A morning at the gym turns into an important conversation
“Is there any place in the world where you want to go?” she asked.
This is the question I was asked towards the end of last year as I waited in the gym lobby after finishing my workout. Because I have Friedreich’s Ataxia (FA), a rare and progressive neuromuscular disease, a consistent and intentional exercise routine is a must.
The young woman who made the inquiry had the working relationship with me of people who go to the gym at the same time. The lobby is a good place to hear updates and learn more about the happenings of my gym friends. What I learned from her is that her parents were former missionaries to Tibet, and she had just spent Thanksgiving break there.
As her mother approached to pick her up and see who this strange guy in a wheelchair talking to her daughter was, I proceed to answer the question.
Since it is a fairly common question for one to ask another, I knew my response and replied, “No, being in a wheelchair, I don’t realistically think about going anywhere else.” But because she was so young—and I have nieces her age—I thought it best to offer an explanation for what might otherwise be regarded as negative and self-depreciating.
When I was in graduate school, I had a Japanese peer with whom I shared some affinity. He used a wheelchair, and upon arriving to class would pull up to a seat and transfer. I understood it because, likewise, I would come to class in an electric scooter, park in the back, and upon unstrapping a walker from behind the chair, I’d make my way over to a seat.
One day, I had a conversation with the fellow before class, and he told me how blessed I was to be born in America. As someone with Polio, growing up in Japan was not easy. The endless amount of stairs and inaccessibility of everything made it nearly impossible to partake of life in a community, and a disabled person would be othered and put in the place of a invalid as a result.
In contrast, it is so easy to be a disabled American. Almost everything is wheelchair accessible, and a disabled person is able to enjoy the basic aspects of life from relationships, work, and leisure.
The conversation I had with the Japanese guy began to change my perspective on my experience as a disabled person, and I related the story to the young woman and her mother at the gym. And since the conversation with my peer in Introductory Hebrew, I’ve done some investigating on the American Disability Act (ADA) and tried to grasp such a piece of legislation.
The American Disability Act (ADA) is a bill unique to our time and place in world history. Signed into law in 1990 by George H. W. Bush with the words, “Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” It is a civil rights law for the disabled, and I have lived its benefits.
A key word for legislation like the ADA is dignity. Equal dignity is what undergirded the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it is the bedrock principle of Western civilization of man’s creation in the image of God that has proven to be a path forward through the moral failures of America’s past. The ADA follows the same basic principle of equal dignity. And if one had to pick one positive word to describe America, compassionate should be amongst the finalists.
But as time goes on, I am still trying to grasp things about my unique American experience. On the one hand, it is written somewhere, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” So goes the basis for the American emphasis of equal dignity under the law.
But on the other hand, America is a nation that grounds its principles in natural law no longer. Until his death in 1952, John Dewey preached “a common faith” of scientific principles that would lead to human advancement through the evolutionary process. In such a view, there’s not even a grounding for human uniqueness. So what basis is left for an idea like equal dignity other than historical observation of what might lead to a flourishing society? Or is the basis for societal ethics a purely subjective individualism? These polar opposites have even been bridged by the emphasis on empathy in human development to give it a scientific flair.
In an age where survival of the fittest and the appeal to “my truth" are both plausible claims, there are vague notions of equal dignity under the law and human compassion remaining. And it is not just in America where such ideas are sometimes seen, but broadly speaking, it is the whole of Western civilization.
It was Thomas Aquinas who described theology as queen of the sciences, and it once provided a basis for the Western search for knowledge of the natural world. Man’s creation in the image of God and a definite understanding of natural law based upon the Bible provided a grounding for the Protestant Reformation, the social reforms and end of the slave trade spearheaded by William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln’s leadership in the eradication of slavery in the United States, and Martin Luther King Jr. and his significant role in the formation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
And in a most untimely day of 1990, when America had long abandoned its principle of natural law, George H. W. Bush signed the American Disability Act into the law of the land. Maybe he did as a tribute to the tradition of our nation and her founding principles.
But on that morning at the gym in November of 2025, I went out a door that swung open for me, went down a ramp so I didn’t need to navigate the curb, and I wheeled over to the handicapped spot for my wheelchair accessible van. It was time to go home and get things done.
For whatever reason Bush signed the ADA, it shows God’s sovereign control and rule over the nations. He directs the hearts and minds of world leaders for the providential care of his people. And if the Western world thinks they have found a way to substitute a transcendent moral law with scientific or individual authority, then they have shown themselves to be but pawns. God’s compassionate care extends today, tomorrow, and forever.
