Communicating without voice

SINCE September, I have lived with the loss of my voice.  Suddenly, with no previous experience, I became mute or nearly so.
I thought I knew about disability. In the 1980s, a condition greatly restricted the use of my limbs and I have used the visible signs, walking aids or electric scooter, ever since. But this was a whole new area. How do I do my work and live my daily life without a voice?
When I was first disabled, I needed to grieve as I recognised that my body would no longer work as I willed and certainly not as society expected. With my visible limitations, the chances of work, least of all in my own area, and the chances of keeping a social life seemed equally closed for good.
I have witnessed two social revolutions in my life: one in the 1970s opened doors to women and one in the 1990s opened them to disabled people. As a church member, I am sorry churches were scarcely to the forefront but they are learning from the wisdom God gives through society.
There is still far to go but at least society no longer makes so many unchallenged assumptions or decisions without consulting the disabled person. This requires the person to be realistic and everyone to be imaginative. It may involve the ways we are asked to contribute to society in a different context and also that the context is usually not offered. We need to disentangle what are actual barriers and what are assumptions.
On a personal level, there are practical consequences to my disability – physical access can be a real issue. But I recognise that God gives us more gifts than we can use in one lifetime and that humanity is endlessly inventive. The imagination two centuries ago of a blind teenager, the son of a French leather-worker, helps me every day. Louis Braille devised a touch alphabet, then machines were developed for it and these were the parents of the manual typewriter and ancestor of the keyboard.
A portable computer, the internet as a resource and email for communication have changed some boundaries. A scooter or wheelchair can make shopping, the post office, meetings, sometimes even social life, more achievable.
There are a few things that are genuinely out of bounds – these include professions like a firefighter and fundraising activities such as marathon running.
It is also important to make a distinction that easily gets lost in a recession – there are many ways to contribute to society. Many do not involve earning money but they may be vital to the well-being of others. It also provides occasions. Recently, a stranger, seeing my sticks, enquired who looked after me but was, in fact, desperate to talk about his disabled wife, whom people had stopped visiting now she was stuck at home. Teenagers find the opportunity to offer help when a high kerb prevents access. There are small children who ask why I use aids. The parents may be mortified but the enquiries are honest and important. They are at one end of the regular social context, while at the other are those who still cause avoidable pain or hours of disruption when ‘just for a minute’ they steal disabled parking places.
But losing my voice as well was a double disability. It had some entertaining moments, like when I visited a church and was assumed to be French. Unable to easily explain, I went along when warmly invited to prendre une tasse du café.
There are more complex matters for a Christian in ministry and all are called to some kind of ministry. God as the spoken Word is at the heart of our faith and speaking the word of God at the heart of tradition. The Gospels were preached long before they were written and heard rather than read by most people down the centuries. Speaking the Word, in the chance encounter, in the church group and in the media, are all parts of daily witness. I had to ask: how do we do it when silenced, not by political oppression, marginalisation or mockery but by physical limitations?
Living with disability can be painful and isolating but it can also be part of a spiritual journey. I was helped in the frightening early years by two Gospel events. One was Mary saying ‘yes’ to the humanly impossible and then overcoming all the social barriers placed in her way. The other was the time when we disabled God. Jesus on the cross, in enormous pain, in spite of what was done to Him, was still ministering to those around him. Disability, whether innate or socially constructed, is not in itself a barrier. What cannot be physically undertaken may be the opportunity to provide for someone else to have a role.
My voice will return in time, if not in the time I want. But, in the meantime, I have been asking how we as a society address voicelessness, make decisions over the head of the person at the centre and ignore the alternatives? How as a Christian do I follow a God who observes no barriers, who wants us to stretch our imaginations? Disability, however limiting and clearly not willed by God, contains elements of gift to others. How do we find them?
I have found myself confronted with the question of those I have overlooked. Are there people called to function in our world who cannot articulate in the ways we expect? We are learning to overcome racism, sexism, class constraints, language, accent and more. In the case of disability, a technologically able world is providing new opportunities. I find it a challenging, powerful exploration, a journey to a new destination.

Rosemary Power ministers in Clare
on behalf of the Methodist Church