SHOULD I START A PODCAST EXPLORING ISSUES OF DISABILITY?

 

Earlier in my life, numerous people tried to lure me to central Canada and away from my little French town in the hinterland of western Canada. Perhaps the most tempting offer that I remember (it was a very long time ago) was being offered a job to host a national TV series the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was planning in 1990 (I told you it was a long time ago). The series was going to deal with issues surrounding disabilities and showcase the lives of Canadians with physical and mental challenges.

 

The CBC flew me to Ottawa to meet with a senior producer at an elegant restaurant who presented me with the idea. There was only one catch: I would have to uproot my family and move to Toronto or Ottawa (I can't remember which city) and leave our small town life. It was an extraordinary opportunity—to be sure—one of the best I was ever offered during my short career. I must admit that I was tempted. 

But the timing was wrong: My children were young and settled. Uprooting them would have been too disruptive to their lives. Besides, we had extended family near who needed us. I looked out the restaurant window while the executive producer for the series sat across the table waiting for my response to her offer to host the show. That still small voice inside me said, "Let it pass." Reluctantly I turned down the opportunity.

 

Dreams of grandeur were not mine to have. God planned something else for me: Quiet contemplation in the midst of physical struggle rather than a television show. To the world, God's plan might have seemed laughable compared to the lights and glamour of television. 
 Just over a year later my disability forced me to retire and live on a modest disability pension. My disease kept ravaging my body and forcing my type A personality into stillness and contemplation. Days, months and years, then decades, were spent convalescing while looking out my window as seasons passed. Successive generations of blue jays flew to the bird feeder in the backyard. My hair turned white. Grandchildren were born. That still small voice whispered, “Be open to love for in love you will find God.” I discovered it is true. The meaning of my life did not come in a thunder-clap of glory rather in a breeze and ordinary rhythms of life. Sometimes we see most clearly through eyes blurred with tears. 

Looking back now, as a 72 year old man, I think God wanted to use my disability and paralysis with aggressive MS to teach me something critically important that can only be learned in quietude: The art of true love (both human and divine). God wanted me to stay put and wait on Him.

_________________

Now, 35 years after the turning down my chance to host a national television program about disabilities where I could have taken my advocacy to Canadians across the nation, new technologies and new ways of communicating have emerged, I’ve decided to try and take a next step and try podcasting to complement the blog. What do you think?

Mark

A DIFFERENT KIND OF WITNESS FOR LIFE AND LOVE

 

I've have had multiple sclerosis for 37 years. There were times when the terror of neurological dysfunction seemed almost too great to bare. At the same time, I saw a well-orchestrated campaign by euthanasia/assisted suicide advocates selling the false idea of so-called 'death with dignity' to the public, politicians and the media.  I wanted life with dignity!  Death with dignity is not achieved by injecting someone with poison when they are at their lowest point. That is abandonment not dignity. Death with dignity is not an event, it is a process, the conclusion of having lived with dignity. 

Through my own tears and sorrow of adult-onset degenerative disability, I asked God what He wanted me to do with my situation? He told me not to focus on my own increasing disability but to reach out with a message. What was the message?  Every life is sacred and deserves to be loved, cherished and protected — even if they have ceased to believe that — especially when they have ceased to believe it! And so, I began to take that message to anyone who would listen, and wherever God opened doors. Boy, did He open doors! 

For more than 20 years, I spoke across North America—from Victoria to Prince Award Island in Canada, Boston to Los Angeles in the U.S., from Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon to New Orleans. I spoke in small towns and big cities, to schools and universities, community groups and churches, politicians and government committees. As time passed, travel became increasingly difficult as my disability worsened. Eventually, travelling became so difficult I had to retire from speaking. Then, something else began to weigh on me.

I felt led to write an autobiographical feature length screenplay about my life. I called it TRANSCEND: A Journey Toward Love. Although it deals with abortion, it is not a story about abortion. Yes, it deals with severe disability, but it is not primarily about disability. It obviously deals with euthanasia and assisted suicide, but it is not a story about those things either. TRANSCEND is a love story, the heartbreak and transcending love story of my wife, LaRee, and I, spanning half-a-century as we slowly and painfully gained an ever deepening understanding of love (both human and divine). With God's help, our love transcended our circumstances.  

Then something wonderful happened. I prayed—as I had so often done throughout the years—that if it be God's will, could He raise me from the electric wheelchair I had been in for 16 years. I prayed that if it was His will that He would let me walk again and regain the use of my right arm and hand. It would be enough; even for a short time, even if I needed canes or a walker. In His loving providence, God did raise me out of my wheelchair and walk—albeit on weak and atrophied legs. He returned the use of my arm and hand. I've been walking for close to two years. I hadn't been able to hold anything in my right hand for a quarter of a century, so I began to pen love letters (I'm right handed) each day to my wife. But I had already finished the screenplay.  

It was necessary to rewrite the ending of the script to include this miracle. I knew many people would not believe something so dramatic and unexpected, but it had to be included. I sent the revised script to my friend Joni Eareckson Tada, an internationally renowned Christian disability advocate and prolific author, for her feedback.  She loved it! She gave it her strong endorsement (a copy of it is at the bottom of this post).  

