I came across this thought-provoking video featuring Claire Wimbush, an Episcopal priest who was born with spastic cerebral palsy, as I was perusing the Clergy Health Initiative. This is a gorgeous must-watch.

“And when we set up for ourselves ideals that are the wrong ideals — that we simply can’t reach — if we can’t reach them, when we realize we can’t reach them, it becomes so much easier to shut off and say, ‘Well, fine…. I just can’t do it, so I am just going to stop. I can’t deal with the guilt. I can’t deal with the pressure. And that’s just it.’

As a culture, we’ve fallen into the trap of allowing imperfections to be deeply stigmatizing. We believe that our imperfections can only diminish us. That if we are diabetic or if we have cancer or if we are overweight or if we have cerebral palsy, we are somehow less than we should be.”