This I Believe is a weekly feature on National Public Radio. The series features the beliefs of an incredibly diverse set of people with an amazing diversity  of life experiences. I look forward to new episodes of the podcast each week as they magically appear on my I-pod.

I first read about this week’s installment of the series here. After reading about Dr. Rosenstein’s essay I was so excited to listen for myself.

On the bus, on my way to work this morning, I listened to Adapting to the Possibilities of Life as shared by Dr. Donald Rosenstein. I commend the episode to you. It is Dr. Rosenstein’s essay about how his 16 year old son with Autism has taught he and the rest of his family about the power and promise of adaptation.

Listening to Dr. Rosenstein’s essay reminds me again about the power of stories to educate and speak truth. The Interfaith Disability Connection has completed hundreds of disability awareness trainings in the last 8 years. When I began leading these training I thought that if I just imparted information to people they could and would do the right thing with the information.

I have come to understand that I had the incorrect approach. Education for change is not about the quality of the information shared. Changing perceptions is at the end of the day about connecting people to a couple of basic, universal stories.

First if we are to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities we must connect hearers with a story from their own life about a time when they were left out or made to feel different. Everyone knows this story  and has a memory of what it felt/feels like to experience exclusion.

Second, we must tell stories of efforts that every day people have undertaken to be catalysts for welcoming the stranger  in the community. This  story must tell about both what happened and what difference the actions make for people with disabilities and their able-bodied peers.

If we can help communities to connect with and tell those fundamental stories we can help them recall the power of a congregation/community that includes us all.

Dr. Rothsein’s story, for me ,is about the movement that people make from being isolated from one another  to becoming a part of a circle of love, care, trust and support. I am grateful for stories like this one. I am grateful for story-tellers and story-hearers. It is a movement from brokenness to community. This is sacred work, this story telling and story hearing, this echange.

I believe that in the exchange we begin the action of Tikkun Olam . Thanks Be to G-d.

Do you have a story to tell? Do you have a venue for the telling? Does your congregation/community have places for this story-telling and story-hearing to take place? If so, where and if not, could such an opportunity be created?

Dr. Nancy Eiesland is back at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology with some important truth to tell. Eiesland has been on an extended medical leave and this article from the Emory Report is an important window into her approach to living with chronic pain.

I would be interested to know thoughts and reactions to article.

I read this insightful post from Real Live Preacher this morning and it made me think about the ways our congregations do and do not address the issues that face people with mental health diagnoses.

Real LivePreacher has been very open about his journey with depression and his struggle in seeking treatment. I applaud his willingness to speak the truth of his experience and to hopefully provide an opportunity for his readers to “hear” the story of a person who is living his life in the midst of depression. The stories matter!

According to the National Institutes on Mental Health (NIMH) about 1 in 4 people over the age of 18 experience a mental illness in any given year. That’s a huge number.

It is incredibly important for our religious communities to be places where the silence around mental illness and disability is lifted and the truth is told.

Nancy Maris in her essay Carnal Acts makes this point much better than I could ever hope to when she says,

I can subvert its power(the power of shame), I’ve found, by acknowledging who I am, shame and all, and, in doing so, raising what was hidden, dark, secret about my life into the plain light of shared human experience. What we aren’t permitted to utter holds us, each isolated from every other in a kind of solipsistic thrall. Without any way to check our reality against anyone else’s, we assume that our fears and shortcomings are ours alone.

If you are a person in a congregation living with the secret of depression you are most certainly not alone.

There is a trend in some of our denominations to address the issues faced by people living with mental illnesses. Some examples of those efforts can be found:

Union of Reform Judaism- Department of Jewish Family Concerns

Mental Health Ministries

Creating Caring Communities Article- United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism

The Caring Congregation Program- Mission Peak UU Congregation- Freemont, CA

I would be interested to know about other resources readers have found as they sought to be educated around this too oft ignored set of issues?

I hope that these resources assist us in continuing to lift this important issue out of the darkness of ignorance and into the light of communal compassion. And let it be so.

Sunday afternoon was spent at a Ta’lim Service at The Atlanta Masjid of AL-Islam. I had the pleasure of working with two wonderful women with disabilities to plan a workshop that turned out to be an amazing experience for me. I can only hope that the workshop was as helpful for the participants.

We began the workshop with a prayer shared by the Imam and by reading three selections from the Quran. The readings were done in Arabic and English and the Arabic was read by an amazing artist with a disability. Each reading was followed by an interpretation by another Musim woman with a disability.

