I went to a trivia night several years ago to benefit L’Arche. In St. Louis, MO, you can raise money for almost anything with a trivia night. It’s just really big in my hometown, for some reason. We’re just smart, and we like eating, drinking, and helping people. I think I just described every Catholic town on Earth.
Anyway, I have become pretty aware that I arouse pity just by being out in the world. That’s life with all the visible or audible disabilities, I guess.
I myself have no cognitive impairments whatsoever, and I’m happy with that. If I am honest, though, God has deserved more thanks for that than I have given so far. My intellect isn’t mine, any more than Kelsey Mitchell or Caitlin Clark or Roger Federer can take credit (entirely) for their athletic ability. Then again, a defect you carry from the beginning, the opposite of which you have never experienced, carries less sorrow than losing the ability to do something you did before. (I’m losing some of those things, and it’s really frustrating.)
Sometimes I think that I would deeply struggle if I had lived with a cognitive impairment. Then again, some of those people are living such joyous lives that I can’t say that for sure. Meanwhile, patronizing pity is obnoxious for all of us, but I don’t think fornication and swearing is quite the way I want to uphold the dignity of people with Down’s syndrome, for example. Let competent people make their own decisions, but it feels like a betrayal to make people as banal and wicked as the rest of us.
Anyway, I am going into the trivia night, and this stranger goes, “Hey, buddy…” If you know, you know. I wasn’t angry; I just felt a twinge of pity for him. One thing I knew and he didn’t was that he wasn’t gonna beat my team. Chutes and Ladders with 4-year-old girls is for leisurely fun. If it’s competitive, “I must break you.”
A new friend turned to me once we sat down and said, “Sorry he thought you were a resident of a L’Arche community.” I thanked him for his kindness, but I answered, “Well, I don’t think I am better than those who are.” My gifts are different, but they are just gifts. If we really believe that every good gift and person is made and blessed by God, we just take people as they are.
My friend Miriam has more direct experience with people who live in the community, and she told me one of the women there started flirting with her boyfriend, Phil. (Her husband now.) “I had to respect the game.” We laughed, and let’s cut the mess: “Inter-abled” relationships are tougher, I believe. But she wasn’t pitying that woman; she treated her like an equal. There’s a place for pity in struggle, between friends. But friendship doesn’t abide pride, as if their need is always greater than the gift they will give. Sometimes, it is. If Confirmation Sponsor Guy didn’t help me with personal care on our various trips and visits, we’re not having fun at all, and he’s probably failing me in charity. But we’re actually friends. I wouldn’t dare try to quantify the gifts I have given him, but they are real. I don’t think he’s driving 6 hours to celebrate his devotion to a living object lesson. In fact, I would fail him in charity, if I failed to share everything good in my experience and knowledge, especially as it pertains to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He’s my friend, but my brother, and once my teacher. It’s an obligation.
If I am blessed indeed, I will die in grace before all of you, including him. Imperfect me would probably be embarrassed by anything overly kind. The purification that awaits will not abide my false humility. And if there has been true friendship, the prayers and kind words will fit how we lived as friends here.
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