Presentation Given on Feb 24, 2009 

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I bet most of you get so used to using your eyes  you don’t think too much about people who can’t see and what life might be like when your eyes don’t work. That’s okay. Sometimes, I forget that not everybody gets to have a special helper dog with them everywhere they go and that not everyone’s computers talk to them and that not everyone can tell what shirt they’re pulling out of the closet just by touching it like I do. We all get used to how we do things. That doesn’t mean your way is better than my way. It just means I have to use my ears and hands to do things instead of using my eyes like you do. Lots of times, when we do missions work, we are around people who do things differently than how we're used to doing things. They look different and act different and talk differently. Its not that we're always right and they're wrong. It just means   we don't all look or act or talk the same. I want to talk with you a little about being around  people who are different from you in some way.   I'm going to tell you about how people act around me sometimes and what I wish they would do instead.

Its no secret to me or anyone else that I'm blind. I have this dog wearing a special harness who goes everywhere with me.  My eyes look different and  most people figure out pretty quick that  they don't work right.  The thing is, “blind is just one word that describes me.  Other words are stuff like, "Christian," "writer," "singer," "counselor," "friend," "aunt," and lots of others. I don't like eggs or mornings. I   like to make jokes.  I drink sweet tea. I meet really nice people all the time who  just take the blindness part as one piece of who I am and are interested in me as a whole person. They might feel a little surprised or uncomfortable at first, but then they get over it. They don't forget I'm blind, but they don't make it a big deal either.  Those are the kinds of people I like to be around. Some people will get stuck on the "blind" part of who I am and stay  there. They'll never try and learn anything else about me. They realize I can’t see, and then they do some weird things.

One thing some people do is get scared because they’ve never been around someone who is blind before. They don't know what to say or do so they just kind of freak out and try to get away from me.   I’ve never understood that because blindness isn’t a contagious disease. You won’t go blind because you stand too close to me in an elevator. Just because someone looks different from you or does some things differently, that doesn’t mean you have to be scared of them.    They're just people, not aliens from another planet. They have thoughts and feelings just like you do. Different types of people makes the world a more interesting place. If we all looked and acted the same,   life would be really boring. That’s what I think anyway. Different just means not what you're used to. It doesn’t have to mean scary. When you meet someone who is "different" from you, you get the chance to learn something new.  

Some people don’t get past the word “blind” when they meet me because they judge me based on what they think they know about what its like to be blind. They think things like, "Blind people can't work," and "All blind people wear sun glasses," and "All blind people know how to play the piano and need to touch other people's faces."  I think touching other people's faces is weird and I don't do that. Sometimes, people feel sorry for me. They think being blind means I must be stupid or that I can’t do anything for myself. They think there can’t be anything worse than not being able to see. I think lots of things are worse. These people that feel sorry for me do funny things like raise their voices at me or talk really slow or talk to me like I’m a two year old.   I don’t like that stuff too much. I don’t know why they think not being able to see means I can’t hear either. I never have understood that one. My eyes don’t work but my ears work really well. I don’t like for people to decide how smart I am or how much I can do before they even talk to me. They think they know, but they don’t. I think they’d be really surprised if I told them all the things I do because mostly it’s the same things they do. I live in my own apartment, go to work, check my email, do laundry, and all the usual boring grown up stuff. I  clean up after my dog, like going on dates with nice guys, and  watch TV, too.  That's another thing, its okay to use words like "watch" and "see" around me and other blind people. We use those words, too. 

I think its really important to get to know people before we judge them. I think it would be great if we could all be open to learning about what we don’t understand. That means getting information and taking the time to learn about people we don’t know. If we don’t do that, we might just get in our minds what someone is like and not take the time to find out if we were right or wrong. That’s sad because both of us might miss out on making a new friend. Missions work is about trying to look past what we may have always heard about certain types of people and trying to find out what is true and what they’re really like. A lot of times, we find out what we always heard isn’t really how things are.

Another thing people do that keeps them from getting past the word “blind” is to just start wondering how I do everything.  These people are really interested in that part of my life because  they can’t imagine how they would do all kinds of things if they couldn’t see. They're curious. I get that and know that I could be the only blind person they've ever met. I don’t mind explaining things or answering a couple questions. I’d rather people ask me instead of guessing because they’ll usually guess wrong. If someone is asking nicely, I appreciate that they want to understand me better. But sometimes, all someone wants to do is ask me about being blind. It starts to seem like what its like to be blind is all they're interested in knowing.  When I’m telling them how I do something they ask about, I try and say something about my job or my writing or something else to remind them there are other interesting things about me. 

Most of the time people will pick up on that and ask about some of the other stuff I bring up. I also try and ask people questions about themselves.  That can lead to an actual conversation. But some people  just have to  keep coming back to the "You can't see, so how do you...?" questions. After a few of those, I start getting bored. I start to think, “There are so many other things about me that you might think are really interesting, but you won’t know because you’re only asking about this one part of my life.”   That makes me sad sometimes and sometimes, it makes me mad. When I get mad, I want to say, “If you want to know all about being blind, go to the library and check out a book about it, or do a google search.” I want to say, "I'm sorry, are we having a conversation, or are you interviewing me for  an article about living with sight loss?" The nice thing to say is, "I feel like I'm being rude just talking about me. I haven't learned anything about you. I'd like to know something about you now." Sometimes, that works. 

When we meet people who do things differently than us, I think its okay to nicely ask questions because we want to understand them better, but its important to focus on more than just what makes them different from us. Its okay to try and find out what we might have in common with them, too. Some people come up and start talking to me about dogs. They’ll say they like my dog and then they start telling me about their dog and then we’re talking about something we both like. I ask   questions about what kind of dog they have and how old it is and what its name is and we’re having a conversation, not just one person asking all the questions and one person giving all the answers. Then, maybe we find out we both like pizza or   the same kinds of music or something. That’s how people start becoming friends. Sometimes, we think, “That person is so different from me. I bet there isn’t anything we have in common.”   Lots of times, we’re wrong about that but we don’t know because we don’t try and find out. 

I bet y’all have heard that verse from the Bible that says, “Treat other people the way you’d like to be treated.” We call that the Golden Rule. I think that, if more people would think about that when they’re around me, it would be easier for them to decide how to act. Most people, no matter where they’re from or how old they are or what they look like, want other people to be nice and friendly and want other people to get to know them. Pretty much everyone wants other people to let them be themselves and to accept them for who they are. That means you, me, someone who lives in a country far away, someone who has lots of money and someone who doesn’t have any money and people who can see and people who can’t see.

God made each of us and  we show His love by treating people with dignity and compassion. That goes for people we know and people we don't. It goes for people who  live near us and people who live far away. It means  we think of other people as  interesting and get curious about them and  appreciate how they are different while realizing we all have things in common, too. We all need food, water, clothes, and a safe place to live. We all need to see a doctor sometimes.  We all have families and people we care about. We all laugh and cry and we all need God.   Whether missions work is something  you do close to home or in a different country, I hope you'll always remember to treat people the way you'd want to be treated.