I
work as a program specialist at a place which supports individuals with
intellectual and physical disabilities. Our vision statement is to
“impact the world with capabilities.”. This manifests itself in a myriad
of different ways, but is particularly evident in the following.
One
of the individuals we offer support who is diagnosed with moderate
mental retardation is a small business owner. He founded B____’s Shoe
Shine, a company which provides old fashion shoe shining. He has a broad
client base which extends throughout the community.
Before
starting his business this individual had a habit of asking people if
they would like him to shine their shoes for them. He has always had a
proclivity towards helpfulness especially in the area of cleaning. This
was recognized by a team member working in his home, and with some help
from other team members he was able to parlay his skill and passion for
making people’s shoes look good into a business. He now is able to hand
people a business card and ask them if they would be interested in a
shoe shine.
This
anecdote provides a window into something both troubling and hopeful in the
climate of much popular western ideology. What follows expounds upon
this.
Asking
new people you meet, and even old friends, if it’s okay to shine their
shoes is not normal. At least not anywhere I’ve been to. The abnormality
of that behavior coupled with the intrinsic devaluation of individuals
with intellectual disabilities in our society creates an image for the
aforementioned individual that is pitiable and demands condescension
rather than respect.
There
are two ways to try and help alter this negative perception. The first
would be to deconstruct. In this approach team members working with this
individual would tell him to stop asking people if he could shine their
shoes. Simple enough. The second approach would be to take the behavior
leading to this negative self image, asking people to shine their
shoes, and use them to construct a positive image. This is not so easy.
Deconstruction,
in this instance, requires little thought or imagination. For many it
is instinctual. Upon recognizing something perceived as bad or wrong
many try and find a means to deconstruct and subsequently stop the
action (through physical action is being referred to here, metaphysical
ideas often find themselves fitting into this same paradigm).
Construction, however, asks one to spend time to consider the situation.
It is a result of more than a reactionary action. Instead it shows
respect to the situation at hand, no matter how bad, and in contrast to
making something less bad, offers a means of making something better.
Construction is inherently positive, whereas deconstruction is an
inherently negative phenomenon.
There
is a time for deconstruction. Actions require reasons, and history
comes down to us as a long list of brave men and women struggling
against idolatry and false gods, and it is because they were able to see
things like genocide and slavery, abortion and adultery for what they
truly are that they had the motivation, much less the means, to struggle
against them. Finding and discussing the shortcomings of something is
important to process of its redemption, however it is a means to
something better not an end in itself.
Christ’s
commands to his disciples weigh much more heavily, using Jeremiah’s
paradigm, on building and planting rather than rooting up, pulling down,
and destroying. In a world of cynicism and disbelief we as Christians
should be the ones to say that yes our world is broken and God’s people
are lost, but that God is fixing His world and finding His people. We
must move beyond our gawking at the decimation of Eden, and continue the
work of building God’s Kingdom.
