By Rev. Deb Dysert
Associate Pastor at MCC Detroit
I recently had my teaching assignment changed. I was moved from a high school setting serving students with cognitive impairments (developmental delays) to a school building that serves students who are moderately to significantly delayed. My classroom is for students who are significantly delayed. I serve students who are 14 – 21 years old and they need constant supervision and assistance for the most basic of needs. Many of them are still in diapers and all of them lack the ability to effectively communicate with those around them.
I feel like I have been through a tornado of change. Changing buildings, administrators, students, co-workers, class materials and lessons, basically, every part of the job is new to me. Now, for someone who is challenged by change and doesn't always embrace it, you can imagine what the last couple of months has been like. As I reflect on all the changes I have been through, these issues are not the core of what troubles my soul, however.
I look at my students. I watch them and I question how judgmental I am. It began with a question. A simple question really. I looked at the student who is fascinated by the toilet water and plays with it, and the one who lays all day in a bean bag chair and hums, and the one who requires my arm to guide him down the hall (though he is almost a foot taller than I) and I began to ask God why. Why are these people living a life with such diminished quality? Where is the justice? It is one thing for people who choose the path they go on, but these people did not choose this. This is their one life and they live it with this existence. Where is their chance at quality of life? Why can't they enjoy quality of life? And then I had to stop myself.
God asked me a question one day, and I still can't answer it.
Who defines quality of life?
There is that simple question, that is not so simple. Do we define quality of life for ourselves or for others? If we define it for others, then what is the meter we use to make the judgment? Do we define it as compared to what we have enjoyed, what has empowered and lifted us? Do we define it by the culture of our ancestry, the culture of the city/country we live in? Do we define it by our ethnicity? Do we define it by our lifestyle? Do we define it by our religious beliefs? Do we define it by our gender? Do we define it by our class? What is the meter we use?
Last summer I was taking a class that afforded me the opportunity to spend time thinking outside the box on a multitude of issues. One such issue was the requirement imposed on women across our globe to wear specific clothing items such as the hijab worn by Muslim women, wimples worn by Christian nuns, snoods often worn by married Orthodox Jewish women, and burqa's worn in northern Afghanistan. We had stimulating discussions about the "rights" and "justice" involved. What really rose to the surface for me during that discussion was the same question I have been wrestling with…who defines quality of life for someone else? Sure, from our vantage point we have strong feelings, but is it fair to look at it from our vantage point? Those women don't live their lives from our vantage point. Maybe they are comfortable with the boundaries they are living in. Maybe they would not welcome another way to live. Who is to say that our way is the right way? Maybe they are living a life with quality.
My students…I come back to the question again. They don't know the enjoyment of getting in a car and driving off by themselves and feeling the independence that I feel. They can't cook something for themselves, or choose to go to a movie, or get lost in a good book, or be stimulated by a healthy discussion. And yet, do I dare assume that their life is not quality? They don't have to work to pay a mortgage or rent. They don't have to be watchful of the economy, or wonder if there is enough money for groceries, or who to vote for in the election, or what is happening with their 401K, or their savings account, or if they can get in for the next nail appointment in time for the big party. Who, I am asked, is enjoying quality of life? Them or me?
For the moment, I am still wrestling with this simple question. I have come to some conclusions that help me make some sense of it. If I only define quality of life by all that I hold dear, all that I believe, all that I experience, I leave out vast numbers of people. People that God has created to enrich our world, our country, our culture, our cities, our neighborhoods, our families and me. If I diminish them in any way, I diminish me. When I judge someone, anyone, I diminish them and …I diminish me.
So the question for me remains.
Who defines quality of life?
Namaste
