{"id":283,"date":"2010-06-30T13:49:32","date_gmt":"2010-06-30T13:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/06\/perfectly-human-broken-bodies-blessed-bodies-by-melissa-florer-bixler.html"},"modified":"2010-06-30T13:49:32","modified_gmt":"2010-06-30T13:49:32","slug":"perfectly-human-broken-bodies-blessed-bodies-by-melissa-florer-bixler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/06\/perfectly-human-broken-bodies-blessed-bodies-by-melissa-florer-bixler.html","title":{"rendered":"Perfectly Human**: Broken Bodies, Blessed Bodies by Melissa Florer-Bixler"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"big<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Melissa Florer-Bixler stays at home with her highly energetic toddler. She is a graduate of Gordon College and Duke University, and will attend Princeton Theological Seminary in the fall. The picture at left shows Joni and Robin, two core members of the L’Arche community where Melissa served. She blogs at <\/i>signonthewindow.wordpress.com<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Shortly after finishing my graduate studies at Duke
\nUniversity I moved into the L’Arche community<\/a> of Portland, Oregon. L’Arche
\nNehalem is part of a federation of communities committed to making a home for
\nthose with intellectual disabilities. I went to L’Arche on a hunch, thinking
\nthat somewhere in the midst of caring for the personal needs of women and men
\nwith intellectual disabilities I might find out a little bit more about Jesus. <\/p>\n

I learned a lot over the three and a half years that I was
\npartnered with the men and women of L’Arche. For one, I came to understand why
\nJesus made such a big deal about bodies. Growing up in a tradition that
\nconsiders internal, spiritual transformation paramount, I had to learn anew why
\nJesus spent so much of his short earthly ministry healing and feeding. I came
\nto love the stories where Jesus defied social barriers by touching the
\nuntouchables. <\/p>\n

Yet when I first came to L’Arche, bodies were the part of
\nour life that made me most nervous. On that long drive from Virginia I wondered
\nhow Jesus managed to love twisted limbs, pus-filled boils, and the scars of
\nself-mutilation. While I knew I could pray, walk to church and work with these
\npeople, I obsessed over my ability to clean genitalia or assist a woman through
\nher menstrual cycle.<\/p>\n

My teacher, in a very rigorous, daily lesson in theology of
\nthe body, was a core member named Joni. Joni is the “lowest functioning” member
\nof L’Arche Nehalem. She was born what we consider genetically normal, but
\ncontracted encephalitis as a young child. Unable to pay for hospital care,
\nJoni’s condition worsened and resulted in irreversible and life-altering brain
\ndamage. <\/p>\n

Joni was my gentle giant. Her body was proportioned to her
\nlaugh, an unrestrained howl that echoed through our small house. She loved to
\ncolor–long hard strokes of crayons layering book after book. Over time I grew
\nto enjoy the quiet of Joni’s nonverbal world. Spending time with her looking at
\npictures or listening to music in her room became my retreat in our noisy, busy
\nhome.<\/p>\n

But there were also times when I was afraid of Joni. I
\nremember how her huge body responded like a toddler’s: awkward, bumbling, out
\nof control.  <\/span>There was something
\nfrightening about the power of her unrestrained bulk. It took months of
\nlearning Joni’s nonverbal cues and homemade sign language to begin to
\nunderstand the way she made sense of her life. <\/p>\n

After a very long time I came to understand the complex gift
\nof Joni’s vulnerability. Joni was a constant reminder that there is no neutral
\ncorporeal form called “the body.” Bodies, particularly vulnerable bodies, are
\nsites for the exchange of power. Advocates for the intellectually disabled know
\nfull well that providing the daily care for the disabled has the potential for
\nhorrific abuse, almost always at the hands of caregivers. <\/p>\n

Equally, though, bodies like Joni’s show us that Jesus has
\nuprooted this power. In his death and resurrection is the possibility of
\nturning fragility back on itself. In L’Arche this means that we live in the
\nexpectation that those who assist our core members will begin to see their
\nbrokenness in the broken bodies of their friends.<\/p>\n

But Joni also reminds me that this is not a guarantee. We
\nsee the possibility for transformation but we also encounter the potential for
\nneglect and pain. While those like myself, the temporarily able-bodied, posses
\nthe will to forcefully avoid fragility, even to the point of ending our lives
\nif we so desire, Joni and her friends must cope with those who reject the
\nvulnerable body. In this way Joni and those like her are very much like the
\nLamb of God who commanded us to wash each other’s feet and then went willingly
\nto his death.<\/p>\n

It could be that this is what makes L’Arche such a special
\nministry and why so many people feel that the task of caring for the
\nintellectually disabled is something far beyond their capacity for patience and
\ncharity. It is not simply that we naturally desire to avoid the grotesque.
\nRather, in Joni we anticipate our own incapacity and our own coming fragility,
\nand we fear being placed in the hands of those like us. <\/p>\n

I often wonder how the debate around assisted suicide would
\nchange if those anticipating a painful and debilitating illness were to walk
\nbeside Joni for a year. Joni taught me the possibility of grace even when, and
\nperhaps most when, we lose control over that most intimate of places–our
\nbodies. She teaches us how to be gentle with those caretakers who are not
\nalways patient, thorough or thoughtful of our needs. Joni’s gift, the gift of
\nL’Arche and places like it, is that we are allowed to walk beside ourselves and
\nto experience grace over and over again.<\/p>\n

**For an explanation of the title “Perfectly Human,” and to read the first entry in this series, click here<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

To read all the entries in the series, type “Perfectly Human” into the search box in the upper right.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melissa Florer-Bixler stays at home with her highly energetic toddler. She is a graduate of Gordon College and Duke University, and will attend Princeton Theological Seminary in the fall. The picture at left shows Joni and Robin, two core members of the L’Arche community where Melissa served. 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Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}