October 18 Disabilities Awareness Response

Dear God

RantWoman is sincerely grateful for evidence of Friends interacting with the fruits of this month's leading.

RantWoman still keeps showing up in the conversation.

Please have mercy on us all.

RantWoman


Oct 19
Dear RantWoman and others,

I commend this video to you all. I was aware of a lot of what it suggests, but there were other parts that were new. I had long ago learned that you should always ask any person with a disability if they would like help. However, I think the wording of "how can I help you" was especially good in the setting. Maybe we should be asking: May I help you - and if so, how?

The visuals on what different legally blind see was very helpful.

I was aware of the etiquette re seeing-eye dogs (and any service dog), but it was good to see.

All the parts about orientation and how to tell blind people where things were (using the clock image) was really useful.

The statistics on how many folks use white canes and service dogs were surprising to me. It was good to be reminded about the best way to offer guidance.

The examples of how to NOT help were good because they were overdone to make a point, but it was easy enough for me to picture myself making at least some of the errors!

Thanks RantWoman
Friend who for the moment gets to get by without a Nom De Blog



Dear Friend...

I am glad you liked the video and I appreciate your leading to encourage others to interact.

To be honest, I would be grateful to know others are led to interact and maybe led directly to interact even before they hear your bllessings. We are all ministers of God and some of this exercise really is about asking everyone to consider what you as individuals might be called to do.

I am not sure it's fair to apply the concept of gathered meeting from the blog link at the bottom to this particular approach to mass eldering, but the second link does have some further links to resources about eldering that look great. Still, I appreciate many people having the same information so I do not have to interact one on one eighty zillion times about each topic. That does not mean I do not want to interact at all.

I am glad you appreciated the visuals about different vision patterns. I hope you also interacted with the text below about all the wonky extra stuff that goes on for me personally. Excuse me for jumping up and down on the point, but I did not really quit doing sudoku during worship just because of everyone's brilliant eldering. I quit doing sudoku after a procedure involving one eye incrementally messed up both eyes enough that it was just enough more work to do sudoku not to have any benefit as far as centering but there is a whole bunch of stuff I really cannot control.

The information about orienting people and the clock method for food are pretty standard. Personally, usually by the time food is on my plate I can see where things are but frequently the contents of dishes at potlucks are a total mystery until I ask someone.

I agree. The numbers about who uses white canes or seeing eye dogs sounded surprising as numbers. However, if I count up people I know and what they do or do not do,I think the numbers are pretty representative. I also think some blind people are just maniacs and others do denial or do not want to deal with anything that marks them or marks a difficult truth. But you are welcome to ask in person about the blind people as maniacs question. It also occurs to me that I should ask one couple I know whether they realize their walking patterns frequently take them across freeway on- and off-ramps.

As for making mistakes, believe me, I do too.

In the Light
RantWoman


http://johanpdx.blogspot.com/2011/10/gathered-meeting.html


http://inwardlight.org/