Travelling blind

I'll not try to record the last few weeks, because for a variety of reasons I'd have to conceal what really happened to the point of lying. Instead, here's a vignette encapsulating something of what I discovered through my travels. We shared about four days with a group of people with disabilities with whom we did various workshops depending on our choice. I chose the 'story theatre' workshop which involved using action to overcome the language barrier. I was a pretty feisty cat at one stage, but my finest hour was waving as a tree in the dramatisation of the healing of the blind man gospel story. A native Canadian flitted around me the tree, she the busy bird. During our getting into the story exercise, we had to entrust ourselves into the care of another, being led around the room with eyes closed. I was paired up with a young German guy called Max who travelled around the large hall at a fair pace, up and down ramps and round corners with confident aplomb. I had to resist the urge to open my eyes on at least three occasions, each moment of resistance becoming a deepening of the trust that I was giving him. I was a bit concerned that I was twice his normal height and that he might forget that. As it turned out, he guided me perfectly.

Most impressively, there was a moment that I will never forget. It involved one of the Polish group, a guy whose name I can neither pronounce nor spell, roughly 'Bezek', who hadn't been paired off yet to do the exercise possibly because of his difficulty controlling his own movements which were jerky and unpredictable. I believe he may have had cerebal palsy. Finally, the leader of the 'theatre' asked Bezek to pair off with him. He closed his eyes and Bezek began to lead the leader around the room. His movements jerked into life and through the seemingly aimless gesticulations his direction became apparent. He pulled the leader with him. Soon, I feared that he was leading him straight into a small brick wall on which the leader would bash his shin. But, like a little miracle, Bezek stopped, went around the other side, and physically forced him away from that direction, just enough to get him past the wall. This continued for the several minutes with Bezek managing, through his own confused movements, to control successfully the path of the leader back to the centre of the group again. Bezek smiled broadly and we clapped. How my preconceptions, so little known to me, were challenged and changed at that moment.

Another of the group who was in a wheelchair had the responsibility for driving around a man called Teo, who had almost no motor activity at all. She would control his chair from the back and, holding on, his chair's motor would take both of them around. But rather than being treated with pity, Teo was treated just like any other person, and during our dramatisation of Hansel and Gretal, Teo played the house who would be cleaned dutifully by the wicked stepmother. And he smiled when it was his turn to be praised. Later, we played Snow White, and I had to tell a girl in a wheelchair that Snow White was a thousand times more beautiful than she would ever be. She semi-smiled with philosophic patience, seeming to know that it was really nothing personal, even though it was a line that had to be translated into two other languages. We gave a performance at a party to close our time together, and as well as Hansel and Gretal, we sang Freres Jacques in four languages.

Other workshops included a Circus, painting, music and sculpture. The day after our workshops we walked to a Way of the Cross. We took turns pushing those in wheelchairs through a forest and about four hours later we arrived and had lunch. In the afternoon, we did the Stations in a specially designed outdoor walk. The most impressive thing for me was the contentment with going slow. I had decided that everyone would naturally want to keep pace with the others, but Max was content to travel slowly, and safely, and reflect upon the way that he would never normally get to see. Normally, this annual pilgrimage to the outdoor Stations had to be done by bus as there wouldn't have been such helpers. From this whole experience, the concluding idea that I personally received was to: slow down and be content to carry my cross.