Never Walked In High Heels

Last week I decided to go to the Evensong service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. I walked up to the only accessible entrance of the famed cathedral to find it locked. Black iron gates clapped shut for security reasons, no guard posted at the door to assist, no number to call and receive an explanation, no alternate means of getting inside what is commonly referred to as ‘God’s House.’ I use a wheelchair and because of my disability, I was locked out of a church.

Upon later enquiry, a member of church staff stated that due to the Occupy London protests, the accessible door was locked every evening.

I tried all weekend to do the mental gymnastics needed for this reasoning to make any sort of sense. I’ve failed. If Occupy London intended to storm the church, they could do so just as easily at the front door as at the side. The Church of England has enough money and power to make someone available to open a gate if such extreme precautions are ever taken. But more importantly, a church should never take an action which comes out of fear and ends in exclusivity. Such behavior reminds me of Christ to tipping over the tables in the temple.

Visibly upset, I then went through the Occupy London camp, hoping that those who wish to help the ninety nine percent would be willing to enter the church which was acting as their host and inform a member of staff of my situation. I was met instead with glares and open mouths.

What does it mean if we live in a world where a church locks a physically vulnerable population outside at night and the very people our media hails as humanitarians refuse to help a person in front of them? If each have the genuine desire to give help to those who are forgotten and walked on by the wealth of this world, then does this not include the disabled? A quick look at any of the United Nations statistics of disability reminds us that this population is far from being the blessed one percent. The disabled are an example of the people the church is commanded to keep it’s doors open to. There is no other universally human condition than that of disability. Both the church and the radical activists are failing to help these people.

The church must wake up to the fact that it cannot lock its doors and then claim to be a force of good in the world. Likewise those such as the Occupy London camp have no right to feel that they are indeed changing the world when they refuse to help a person in need in front of them. Both are self righteous. Both are exclusive, elitist, and even arrogant. Neither are pointing towards progress.

What I encountered while attempting to go to Evensong is actually a perfect example of the state of this broken society. The church has locked their doors and made themselves inaccessible to all sorts of people for centuries, and young radicals have no desire to be reminded that someday their bodies will also fail them. The rights we fight for and the inaccessible hearts we fortify now are the exact challenges we will inherit when we can no longer stand. Whether it be from age, illness, or political muffling we are all headed towards a time of frightening vulnerability where a simple locked door can have massive implications.

In my opinion the term ‘conservative Christian’ is little but an oxymoron. This statement might come as a surprise to most of my readers as, this is a new thought in my own head and one which I’ve never attempted to express on paper. So bear with me.
I have, or so I thought until very recently, been raised in a so called conservative Christian home. This is how my parents would identify themselves to pollsters who would call during the dinner hour. This is how our church labeled itself during election season. I spent hours listening to talk radio rather than music. Our best friends were church folks. We where wary of anything too worldly, anything without clear boundaries and rules, anything where there might be a grey area.
And yet, the man who would end up being the closest thing I had to a godfather was gay. My parents and I wrestled enormously with the notion that someone’s actions meant they were toxic to be around. A careless attitude to the poor never sat easily with me. And, perhaps most unsettling of all, while we all talked about values and the importance of a stable home, I could see the cracks in the facade of my own family as well as everyone else’s.
Recently and seemingly without warning, I’ve been rejumbled with some people who wish to identify themselves as that odd little alliterate group on Washington’s right. It has admittedly stirred up some very aggressive and visceral reactions from me. As one of my best friend’s put it yesterday, “any part of your life would be enough to send most of the Christians we know screaming to their nearest bible study.” Fortunately for me, she is a Christian who always tethers my faith when everything else seems to be whirling about in madness.
This isn’t an essay about politics. As you know, I decided to wash my hands of the stuff over two years ago and focus, rather, on what was directly in front of me. Let us rather discuss labels, and how a certain label creates a massive contradiction in terms. Kierkegaard once wrote “once you label me, you negate me.” In much the same way, if we stupidly label ourselves, as a sort of short hand to form clans and enemies, we run the remarkable risk of negating ourselves.
Say what you like about how we manage to screw up the beautiful ideal that Christ laid out for us, it is all, distressingly, very true. The one element which I wish people could see when they look at Christianity is grace. The idea that we are loved and treasured not because we’ve earned such approval, but because someone decided to give it to us anyway, is what makes Christianity different from all other faiths. This notion is scandalous in a world which teaches that good things are to be earned, that we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and become self made men, that religion is something one does.
Grace, the foundation of the Christian faith, is never conservative. Real grace, not appeasement or the avoidance of conflict, is costly to the one who grants it shocking to the one who receives it undeservedly. Their is no political party who takes this practice as a platform. Indeed, a proposal of operating by grace is a horrible way to run a campaign. But all of us, regardless of who we are or what we believe, are to be fully formed and loving human beings first, long before we should be identifying with any sort of squabbling sub group. To associate any of this with the ‘conservative’ or traditional way things are is absurd. Grace is unnatural for any human being because in this economy of our self centered minds, grace never adds up.
Ultimately any sort of affiliation which can be summed up in a single word is nothing but shorthand. The most mainstream conservative will be found to be radically liberal on at least one issue and the most liberal will find something that he is conservative about. So too are religious labels. Such terms are almost both intellectual and social laziness. We hope we can know the person and their beliefs by hearing a few key terms. After that, we think we have him all figured out.
But as in logic, a thing that contradicts itself cannot exist. And while ALL humans magnificently display self contradictions, when an entire group chooses to found their basis on an openly contradictory term such as ‘conservative Christians’ I can’t help but wonder, is it that these people do not practice conservatism, or is it that they don’t practice grace? The two cannot co-exist.

