Universalism & Disability Meditation by Naomi King

One Meditation on Why Accessibility, Disability Rights,  

and Celebration Matter for Unitarian Universalists

I have a heart for Edwin Markham’s epigram Outwitted (1915):

He drew a circle that shut me out –

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!

Markham captures the heart of Unitarian Universalism as I understand this faith: whenever we come across a barrier to a bigger Love, a Love that abides, holds, and engages every one, then our labor is to take down that barrier and make the circle bigger. We are always changing and being changed in this radical and transforming Love that already knows us, holds us, and cherishes us. No one is beyond Love’s reach or acceptance.

Yet so very few of us have that continuous experience, inside religious communities and outside of it. That belief in transforming Love is both dream and challenge shaping our daily lives.

I work hard to hold onto that belief at times, like when I've read another missive from faith authorities that tells me faithful ministry means never falling ill. The text translates: if you're living rightly, then you won't be ill; if you're ill, that's evidence of failing to live rightly. As someone with a degenerative genetic disease and several chronic illnesses, it doesn't matter how well I take care of myself or how rightly I live, I will still have long periods of flaring illness and the progressive degeneration of a critical piece of my gene. I reject the misery offered me in the name of faith, a diminishment that diminishes the Holy, and turn back to the faith that sustains me, challenges me, and changes me.

Universalism teaches that each and every one of us is gifted. One of the tasks of religious community is to name, accept, and celebrate those gifts. When we meet a person, our faith asks us not to record how this person is more or less than, but to stop and rejoice in this blessing we have the honor of meeting. Transforming Love is a dream and a challenge.

Accessibility in congregations and congregational life, celebrating the gifts and honoring the experiences of people living with disabilities and chronic illnesses, and working for disability rights are ways of faithing – faith held not like property, but living, moment by moment.

Love wins when the barriers to full participation in life come down. Love wins when a child once set aside as unteachable leads the congregation in giving thanks. Love wins when people who live every day with the experience of exclusion are part of claiming their place in the Heart of Life, and people who experience inclusion every day are dancing in solidarity alongside.

Love wins. That’s what this faith is about, and love winning is exactly why accessibility, disability rights, and changing in and through Love are fruits of living faithfully.

Rev. Naomi King