My Body Is Not a Prayer Request Quotes

“We, the disabled, bear prophetic witness about what is true about the fragile human condition. If only the church would listen to us.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Everyone loves disabled people until we stop being inspirational and start asking for access needs to be met. Inertia is easier to handle than inclusivity.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“I don't want to be brave. I just want to be human.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“My disabled body is beautiful in its distinctiveness. My body might be more crooked than yours, but it has earned its spiky edges. My leg might be blue from lack of circulation, but it sparkles like sapphires. My nerves are on fire, but it is fire that releases the sequoia cones that germinate the forest. My spasms are sharp as ice, but ice is what regulates the ocean's tide. My disabled body is made of the same stuff as stars.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Maybe what needs healing isn’t my body, but society.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“The hardest part of being disabled isn’t the pain, it’s the people. It’s trying to explain.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“it can feel like there are so many things I cannot do that my friends take for granted, so many things that are taken away from me—as if I was promised a life on foot.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“I wish my teenage self could have met cool crips who are empowered and fierce not despite their bodies, but because of them.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Before you judge the disciples, you should know that a 2018 poll found that 67 percent of people feel “uncomfortable” talking to a disabled person.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Be eager to follow the lead of disabled people who are willing to do the heavy emotional labor of educating nondisabled about our access needs.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“I would like to be a full human and not just a metaphor. I would like to be me.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“How can I acknowledge my pain when people only want to praise my bravery?”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“I am not your metaphor. My body is not your symbol to use. My crippled body and lame leg do not give you permission to dismiss me as symbolic for whatever you find difficult. Being told over and over again that your body is immoral is exhausting. No, that meeting was not "paralyzing", or "crippling", or "blinding", unless it was physically paralyzing, crippling, or blinding.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“To blame the Bible for using disability as a metaphor for weakness is missing the point. Nowhere in the Bible does it command, "Thou shalt use ableist metaphors.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“If I showed you my scars, would that make me more human to you? If I paraded my degrees, would that make me more valuable to you? If I performed my trauma, would that make it more real to you? If I told you the the name of my diagnosis, would that validate it for you? Does my body need a name for you to include it, learn from it, love it?”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Without my hefty boxes of tests and scans, doctors don't believe my embodied experience. Diagnosis is an act of naming what I already told them was true. Diagnosis is a way to get them to believe me.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“I have the right to love my disabled body. To celebrate its miraculous ability to prove doctors wrong, time and again. To marvel at how it holds secrets that neurology is still discovering.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“My diagnosis doesn't get to determine the limitations of my life or the lyricism of my limbs.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Separate yet equal is never equal.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“The fire taught me that no amount of hard work or determination can "overcome" my disability and that there are people who will perpetuate ableism despite the suffering it causes me. That working twice as hard to prove them wrong only burned me out.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Late arrival, make-up tests, and accessible seating are all standard disability accommodations central to a student's ability to learn. These are not optional, nor should they be denied on the basis of cost, convenience, or ignorance.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Variation isn't just the spice of life; it sustains life. Variation allows organisms to survive. Instead of eradicating difference, we should celebrate it.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“This is what it is like to be disabled in an ableist world. We are erased from a society that never wanted us around and continues to use extreme measures to cure us instead of accepting us as we are.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Belonging shouldn't have the admission price of assimilation.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Those of us who are disabled are not just tolerated, we are invited, sought out, and celebrated in the kingdom of God.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“They create ministries to disabled people, casting us as a group of second-class citizens who must be segregated from the general congregation, never considering that disabled people have something to teach the broader community about living an embodied faith, never realizing that we are not objects of pity and charity but image-bearers with our own gifts to share with the beloved community.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Ableism is “a system that places value on people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, intelligence, excellence, and productivity.”2 It claims that some bodies are better than others.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“All humans bear God’s image, including us disabled ones.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“Ableism is “a system that places value on people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, intelligence, excellence, and productivity.”2 It claims that some bodies are better than others. It values people only for what they produce. It suggests our résumés and our GPAs are more important than our humanity. It withholds belonging until we prove we are worthy of it.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

“When someone courageously invites you into a more inclusive way, respond with grace. Listen, learn, and grow together. Focus on becoming a banqueter and not a bouncer. It might be awkward, and it will be messy, but it will be worth it. And together we can taste the banquet, and it is delicious.”
― Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church