Whatever He Says

Seventy years ago, on June 6, 1944, as part of the biggest seaborne invasion in history, the Canadian Army landed on  Juno Beach  in Normandy. This week, especially, we remember that day of costly heroism and bloody sacrifice; events of such bravery in the face of terror that would be unimaginable were it not for the film and photographic record. The world wide web and media are rich sources of the stories of eye witnesses. We will not forget. I watched a veteran remember that day in the documentary: Normandy--Surviving D-Day. His name was Hal Bombeck. Hal had the option of changing the name of his religion on his dog tags in case he fell into enemy hands; it would have given him a better chance of surviving. He didn't change the name of his religion; in fact, he drew a large, yellow Star of David on the back of his jacket; with "The Bronx, New York;" so they'd have no trouble identifying him. Hal is Jewish. Jews were a special target of hatred by the Nazis,...

Last week in the newsletter of one of Christian Horizons' s sister organizations;   L'Arche Daybreak ;  I read of the murder of Dutch Jesuit priest, Frans van der Lugt; co-founder of L'arche Al-Safina; south west of the Old City of Homs, Syria. The 75 year old priest was shot dead on April 7.  He was a man of gentleness and peace who had lived in Syria for 50 years and was the last European remaining in the old city of Homs, which has been under siege for some time. He was given a 50 acre parcel of land about 10 years ago, on which he grew vegetables and had a vineyard. He loved animals, grew wildflowers and refused to use pesticides. There he founded the Al-Ard institute, where handicapped children of all religions found a place.  Every morning, he used to make a circuit of the nearby villages in his old VW van, collecting young people with disabilities from their families and bringing them to the farm where he had created a space where they could work to...

It's so important to remember people--to make sure that their stories live on. I wrote this story in January 2009, to honour someone supported by Christian Horizons. The story exemplifies our Vision Statement because Ralph's God-given gifts, his life, and his response to adversity were simply inspirational. People with exceptional need s  belong to communities in which their God-given gifts are valued and respected. This morning dawned cold in Ontario. As I got ready for the day, I listened to CBC radio. On the morning show they were reading emails from listeners who described the weather conditions in their part of the province. It had been a crystal clear winter's night with a full moon. Apparently the moon was as close to the earth as it ever gets. A listener described an early morning walk in the woods, with the moon descending in the west. She said that the woods were floodlit electric blue. What beauty that description conjured up. On an end table I notice...

In 2006, our daughter Brenda used to volunteer at Maple Lanes Kennel, near Alliston. It was from that kennel that Molson,  the most gentle of Golden Retrievers,  came into our lives. He trained as a therapy dog himself and is father of three  COPE  service dogs. Now my friend and coworker Irene, is awaiting the imminent birth of a litter of his pups being carried by a dog named Lyric, and she'll be choosing one of them to share her life. Today here's the story of one very special dog from Sherri's kennel and then a link and video about COPE. Back in 2006, Brenda recorded the details related to various litters of puppies on the computer--where the puppies went, to whom and for what purpose. The pure-bred dogs go all over the continent, some as far away as Yellowknife, Alaska, and some are trained for such unusual jobs as detecting bed bugs or termites! One dog's name struck her as unusual; her registered name was "Maple Lanes--You'll Have to Tri Harder"...

There was a 9 year chunk of time, over thirty years ago, when our family lived with a group of people with developmental disabilities. That period formed my view of people with disabilities as people just like me, with the same human longings and weaknesses;  the same capacity for goodness or "Grinchiness;" greed or generosity; and any other virtue or vice.  Since then, I've worked in a system where staff support people in group homes, or their own apartments. The   Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms  guarantees the equal rights and freedoms of people with disabilities, but  I've often struggled with the knowledge that they and people without disabilities in the community experience very different realities in day to day life.   But change is happening as our agency and everyone in it, work towards our Vision Statement: People with exceptional needs belong to communities in which their God-given gifts are valued and respected. One important so...

It was a warm July day in 1989 and on the lawns of a  large, white clapboard farmhouse between Newmarket and Aurora; a Christian Horizons home for people with disabilities; a group of staff from Brampton, Richmond Hill and Stouffville had gathered. The tall trees that dotted the two acres on which the house stood, dappled  the circle of chairs on the grass with a reflection of the leaves dancing in the breeze overhead. We could hardly believe who stood before us as the speaker at our staff day apart--the Dutch born theologian, author and priest, Father Henri Nouwen . For the past three years, Henri had lived at L'Arche Daybreak, in nearby Richmond Hill, as an assistant to a young man named Adam, and through one of our staff, Henny, who also worked at Daybreak, he  agreed to speak to us. I was in awe at meeting the man whose books had impacted me so greatly. How could we prepare for such an honoured guest? But Henny said that the most appreciated thank you for his ...