The orchid on my desk has begun to bud. Within the green capsule, clenched tight as if is was holding a precious pearl, there is a single violent red streak which holds a sign of the color to come. But for right now, the bud is mostly green, the stalk stands erect, shooting out from the pot on my desk, ignoring the fact that my roommate and I sit downstairs most nights planning Christmas cakes and cookies to make over the next month.

I bought this particular lady’s slipper orchid last June off of eBay, when it became otherwise impossible to find such a flower in red. I had successfully gotten orchids to rebloom for the past three years and, growing increasing tired of seeing the same orchids redundantly displayed at Tesco,  and desperately wanting to grow a  flower which was a passionate shade of red, I invested in an purchase I was otherwise clueless about. So much so that when I opened up the plant I quickly went back to my computer to ask the farmer why he used pesto as a potting medium… It ended up being a symbiotic form of algae.

For the next six weeks the little orchid did nothing but drop leaves on alternating sides. A total of five leaves turned  yellow and dropped off. Each time I’d loose another one  I would think it was over and the planted had righted itself after suffering and conquering whenever ailed it. But then inevitably another leaf  would crinkle slightly before turning a vibrant combination of yellow and red and dying. I was feeling as if I had no business buying an orchid outside of Tesco in the first place.  I knew nothing of taking care of something which had so much potential for beauty and grace. Frantically I attempted my cure all solution for every problem: I googled everything possible I could find on orchid care. Moving the plant into one room, then back out, watering once a week then everyday, I frantically tried to take everyone’s advice at once. Finally I decided on the obscurely obvious.

The orchid knew more about raising itself than I could ever know.

So, I brought the plant back to my desk, gave it a little bit of water each day, and resigned myself to plant succumbing to the fate of his choice. There was nothing I could do to force it  otherwise.

And then it lost another leaf.

Then, after a while and for reasons known only to itself, the plant started to be happy again. No longer did the leaves fall or turn yellow. Those that remained were healthy, smooth, and aligned themselves with the sun. There wasn’t panic every time I looked at my desk and saw it. Within a few more weeks a stem grew and a bud began to form, creating an optimistic fascination for me rather than blame and dread. Cells, multiplying on a molecular level at an alarming rate,  I watch day after day at the plant reads its own blueprint of how it should build itself. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to make such a feat occur. When the flower opens up, its intricacies and architecture will be of an incalculable mathematics. And I cannot help but humbled by the fact that all I can do is give the plant a little bit of water every few days. Much of anything beyond that is just interfering.

