Loving our own bones :

Title :

Loving our own bones : disability wisdom and the spiritual subversiveness of knowing ourselves whole / Julia Watts Belser.

Title:

Loving our own bones :

Author:

Belser, Julia Watts, 1978-

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

276 pages ; 24 cm

ISBN:

9780807006757

Production / Publication Information:

Boston : Beacon Press, [2023]

Contents:

Claiming disability -- Grappling with the Bible: gender, disability, and God -- Hiddenness and visibility: passing and presenting as disabled -- Ableism: the social-political dimension of disability -- Priestly blemishes: talking back to the Bible's ideal bodies -- Moses: portrait of a disabled prophet -- The land you cannot enter: longing, loss, and other inaccessible terrain -- The perils of healing -- Isaac's blindness: the complexity of trust -- Jacob and the angel: wheels, wings, and the brilliance of disability difference -- The politics of beauty: disability and desire -- The radical practice of rest: Shabbat values and disability justice -- God on wheels: disability theology.

Summary:

"A spiritual companion and political manifesto that cuts through objectification and inspiration alike to offer a powerful new account of disability in biblical narrative and contemporary culture"--

Bibliography note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 246-264) and index.

Language:

English

Subject Term:

Disabilities -- Religious aspects -- Judaism.

Disabilities -- Religious aspects -- Christianity.

Disability studies.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Item Barcode	Location
Book	Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library	296.087 BEL	31330009385083	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Boxford Town Library	296.087 BEL	32115002241428	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Carlisle - Gleason Public Library	296.087 BEL	32117002195695	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Haverhill Public Library	296.087/BELSER J	31479007669004	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Ipswich Public Library	296.087 BELSER	32122003046970	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Lowell - Pollard Memorial Library	296.097 BEL	31481005768291	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Topsfield Town Library	296.08 BELSER	32133002709450	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

A transformative spiritual companion and deep dive into disability politics that reimagines disability in the Bible and contemporary culture

A 2024 National Jewish Book Award winner and essential read on disability, spirituality, and social justice

"What's wrong with you?"

Scholar, activist, and rabbi Julia Watts Belser is all too familiar with this question. What's wrong isn't her wheelchair, though--it's exclusion, objectification, pity, and disdain.

Our attitudes about disability have such deep cultural roots that we almost forget their sources. But open the Bible and disability is everywhere. Moses believes his stutter renders him unable to answer God's call. Jacob's encounter with an angel leaves him changed not just spiritually but physically: he gains a limp. For centuries, these stories have been told and retold in ways that treat disability as a metaphor for spiritual incapacity or as a challenge to be overcome.

Through fresh and unexpected readings of the Bible, Loving Our Own Bones instead paints a luminous portrait of what it means to be disabled and one of God's beloved. Belser delves deep into sacred literature, braiding the insights of disabled, feminist, Black, and queer thinkers with her own experiences as a queer disabled Jewish feminist. She talks back to biblical commentators who traffic in disability stigma and shame. What unfolds is a profound gift of disability wisdom, a radical act of spiritual imagination that can guide us all toward a powerful reckoning with each other and with our bodies.

Loving Our Own Bones invites readers to claim the power and promise of spiritual dissent, and to nourish their own souls through the revolutionary art of radical self-love.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Belser (Rabbinic Tales of Destruction), a professor of Jewish Studies at Georgetown University, delivers a rigorous and broad-minded analysis of disability in the Bible, bringing "critical testimony from disability communities" into conversation with "more conventional sources of Jewish wisdom." Arguing that disability can affect "bodies and minds in a thousand different ways," Belser examines Moses's "clumsy tongue" as a part of "divine design"; Jacob's limp, which "lingers" after his encounter with an angel, "as a powerful reminder that disability is an essential part of what it means to be human"; and Leviticus's restrictions against priests with physical deformities as evidence of the brutal (and age-old) "power of ableism" that marks "certain bodies" as "inferior." Elsewhere, Belser contrasts scriptural descriptions of sisters Leah (who had "weak" eyes) and Rachel (the striking woman Jacob loved) to posit that beauty--with which disability is often contrasted--is culturally "positioned as a measure of a woman's worth, the most crucial fact to understand about her personhood." Belser's rebuttal that "conventional beauty... cannot hold our splendor" uplifts, and it echoes the book's eloquently argued message that disability is "part of God's own brilliant beauty" and "pulses through the very fabric of God's making." This is an impressive achievement. (Oct.)

Library Journal Review

Belser's (Jewish studies and disability studies, Georgetown Univ.; Rabbinic Tales of Destruction) book is a triumph of theological insight, disability activism, and honest, personal, hard-won wisdom. She weaves her own experience as a queer, disabled, feminist scholar and rabbi into critical, sensitive, profound encounters with Jewish and Christian sacred writings. Belser challenges texts and practices that have harmed and marginalized disabled communities, yet she still returns to these texts to reread, to confront ableist implications and interpretations, and to reject or claim. Her skill in engaging these passages is a superb example of how to draw spiritual direction from within a religious tradition, while asking hard questions and refusing to accept when power is wielded, consciously or unconsciously, against marginalized communities. The book asks, what would it mean if, instead of imagining God as an able-bodied man wielding infinite power, the world could see the God who identifies with the experience of the wheelchair user? To answer, Belser turns to a passage in Ezekiel that offers a vision of just that, a glimpse of "God on Wheels." VERDICT An excellent, impressive addition to the conversation around theology and disability that shines on many levels.--Zachariah Motts

Chapter 1 Claiming Disability	1
Chapter 2 Grappling with the Bible: Gender, Disability, and God	10
Chapter 3 Hiddenness and Visibility: Passing and Presenting as Disabled	24
Chapter 4 Ableism: The Social-Political Dimension of Disability	37
Chapter 5 Priestly Blemishes: Talking Back to the Bible's Ideal Bodies	54
Chapter 6 Moses: Portrait of a Disabled Prophet	73
Chapter 7 The Land You Cannot Enter: Longing, Loss, and Other Inaccessible Terrain	93
Chapter 8 The Perils of Healing	113
Chapter 9 Isaac's Blindness: The Complexity of Trust	139
Chapter 10 Jacob and the Angel: Wheels, Wings, and the Brilliance of Disability Difference	162
Chapter 11 The Politics of Beauty: Disability and Desire	180
Chapter 12 The Radical Practice of Rest: Shabbat Values and Disability Justice	197
Chapter 13 God on Wheels: Disability Theology	214
Glossary of Jewish Terms	238
Acknowledgments	242
A Note on Translation	245
Notes	246
Index	265

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Summary

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents