life: Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis

I have spent most of this week on the phone with various people, organizations, and hold music, all with one goal: to get my disease modifying medication for rheumatoid arthritis. Here is a week in the life… Monday: Me, calling Medicare part D company: Hello, I was told to call once I had prior authorization […]

Reading Resources for Disability Awareness, Ministry/Theology, and Reconciliation

A friend asked me recently if I had a recommended reading list about disabilities. The 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act is on July 26, and I want to give readings that provide a broad perspective of disability history and why people with disabilities remain so passionate about civil rights today. I have […]

Breaking the Powers of Silence and Exclusion

This is the audio of my presentation from the 2020 meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society: “Breaking the Powers of Silence and Exclusion: Empowering People with Disabilities for Discipleship”. If you prefer, read the text of the paper. Right click to download breaking the Powers of Silence and Exclusion

Blindness and Employment in the United States: A Commentary with Resources

I recently had a discussion with friends overseas regarding employment of people who are blind in the United States. My friends asked about the types of jobs people are doing, what accommodations make work easier, and what makes it difficult for people to find employment. These are all good questions, and I recognized that in […]

On Blindness and Relationships

I often hear that sighted people don’t know how to talk with someone who is different from them. … This is not something I am necessarily skilled at either. I have had to learn how as I have lived my life in community with many people who are different from myself, including my own family. […]

Losing Sight and Going On: Inspiration?

When people tell me they don’t know if they could handle losing their sight, I try to communicate to them that yes, they could. It is a matter of making choices. The choices we make determine the direction that life goes–and sometimes the choices we make shape important events. Case in point: Lewis Joseph Sherrill […]

Ash Wednesday sermon

This is the audio from the Ash Wednesday chapel service at Anderson University School of Theology and Christian Ministry. The two texts are Isaiah 58:6-11 and Ps. 51:9-10, 16-17. I suspect the readers used the Message. I did not specify a translation for them to read from. I mention it here only because in places […]

Snippets from Disability History

Blind history tells us that whatever happens, we will rise to it. In 1934, blind clergy were writing statements speaking out against sterilization, which was being practiced both overtly and otherwise around the world. In Germany, people with hereditary forms of disability were medically sterilized. In America, they were often discouraged from socializing with each […]

Words and Mixed Messages

On an average day in 2016, blind people in developed countries across the world use many of the same technological tools that sighted people use: laptops, IPhones, IPads, Android tablets, etc. These pieces of technology have some inherent weaknesses in how usable they are when taken out of the box. These weaknesses are compensated for […]

From Darkness to Triumph: A Book for Everyone

I tightened the reins on my family’s extra spending in January, saying, “We can’t go on any trips if we keep buying stuff at Amazon.” So of course, my husband let out an audible groan when I bought another Kindle book, From Darkness to Triumph by Anastasia Charalambakos. My first instinct when writing this review […]

What’s so Special About Special Needs

The way I get what I want and need might be different or I might need a bit of help along the way. It is still just as important for me as it is for you to have my needs met. But that doesn’t mean my needs are any different or less important. In some […]

To the Dogs and Beyond 11: Would I Ever Like to Drive?

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Today’s post is a bit of a departure from my stories about my experiences with dog guides. Part of my goal for this series was to communicate about travel and things that affect me as a blind person who travels. That is something I want to do today. During my adult life, I have taken […]

The Spoon Theory: Too Much of a Good Thing?

Apparently there is a new trendy term for people living with chronic pain. It comes from the spoon theory, which proposes that there is a limited amount of resources a person has for coping in a day and any number of things can exhaust those resources. Anything can “use up spoons”. It might be a […]

my personal testimony

My church holds an event once a month called coffeehouse worship. We gather in an informal setting with snacks and have acoustic worship, and someone tells a bit of their own journey of faith. When I mentioned on Facebook that I was doing this, my out-of-town followers wanted to hear my story. So here it […]

It Was Supposed to Be Funny

This week in my FB readings, I’ve come across some things that have been hard to read. They were meant to be funny. One is a mental illness mem, in which you’re supposed to pick some people from your friends list and plug them into statements. One is the person who helps you get into […]

Person-First Language: To Use or Not to Use?

I commented on a Facebook thread last night concerning the question of whether it was better to use the term “blind person” or “person who is blind”. I am both a blind person (or a person who is blind, if you prefer the term) and an academic writer. In the latter case, “a writer who […]

musings on the healing narratives

If a doctor can treat an illness, then why do we need Jesus? Perhaps it is a question worth asking. Is it just a matter of making a statement, of rejecting the world’s system for the Christian one? Or is there really a situation where a miracle can happen? Sometimes, it is both. It is […]

on mentors and long-term unemployment

I had a conversation with a recent college graduate this week about some topics related to employment and blindness. The discussion led me to think about some experiences I had as a young person and what helped me to be encouraged, to believe in myself as a person with potential. It also led me to […]

the dark cloud of limitations

Several years ago, I participated in a guided dialogue via email with a group of people with disabilities. One of our earliest assignments was to describe ourselves in terms of our limitations. Our facilitator said that typically people have difficulty with this assignment; and throughout the time that I knew him, he maintained that he […]

Kevin’s and my thoughts on social relationships

Kevin and I have talked at length about our concerns with regard to getting married. It is very important to both of us that we develop a good social network, both as a couple and individually. We need to balance out the time we spend on our own relationship, time we spend on other relationships, […]

disability studies, touch, and theology

I recently read an article in which the author relates an experience in which a male priest makes the sign of the cross on her forehead as he passes her while leaving her niece’s confirmation service. She is offended in part because a man touched her without her permission and in part because she is […]

What are we singing?

It has become fashionable to rewrite the words to songs so that they are gender inclusive or otherwise politically correct. Sometimes this has a fairly neutral effect. Sometimes it destroys a song’s theological meaning; and sometimes it is quite powerful. As a songwriter and a minister, and also as a person who is a member […]

disability studies and the seminary curriculum

During my seminary years, I read a lot (on my own time) about various topics in disability and theology. Some of my reading concerned the need to address disability issues in the seminary curriculum. I am completely in agreement with this. For a time, I considered pursuing a second Master’s degree in disability studies in […]