We don't always need a voice

In Wales, we have a long and strong tradition of raising up orators. Firebrand preachers and politicians alike seem to have ascended to pulpits and soapboxes through the generations and been overtaken with ‘hwyl’, which is a peculiarly Welsh combination of passion, inspiration and gusto.

The history books remember the likes of Aneurin Bevan whose vision of health care, free at the point of delivery, dictated by need, gave life to our National Health Service in 1946. In similar reverential breath, we speak of the preachers who brought the fervour of Revival to communities across Wales at the turn of the 20th Century, taking the core of the Christian Gospel as their message of hope amidst the coal dust and choking smog of the mines and the factories. Regardless of whether those words are sacred or secular in tone, we give almost prophetic status to those who look beyond the obvious and speak of the everyday and what might be, with words of power.

I imagine the prophet Isaiah was just such a character, who viewed the world of his day through a different lens and with a different perspective. In chapter 35 of the Book of Isaiah, we hear a bold statement:

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”

Whenever I hear these words I think of a young man I know very well (we’ll call him David, although that’s not his real name) who has Autism. As a result, he is unable to communicate with words. It’s pointless talking to David about God freeing or liberating him from his condition, because he has no grasp of language. Yet David’s Autism is unique and simply part of what makes him the person he is.

Isaiah pulls no punches when he tells of God’s capacity to heal the blind, the deaf, the lame…even those who have no speech, and the prophet goes on to celebrate the joy and gladness that will banish sorrow and sighing for ever. That all sounds a bit too good to be true, when I think of David, whose family have never prayed for a ‘cure’ that might somehow ‘free’ him, to make him just like everyone else; simply because he’s loved and cherished just as he is, with a condition that’s shaped not only him, but also those around him.

Those who know and love David see the person, not the disability, and they see him as God sees him - in his completeness. God’s freedom at its most liberating has a sharp and sometimes radical edge, because it embraces us as we are, shaped and formed by our experiences of joy and despair that can turn our world upside down in an instant. God cherishes each one of us as unique and beloved; every one of us made in his image and likeness.

Fr Edwin Counsell