I thought I should explain that I'm filling in at the start of each week for a couple of months for my boss,  Dwayne Milley , who writes Monday Morning emails to our work team; usually on the themes of leadership or belonging.  So my first post of each week lately has centred on these themes. Meanwhile, Dwayne is doing  something much more exciting than work. You can read about his journey in parenthood and adoption on his blog:  Everyone Plays . Last week I mentioned our agency's vision statement that has to do with belonging. I was thinking about "belonging" as Paul and I chatted over breakfast on Saturday. We spoke about a friend who lived in an institution--a place he felt he didn't belong--for 25 years.  I've known this friend since 1974, when Paul and I moved in with our two pre-school children to be house parents at the home in the community that this man had moved to one year earlier.  He was just 41 when I first met him.  With a...

Note from Belinda The sadness at leaving Rob on our last day here is softened by excitement at another event that I am so thrilled to point readers to.  My dear friend Dave , known to many readers here through his frequent comments and occasional guest posts, invited me to write an article with him for the August edition of a newsletter for direct care professionals: Service, Support and Success.   The article is titled: Faith, Freedom and Fealty: Supporting People with Disabilities to Live Freely.   Please see Dave's post:  August Newsletter is Out  for details on how to order a copy and subscribe to the newsletter, which comes out monthly. Just  If you work supporting people, or know anyone who does, you will find the newsletter  excellent reading. Working on this article with Dave was a highlight of my writing life so far, although rather than being the lead writer as Dave  generously says on his blog, I had the supporting role! I...

By Belinda During the almost ten years of our lives in which we lived together with a large (by the standards of what would be thought acceptable today) group of people with developmental disabilities; their personalities, quirks, strengths, foibles and sheer uniqueness, affected my life forever. I remember each one with deep affection and respect, for each one, by virtue of the fact that they came to us having been institutionalized, had lived with emotional pain, degradation, humiliation, lack of privacy and freedom. Abe died in the nineties, some ten years after the ten years we lived together, but our lives had continued together until then, and he is one of my life teachers.  He was a Jew, a short, intense and wiry man, with a sallow skin and piercing brown eyes that were usually serious in expression. He was prone to conversations with himself and long walks during which he could be spotted rubbing the palms of his hands together in excitement over some private thought....

By Belinda It was just over a week since the last meeting of the Anger Management-Peace Like a River Group . The  stormy weather  upstairs, that led to the founding of the group seemed much more settled.  One of the group members asked yesterday morning, when were we going to meet again, and if the book  (recommended by our friend Dave)  had arrived yet. I said it hadn't, but I was sure it would be here soon and we'd meet then.  But as I moved something in the piles around my desk yesterday; as if it were meant to be; from somewhere they had been hiding unseen for several months, and so long that I had forgotten them, I found pages from a training, that happened to be about extreme behaviour.  The pages were an Anger Diary and Inventory--perfect tools to spark a discussion at more than one session.  So this morning as soon as I arrived at work, I went upstairs, knocked on the door, interrupting a fine breakfast of French toast; with an inv...

By Belinda We are back from our leadership conference, brimming over with good stuff learned. But tired from three long days in a row,  I went looking for previous Remembrance Day posts and found this one, posted in 2007.  I have edited and updated information but am sharing it again to keep a memory alive. In no way do I wish to detract from the true purpose of Remembrance Day. I am a soldier's daughter and understand the respect due to those who fought on the battlefields of the wars of the last 100 years, but there are those who have fought wars of their own in peacetime; in battlefields constructed of walls and locked doors--and survived against the odds. They are heroes of a different kind of war, but heroes nonetheless. This is a remembrance of one of them: Not knowing its significance to me, she gave it almost as an aside during a meeting at my office. "Miah asked me to give this to you," she said, placing it in my hands. I gasped in recognition of somet...

