Stanley was recently on NPR talking about the "handicapped". Virtually everything he says can also be applied to the homeless.
http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/sot0127bc09.mp3/view
I'd be interested to hear what anyone thinks the similarities and differences are between the homeless and the handicapped.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Hauerwas on the Handicapped...and the Homeless
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8 comments:
With regard to this interview, Jean Vanier, and Adam's post below, I'd like to know what Stanley has to say about the "mentally handicapped" who are not institutionalized... I mean, let's talk about the question of meds and institutionalization in the first place. I (we) seem to know a few functional schizophrenics (and some dysfunctional). But at what point does it become "necessary" to medicate or institutionalize in cases of non-standard psychosocial behavior. Does it ever?
I'll have to go ask Stanley.
One of these days I'm going to keep track of how many times Stanley says the phrase "is exactly because". My guess would be at least about half-a-dozen times per half hour lecture/interview. Man, I love that guy!
More seriously, though, I wonder how far we could get by way of Thomas and the notion of happiness. There might be some useful ways of thinking (teleologically) about madness in relation to happiness insofar as the latter names a certain type of participation in the g/Good. And I would imagine there's also a "natural theology" component, or at least a theology of creation, that has to do with meds and their use, as well. Hmmm...
Hmmm... the relationship between handicapped and homeless. Interesting. Depends greatly upon one's context and view point.
View point 1. I'm standing looking at the sea of humanity and viewing it thru the lens of Matthew 25. Helping and ministering to both groups is undeniably the work of Jesus who loves the marginalized. So in this regard, both groups have great similarity.
View point 2. Now I'm standing "in the place of Jesus." Without trying to sound heretical, what I'm saying is approaching the world from a redemption/reconciliation/restoration mission. In this view, the two groups seem quite different. For the handicapped are to be healed (the blind see, the deaf hear, the mute speak, the lame walk, etc.) and so redeemed/restored. The homeless, however, are, well, just like the Master. He too had no place to lay His head. He didn't come that they might have big suburban homes to live in. So what redeeming/reconciling/restoring looks like among the homeless seems, well, different than among the handicapped.
View point 3. Now I stand in front of a mirror. In arrogance I assume that I am not homeless and not handicapped and thus so able to dictate who is and is not. This view point makes me tremble and I'm not altogether certain what to do with it, so I run to my Messiah's arms.
Thoughts? Have these viewpoints contributed at all?
REV
Rev, I think my concern is mostly with how we label the "mentally handicapped" and what we do with them once they've been labeled.
For example: We have posted at various times things that Crete has said. He has become a good friend to us and regularly stops by our houses to check on us, eat dinner, and just hang out. He has been involuntarily committed at least once before we met him, and that resulted in an experience that was weird enough that we can separate truth from Concrete's idiomatic expressions. Suffice it to say that he will not see doctors since that event. Now, Crete is a very functional guy. He's not normal, and he bears obvious markers for some sort mental abnormality. But he's also a meticulous housekeeper (when he lives indoors), shares everything he ever lays a hand on, and is more considerate in every way than most anyone I have ever met. He does not hurt himself, unless you include alcohol (which is likely used as a medication for other ailments that he won't see a doctor about ostensibly because of what "sane" people did to him last time) and cigarettes. I'm not sure we can be so narrow as to include smoking cigarettes as a sin. It's a fairly uniquely American bit of piety to see my providing Crete with cigarettes to be a sin because its harmful to his body. And churchly people will get up in arms about the cigarettes before they will ever invite the man to stay in their homes. I find that to be a very pungent form of paternalistic bull hockey.
It seems to me that there is a startling correlation between what we call "poor" and what we call "handicapped" or "abnormal", perhaps especially in the US. The correlation cannot be reduced to simple causation, i.e. poor people develop mental illness or mentally ill people become poor. There are certainly elements of both (and both are equally convicting), but there is perhaps a subtler and more sinister process at work that has nothing to do with true illness and everything to do with enforcing cultural conformity.
Forgive me if this doesn't make sense. I have the flu and my fever is back up over 100.
JR, its making wonderful sense and helps me understand a great deal.
I'm preparing to teach a multi session course here soon on the kingdom of God, the kingdom of darkness, and what is typically deemed "spiritual warfare."
So... right now my mind is swimming with images from The Matrix trilogy, which I plan to use in communicating word pictures about the kingdoms at war.
And so, with matrix mind, I apprciate greatly what you're saying. And so now I want to begin to ask how we can partner with the true Neo in bringing freedom to someone like Concrete. What does "freedom in Christ" "look like" for him?
If Jesus came to set the captives free, how are we enslaved (first) and then secondly, how is Concrete enslaved?
More questions than answers. Thanks for your tremendously insightful post!
REV
Rev, there is no "first" and "second". We'll both be free exactly when we share in the new life that is in Christ.
JR - so are you a slave to something other than Jesus Christ now?
REV
Dr Rev - why do you ask? I'm not following the last question. Peace.
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