Helen R. Betenbaugh
(the prayer is excerpted from Betenbaugh's and Marjorie Procter-Smith's chapter in Eiesland and Saliers,
HUMAN DISABILITY AND THE SERVICE OF GOD: REASSESSING RELIGIOUS PRACTICE, Abingdon Press, 1998)
Creating God:
You made the sky,
clouds of purest white,
with rays of fuschia and orange and magenta at sunset,
and faces dear with the smiles of loved ones.
Today thousands were born without sight;
thousands more lost theirs because of injury or disease.
And it was evening and morning of another day.
Did you call this Good?
You made the finest sands,
snow to crunch under our boots,
fields of green grass,
cool on the soles of our bare feet on a hot summer's day,
and streams to hike alongside with loved ones.
Today thousands were born without feet or legs,
or with legs so twisted or spastic that they would never walk on them;
thousands more lost the use of theirs because of injury or disease.
And it was evening and morning of another day.
Did you call this Good?
You made the song of the birds,
the sound of waves lapping against the shore,
the warning wail of the siren,
music, the laughter of children,
and the tender words of loved ones.
Today thousands were born deaf;
thousands more lost their hearing because of injury or disease.
And it was evening and morning of another day.
Did you call this Good?
You made minds,
quick to invent the wheel,
to discover electricity,
to find a way to journey to the Moon,
and to fashion words of poetry for loved ones.
Today thousands were born with mental retardation,
with developmental or learning disabilities;
thousands more were rendered "incompetent," "vegetables,"
because of injury or disease.
And it was evening and morning of another day.
Did you call this Good?
Your hands pushed back the waters
to reveal the dry land,
And fashioned us from clay.
You made our hands to sculpt,
to move with grace like Pavlova or Baryshnikov,
and to caress the bodies of loved ones.
Today thousands were born with no hands or arms,
or with short stumps for arms and flippers where hands should be;
thousands more lost the use of their hands and arms
because of injury or disease.
And it was evening and morning of another day.
Did you call this Good?
You made us to sing,
to shout,
to laugh,
to communicate through important words,
and to speak from our hearts to the hearts of loved ones.
Today thousands were born without speech,
or with speech so difficult that it scarce can be uttered or understood;
thousands more lost the use of their voices
because of injury or disease.
And it was evening and morning of another day.
Did you call this Good?
You made a world of love,
of life shared in community,
of choices and decisions,
safe boundaries,
and relationships with loved ones.
Today thousands were born with autism
or other emotional illnesses;
thousands more entered the fog of emotional illness
because of abuse or injury or disease.
And it was evening and morning of another day.
Did you call this Good?
You breathed into us ruach, the breath of life.
You filled the world with the sweet perfumes of flowers.
You made us to breathe the tangy aromas of spices,
the scents of budding trees,
the incense arising from prayers for our loved ones.
You made us to taste the bread and the wine,
Body and Blood of your -- and our -- Loved One.
Today thousands were born so allergic that they cannot dare smell,
dreading the reaction to what they might suffer if they taste;
thousands more were made allergic
because of injury or disease.
And it was evening and morning of another day.
Did you call this Good?
