Handicaps And Spirit

WED., AUG. 21, 1985, 5:55 AM
FARM, STUDY

Handicaps are imperfections in structure or in functioning. The physical ones are those most easily identified, but obviously they can be evident in any of the dimensions of well-being. So there are people handicapped in spiritual warms, and I shall talk of such. But other handicaps can be opportunities for spirit to be evidenced and to grow mightily.

Cultures vary in their desires and capacities to deal with handicaps. There have been… and are… cultures that have killed or rejected handicapped people… while at the other extreme are peoples who have especially honored and cared for those who are imperfect. Most cultures are somewhere between, helping some and rejecting others.

You have a visual handicap. If you take off your glasses and continue to write as you have the image is very fuzzy, and smaller print would be impossible to read. But your glasses virtually negate the handicap. Your culture considers this a correctable handicap. Your hearing impairment is not as easily corrected, and this loss is troublesome at times.

If you truly lost either of these vital senses there would be a need for strong spirit. For example, if your hearing deteriorated further you would need to make this known to those around you and ask for their continuing assistance in speaking more loudly or in communicating in other ways. To admit weakness and still function well requires a strong spirit. Achieving the right balance between accepting the loss with serenity and zealously seeking correction or compensation requires wisdom, animated by spirit.

When you see a person with multiple handicaps, physical and intellectual, you feel uncertain about your capacity to function well if this had been your lot. These are true tests of spirit, sometimes freely accepted by an individual soul before this earth life commenced. Yet not all in such a state realize and accept this explanation for “why?” This shows that it is even more a test of spirit, with more possibility of failure to profit from a life marked by handicaps.

Fatness is a handicap that can be developed out of carelessness, irresponsibility, and, even, gluttony. You have some extra weight that is a mild handicap. And you are not willing to do what is necessary to reduce it. Be aware of effects on spirit… and know that it is spirit that must be the effective motivator. Lenore is approaching her greater handicap with more spirit this time. It shall not be easy, and spirit will be required to achieve the loss or to accept less than full “recovery.”

Thus you can see that the worst form of handicap is a weakness of spirit. For this not only is a disability in itself, but also the lack of capacity to deal with other handicaps. A handicapped spirit is one that has difficulty realizing purpose in life… one that does not have a strong sense of relationship with Me and with other aspects of creation… one that focuses excessively on self, which is not the way to increase the functioning of self. And for this handicap accepting of it is NOT a way to growth, as it can be for a physical handicap.