Hmmm....as an amputee, I found this site rather provocative. I've long thought about the dilemma that once my leg was taken, no amount of prayer would ever bring it back, would ever heal me. I realized that I'd never heard of someone miraculously being healed from amputation. Never.
Unlike with my father's cancer, where we felt that an exercise of faith could bring healing, there was never a mention of praying back my leg once it was cut off. Of course, many people prayed that my bone cancer (the reason for the amputation of my leg) would not spread. And it didn't. And many people prayed that I would learn to walk skillfully with a prosthetic limb, and this has more or less happened, too.
I think there is a part of me that has always resented God for not healing me from cancer before my leg had to be amputated. After it was taken, there was little I could do except reconcile the amputation into my Mormon worldview. To understand why God wanted me to be one-legged. Even after years of pondering and praying on this subject, it's not an easy thing for me to understand or to accept.
[Note added 10/17/06: I realize that the website I mention above is not really making a statement about amputees, but rather is trying show the fallibility and/or nonexistence of God. I take issue with the author of this website and they way that s/he casually uses the amputee body for his/her purposes and the way that this erases the agency of the amputee, casting him/her in a subject(ive) position. S/he could have used any number of other examples (e.g. why does God hate white people, because as much as they pray they can't turn their skin green?; or why does God hate 23 year-olds because no matter how hard they pray, the can't be 21 again?; and so forth. Though of course my examples sound ridiculous, they illustrate the way the 'logical' point the website makes about amputees is only logical because of the way our society devalues disability).]
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i know my situation is *very* different from yours, one big difference being that my situation could change. but i often feel like a part of myself is missing. and i have too often been angry at god for depriving me of that part of myself. in the moments when i obtain some clarity, some peace, i know that god does not want me to be missing part of myself. it just is what it is. not caused by god. not his fault. not a betrayal on his part. it just is. and i have the responsibility, or the challenge, or the opportunity, to learn to live as i am. and i believe i can turn to god for help in doing so. and i believe he will, and has, help(ed) me. if only i could hold to the moments of clarity longer. if only i could look at the missing part of me as an opportunity rather than a paralysis. i don't know if i'll ever reach that point, the point at which hurt is transformed into beauty. but i hope for it.
Thank you both PilgrimGirl and Amelia for sharing this. I think most people (including myself) have certain situations we wish God would heal and are forced to reconcile when healing does not occur. Some are just more physically evident than others.
I hadn't made that connection, Jana, even seeing you at Sunstone... wow.
Is it fair to say that the Mormon worldview you have is one where everything has a purpose?
Wow, Jana--that's quite an article. Really. I'll be thinking about it for quite a while.
Tea:
I'm not sure if I believe that everything that happens to me has a purpose as much as I believe that I can purposefully create meaning from my experiences. I know it's a subtle difference, but for me the difference is important because it changes the focus from trying to discern why God would allow/facilitate awful things to happen, and instead puts the onus on me to make meaning out of the difficulties of life, to use them as learning experiences.
It can be fair to say however that because God never chooses to heal amputees despite his omnipotence, that God is either limited or unethical. To those who argue that our suffering is a way of teaching us to become stronger - how many of you would accept a father doing this to his child to force the child to become a better person?
We wouldn't. We would see such an act as morally reprehensible. Yet we accept this of our omnipotent God.
Human life and health is far to previous to waste on the assumption that unimaginable suffering serves a purpose.
I think the point that the website is trying to raise, fundamentally, is about the nature of purported miracles. How cited miracles always fall within the scientifically possible, but no purported miracle is ever of something that is impossible. But since miracles by definition are supposed to be events that defy natural laws, then the suggestion is that miracles do not exist. I wouldn't infer from that anything about whether God doesn't exist, as such, though I suppose in a roundabout way it supports the "Epicurus" paradox.
Hello.
I came upon your site looking at the "Why does God hate amputees?" question. I noticed that you are LDS and wanted to leave the following verse and website for you.
"Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no savior."
Isaiah 43:10b-11. NIV
http://www.mrm.org
Thank you.
I am an amputee and since I have lost my leg, I have enrolled in college. I think that the perception of amputees as a bad thing is faulty. We were not promised anything here on earth but what we make. I think that people spend too much time blaming someone else for their issues.
I stopped to help someone with their car and got pinned...
No longer an uneducated truck driver... now I am an educated web designer and computer programmer... I invite people to complain but wont listen.
You know I thought about being a comedian because I like the ‘bright lights’ but I had second thoughts… It is not the crowds or even the pressure to perform but to walk up on stage… what is the first thing that they say?.... “break a leg”… yea. I would be screwed.
When I went to Doctor Shives in the Mayo Clinic to get it amputated he asked me “do you have any questions?” Now seeing the sincerity in his eyes I just had to break the tension so I had an idea “ok”, I said “when it is all said and done and they amputate it and it grows shut… I get my prosthetic… will I be able to dance?” In the doctors interest in not making me feel bad he replied with a long drawn out “Yea, I don’t see why not” and promptly I said with relief “good. I have never been able to dance before”
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