Getting Back To Basics: How Can I Spread The Message of The Voiceless Minority

Your friendly neighborhood super advocate is back with this week’s Spectacular Saturday post. I must begin by thanking you for your overwhelming support for Thursday’s 100th post. Your continued support gives me the motivation, and the ability to advocate even when I am not feeling up to it. I can’t thank you enough for that support. I come to you today with a call to action. The Voiceless Minority is growing. Soon we will no longer be voiceless. Our Facebook page has exploded ever since I started posting five days per week. The amount of views amazes me every day. I am inspired by the overwhelming number of comments for my recent post. Even though I respond to as many comments as possible, some of them are anonymous and not signed by their author. Let’s keep the conversation going and use the power of The Voiceless Minority to further strengthen the voice of the voiceless. There are several ways to keep the conversation going.

Firstly, if you see that I have replied to a comment you made, reply back to me, and let’s see how long we can keep the conversation going. If you are wondering how to see if I replied to your comment read the rest of this blog. It will not only show you how to follow the actual blog on blogger.com but also by following on Blogger you will never miss a post, in the case that I don’t get a chance to put it on the Facebook page. Secondly and perhaps most importantly, if the blog gains more followers, it will bring more attention to not only the blog that I write but also to the disability community and the issues that affect us on a daily basis. 

To follow the Voiceless Minority blog on Blogger follow the steps below

1. Sign in/Signup to Blogger.com which is free

2. For the “Choose Name For Blog” screen you can click the skip button in the bottom left corner if you don’t want to create a blog

3. If you skipped to the next screen click on the lines in the top left corner of your screen if it did not automatically bring you to the next screen.

4. Click the reading list on the left side of the page if it is not on that page already

5. Insert the link for The Voiceless Minority 

        https://thevoicelssminority.blogspot.com/

Before I sign off today, I just wanted to remind you, my loyal readers, that advocacy comes in many forms. One can advocate directly to policymakers whether they have a disability or not. One can read or write literature about disability. One can do the same with popular forms of entertainment. The most powerful form of advocacy is to start a conversation or keep it going by sharing publications or personal stories you may hear. Remember one voice can change the world but other people must hear that voice for anything to change. Enjoy the weekend and look forward to Monday’s blog about another disability-related issue but we will also remember the tragedy that took place 22 years ago in the United States known throughout the world as 9/11.

Till next time, 

Jay 

Finding Your Faith Again

Happy Labor Day everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend and enjoyed what you read on the Voiceless Minority last week. I know in Friday’s post I said that the next blog would be about the topic of when the right time to teach your children about a disability is, however, there’s something that came up over the weekend that has made me decide to move that blog until later into the week.

I mentioned a little about how my faith journey was rekindled in Thursday’s post but as God often does He puts us right where we need to be and to hear the exact word we need to when we need it. On Sunday I was watching church online with Sam. The church is called The Crossing and is located in Tampa. I wish I could go to services in person but the online service will have to do for now.

As I have mentioned several times before I was raised Catholic and for the longest time I considered myself a recovering Catholic, not because I did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, (I never stopped believing that) but because I was disenchanted with the practices of the Catholic church I felt, and this is just my own personal belief that the church did not resonate with me and they were concerned too much about making a profit. I have tried to get back into organized religion on one other occasion. I found a church where I was going to school in Pennsylvania that was nondenominational where I found a “home” for the first time. I did not feel like I was faking it. Unfortunately, due to circumstances that I have discussed in other blogs for this page, I chose to relocate with my parents and move to Florida.

Once I got to Florida you can say that the world or if you like the devil got into my head. I became really depressed, negative, and disconnected from God. At my lowest point, I was ready to forget all about the higher power or as I believe Jesus and why he put me here to live the life I live. That all changed about two months ago when my girlfriend Samantha started getting involved in her faith journey. She has gone down the path of faith since January but really hit her stride two months ago when she told me about the Crossing Church. She had been attending and she also told me they had services online. I’ve only attended two but immediately I was struck by the message that the minister was preaching that day, however, it wasn’t until last Sunday that I knew this was exactly what I’d been looking for. 

He did a Sermon on communication and relationships with others as well as going over the church’s principles he explained that in every church no matter what denomination as long as they believe in Jesus the core message is the same but he referred to each church as a part of the body of Christ. He simplified it by saying each church is like an organ in the body. They have their specific assignment meaning that the Crossing mission may be different than another church’s but they all work together to support the whole body. After explaining this he outlined the principles of the Crossing and related them back to specific passages in scripture. I will attach the message notes at the bottom of this blog so that if you choose to you can read them for yourself.

In closing, one’s faith journey might look different than someone else’s but God gives us exactly what we need to progress further in that journey even if we don’t know that we need it. No one is perfect and by no means do I consider myself perfect. We were all born into sin the only way we will find redemption is through Jesus.

Sorry, this post wasn’t strictly about people with disabilities but as I said earlier in this post God speaks through us, we just have to listen. Some people with disabilities may be down like I was but remember attitude is altitude and He will help you go further than anyone or anything.

Till tomorrow this has been your friendly neighborhood super advocate.

Jay