I had this great idea to do daily blogs on the ITD conference. It didn’t happen for a variety of reasons. I’ll try to do a little reflection for now. The truth is I will be thinking about this for a while. On Tuesday Hans Reinders spoke about the situation regarding L’Arche and Jean Vanier’s […]
Posts in the disability awareness category:
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 […]
chronic illness, conferences, disability awareness, disability ministry, disability studies, discipleship
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. […]
chronic illness, conferences, disability awareness, disability ministry, disability studies, discipleship
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. […]
Travels 2023: ITD – arrival
I think I have followed the Institute on Theology and Disability since quite early in their online presence. It has been a dream of mine for quite some time to attend a conference and participate actively. In 2020, I had a paper accepted and looked forward to presenting. The conference was canceled that year because […]
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 […]
Traveling without a Guide Dog: Experience with Cane and Walker
Earlier this week I fell and fractured my heel. I am using a walker during my recovery and my dog guide is on vacation. That is background for this post. I have written a lot about my travels with dog guides. This week I feel it is important to write some things about how we […]
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 […]
Blindness, Aging, and the Importance of Knowing Our History
In the blindness community, we spend a lot of time talking about our achievements. Most often this means acknowledging the development of braille 200 years ago, acknowledging the founding of whichever blindness organization we are part of, and discussing the contribution of whatever blindness organization we are part of to the passing of historic legislation. […]
My Body, Disability, and My Self: A Complicated Relationship
I have been reading The Wisdom of Your Body by Hillary McBride (Brazos Press), releasing October 12. When I signed up for the launch team, I was not sure what to expect. Certainly I did not expect such a profound emotional journey into deep places I have not visited for a long time. I cannot […]
My Dog Is Not Your Friend
Now that we are all vaccinated, my husband and I went with a friend to have dinner at a restaurant tonight. We were not surprised when we had to wait to be seated. We were surprised by two things. One was the number of people who stopped on their way to the courtesy stand in […]
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 […]
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 […]
Just Trying to Help — How to Help a Blind Person
I have just returned from my annual trip to convene with a group of blind people for advocacy, seminars on various topics of interest, fun and fellowship, and general motivation. I posted several things on Facebook about my frustrations with this travel experience, most of which had to do with assumptions that people made about […]
Why Not a Blind Church?
I was ordained as a member of the clergy two years after graduating with my Master of Divinity degree. Neither ordination nor the M.Div. guarantees placement as a pastor. One thing that has caused me some difficulty, sometimes practical and sometimes otherwise, is the fact that I am blind. I cannot say that churches discriminate […]
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 […]
living with fibromyalgia
There is a post going around Facebook about chronic pain conditions. I read it, thinking that someone had written very vulnerably about their experience and how I wanted to leave them an encouraging comment. At the end of the post were the words, “I’ll be watching who reads to the end of this post. In […]
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 […]
the importance of text-to-speech accessibility in Kindle
I just gave a book a 1-star review on Amazon. It looks like a superb book, but SBL Press did not enable text to speech on the Kindle version. My headline says, “no txt 2 speech, no sale.” I pointed out that the concerns over text to speech are lost sales, but they lost a […]
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 10: My Humbling
Many people report that their confidence increases as they begin to travel widely with their first dog guide. My experience was no exception as Elli and I came home from training and went about our routines. I am not convinced that the increase in confidence had everything to do with Elli. A good deal of […]
To the Dogs and Beyond 09: Elli’s Great Distraction
While I was in training with Elli, I decided to solve the problem of my voice loss by teaching her to work in response to hand signals only. During times when we were not practicing routes, we walked around the building, and I gave her hand signals corresponding to my verbal commands, praising her with […]
To the Dogs and Beyond 08: The Great Nap
Elli and I spent one year at Anderson University, the college I had attended during the year prior to my training. This year was very challenging. Elli developed some stress-related illness, and I struggled with loss of my vision which eventually required surgery. For my third year of college, I transferred to a large college […]
To the Dogs and Beyond 07: The Tree
My neighborhood was fairly quiet; and Elli and I could walk on residential sidewalks most of the time. Elli had to learn to ignore toads, which were plentiful in Texas during the summer. With my cane, I never thought about toads. With Elli, I knew about every toad we encountered–at least, until she learned to […]
