Gentleman, Scholar, Best Buddy

from an 8 year old story from some University of Florida alumni notes: a young Orthodox Christian named Newman Nahas who was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and also had been, according to the notes, a “Best Buddy:” http://clasnews.clas.ufl.edu/clasnotes/clasnotes/0003/nahas.html

http://www.bestbuddies.org/site/c.ljJ0J8MNIsE/b.933717/k.CBF8/Home.htm

A Rhodes Scholarship, by the way, is a grant to study at the prestigous Oxford University in England; Best Buddies is an organization which seeks to, in their words “enhance the lives of people with intellectual disabilities by providing opportunities for on-on-one friendships and integrated employment.” Here’s their website:

I searched the internet for news of Newman; he earned a Masters degree in Philosophy, sought the approach to knowledge (epistemology) in St. Ephrem the Syrian’s writings, and has written an essay on “The Origins and Motivations of Monasticism:” http://www.monachos.net/library/The_Origins_and_Motivations_of_Monasticism

And just yesterday, I was reading the acknowledgements in my new Orthodox Study Bible http://orthodoxstudybible.com/ and there was his name: Newman Nahas.

I wonder if he keeps up with his best buddy.

invisible disabilities

The name “invisible child” is both a descriptor of and a dedication to our children, who are invisible in the sense that their disabilities, though often severe, are hidden from view. Brain disorders, though biologically based, often are not obvious physically, so the invisible child looks like any other child. In addition, children with these disorders usually have normal intelligence. In fact, many are gifted, sometimes to a high degree, and because of this they are able to develop coping skills that further hide their differences, the result being that they may either not be identified or their struggles will be misunderstood. Because it typically takes such a long time for children to be diagnosed and receive appropriate treatment, they are particularly susceptible to falling through the cracks, dropping out of school, becoming suicidal, or entering the juvenile justice system. . . . http://www.invisiblechild.org/About.htm

This is the beginning of an article by Matushka Wendy Cwiklinski, which can be found in its entirity in the Orthodox websites section. http://oca.org/resource-handbook/familylife/church-and-the-child-with-invisible-disabilities (from the Orthodox Church in America’s Resource Handbook for Lay Ministries) She speaks as a mother of a number of children with invisible disabilities. When persons with blindness, or in wheelchairs, or with Downs Syndrome features come to our Church, its easy to identify them as people to help. But its a little harder to see them as people who can help. And its much harder to see, as Matushka Wendy writes, children with invisible disabilities, who look like everybody else, as image-bearers of Christ who just need extra patience. The article and the website are a good place to start educating one’s self toward this goal.

IOCC: Life Skills Training in Serbia

“Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, . . . (Ecclesiastes 11:1-2a)  International Orthodox Christian Charities is doing this in Serbia again. One of the “portions” of life skills training IOCC is undertaking in Serbia is

A home for children and youth with disabilities in Veternik, in Novi Sad, will benefit from the program through the construction of two greenhouses for vegetable production. The greenhouses will enhance the nutritional offerings of the facility and will provide occupational therapy for at least 100 residents of this institution.

Here’s the full story: http://www.iocc.org/news/10-31-07.aspx

ALSO  here is the web address for “The Situation of Children in Institutions of Social Care in Serbia” in this traditionally Orthodox Christian country, written by the Yugosalav Child Rights Centre, Belgrade, May 2001. It is not a Church document: http://www.cpd.org.yu/dokumenti/thesituation.pdf This would be less than two years after NATO bombed Serbia. Each institution receives an architectural assessment. The document would seem to aim at objectively, perhaps even “scientifically,” presenting the facts, as much as that is possible. I have, admittedly, only partially skimmed the document,  but I found no mention of the Church.

Certainly the situation at these homes was dire, given the devastation of Serbia, but the authors simply wished to catalog the situation and the needs. And though there has been some secularization, Serbia is a traditionally Orthodox country, and therefore I bring forward this data. 

