Rosalie Sugrue has provided some more resources for Disability Sunday, comprised of poems, prayers, and a children’s story written by her self and and another Kiwi writer, Trish Harris, and included in a new book issued last year entitled A Child Laughs: Prayers for Peace and Justice.
Unfortunately we cannot include all the material here, but we can provide you with a pdf here.
A personal prayer/poem
THE CARRIER AND THE CARRIED
I don’t notice your disability anymore. …. It’s
just something you carry with you, she said.
….
I carry it with me
like a handbag
swinging loosely by my side
pick it up
put it down.
A handbag
I never lose
and never replace.
I carry it on me
like a cotton shirt
on a summers day.
Wind easing its finger
between skin and fabric
billowing it out
pulling it too
playing at separation
but the buttons hold tight.
I carry it in me
channels
carved deep
by a river
always in flood.
I carry it through me
like the weight
of a name
for a child never born.
A presence
and an absence.
I carry it with me
on me
in me
and through me.
I am the carrier
and I am also
the carried.
A blue tear
filled with gold.
Public Prayers (Approach)
Loving God,
We acknowledge that regardless of health,
attitude, appearance or status,
we are people marred by imperfections.
Grant us the strength to manage our infirmities
with wise caring, good humour, and gratitude.
Help us use whatever we have to become
more insightful to the conditions of humans,
and more attentive to matters spiritual.
Save us from falling victim to self-centredness
– a malaise that preys on the fit and the unfit
that left unchecked is more soul destroying
and more binding than any physical aberration.
In the loving of others may we find perfection. Amen.
A story for children of all ages
The Tiny Town of Tontevoc
The tiny town of Tontevoc nestled in a sunny valley beside a sparkling river. It was surrounded by green fields backed by snow capped mountains. Everyone lived in a warm house and no one went short of anything they needed. Instead of enjoying the good things they had the children of Tontevoc School were discontent. Each child thought some other child was more fortunate.
One child owned a pony and another had a magnificent tree house. There was a girl who could run like the wind. Her brother could sing like angel. Their cousins were exceptional at tennis. There were twins who looked alike and often argued. A boy who painted beautiful pictures lived with his grandmother. The family of four played boisterous games and got to sleep in bunks. The cleverest girl in the school wore thick glasses. Her sister was very pretty. One child lived in a grand house and had many toys. And, there was a boy who limped and had to use a crutch.
One day the Wise-woman of Tontevoc visited the school holding a bunch of floating balloons. … [See page 4 of the pdf file for more …]
.
money saved to buy a donkey. His purchase was a young animal, a colt only just independent of its mother. The donkey appeared to have a placid temperament, seemingly unconcerned by all the attention it was generating. The village children in particular were excited by the donkey’s arrival in their midst. They chattered noisily as they gathered around the creature, patting its back, scratching behind its ears, and poking handfuls of grass towards it, which the donkey obligingly munched upon. Their excitement was mirrored by old Caleb’s, although he didn’t show it so audibly. At long last he would not need to struggle up the hillside, bent double by the weight of the bundle of willow sticks gathered from the valley floor, which he needed to carry up to Bethphage to fuel his cooking fire. In fact the donkey would be able to carry many more sticks than he could manage, so he would not need to go down into the valley and climb back up to his home so often. Then when the olives were harvested, he would not have to shoulder the baskets of ripe fruit to take to the oil press at Gethsemane, nor personally carry the jars of oil to the market place from there. The donkey was going to make a huge difference in his life. Living was going to become so much easier.
