
Disability and Special Needs
If your family includes people with disability and special needs, you’re not alone. Whether you need practical ideas or the comfort of companionship, we’re with you. If you’re looking for a particular topic, check the index.


Why I find the Sunday of the Paralytic disheartening
Guest post by Monica Spoor The Sunday of the Paralytic is just behind us – it is in fact a week later – and I’ve had the week to discover that it made me upset again, and why. I’ve heard sermons on that Sunday for years, of course, and they’re not very different from...
Lent for families with special needs
I can tell Lent is coming. I’ve heard the stories of Zacchaeus, and the Publican and the Pharisee, and the Prodigal Son. I’ve been warned about the sheep and the goats. I’ve done some serious menu planning, to make sure we use up the foods that we aren’t going to eat...
A mercy of meds, a sacrifice of sleep
Guest post by Nic Hartmann “Whenever I see a brother who has fallen asleep during the services, I put his head in my lap and let him rest there.” Pambo, 4th century monk Every day, for most of the last two years, I have had the same ritual in the middle of the...
Being Orthodox — with asthma
Guest post by Jeanie Murphy When I developed asthma, thanks to a mold exposure, I suddenly found that liturgy was often unbearable. The incense was thick, the windows tightly shut, and the priest, apologetically, said he could not change this. I said that I...