Welcoming Every Body
by Weston Morris
At this time last year, my body was just becoming acclimated to being alive in Colorado. After twenty-five years in the humid hills of North Carolina, moving to Steamboat Springs was a physical shock. My existence in northwest Colorado challenged my senses to witness God in new ways, whether that was praying that I would snowboard down the mountain safely through whiteout conditions or in my evening walks marveling at the aspens budding in the springtime. My senses introduced me to new sacred wonders: the perfect snowflake, a Colorado moonrise, mountain time, and new communities.
Through the Colorado Episcopal Service Corps in Steamboat Springs, I dove headfirst into the community that makes up the Independent Living Movement, a movement which aspires to bring the liberation of independence to people with disabilities. In my time at the NorthWest Colorado Center for Independence (NWCCI), I got a chance to support people as they achieved independence by graduating from high school, modifying homes to make them accessible, getting a job, and being proud, visible people in the community. The types of disabilities I encountered were diverse, and each one gave me a new perspective on what living in the world could look and feel like. I worked with stroke survivors, amputees, people with bipolar disorder, spinal cord injuries, autism, cerebral palsy, and more. The only certainty: Blessings were abundant.
I have been asked why I chose to work for disability justice. While I am a temporarily able-bodied person, my body has experienced the world differently. I started transitioning from female to male when I was twenty years old, and my reality changed as I transitioned. My transgender body, like the bodies of disabled people, began to struggle to access spaces I had formerly taken for granted. I struggled to find a primary-care physician with adequate knowledge of or experience in hormone replacement therapy; my health insurance did not cover any care associated with my transition. I lived in North Carolina when House Bill 2 was passed, which made it illegal for me to use public bathrooms matching my gender identity. These examples are barriers that made my right to safety inaccessible. A person with a disability may have similar issues with accessibility, including finding quality affordable health care, accessible housing, a job that pays a living wage, and so on.
Accessibility is not just a physical issue, however; accessibility has spiritual, emotional, and cultural aspects as well — aspects that our churches have yet to adequately face. People with disabilities are major players in the narrative of Jesus, but our theology on those characters is lacking, focusing far too much on the attitude of the disabled and too little on the responsibility of communities to support them. Welcoming disabled bodies means embracing the unique dignity of the people in those bodies. Every body holds a story, a path to God, a key to the body of Christ, unique to all others. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he states, “There are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’”
Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is a tool we can use to acknowledge that communities are healthiest when every person, every part of the body, is needed. ABCD comes from the perspective of abundance. We are all given gifts, strengths, and assets, and those assets can be used to respond to needs of the community. My experience as a transgender person has blessed me with gifts of uncommon empathy, compassion, open-mindedness, and joy, which are valuable to my mission of greeting Christ in every person. People with disabilities have been blessed with gifts, but unless we work to welcome every body into our lives, our homes, and our churches, we will miss out on those gifts.
Through our baptismal covenant, Episcopalians vow to serve the Christ in every person, which starts by acknowledging that there is Christ in every person. In the season of Advent, while we prepare to welcome Christ’s body into the world, how can we prepare to welcome all members of the body of Christ into our church? Churches are not required by law to be accessible, which means that churches must take it upon themselves to become accessible. For your church that may mean printing large-print service bulletins, repaving the sidewalks outside of the sanctuary, removing a row of pews so that people in wheelchairs can sit among the congregation, or a multitude of other basic changes. A good place to start may be to learn if people in your congregation have disabilities. If so, you can begin by learning what changes would make church more accessible for them, and then make those changes.
In September I began my second year in the Colorado Episcopal Service Corps as the Organizer for Community Justice. During the coming year I will support the Episcopal Church in Colorado in its expansion of radical welcome to every body. If you have questions or need support in becoming a more accessible church, LGBTQIA+ inclusion, or Asset-Based Community Development, contact me at Weston@EpiscopalColorado.org.
***
Weston Morris is the Organizer for Community Justice for the Episcopal Church in Colorado.
FOR MORE INFORMATION about the Advocacy & Social Justice Ministry in the Episcopal Church in Colorado, please visit episcopalcolorado.org/advocacy.