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and on this world.

stories & bulletin boards

from the disabilities discussion forum– from which one can search for stories containing specific words. There were no stories containing the word “Orthodox.” But nevertheless there are stories of interest for us. There were lots of stories with the words “church, worship, prayer, Jesus, and God.” There was also a story which is very enlightening in regard to Church accessibility entitled Finding a new church. I wouldn’t vouch for the Orthodoxy of these stories or that all or even most of them are necessarily edifying, but even still, one can get a sense of the various “places of the heart” where people with disabilities can be writing from.

Here are the web addresses by which these stories can be accessed:

church, churches, worship http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=4622836&pid=r&mode=ALL&query=church+churces+worship&t=s

prayer http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=4622836&pid=r&mode=ALL&query=prayer&t=s

Jesus http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=4622836&pid=r&mode=ALL&query=Jesus&t=s

God http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=4622836&pid=r&mode=ALL&query=God&t=s

Finding a new church http://www.tell-us-your-story.com/_disc99r/00000009.htm

And for more go to the tell-us-your-story.com website and explore for yourself: http://www.tell-us-your-story.com/

ALSO- here is a website which offers 4 bulletin boards on the topics babies with disability, physical disability, parents with disability, and learning disability: http://parentcenter.babycenter.com/search/showResultsForContent.htm?queryString=disability&contentTab=BOARD

Enjoy, with prayer and discernment.

our common service

from a report of the Joint Commission of the Orthodox and Oriental Churches on “our common service to the world of suffering, need, injustice and conflicts,” including “the mentally and physically handicapped” (and the implications of their findings for us):

The Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, at its meeting at the Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in Chambesy, Geneva from September 23rd to 28th 1990, received a report from its Joint Pastoral Sub-committee which had met at the Anba Bishoy Monastery in Egypt from 31st January to 4th February 1990. The report was the starting point for an extended discussion of four types of pastoral issues :

I. Relations among our two families of Churches, and our preparation for unity.
II. Relations of our Churches with other Christian Churches and our common participation in the Ecumenical Movement.
III. Our common service to the world of suffering, need, injustice and conflicts.
IV. Our co-operation in the propagation of our common faith and tradition.

And here is the statement on III. Our common service to the world of suffering, injustice and conflicts:

15. We need to think together how best we could co-ordinate our existing schemes for promoting our humanitarian and philanthropic projects in the socio-ethnic context of our peoples and of the world at large. This would entail our common approach to such problems as :

(a) hunger and poverty,
(b) sickness and suffering,
(c) political, religious and social discrimination,
(d) refugees and victims of war,
(e) youth, drugs and unemployment,
(f) the mentally and physically handicapped,
(g) the old and the aged)

“We need to think together how best we could co-ordinate our existing schemes for promoting our humanitarian and philanthropic projects in the socio-ethnic context of our peoples and of the world at large.”

This is a call to coordination of our efforts toward people in need, including persons with disability. Perhaps here in America we could begin this effort at coordination among ourselves, that is, the various Orthodox jurisdictions, and then begin to work together with the Oriental Churches. But who will initiate this; who can make this happen?

Lord, raise up servants for these tasks, that your good news may continue to go forth to the poor, the captives, the blind, and the downtrodden [St. Luke 4:18], that we may do the greater works of Thine that Thou has called us to, according to Your promise. [St. John 14:12]    

quotations from http://Monachos.net  specifically http://www.monachos.net/printable/friendlyprint.php ; picture from http://www.centreorthodoxe.org/index.php?nav=dialogues2&smenu=smenu8&lang=fr

an Orthodox Christian Sunday school for children with disabilities

This from St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church in Irvine, CA, whose Pastor is Father Stephen Tsichlis, who wrote “Children with Special Needs and the Orthodox Christian Family” (accessible at http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/specialneeds.htm ) which is in the Church School section and was also posted on April 12, 2007:

Saint Paul’s is beginning a new class for children who are unable to participate in the regular Sunday School classes, due to autism or some other disability. Children who learn differently, and children with unique sensory abilities deserve religious education too! This class will present concepts to them on their terms so that they can get the most out of it – their way.  . . .

