Near the Point of Having a Plan

We are very close to having a plan!

This may sound strange considering that about 35% of our allotted time to be out of Ontario has passed. Just the same I feel that this is hard won real progress.

Before I left on this Tour I was deeply frustrated by what seemed to me to be a general failure on my part to get traction with the idea that there is no such thing as a disabled person. Other concepts that I have been instrumental in rooting in practice are more accepted, such as support circles. The idea has generally caught on that planning supports for the fuller participation of a vulnerable person ought to be centered on that person and their gifts. However the understanding of both “gifts” and “participation” is not sufficiently grounded in the related concepts of capacity and citizenship, and so the widely adopted use of person centred planning generally fails to allow labeled people to escape the disability paradigm.

And so my deep mission remains unfulfilled. Unusual people still get categorized as disabled, still are streamed into a segregated world where they have the role of “being helped” or worse, and still are vulnerable to being murdered to get rid of the “burden” on family, the economy and society.

In addition I have an intuitive grasp on a possibility that inclusion can lead to transformation in social and economic relationships. But making that possibility present and engaging to others continues to elude me.

The deepest reason for the Tour was to get me close enough to people on their home territory that I could have person-to-person dialogue about inclusion and what opens up for people who struggle to build it – in particular about how inclusion leads people to become more peaceful.

On Tuesday Gabor and I had lunch with a woman who has not met me before. She has over 30 years experience as a citizen advocate. She has had close relationship with two people who are considered to be disabled, one of whom became a friend and one of whom she considers challenging to know and relate to. As I talked about inclusion and how people report great personal benefits from it, in particular that they become more peaceful, her face lit up in recognition. She understood when I pointed out that this knowledge is understood on a personal, private level, but is not recognized or acknowledged on a public, policy or political level. I got my point across!

One on one strategies of engagement are a time honoured organizing practice invented I believe by Saul Alinsky and his colleagues. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I am experiencing some effectiveness. But the effectiveness is short lived if it is not followed up with founding a team or organization committed to building the insights and enthusiasm into strategies that will ground the energy into everyday practice.

While I was on the Year End Cruise I was confronted with how I have not yet fully stood behind my own mission. In other words, for all good reasons, I have been collecting the bricks and wood, the tools and the site, but I have not truly begun to build the house.

Beyond this I also have not yet fully taken up the leadership which can create a space for inclusion and peace to thrive and be fully adopted in the world. Instead I have been getting ready.

I think I am ready.

Several elements of a plan of action are emerging and over the next week or so, along with Gabor and others, I will flesh them out into a detailed project. This plan will include further research, reframing inclusion and personal assistance, and organizational building. I am imagining that I will be able to come home – wherever home turns out to be – with a new and effective capacity to bring the space of full citizenship for everyone to the world.

Judith