As someone who is physically handicapped, I think it's important to say right away: Faith and Light is not a group for the handicapped. Faith and Light is rather a way of living that can extend to a commitment of faith.
For me, at least for now, it's more an ideal to reach than a treasure already held.
In Faith and Light I sense something clear: a real push to live *with* the most vulnerable; something quite different from the all-too-common tendency to do things *for* the poor, handicapped child.
Faith and Light introduced me to the mentally handicapped person I used to ignore. Through a painful process of identifying with them, I tried to avoid the mentally handicapped. I was afraid of their fears.
Now I have welcomed them as others have welcomed me. I have understood them, received them, recognized them in their difference. I try to understand who they are, what I can receive from them, what they might expect from me. Yet I don't feel completely at ease. The truth is, in Faith and Light, we handicapped people—myself included—are held up to a kind of admiration. I'm told: this deficiency is a richness, a precious stone. But I need to make an essential distinction: handicap, whatever form it takes, is an evil. At Faith and Light, we must work to lift people from this evil—first by recognizing it as it is, not hiding it behind the slogan "we are all handicapped." If that were true, there would be no handicapped people left.
The mystery of Faith and Light, for me, is daring the challenge that each person—mentally handicapped, physically handicapped, able-bodied—has their full place, without believing too quickly that the handicapped person is someone exceptional. If you only knew how they wish they were not!
M. Y. Lemal - a friend