(for the rest, click on the website above, then  Church School, then scroll to the bottom to Church School Class at St. Paul’s for children with Autism)

St. Paul

St. Paul wrote:

“[. . .] but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, [. . .] God has so composed the body [. . .] that there be no discord in the body, but that the members have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” (1 Corinthians 12:21-22, 24-26. RSV)

Here is the Parish website (a most excellent one!): http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/ And here is the Church School page where the announcement appeared: http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/ChurchSchool.htm

an inclusive Orthodox Christian school

St. Nicholas Orthodox Christian School in Florida offers a program for children with learning disabilities. From the Academics page of their website http://www.stnicholasparochialschool.org/html/academics.asp scroll down to the Theotokos SLD/LD Program and read their overview of the program. Their stated goal for this program,  

is to help each of our students with learning disabilities realize their full potential and eventually matriculate into a full time mainstreamed educational environment.

Read the school’s official mission statement: http://www.stnicholasparochialschool.org/html/mission_statement.asp  

Tuition at the school is listed at $4850 per school year, though the actual costs run about $9900 a year. Donations and funds raised by the Parent Volunteer Group make up the difference.

Read an article on the school by William Planes in the magazine Diakonia:  Diakonia Article – Fall 2007.PDF 

Its inspiring to see Orthodox Christian communities work together toward the socialization of their children, including those with learning disabilities.

toward fruit that remains

Here is good news from the blog of the ECOSOC Innovation Fair, a “Greek Orthodox Archdiocesian Council Success Story,” with some reflections on the Divine “telos,” or ultimate goal, of such efforts:

“In 1987, The Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan Council (GOAC) organized a program called Hope in Action (Helping Other People Everywhere) which assists those in developing countries. . . .

The program was so successful that it evolved into the current Orthodox Mission Team Program. During the summer months, short-term volunteers who are doctors, educators, construction workers, engineers, carpenters and students assist communities with various projects around the world. They travel to Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Cameroon Chad, Albania, Poland, Slovakia, India, Mexico, the Philippines, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Haiti, Guatemala, and Madagascar where they offer their expertise in establishing medical and dental clinics, construct schools, restore and build churches, help develop agriculture and build water wells. They teach, build, nurture and heal. They work in collaboration with the local governments and United Nations agencies.

In Calcutta, India they assist with medical outreach to needy children and adults and with education at the Orthodox orphanage which houses street children. Homeless children are fed daily and as well as impoverished families, the elderly and disabled people. . . .”

Click here for the entire post: http://amrif.blogspot.com/2007/04/greek-orthodox-archdiocesan-council.html

Of course, wherever we go and whomever we serve, such short-term efforts, except perhaps in the case of disaster relief, must always serve as a preliminary or auxilliary “arm” of a more permanent presence of the Orthodox Church and the eternal Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, for our Lord Jesus said, “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give it to you.” (St. John 15:16b)

For we are indeed our Lord Jesus Christ’s emissaries to “every tribe and tongue and people and nation” as the new song of the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders of Revelations 5:9-10 proclaims:

9 And they sang a new song, saying:

You are worthy to take the scroll,
And to open its seals;
For You were slain,
And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation And have made us kings and priests to our God;
And we shall reign on the earth.

Our collective efforts are surely guided by the Holy Spirit toward this goal, this “telos.”*

*TELOS- our ultimate destiny, which involves our personal and corporate union with the “Theanthropos,” our Lord Jesus Christ; we are to become as “gods,” adopted as sons by the Father, in Him, through the Holy Spirit. “Personhood” is defined by our being open towards loving cooperation and union with our Lord, other persons, and indeed, all creation.

-all of which is the Great Commission (St. Matthew 28:18-20) in the context of the Orthodox Christian understanding of salvation- adoption as sons of God, being conformed to the likeness of Christ as “partakers of the divine nature” (2Peter 1:4)- Theosis or Deification- which God, with our cooperation, is in the process of seeking to accomplish in our very being- so that we may keep focused on washing the inside of the cup.