The readings were followed by a recap of the work that the Masjid had already done to welcome people with disabilities. The report was shared by the Imam and one of the members of the Masjid’s hospitality committee. The report included both reflection about the removal of physical barriers and the cultivation of a spirit accessibility and hospitality.

The workshop then transitioned into a panel of 5 Muslims with disabilities. The topic of the panel was really a focus on the gifts that each of the panelists has been given to share with the community. It was wonderful.

One of the panelists thanked the community at the Atlanta Masjid for helping her continue to find places to connect to the community after she was a victim of a drive-by shooting and experienced a spinal chord injury.

Participants then formed small groups and were led by Muslims with disabilities in brainstorming solutions for continuing the journey toward full-access and inclusion in the Masjid.

The sharing, listening and learning that took place in this part of the workshop was wonderful. Participants did the wonderful work of coming up with shared solutions that were achievable.

I have been engaged in the work for access and inclusion of people with disabilities in their congregations for almost seven years and I want to celebrate congregations like the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam for joining in this life giving work! We are building a community justly balanced! Thanks be to G-d.

I left the workshop with HOPE! Our community has models for continuing this work! Our community has Imams, Rabbis, Pastors and Priests who understand that people with disabilities have GIFTS TO SHARE that every community needs. Our community has volunteers WITH and WITHOUT disabilities who have stories to share about the difference this community building work makes for all of us!

I must first say that I am not Jewish, but as a person who identifies as a Christian with a disability I find resonance and hope in the story of the Passover. Because the Jewish community is in the midst of the observance of Pesach I wanted to comment about the significance the holiday holds for me.

The story of passover has always had a resonance with me as a person who lives with a disability. The are ways people with disabilities are made disabled by the barriers communities erect. Some of these barriers include buildings without ramps and systems that do not prepare for the presence and participation of people with disabilities.

Some of the barriers to freedom also include the ways I erect barriers for myself that keep me from realizing the fullness of who G-d has called me to be.

In the light of this, I need to read and hear stories about a G-d who partners with people to overcome the ways we inslave ourselves and others. The G-d of the Passover is a G-d who hears and responds to the cries of G-d’s people.
The G-d of the passover is with us as we work to build communities where everyone persons with and without disabilities have opportunities to be who they are without the barriers of shame, inaccessibility, ignorance, fear, and isolation.

At Passover and everyday may we partner with G-d to be agents of liberation, hope, and possibility in a in communities where hoplessness too often rules the lives of too many.

What are the stories in your life that speak of the the journey you are making toward freedom.

Another helpful question may be to ask are there ways in which my actions and/or inactions are keeping others from freedom/liberation?

Here is another helpful reflection on Pesach titled: Passover: Why Redemptive Things Happen to Good People.

One of the questions from the article that I find interesting is:

Is freedom escape from pain or is it embracing our challenges and using them as a catapult for inner growth?

I would be interested to know how other people with disabilities experience the G-d of Pesach and what freedom looks like in the live of people with disabilities.

PatriciaEBauer.com carried an interesting report of the use of  person-first language (and not) by media outlets when discussing Pope Benedict’s time with people with disabilities. The full text of the remarks can be accessed here.

Any thoughts Pope Benedict’s remarks or the media’s coverage of the time spent with people with disabilities?

Today, April 2, 2008 is World Autism Awareness Day. In the spirit of the observance I would like to offer you the following facts from the World Autism Awareness Day Web site:

Did you knowâ?¦

• Autism affects as many as 1 in 150 children and 1 in 94 boys
• Autism is the fastest-growing serious developmental disability in the world
• More children will be diagnosed with autism this year than with diabetes, cancer, & AIDS combined
• Boys are four times more likely than girls to have autism
• There is no medical detection or cure for autism, but early diagnosis and intervention improve outcomes
• Autism does not discriminate by geography, class, or ethnicity

You can do something today to learn and share with your congregation and community about Autism. Look here for information about events in your area and look here for opportunities to learn more about Autism.

I will be attending an event at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta this evening. If you happen to be in the Atlanta area you should consider attending

The Atlanta Journal Constitution published an outstanding  article about  Jerry’s Habima Theater and the theater’s recent production of Footloose. The Atlanta-based theater gives actors with disabilities opportunities to  work hard and build self-esteem. Habima Theater also gives theater goers opportunities to receive the gifts of actors who have disabilities.

Check out the article and should you have an opportunity check out the work of this wonderful theater group