Fr. John at the Louisiana Center for the Blind

LOUISIANA ARTICLE

For two weeks in January I did nothing extraordinary.

I walked through the streets of a small town in northern Louisiana and learned the geography of the town. I cooked meals, sewed buttons, cleaned and learned to tie a Windsor knot. I used power tools in a woodworking shop, worked on my reading and writing, and learned new ways to use computer programs. I went to parties, went shopping, went to church on Sunday, and attended seminars and a meeting of Toastmasters.

And I did it all as a blind man, wearing sleep shades. I did it in the company of 30 other men and women who are blind, either totally or with partial sight. I did it with teachers who are mostly blind (a few have sight). All the students are taking the 9-month version of the program I was in, and where I walked blocks, they learn to walk miles. I did small projects in the wood shop, and they will design and build their own projects, including grandfather clocks and chests and jewelry boxes with drawers. I cooked four or five dishes, they will have worked their way through a complex series of cooking projects, including producing a meal for 8 and a meal for 40, planning and cooking and serving, and staying within a budget.

What’s important is that all of this is nothing extraordinary. That’s the philosophy of the Louisiana Center for the Blind where I was a guest, and of several similar centers around the U.S. They believe that a blind person can do almost anything a sighted person can, with the proper training and occasionally modified equipment. There should be nothing unusual or extraordinary about a blind person cooking or building a grandfather clock, writing a novel or sending an email or going shopping.

That’s a philosophy I share. But saying that is one thing, and crossing a busy street when you cannot see, trusting on your ears and your training is something else. The first time I did it, it felt extraordinary. The first time I successfully cooked a meal while wearing my sleep shades, it felt, if not extraordinary, certainly as though I had accomplished something.

I am a Jesuit priest, and my current assignment is Chairman of the Xavier Society for the Blind in New York City. Previously I had served for 12 years in Nigeria, and almost three years in the South Pacific. Jesuits have a long tradition of taking God’s word to people all over the world, in many different ways That was my own experience as a missionary, and I found that this is exactly what the Xavier Society does. We bring God’s word in many forms from many sources in ways that make that Word accessible to a particular group of people.

For any missionary, the first step is to learn to speak the language. That means learning the grammar and the vocabulary, but it also means learning the culture and the customs of the place, and how to tell the story in ways that the local people can best understand. You should do this by living in the place, but sometimes all you can do is visit. While you don’t become a native by visiting a country or a city for two weeks, you can explore the basic geography, learn how to speak a few words, sample the cuisine.

So for two weeks in January, I went to the Louisiana School for the Blind. The program is designed for people who are blind, or who are losing their sight, and the skills that are taught are basic living skills to help the student become truly independent. Many of my sighted friends have no idea how to put a new belt on a vacuum cleaner, unclog a toilet or rewire an electrical plug. All the graduates of this program can comfortably deal with those problems. But what is really taught in all the courses is confidence based on experience. Students, whether 23 or 58, whether blind from birth or instantly blind as the result of an accident, leave with the confidence of knowing they can take care of themselves in virtually any situation. Graduates of this program go on to be counselors, to run restaurants, to start a consulting business, to get graduate degrees in different programs. None of this is extraordinary.

Sighted people do it every day, and that’s what my time taught me. When the day comes when sighted people take for granted that a blind person can navigate a New York City street, or cook a meal, or fix a toilet, we all will have taken a major step forward. On January 29^th of this year, a blind man drove a modified car around the race track at Daytona Speedway. The car did not drive itself; he drove the car. That was an extraordinary moment. Some day that a blind man drives a car may be no more extraordinary than a blind person playing golf, or designing and building a rocking chair, or running her own restaurant. All those things are being done today by blind people, and as technology provides more access to information and opportunity, blind people are, and should be, taking on more positions, accepting greater challenges, moving into positions of real leadership.

God willing, that will be nothing extraordinary.