The film industry is hard to break into, particularly for an old man who's never written a screenplay. Most producers won't give an unsolicited screenplay a second glance, and it was no different for me. 

Fortunately, a man who has been involved in Hollywood's movie industry read the script. Frank Eik liked it so much he wants to see it made into a movie. He sent the screenplay to a professional script reader in Hollywood for a critique. He helped me make recommended alterations, corrections and edit the script to tighten the story line and give it some "polish." Mr. Eik will now present TRANSCEND: A Journey Toward Love to a Christian movie producer he knows in Hollywood for consideration. The Director of Content for Pure Flix, a Christian movie streaming service, has also asked to read the script. Will it be made into a movie? I don't know. 

I believe LaRee's and my story is worthy and unique, but I'm biased.  If not, the exercise was educational and cathartic for me. That's worth something. 

FROM PHYSICAL BROKENNESS CAN COME SPIRITUAL HEALING

God can use us in any circumstance in which we may find ourselves, even dire circumstances. Dire circumstances and pain are teachers, if we listen for God's voice. I have been chronically ill and physically disabled with severe multiple sclerosis for over 36 years—more than half of my life. Strangely, I have been more use to God disabled than I ever was able-bodied. It was at a certain point of disability and sorrow that I asked God what He wanted me to do? He led me to speak out across North America about disability inclusion and against an emerging cultural acceptance of euthanasia.

And so from 1994-2018 I spoke to anyone who would listen to what I had to say. I spoke to community groups, colleges and universities, politicians at provincial, state and federal levels, evangelical and Catholic groups, churches, medical professionals, disability organizations, legal organizations—literally anyone and any place that invited me. Unless speaking about public policy in government settings, I used every opportunity to witness for Christ. Today, I was sent a link to a 2016 presentation I gave in Ottawa, Canada, to the annual conference of the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF). They asked me to speak on the subject of "I AM MORE THAN MY DISABILITY." Click on image below. 

[NB: Notice the first inklings of my useless right hand awakening from MS paralysis.) I did not know then that a prayer not yet prayed was being answered ever so slowly. By 2019 I was walking after decades of paralysis in my legs, and regained full function of my right arm and hand.)

 

LOVE THAT KNOWS NO BOUNDS

Read Mark Davis Pickup's lastest blog posting Love That Knows No Bounds. Go to http://markpickup.org

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES MARKED BY CONFLICTING MESSAGES

The United Nation’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities will be observed globally on December 3^rd 2011. Canadian advocate for disability inclusion, I applaud UN initiatives to ensure people with disabilities have a voice in their communities and countries as well as inclusion and full equality rights.  Although Canada has made strides in areas of accessibility, citizens with disabilities are getting mixed messages.  This past October the House of Commons gave its unanimous support to a National Suicide Prevention Strategy and now in November the British Columbia Supreme Court is considering a challenge (Carter case) to whether Canada’s law against assisted suicide should be overturned for the terminally and chronically ill and disabled.

I am chronically ill with aggressive multiple sclerosis (MS) and is electric wheelchair dependent. The Carter case is meant for people like me!

Let’s understand the message people like me will hear if the BC court rules in favour of the assisted suicide lobby. The healthy population should receive suicide prevention when suicidal. The old, sick and disabled get help committing suicide.

Canada’s laws must protect people from euthanasia and assisted suicide. I believe that laws and public policy must promote life with dignity for people with disabilities through supports for Canadians with disabilities to reach their full potential as individuals and citizens. Ensuring access to education, transportation, appropriate housing, recreational opportunities and other forms of reasonable accommodation can help full inclusion in society.

Mark Davis Pickup
MPickup@shaw.ca

Bodies of disabled sold in China

Sometime disturbing to my attention by Dr. Dick Sobsey, the Director of the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada). Apparently, there is a demand in China for the bodies of disabled people. See http://icad.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/hong-kong-murder-for-corpse-ring .

It’s ironic that in the wake of Paralympics hosted by China that various news sources have reported a gang in Guangdong province has been arrested for kidnapping and killing between 100-400 people with disabilities. Their bodies were sold on the black market to wealthy families who want to bury their own deceased. Cremation is the only legal way of dealing with the dead in China so they present for cremation the corpse of the disabled person they purchased for about $1,500 Cdn.

Apparently Chinese tradition considers cremation disrespectful. This is why wealthy families buy murdered bodies of people with disabilities to present for cremation instead of their loved ones.

Not only do China’s disabled live low and desperate lives but the final insult to their existence is given in death. (I don't know why I'm singling out China!)

Dr. Sobsey said, “If this story isn't disturbing enough, it is almost as troubling that Reuter's and Time have covered this story in sections of their publications reserved for quaint curiosities and silly oddities rather than serious news.”

We should not be surprised. That’s the way people with disabilities have been treated throughout history? Curiosities and oddities.

Mark Pickup