Taken from paradoxum a mystical place where
'a gentle tongue can break bones' ~ king solomon
be sure to visit someday
Betty Joyce...
"...the Iroquois Indians attributed divinity to retarded children, gave them an honored place in the tribe, and treated them as gods. In their unselfconscious freedom they were a transparent window into the Great Spirit - into the heart of Jesus Christ who loves us as we are and not as we should be, in the state of grace or disgrace, beyond caution, boundary, regret, or breaking point."
In that moment on the airplane, after reading those lines, it struck me...
Betty Joyce was an icon of Jesus Christ.
I first met Betty Joyce when I was a young boy...probably 8 or 9 years old. She lived with her parents in a house that abutted our churches parking lot. My family lived in a parsonage on the other side of the parking lot so we were backyard neighbors...kind of. Betty Joyce lived with her parents...Betty was mentally handicapped............
(Read rest of post at
http://www.paradoxum.squarespace.com/journal/2006/5/26/betty-joyce.html)
That was a wonderful post. I had heard from Native artist, Bill Brissette, that some native people revered developmentally disabled children. Bill created a beautiful painting of my son Josh (20 years old in body 1 year old in mind, infinite in spirit). Bill took a scribble that Joshua had made on a canvas and developed a painting that told a wonderful story. It showed an empty cross with a blood soaked cloth drapped over the arm (my son's scribble was the outline of the cloth). Joshua was dressed in buckskin, sitting in a rickety wooden wheelchair (circa 1860), an arm reached past the cross to my son and was gently lifting him to his feet. It spoke to me about Jesus reaching across barriers of time, space, culture, race, disability and prejudice and false valuations of all kinds. I thot that was so true. Jesus has come to erase the barriers and to make us accept and love one another as Betty Joyce modeled so powerfully for you.
Sadly instead of taking down the dividing wall, we (the church) have erected new barriers and walls of condemantion and exclusion.
We need to rediscover Jesus in the least of these, that will be redemption.
Thank you Frank for introducing me to Betty.
She and her story are beautiful to me.
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Hi im new here. I came upon this message board I have found It very helpful & its helped me loads. I should be able to give something back and support other people like its helped me.
Thanks a load, See You About.
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