An exhibition with photographs of authentic joy
Is it something playful by which own potential disabilities, for example physical ones, could be forgotten? Or is there ease and effortlessness only and actually in childhood? What if factual disablements are involved? If there are not only adult, perhaps imagined worries and fears that hold one back from inner ease and freedom?
One child in a wheelchair, one with severe mental disabilities, another whose senses are strongly restricted. The diversity of disablements and their numerous combinations seemed limitless, when 1998 I absolved an internship at the Pater-Rupert-Mayer-Centre in Regensburg/Germany. It is a churchly financed educational institution, to facilitate the physical and mental development of those children.
Within days my questions disappeared and gave space to an amazement on the authentic joy of the children with which I was able to work. There it was, a not forced but flowing ease in the togetherness of the children, who were able to give each other such a genuine and caring warmth and a mindful helpfulness.
This ease did not come from strenuous struggling but solely from the present moment. In which the children faced each other lovingly and warmly turned towards each other. I was allowed to be the witness of many of their moments, and up to this day, twenty years later, it is an affair of the heart for me, to cherish a slip of paper with a painted heart on it. It was given to me by a small girl in a wheelchair, she drew it for me when I left the Centre. It stays as a reminder with me that it is only the present moment which teaches us this ease.
Joy of Life no. 12, Regensburg, 2011 © Dr. Christine Lehr
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