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Good  morning. 

Today is the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities. It aims to promote awareness of the issues faced by people with disabilities, and work toward a more inclusive society. 

The title is deliberate: 'Persons with disabilities.' The focus of the day is not disability, but people. 

It's easy to lose sight of the person if we're fixated on the disability. Often we're too busy fielding our own reactions to engage with the person behind the missing limb or the disfigured face. 

I work in a busy hospital, where something similar can happen. It can be easy to overlook the person, when practical demands crowd in. People have a life in the community outside of hospital – teacher, executive, pilot, granny -  and can easily feel themselves stripped of their status and identity, and reduced to a bed-number in a unisex nightgown. 

In recent years, the health service in Britain has resolved to become increasingly 'person-centred.'  This means putting the person, not the illness, at the heart of healthcare. It means treating patients as people not as problems, and respecting their humanity and autonomy. 

People with disabilities are owed the same care and respect. Every one of us is a person, and we would all like to be treated as such. Disabilities don't disqualify us. If we're not already familiar with physical limitations, or mental impairment, it's likely that one day we will be, whether through age, illness, or accident. 

And for many of us, an honest, inward glance will reveal our hidden struggles, as we seek to live with our wounded and fragmentary selves. 

So I pray: Lord, help us to befriend our limitations; to understand the struggles faced by others; and in our shared humanity to find unexpected reservoirs of joy. 

Amen