It was the sort of day where spring had established itself. The winter bite was out of the Manchester air and you knew warmer weather was here to stay for a while. For my birthday some friends  had taken me out of my beloved London to see a play by Miller and have a much needed change of scenery. To take advantage of the latter, I had gotten up early that Saturday and taken a walk outside the city. Or at least I was going to walk as far as my very limited sense of direction would allow me.

After taking some back roads and dodging others, I came across a small canal which twisted under a bridge and through a lock before connecting itself to a larger body of water. On either side, there was a narrow footpath which had grown moldy and slick from years of dampness and warmth. The sound of water rushing was alluring and, although every bone in my  body told me to do otherwise, I made my way down to the narrow walkway to be closer to the water.

I know this is a stupid thing to do but I’m a good driver. I’ll just go to the waters edge and sit. Actually, that pathway is a little wider than I thought. I wonder if it’s wide enough for me to get onto… Look at that, it sure is. Way to go Manchester Council for being accessible. I wonder how far I can make it down this path before I can’ t fit. I’ll stop when I have to. Obviously. 

And so the monologue in my head went, justifying the very stupid thing I was attempting to do. With about three inches of clearance between myself and the water I kept moving. It wasn’t until I was under the bridge that I realized I couldn’t turn around even if I had wanted to. The best I could do would be blindly back my three hundred kilo wheelchair up blindly, the exact way I came in and hope I could align everything perfectly. And still I kept going forward,  past the “danger of death” signs and the place where the pavement became an even tighter fit. The spring wind had grown quiet and there was a dark stillness in the air despite the sunshine.

It has often been noted that in an airplane crash an average on nine separate issues are ignored which should have been addressed in order to avoid disaster. Rarely is it one fatal action which forces tragedy. There are many red flags which appear to ask us to rethink our decision.  This is the way tragedies such as Apollo 1 occur. Ignoring the concerns are how mountain climbers get stranded and ships go down. I knew all of this, and choose to continue to go down this path.

It’d be pointless to turn back now. I’m close to the end of the tunnel and it’s a shorter distance to go forward than back. Besides, everything always seems much easier on the return trip than getting there. 

At one point under the bridge I passed two fishermen who were trying to adjust the position of their boat. They looked up from their work, surprised to see such an adventurer. One of them opened his mouth to speak to me and then, after a moment, closed it again to refocus on his work.

The sunshine at the end of the tunnel hit my face with a blinding violence. At the end I was met by a pavement large enough for me to turn around on, and a staircase as the only means of egress. I would have to turn around and slowly make my way out the with the exact same trepidation as when I came in. So that exactly is what I did.

By the time I got out from under the bridge a second time I was feeling much more confident. The sun had softened and I was headed home, still steering my way confidently forward. I looked down  at my wheels and saw a baby pidgin barely making its way in front of me, his feathers from softening in that young, rough, fledging sort of way. After a second of me chasing him, having no where else to go, too fast and too soon he leapt into the canal.

His reaction was one that neither of us expected.

The water scared him. His wings, flapping like mad, startled the adult birds across the water so that they took off in a self protective panic. His own wings were yet untested, he had no idea how to make use of what the small bird was naturally born for. Feathers becoming saturated, he fought harder  against the inevitable sinking, failing, flailing, moving consistently further away from me. There wasn’t a stick or any net I could reach him with. I couldn’t save him if I wanted to.

I couldn’t watch. I kept going down the path.

A few moments later the friend  I was walking with caught back up to me and said “He’s gone.” I didn’t need to ask her to clarify.

When I got  off the narrow pavement I passed the “beware of death” sign again. I knew that danger was there, I just always assumed it would be me putting myself at risk, not anyone else.

The voices in our heads, the quiet ones, the ones which are the easiest to ignore,  these are often the voices we are supposed to pay attention to. We expect catastrophe to come when we ignore the loud voices and flashing red lights. Arrogance too often comes when we assume we simply know just a little bit more than common sense rather than trying to shake the foundations of the earth.