 By Belinda I went to a memorial gathering today. Someone said to me, "This is the best funeral I've been to," and how wonderful it was, that, "the clients," were "calling the shots." It was a funny way to put it, but, "The clients calling the shots;" wouldn't be a bad philosophical stance for an agency doing some things right. And if life for people with disabilities turned out like our friend's memorial service, it wouldn't be a bad life at all, for it was wonderful. They planned her memorial with her favourite colours, her favourite food (cheezies, butter tarts, chips and pop. Oh, and a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting showed up from somewhere, too,) and her favourite songs were sung, ending with, "You are my Sunshine." I hope that when my time comes to be remembered,  people have fun the way we did today, (but I have a sneaking suspicion it won't be half as much fun,) and I hope as many people she...

By Belinda At the last minute, my hairdresser, Jamie, squeezed me in for a much needed haircut today. The value of a good hairdresser cannot be emphasized enough. Jamie is a treasure. She does the impossible with my hair and her touch has transformed it from fine, mousey,  impossible to manage, to an actual asset! That is no small feat. Add to that the fact that she is funny, interesting, honest and sweet and you will understand why I am looking forward to sitting in her chair today. But this post was not meant to be about me. Tomorrow, my dear friend Dave Hingsburger, is holding a disability blog carnival over at his blog, Rolling Around in My Head. I submitted a couple of posts from Whatever He Says, as options for inclusion. I hope you check the carnival out tomorrow, Yesterday though, he wrote about a hairdresser. And here is a link to that post, which I loved. If you know the value of a good hairdresser, you too, will enjoy and understand why they truly are: ...

By Belinda Sally, Sue, Jackie, Sam, Tracey, Stephanie, Cheryl, Lisa, Pat, Lorraine, Kerry, Jodie; I get to know them all, as three times a day, in pairs, they let themselves in through the front door of Mum's flat, with the key kept in the key safe outside. When Mum first needed more help than we could give, it was hard to get accustomed to having our privacy invaded, and on such a regularly daily schedule. How reassuring it is now, though, to see the good care she receives; overseen by Rob's watchful eye. "You all right Pieter?" says Sam. She sits beside Mum and opens the TV guide. "What day is it today?" she says, and then begins to read out the programs. "You like "Dickinson's Real Deal" don't you Pieter?" and Mum nods, their heads together, absorbed for the moment in planning the day's viewing. To hear the easy conversation, knowing that these women share more of Mum's life than I do now, makes me happy. ...

I thank God for the delightful rest at cell group this week; a study book taken to work to read at lunchtime, but forgotten at the office by one too weary to go back for it. It hadn't been read at lunchtime anyway. And I thank God too, for the conversation that took place instead, around a dinner table. A conversation as important--maybe more so--than the study that we didn't have. She had knocked on my office door earlier that evening. I was under pressure to complete certain tasks before I left to go home; tired and stressed. As she opened the door, she said, "I made peanut butter cookies for cell group tonight." "That's so nice, but I'm really busy, I can't chat now," I know that my voice was terse, my mind a million miles away from peanut butter cookies. She was quick to apologize and vanished quietly, leaving me to my computer screen and piles of budget pages. Half an hour later I knew that I had to leave if I was going to have the casserole...

This morning dawned cold in Ontario. As I got ready for the day, I listened to CBC radio. On the morning show they were reading emails from listeners who described the weather conditions in their part of the province. It had been a crystal clear winter's night with a full moon. Apparently the moon was as close to the earth as it ever gets. A listener described an early morning walk in the woods, with the moon descending in the west. She said that the woods were floodlit electric blue. What beauty that description conjured up. On an end table I noticed a folded bulletin from a funeral I had attended the previous Monday. I kept it because I wanted to write about Ralph, who died on New Year's Eve at the age of almost 83. Ralph's funeral was attended by family and a collection of friends from a cross section of society in Barrie. The funeral service was led by his friend of 32 years, Pastor John Howard, and in the congregation was more than one lawyer, as well as staff...

Tonight was the perfect antidote to all that can disappoint and burden at this time of the year. It was the essence of Christmas, distilled into one magical evening. In spite of dire weather warnings, some eighty of the people with disabilities supported by Christian Horizons, and their staff, braved the snow and came from a radius of 60 kilometers for our annual Christmas party. It was not flashy or sophisticated in any way; it was old fashioned, simple, abandoned and unpretentious fun. There was a contest for the best Christmas craft, and for weeks people worked together in groups, or individually, letting creativity run rampant. There were entries as diverse as a small orange pig to a large and a beautifully decorated large wreath with lights. Every entry won the same prize, a lovely silvery Christmas ornament and was celebrated and applauded for its unique claim to fame. People brought their instruments and singing voices. They sang and played and were cheered and clapped. A micro...