May you feel the peace that surrounds you always! July is Disability Pride Month, which is a time for the disability community to celebrate who we are in whatever way feels right to each individual! I’m so thankful to celebrate, and take pride in, all of the things that having cerebral palsy enables me to do, be and understand 🥰(smiling emoji with three hearts)! Some may find it odd to thank and celebrate a disability, but the Divine shines through my disability identity just as much as it shines through my other identities.
On to this week’s post… This post is about the spiritual practice of Grace.
My love of camp began at Camp Cheerful, which is a sleep away camp for kids with disabilities. I began going to Camp Cheerful when I was 7 years old and loved it. Everything from singing around campfires, to eating s’mores, to swimming in the pool, to having food fights, to making new friends who understood what it meant to have a disability was pure bliss!
When I was 8 years old, I arrived at Camp Cheerful ready for camp heaven. On the first day, I met a camper named Lisa who was the same age as me and Deaf. We became instant friends. Since we were in different cabins, Lisa and I saw each other only at camp-wide activities for the first day and a half of camp. However, we always found a way to talk to each other during these activities.
We developed our own method of communication. Lisa communicated primarily via American Sign Language(ASL). I knew some ASL so I could understand most of what she told me. When it was my turn to talk, I would sign back to her because I couldn’t write down what I wanted to say due to the effects of cerebral palsy on my hands.
Since signing was easier than writing but still challenging, I did my best to get my hands to make the signs I wanted. Once Lisa could tell what I wanted to say, she’d start signing for me and I’d nod my head yes or no to tell her if she got it right. It was a slow way to communicate, but it worked.
When Lisa or I had something we had to tell each other right away, we’d find a counselor who was fluent in ASL and ask the counselor to interpret for us. However, most of the time, we wanted to have private conversations, which meant no counselors. No matter what, though, we always found a way to talk and giggle.
By the end of the third day of camp, Lisa and I were two peas in a pod. Since Lisa could get ready quicker than I could each morning, Lisa would get herself ready and then come to my cabin to wait for me to finish getting ready so we could go to breakfast together. On our way to breakfast, Lisa would push me in my wheelchair and I’d point to cool things along the way.
Between camp activities, we hung out in each other’s cabin but we’d often forget tell our counselors where we were. So, there MAY have been a few times when one of us had a counselor frantically searching the campgrounds for us, only to find that we were at the other one’s cabin. Oops!
When I woke up from a nap on the fourth day of camp, one of my counselors said, “Allison, we have a surprise for you!”
I got up from bed, went into the lobby area of my cabin and saw a typewriter with a huge stack of blank paper next to it.
“We thought you and Lisa could use the typewriter to communicate with each other,” my counselor said.
That afternoon, when our camp activity was done, Lisa pushed my chair at top speed to my cabin. We put paper in the typewriter, turned on the typewriter and went into our own world. We typed and typed and typed. Based on how much we typed, you would have thought that we were long lost friends who hadn’t seen each other in decades. Nope. We were two little girls who could finally communicate easily!
After a hour of typing nonstop, it was time for dinner but neither of us wanted to stop talking. We tried our best to convince our counselors that we had eaten a huge lunch so we didn’t need to eat dinner. In all of their wisdom, our counselors understood what Lisa and I really wanted. Our counselors said if we went to dinner, we could skip the evening activity so we could talk to each other. Lisa and I eagerly agreed.
From that day on, whenever there wasn’t a scheduled activity, Lisa and I were on that typewriter, sharing our lives with each other, telling each other jokes and enjoying the beauty of being able to fully communicate with a soul sister!
Receiving a typewriter so that Lisa and I could communicate easily was a demonstration of God’s grace. Lisa and I were open to doing whatever necessary for us to communicate. However, our first method of communication didn’t enable us to share all of the joy and fun that we wanted to share with each other. Then, grace appeared in the form of our counselors providing a typewriter that allowed Lisa and I to share all of the love and joy we wanted.
Grace is the energy that orchestrates everything necessary for us to experience the love, bliss and abundance that are our birthright. God bestows grace upon each of us. Since God loves us more than we could ever comprehend, grace is more plentiful than the air we breathe! Oh, how wonderful it is to be loved so deeply by the energy that created all!
Love, blessings and purple,
Allison
Try incorporating this exercise into your week. If you need modifications to the practice, scroll down to the section titled Access Notes.
Receiving Grace
Since grace is a gift from God, this week’s practice is to relax and receive the grace that is being bestowed on you everyday.
Relax for 5 minutes each day this week (or as often as you can). That is, do nothing related to being “productive” or related to your to-do list. You can choose how you do this. A few examples are: staying in the shower or bathtub an extra 5 minutes and daydreaming, looking out the window, or sitting somewhere and breathing.
The following modifications are intended to create equal access to the spiritual practice above. These modifications are somewhat general to be as useful as possible to as many people as possible. Please feel free to further tweak the exercise as needed so that you can participate as fully as possible while honoring your body’s needs.
For those who have ADHD or those who’s minds become more active when you sit quietly, try the following mindfulness exercises to quiet your mind.
1. Color in an adult coloring book
2. Go for a walk and pay attention to the sensations of your body during your walk.
3. Focus your attention on each movement you make while washing dishes, folding laundry, or doing any other solitary activity.