Yet even as I wash my cup with prayerful tears of mourning for my sins, for the many ways I fall short of Christ’s righteousness in my daily life, I am also called to “Go” and share the most precious Content of that cup, for

I will lift up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord (Psalms 116:13)

and

. . . My cup overflows. (Psalms 23:5b)

And where shall I begin?

With the next person I meet.

But it is also fitting to remember our Lord’s word concerning the “great supper” for which those invited “all with one accord began to make excuses” so as not to come. (St. Luke 14:16-23)

Who, then, were the first the master directed to be invited?

Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.‘

Only then, when told “still there is room” did the master say “Go out into the highways and the hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be full.”

Let us have ears to hear the saving words of the Lord Jesus.

a witness to Christ

When my wife and I were Orthodox Christian catechumens in 1999 we attended an evangelism conference in Ligonier, PA, where we met many good people with hearts eager to share the love of Christ. One of them was Father Hector Firoglanis, currently a parish priest in Lancaster, PA. At that time he was about to enter his senior year at Penn State University, and in an OCMC article he describes how his desire to be involved in a short-term missions effort unfolded. Here’s the article, entitled The Witness of a New Missionary: http://www.ocmc.org/magazine.php?action=topic&id=5&sub=magazine#75 Here’s an excerpt, relating to the theme of this weblog:

Every Monday I accompany several seminarians to an orphanage, and on Thursdays we go to a school for mentally handicapped and abandoned children as part of the students’ outreach ministry training. At this particular orphanage in Durres, the children range in age from mere infants to four-year-old toddlers. At the school for handicapped children, the children live in very poor conditions with very limited care. We simply visit these children once a week to play with them, to hold the infants and to give all of them love and human contact.

And I would trust that the Seminarians in Durres, Albania continue these Monday excursions to meet our Lord Jesus Christ.  (St. Matthew 25)

I just found another OCMC article from Fr. Hector which addresses this concern! Here it is: http://www.ocmc.org/magazine.php?action=topic&id=6&sub=magazine#95 He writes,

Visiting orphans, prisoners, and handicapped children, for example, is easy if done occasionally. But to do it every week consistently for a lifetime takes great commitment and discipline, and would be impossible to carry out without the true love of Christ in one’s heart. This love of the Church is quiet and is only noticed by the people who are being helped. For this reason, the people of Albania are coming to the Orthodox Church to discover the God of love, so that they too may worship Him.

O Jesus of Nazareth

   No one can ever put you in writing my Lord. You inscribed the universe with your blood. Your blood alone was the Word, the utterance, through which we came to discover that the uniqueness of God is that He loves. We yearn to you because of that freedom, through which you abolished slavery from the nature of religion, proclaiming us as your beloved, and that we may dare to call upon your Father since you made us your house’s own. . . .

This is a message from

His Eminence Archbishop George Khodr, Orthodox Christian Metropolitan of Mount Lebanon, a word of adoration and a prayer. It is translated from Arabic and there are phrases in which the meaning is somewhat unclear, but overall the light shines through. One may access the entire prayer here:  http://www.ortmtlb.org.lb/Nahar/Nazaren.htm

(picture from http://www.bintjbeil.com though not there now)

And here is a portion of the prayer which relates to the theme of this weblog:  

. . . O very sweet Jesus, make your home in the hearts of the poor and beggars of the earth, whether they know you or never have they heard of you. They are all yours through your one love to them. Accompany, my Lord, the children who are abandoned by their parents to all kind of iniquities. Calm down the weight of terrible diseases. Heal the solitude of the afflicted. Be the harmony and unity of the married and nurture their children. Take upon yourself these peoples, who the civilized nations, call retarded- for they are the iris of your eye my Savior. Assure the oppressed that you came to undo the oppression; that you are opposed to the oppressor until he repents. . . .