To the Dogs and Beyond 06: Elli and the Cat
Training with a dog guide has evolved in many ways over the last 25 years. Schools have addressed discipline techniques so that the relationship focuses on preventing distractions and rewarding positive behaviors. New strategies for traffic work have been introduced so that dogs are able to work effectively in our society’s complex environment. Additionally, The […]
To the Dogs and Beyond 05: The Parking Lot
Training was not always a smooth experience. It is very intense; and I struggled with a great fear of failure. I realize now that this is a common experience for people who are training with their first dogs. Some people talk about it openly, and some hide it deep inside. I hid my fear. for […]
To the Dogs and Beyond 04: What a Big Mouth You Have
After lunch on Sunday afternoon, all students retired to their rooms. No, this was not an afternoon siesta. It wasn’t even quiet. For me, it felt a bit like a strange game of hide and seek, except that I wasn’t allowed to do any seeking. I heard instructors walking around the halls, accompanied by panting […]
To the Dogs and Beyond 03: Waiting for Dog
Today, social media makes it easy to know who is doing what in dog training. People can easily follow the progress of a friend or family member who chooses to post updates on Facebook or in a blog. The Seeing Eye installed a technology center in 1994 so that students could access reading machines and […]
To the Dogs and Beyond 02: Into the Lion’s Den
My first class date at The Seeing Eye was scheduled for July, 1991. I was notified in January, and I was comfortable that I had plenty of time to prepare. My second semester at Anderson University ended in early May, and I took a trip to visit a friend for a few days. When I […]
Thinking About Disability Ministry
I read a post this morning written by a person with a disability concerning the experience of growing up attending a Pentecostal church. The author pointed out that her condition was genetic, and she felt that the consistent focus on healing prayer and frequent questions regarding whether she felt better were evidence that something must […]
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 […]
trans-everything
This week, the most trending topic on social media is the transformation of Bruce Jenner into Caitlyn Jenner. For society at large, this event is forcing people to grapple with questions about how to react personally and socially to the issues that arise when a person lives with us and wants to participate in community […]
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 […]
What Does He Do?
I have wrestled for some time with questions about how to address a topic that is near to my heart; and I feel that it is time for me to do my best with it, however it comes out. When I was in seminary, there was a great focus on women in ministry. I feel […]
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 […]
why cutting Social Security Disability Income matters to everyone
Last week, Congress passed legislation that will make changes in how the Social Security program is managed, resulting in as much as a 20 per cent reduction in income for people with disabilities who receive payments through the Social Security Disability Insurance program by the end of 2016. In case you are still thinking the […]
an open letter about blindness
When I interact with people in public, I invariably encounter the attitude that someone thinks my blindness is hard or presents me great sadness. More often than not, a person goes on expressing their amazement at my bravery and sometimes expressing sorrow at the sadness I must endure. The discussion rarely gets around to a […]
biblical studies, chronic illness, disability awareness, disability studies, healing narratives, ministry, prayer, theology
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 […]
thoughts on news articles about guide dogs
There is an article circulating in the news media about a guide dog who rescued his owner from subway tracks after the owner passed out and fell from the platform. Whenever articles are published regarding dog guides and accidents, there are always a host of questions and misconceptions that follow. In this case, the dog […]
How do you do it? eye surgery, hospital, and oxygen, oh my!
Last month, I had surgery on my right eye to treat complications related to my artificial cornea. I traveled to Detroit for surgery with Dr. Michael Trese, who has treated me for additional problems with my retina in the past. The surgery is one that I will need repeatedly as long as I am able […]
biblical languages and scholars who are blind: state of technology
Yesterday, I announced on Facebook that the Bartimaeus Alliance of the Blind has released a digital braille format version of Jacob Weingreen’s A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew. This, along with other digital braille files available on their site, may be an important breakthrough for people who are blind and who want to study Hebrew. […]
what takes courage
Yesterday in church, we spent a couple of moments discussing with people near us a moment when we did something that required courage. The people near me all said that they thought I need courage every day just to get out of the house. After all, I could choose not to leave the house. I […]
learning curves
Please pardon the lengthy silence between entries. Life in the LaRose household has been busy as Kathie continues to adjust to her new environment and little Kira grows like a weed. I have not had a kitten in the house in ten years, and I have forgotten much of what it is like to raise […]
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, […]