Inside-Out Handicaps

On a recent bike ride, I noticed a man with Downs Syndrome take a picture of a large yellow Maple leaf with his iPhone. Hi glasses slid down his nose as he stared intently at his phone screen, and bikers and runners whizzed by on the tree-lined path without noticing his effort.

I only quickly glanced at him myself, but his simple appreciation for beauty made me remember an encounter I had this summer with two men at L’Arche, which is a worldwide organization of “communities made up of people with disabilities and those who come to share life with them.”

Here’s my journal entry from that day:

August 11, 2013

I just had the time of my life.

I went to L’Arche to meet the house members and hang out. One of the assistants told me a bit about their needs and then two core members (men with intellectual disabilities whom I’ll call Peter and Henry) took me out for coffee. We walked to the mall, pushed the crosswalk button numerous times in amusement and ended up at Tim Horton’s.

Peter bought me hot chocolate. He told me about his recent vacation to Canada’s east coast where he ate lobster for the first time. Henry stayed in his home city and ate a really big steak—he even took pictures of it for L’Arche’s summer holiday photo contest.

After we finished our drinks, we went outside. I looked at the sun blazing through the summer clouds and commented on how beautiful it was. Harry, with his head back and eyes shut to the brilliant light, put on a big smile and said in radiant glory, “I am beautiful.”

He said it a couple of times joyfully and confidently. No one thought it was sarcastic. He said it in simple sincerity and we walked on.

Earlier that day, I mourned deep points of sadness and loneliness in my life, and begged God through the Rosary for joy and friends to help me through that today.

God provided Peter and Henry.

When Henry said, “I am beautiful,” I knew he meant it. He knew that about himself.

My handicap is on the inside. I’ve been told by myself and others that I’m not beautiful. That’s a lie. Henry reminded me just by being—and though his outward handicap-- that I am beautiful not because of what I’ve done or what the world thinks I should be, but because God made me and I exist. God delights in me and shines His grace on me like the sun—in common ways every day.