December 17

“Growing up disabled, growing up queer, the stakes were stark. It was either kindle tenacious love for myself or swallow the world’s projections whole. And, so, I chose. I taught myself to trace the lines on the palms of my own hands, a contour of the sacred. I found and felt and claimed the holiness of my own bones. I said yes to my own heart, to my own soul. I had the brilliant audacity to call it good and know it whole.” – Julia Watts Belser, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole

Mary’s song affirms the truth we know in our bones: we are blessed. The people whom society’s curses with systemic injustice and oppression are blessed by the sacred.  No law, act of discrimination, injustice or terror can erase our sacred, blessed wholeness. Jewish disability justice scholar and rabbi, Julia Watts Belser remembers what it was like growing up with cerebral palsy. Instead of believing the lie that something was wrong with her body, she discovered her disabled body’s holiness. Whenever we receive messages that our bodies don’t align with the idealized images of an ableist and patriarchal society, the Spirit whispers, “you are blessed.”

Prayer

Inhale: There is holiness in these bones.

Exhale: Generations will call me blessed.

Artwork: “Everyone Has the Right to Live with Dignity” by Kim Dinh.
Used with permission CC BY-NC-ND
Find more at Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative