2005-09-22 - 10:20 a.m.
I�ve been asked sometimes if disability has changed my attitude about faith. Do I believe in God�s love more strongly, do I feel it more deeply? Or do I feel shortchanged by fate and reject a God who would let this happen to me? Well, maybe I do feel a stronger faith these days, but it�s mostly just a function of getting older. Disability has nothing to do with it.
A long time ago, Alithea gave me a copy of GQ with an article she thought I�d like about this disabled athlete/scholar type who�d been hit by a truck and left paraplegic, then a few years later hit again, making him quadriplegic. The message that you were supposed to be inspired by was that he felt God wanted to challenge him so he could achieve some higher purpose or something and that God never gives people more than they can handle.
But he had it all wrong. I mean, that�s great if it works for him, but here�s what I�ve figured out. Do you know why bad things happen to good people? And good things to bad people?
No reason at all.
God has better things to do than play little games with people. And, frankly, I have better things to do than brood about why and how come. Shit happens. You are judged and measured, certainly down here and probably up there, by how you take it, good and bad. Fortune cookie wisdom, perhaps, but I�m quite sure of it.
Much to my surprise, except for the having-a-degenerative-disease part, MS is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I can�t tell you how much more I appreciate just about everything. I was a pretty depressed young man for many years. I know that whatever was bothering me was significant and very real. But within a few weeks of getting sick, it was gone.
I couldn�t remember what it was all about. What I failed to do or thought I did wrong in the past, who knows? It�s over; I have a life to live, people to love, time to enjoy. Sure, I�m afraid every day of what might happen, of losing my ability to stand, my vision, my mind. But the longer I worry, the more it�s affecting me.
I�m not saying I�ve discounted the past or anything. Just that a lot of unpleasant drama was dreck that isn�t important now. What remains important is my first kiss and my next kiss. What�s important are lives I�ve shared with people in the past, people now, people in the future. What�s important is the light at magic hour, the time before sunset when things glow golden in the slanted rays.
I hope you�ll remember that these things are what�s really important in your life as well.
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
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