disabled child

I heard him before I saw him.  I was in the men's locker room at the Y when I noticed a falsetto voice singing indistinctly.  I've heard singing in the showers before, but not at that pitch.  I wondered.

When I was heading to the pool, I saw him, together with an older man, in the shower, both naked.  The elder was washing the younger, and I realized.  This was father and son, and the son was intellectually disabled.  The dad was providing loving care, and the son was singing in response.  It was such a beautiful sight that I had to turn away.  But I was grateful to notice such love.

Later, I told the father I was so glad he brought his son to the Y.  He was initially startled, as if he wondered what sort of comment this might be.  But then he relaxed and told me that his son was 25.  I told him his boy had a beautiful spirit, and that I was glad to be in their presence.  As I looked at the young man, the father thanked me.  I waved at them later in the parking lot as they were driving home together.

I reflected first on Joseph and Jesus.  In a sense, Jesus was "disabled".  He had emptied Himself of His abilities as God.  He chose a human life that was disabled from the very beginning, born in a stable, a refugee in Egypt, a misfit in his hometown - never married, never became the rabbi he should have become.  In a sense, Joseph, as long as he lived, was taking care of a disabled son.  And I imagine that Jesus also reveled in his father's love even as He did in that of His Heavenly Father.  

And then I thought of myself and all of us.  We, too, are disabled by sin in and all around us.  We're so limited in our capacity to understand and communicate with our Father in heaven.  But He, too, loves us so, providing for us and caring for us both to will and to work for His Good Pleasure and for our benefit.  

Perhaps you and I need to learn how to sing in the showers of Grace which God rains down upon us, making our own joyful noise in the care of such a Good, Good Father.