{"id":333,"date":"2010-08-13T08:48:33","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T08:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/five-favorite-books-related-to-disability.html"},"modified":"2010-08-13T08:48:33","modified_gmt":"2010-08-13T08:48:33","slug":"five-favorite-books-related-to-disability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/five-favorite-books-related-to-disability.html","title":{"rendered":"Five Favorite Books Related to Disability"},"content":{"rendered":"


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

Expecting Adam<\/a>, by Martha Beck. Sure, Martha Beck is on the
\nkooky end of the spirituality spectrum, but she’s a fantastic writer, and this
\nmemoir of her accidental pregnancy in which her baby was diagnosed in utero with
\nDown syndrome, never fails to move me. It’s a story of letting go and receiving
\nthe gift of life.<\/p>\n

The Road to Daybreak<\/a>, by Henri Nouwen. This book contains
\nNouwen’s journal of his first year at a L’Arche community in which he is
\nresponsible for building a relationship with a young man named Adam. Nouwen,
\nfresh from academia and the Ivory Tower, learns about God, himself, and what it
\nmeans to follow Jesus through Adam’s gentle and vulnerable spirit. (I’d also
\nrecommend Adam<\/a>, Nouwen’s reflection on his time with Adam.)<\/p>\n

Life As We Know It<\/a>, by Michael Berube. Another memoir about
\na family receiving a son with Down syndrome. It’s a bit heady (he’s a
\nprofessor, and he does spend a chapter talking about Foucault), but I read it
\nyears ago and still return to some of his images and questions and
\nencouragements. <\/p>\n

The Power of the Powerless<\/a>, by Christopher De Vinck. This
\nmemoir is written by the brother of a young man who never talked or walked, who
\nwas once compared to a “vegetable.” De Vinck responded by saying, “Well, I
\nsuppose you could call him a vegetable. We called him Oliver.” He writes of the
\nways in which his brother Oliver ministered through his presence to their
\nentire household, and De Vinck includes other stories of families with similar
\nexperiences.<\/p>\n

Compassion as a Subversive Activity<\/a>, by David K. Urion.
\nUrion, a medical doctor in Boston, writes of his experiences as a physician
\ncaring for very ill children in relation to Mark’s stories of Jesus’ miraculous
\nhealings in the Gospel of Mark.<\/p>\n

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

Expecting Adam, by Martha Beck. Sure, Martha Beck is on the kooky end of the spirituality spectrum, but she’s a fantastic writer, and this memoir of her accidental pregnancy in which her baby was diagnosed in utero with Down syndrome, never fails to move me. It’s a story of letting go and receiving the gift…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-disability","category-what-im-reading"],"yoast_head":"\nFive Favorite Books Related to Disability - Thin Places<\/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\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/five-favorite-books-related-to-disability.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five Favorite Books Related to Disability - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Expecting Adam, by Martha Beck. Sure, Martha Beck is on the kooky end of the spirituality spectrum, but she’s a fantastic writer, and this memoir of her accidental pregnancy in which her baby was diagnosed in utero with Down syndrome, never fails to move me. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). 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\/333","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=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}