Disabilities are gifts

There are movements among people with disabilities to reject labels like "disability" and "handicap." I think I understand that feeling, and I agree with it, except I don't agree with throwing out the word "disability" altogether. A person who can't see with her eyes or hear with her ears, does not have an ability that some other people have. One point I see is not to reduce a person to that label. Another is not to think of it as a defect, any more than being left-handed. I go beyond all that and view disabilities as gifts.

Today or yesterday, I became more aware of the lack of a living Guardian in the Baha'i Faith, as a disability. If it is, then it is also a gift, and that could be the explanation everyone is looking for, for why this happened.

Reviewing again what Shoghi Effendi said the Faith would be like without a Guardian, this time, for me, there was no escaping that what's been happening to the Faith is exactly what Shoghi Effendi said would happen without a Guardian. Yes, yes I'm familiar with the argument that he didn't mean it that way, but whether he meant it that way or not, it looks very much to me like it *is* that way.

At the same time, I can see the gift in it, which I don't see any need to discuss now, and besides I don't feel like discussing it.

No, I'm not promoting a Guardian after Shoghi Effendi, or even contemplating it. I have not seen enough fruits coming out of those trees to attract much of my attention. Just because the Faith looks disabled to me without a living Guardian, doesn't mean I'm ready to accept anything that moves, in the place of one.