{"id":583,"date":"2011-05-28T05:19:23","date_gmt":"2011-05-28T09:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/simplelife\/?p=583"},"modified":"2011-05-25T07:13:45","modified_gmt":"2011-05-25T11:13:45","slug":"making-dried-plums-out-of-prunes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/05\/making-dried-plums-out-of-prunes.html","title":{"rendered":"Making dried plums out of prunes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My best friend died from late-term vascular dementia.\u00a0 My mother\u2019s dementia finally took her life.\u00a0 I watched dementia steal the IQ of my brilliant husband.\u00a0 His ability to reason\u00a0slowly slipped from him as he worked feverously on an invention that he believed would change the world.<\/p>\n

Because I had more than a passing interest in the disease, I began studying the many aspects of the disease.\u00a0 The latest\u00a0research\u00a0includes an interesting fact.\u00a0 There is a dried fruit that almost\u00a0guarantees that you will never suffer from dementia.\u00a0 It is\u00a0a\u00a0\u00a0nearly-perfect food for your heart and brain.\u00a0 That fruit\u00a0is prunes.\u00a0 Yep, the lowly substance that your mother forced you to eat when you were too grumpy because of constipation could be God\u2019s best protection against heart attacks and devastating brain drains.<\/p>\n

It is\u00a0my suspension that \u00a0armed with this evidence, marketers have rebranded the lowly prune to become dried plums. They\u00a0have even wrapped the dried plums in individual packets so that you don\u2019t have to grab a clump of the sticky stuff from a box.<\/p>\n

In like manner, people within the mentally challenged community are undergoing a rebranding.\u00a0 As the \u201cR\u201d word has become a popular, degrading slur, there has been a surge in the effort to rename our population. It is a valiant attempt to somehow dissolve the stigma that is attached to this disability.\u00a0 Several months ago, the federal government was charged with the task of finding every time \u201cmental retardation\u201d was used in government papers.\u00a0 These words\u00a0were to be replaced with \u201cintellectual disability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working with people who are mentally challenged, we find most of our members have an additional disability.\u00a0 The majority of our population\u00a0is not emotionally disabled; but most of our population has\u00a0some physical abnormality.\u00a0 However, once branded with an\u00a0intellectual disability, it becomes a stigma that must be carried for the rest of your life.\u00a0 Yet, this population comprises some of the most giving and loving people on earth.\u00a0 Yes, they are people who have an Adamic nature along with all humankind.\u00a0 They need salvation and discipleship.\u00a0 But as a whole, they desire to please; and they want to do what is right.<\/p>\n

While prunes\u00a0are\u00a0the super-food full of goodness and nutrition, they are of\u00a0no\u00a0benefit if people will not eat them. \u00a0\"\"<\/a>It may be possible that with great marketing and new branding, people will begin to help themselves by eating this head and heart healthy food. \u00a0Additionally, perhaps changing the tag of our members to intellectual disability will facilitate the rebranding\u00a0that is needed to allow people to look beyond their inabilities to discover who they are.\u00a0 Rehabilitating\u00a0their image\u00a0may work for our population.\u00a0 I pray this will happen.<\/p>\n

Have you found yourself branded with a stigma that you cannot seem to break? \u00a0What have you done to try to overcome this tag?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My best friend died from late-term vascular dementia.\u00a0 My mother\u2019s dementia finally took her life.\u00a0 I watched dementia steal the IQ of my brilliant husband.\u00a0 His ability to reason\u00a0slowly slipped from him as he worked feverously on an invention that he believed would change the world. Because I had more than a passing interest in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":387,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,20,3,40,10,16,11,103,28,12],"tags":[690,21,688,696,7,699,701,691,694,706,689,692,6],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-church","category-developmental-disabilities","category-faith","category-inspirational","category-intellectual-disability","category-intellectually-disabled","category-mental-health-month","category-mentally-challenged","category-religion","tag-autism-spectrum","tag-christian","tag-christianity","tag-church","tag-developmental-disabilities-2","tag-faith","tag-inspiration","tag-inspirational","tag-intellectual-disability","tag-mental-health-month","tag-mentally-challenged-community","tag-religion","tag-simple-scriptural-truths"],"yoast_head":"\nMaking dried plums out of prunes - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2011\/05\/making-dried-plums-out-of-prunes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Making dried plums out of prunes - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My best friend died from late-term vascular dementia.\u00a0 My mother\u2019s dementia finally took her life.\u00a0 I watched dementia steal the IQ of my brilliant husband.\u00a0 His ability to reason\u00a0slowly slipped from him as he worked feverously on an invention that he believed would change the world. 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