Handi-Capable

Well, I bit the big one last week on vacation.  Before I launch into the story, let me just put a honkin' caveat right up front.  I believe that everyone is made by and for God's glory.  In knowing Him and being known by Him, we are currently on the path to full redemption and renewal, but in the meantime we are broken people in a broken world.  For some of us, the brokenness is visible, some more than others.  But for all of us, it's internal.  I believe that grace is the world's leveler, the weight of its goodness crushing us completely and restoring a correct perspective.

You may want to return to that paragraph after reading the rest of this.

To put it nicely, I'm not the most articulate person in the world.  I've been known to blurt out all kinds of stuff that sounds wholly inappropriate given the context or the environment, even though I didn't mean it to come out that way.  The Lord has been kind to me, teaching me to keep my mouth shut a lot of the time, but I still slip up.

One such example was in college.  I took an advanced education course on student development that included physical and mental disabilities as well as how public and educational policies have been created to address them.  My main mistake was (1) taking this class with a good friend who was, how shall we say?  One of the least socially sensitive people on earth.  Also (2), choosing to sit next to said man in class all semester.  (For those of you who think this is G, it's not.  Ha.)  After one particularly grueling 3-hour course on mental disabilities and the prejudices of mainstream society and narrow definitions of "normal," as we were leaving class, my friend said something hilarious to me and I blurted out - in front of the instructor, God, and everybody - "YOU'RE SO RETARDED!" 

Yeah.

Miraculously, I passed the class.

Consider that the back story.  Let me also say though that last week one of the places we visited had an adorable petting zoo area.  There was one section holding a mama wild boar and her babies:

 
They were contained by a fence that wasn't very tall, maybe a little lower than waste level.  I easily bent down and loved on them, only to see a boy next to me, maybe 10 years old, in a wheelchair.  He resolutely wheeled it as close as he could to the fence, then leaned mightily against his restraints, fingers flexed as far as they would go, and he could barely rub the tip of their fur.  This slayed me.

But the point of the blog is this, unfortunately:

A new activity that G and I tried was Stand Up Paddling (SUP).  Let me just say that it rocks.  We took a private lesson with an instructor who taught us the basics, then led us up and down a lazy inlet before taking us out to sea.  If you get the chance, definitely try it.

As we were navigating our way (precariously) down the inlet, we saw several kayakers headed our way.  They were all over the river, laughing and going every which way.  As we got closer, their instructor yelled to them to get to one side, that there were paddlers coming.  They were a rowdy bunch, splashing and spraying everything in sight.  As they passed us, I noticed that all of them were wearing serious shades, I mean, like horse blinders.

They all wore black masks that I thought were blindfolds of some kind.  I've learned over the years to never underestimate Hawaii's ability to complicate or heighten the "crazy" level of any activity, so I naturally assumed these kayakers were taking part in some kind of blindfolded race.

As our instructor passed theirs, I overheard just a tad of their conversation, mainly consisting of both of them talking about how awesome and cool the kayaking was.  Once they were behind us and we were scooting along, this was our conversation:

Instructor:  (shaking her head)  Wow, that's just really awesome.  Unbelievable.

Me:  What?  The kayakers?

Instructor:  Yeah, I mean, can you imagine?  How great is that?

Me:  You mean, how great is the...what?  The kayaking?  Did you see them with the masks?  What a colossal waste of an experience, you know?

Instructor:  (Looking at me in disdain.)

Me:  I mean, what can they possibly see with those masks on?  Doesn't that defeat the whole point of going kayaking in Hawaii?

Instructor:  (Still looking at me in disdain.)  They're wearing masks because they're blind, dumba$$.

Me:  Oh!!  Right!!  I just thought they were wearing blindfolds!!

Instructor:  (Disdain has evolved into more of a loathing.)  Well, yeah they're blind.  What kind of an idiot would kayak with a blindfold on?

Me:  (Gulp.  Sweating excessively and trying not to fall off the board.)  Right!  Totally.  I have NO PROBLEM WITH BLIND PEOPLE!

Instructor:  (Icy silence.)

G:  (Swooping in like a knight on a beefed up surf board)  Really, B is very nice!

Silence.

G:  As long as you're not disabled.



Now would be the time to return to that first paragraph.