I met a blind lady at our church.

And there is such a lot wrong with that statement, most of which I am only just learning.

As I think back to the first time I met Jeanette a few months ago, I am chastened to realise that I didn’t learn her name for several weeks. I’m poor at names; I know their value, but their recollection has never come easily to me and I have made some monumental blunders! I apply myself to the task; I keep lists of new people I meet in my phone with little reminders beside them: clues like ‘teacher’, ‘two daughters’ or ‘red head’. And of course the reminder beside Jeanette’s name was ‘blind’. Obviously! What else? And that’s the problem, right there. The most obvious thing about Jeanette became the only thing; and rather than a name, all that lodged in my mind was a single word: blind. What could be more obvious about a person than their disability? But Jeanette is far more than a blind woman.

Until recently my standard description of myself to people who needed to recognise me, say at a conference, was a simple one. “I am tall”, I would say; sometimes adding, “The tallest person in the building” without much chance of inaccuracy. Today my height is unchanged, but unnoticed. How shall I describe myself now? If I said I will be wearing a red scarf, I could well be overlooked in my wheelchair because the person would be expecting to see a ‘normal’ person in a red scarf. If I said anything other than “I will be in a wheelchair” I feel I would be invisible. Or, to put it another way, I am expected to describe myself in terms of my disability. Normality is such a common, pervasive condition that disability stands out like a sore thumb. It will frequently be the most remarkable thing about a person, and so the sequence of blind reduction begins.

Which leads to a fascinating question: Why is it that people raise their voices when they speak to people in wheelchairs? There may be only a handful of people who unwittingly assume that limited mobility equates to limited hearing; but never the less I have experienced this strange phenomenon on numerous occasions. I have to say it: even one or two of my family occasionally do it! I suspect it stems from an unconscious globalization of disability; or a failure to distinguish between the many subtle hues disability takes. I understand all too well how easy it is to fall into this trap: ‘disability’ is a collective term that is easy to misuse. We have schools for the disabled, disabled taxis (an odd expression!) and disability services – all terms which aggregate us into one large, homogenous mass. We, the disabled.

It’s all rather subtle. Last week I carefully descended a set of aircraft stairs to find, alarmingly, a red Qantas wheelchair awaiting me; while some way off an elderly fellow passenger was happily ensconced in Bugger! Having righted that awkward wrong I took my lawful seat, expecting to be ferried, as usual, by the buggy that runs into the terminal. But the buggy didn’t come, and the airline staff who were waiting with us consulted each other and said, “Let’s just push them in”. I imagine able bodied passengers would have been advised of the change of plans. As a matter of courtesy some explanation would have been offered. But there was no need to secure the cooperation of my elderly companion and I; we just needed pushing. And so off we were pushed. I am not complaining – I am amazed by the provisions that airlines and many other organizations make – but I understand how simply reduction happens. It’s interesting how life changes when you lose a little autonomy; or a little mobility, or a little anything.

Jeanette is, of course, obviously, far more than a blind woman. She is a person of faith who finds and befriends others. She is a thinker, a student, and a musician, surmounting ordinary obstacles to take a place in our church band. Above all Jeanette is a person, deep and real, as are we all.

Reduction seems inevitable in the preoccupied transactions of our world. And yet, thankfully, wonderfully, the story doesn’t end there. Painful though it is to find yourself reduced; less can, surprisingly, be more. Theologians use the term Divine Reversal to describe the often repeated concept of the prisoner being freed, the poor becoming rich, the last becoming first, or the hungry filled. And so I wonder if blind reduction isn’t sometimes also divine reduction? Paul writes, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). Grace transforms the very forces that seem to callously reduce, until they become a breath that fans the candle within to brighter light. That may sound a bit pious, but how else can I describe the upwardness of the downward path?

Rejoice!

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PS…

I read this essay to Jeanette before publishing it. Hearing it gave her a lump in her throat; and there was much for us to discuss together.