When Honour Meets Barriers

Tomorrow we gather to honour my curate, Sue at her thanksgiving service. 175 people have signed up. Our church fits around 140 – 150, and more will likely arrive. The hall across the road is our overflow space, livestreaming the service for those unable to fit in the church. It will be a big day. It should be. She was an incredible presence.

Privilege: The Invisible Barrier

Having a disability means I see other people’s privilege. It’s not loud or aggressive. It sits in the background of everyday life, unnoticed by the people who benefit from it, have no idea they do it, and pretend they don’t when they do something wrong. It is often an invisible barrier.

Presence vs Participation

Over the last few months I’ve written about equality and equity, accessibility and usability, independence and autonomy, and survivors and victims. These are topics that people often confuse, yet the gap between them is where disabled people live. Those gaps are important. The difference needs to be discussed. This time, I wanted to discuss presence vs participation.

World FSHD Day: A 2026 Reflection

World FSHD Day has arrived again. Despite posting on Facebook each year, I last wrote about it here in 2018, and looking back now is like opening a time capsule. I knew my condition and feared the future but didn’t understand it yet. I walked, even when it was difficult, constantly fell, experienced pain and vulnerability, and felt trapped in my body. 

My FSHD is different now. I no longer walk. I still fall, but it’s progressed to my core. The pain, vulnerability and trapped feeling have deepened in ways I never imagined. Everything I was worried about has now occurred and I've been living with it for several years. That’s the nature of FSHD. It’s not just degeneration, but progression.

Survivor, Not Victim

Being a victim and being a survivor sound similar, yet the difference determines how people treat you, hear you, and decide whether your story is valid. This difference has come up in several conversations recently, from ordination discussions, the current CoE safeguarding audit, and general chats. This has caused me to reflect on what I name, why I name it, and how I understand the harm I have survived.

Is Sunday or Monday the Start of the Week? How a Missed Meeting Exposed a Bigger Cultural Shift

A simple question about the first day of the week caused me to miss a meeting on Monday. My colleague from a charity I work with asked on Sunday afternoon what day I was free next week. I replied Monday, meaning the 27th. She meant the 20th. For me, Sunday was the first day of the week. Therefore, next week is the week after. Hannah then told me that Monday is the first day of the week, so next week on a Sunday afternoon meant tomorrow onwards. If I had known, I could have said no. It was our anniversary. That moment, however, sent Hannah and I into a deeper reflection on calendars, culture, the quiet loss of rest in modern life, and Hannah feeling she had been lied to her entire life.

Tackling Interpersonal Ableism in Church

 "The key to human flourishing is within Communities that flourish; at the heart of God in all of us. It is vital that the Church is equipped with the tools to respond effectively and with compassion.” 

The Most Revd and Rt Hon Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury

The realisation in my previous post on Ableism and of continued oppression within the timeframe of positive action hit hard.

The Driedgar quote "Disability is the Last Civil Rights movement coming after the liberation [of others]" was written over 30+ years ago and the subsequent movement focused solely on the socio-structural barriers at the expense of interpersonal.

The Disability Discrimination Act, 1995 and Equality Act, 2010 focused on employment and service discrimination and the biggest action for disability happened in 2010 and 2015 (building regulations); changing access for new dwellings and new publicly visited buildings, respectively. However, the movement then stalled.

Interpersonal discrimination such as Systemic, Internalized, Implicit and Explicit Ableism continued.