Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 8422 Plough Quarterly • Autumn 2016 careers – my father as a civilian employee of the US Navy, my mother as the director of a kindergarten – to answer a calling to the Bruderhof, where they met and married. That’s why, when Iris was born, they were surrounded by dozens of people who provided practical and emotional support, advice, and prayers. In the years that followed, these were the people who constantly helped us to see the beauty in Iris’s life. The Bruderhof community in upstate New York in which we grew up (and still live) is like a small village of about three hundred. Here Iris has always had friends her own age and has rarely felt excluded. Since high school, she has participated in the daily life of the community, doing activities suited to her abilities, such as setting tables in the communal dining room or helping in the community workshop, which makes adaptive equipment for other people with disabilities. Because communal living pro- vides a wide diversity of tasks, it’s never been hard to find her meaningful ways to contribute, even though in society at large she might not be capable of holding a paying job. Members of the Bruderhof don’t earn a salary or have their own bank account; by sharing our resources, income, skills, and workload, we seek to care for each other’s needs. No one is concerned that a person like Iris might be consuming more than she contributes; each member is simply appreciated for the individual he or she is. If Iris gets sick, community members trained as doctors and nurses stand ready to care for her; others will take turns spelling off family members when we need a break. And although my parents do sometimes wonder what will become of Iris when they’re gone, they know that she has community brothers and sisters who are as committed to her as her blood relations. As I grieved for the mother in the Leipzig hospital and for her son, it dawned on me how much of my family’s reality I had failed to see while growing up. Because Iris and others like her were so naturally integrated into every facet of our community’s life, I had not registered how different her life would have been outside of this environment. For the first time, I saw clearly the scale of the challenges she lived with, challenges that elsewhere might have meant hired caregivers or a care home. I saw too the miracle of how, in a communal life, the gifts that Iris had to offer could be received. She was not only cared for; she was also able to reciprocate. Here, as perhaps nowhere else, she could blossom. “All my life,” I thought, “the works of God have been sparkling before my eyes; it is I who have been blind.” In the weeks that followed, I realized that the horror of abortion was something in which I was implicated. I was living in accordance with the ideals of a society fixated on achieve- ment and profit, a society with little room for those who will always be dependent – for people like Iris. In such a world, was it any wonder that a woman might feel she “couldn’t handle that alone”? What hope could I offer her that her child would find a place where his gifts could be received, as Iris’s have been? To be sure, from childhood on I’d known many "No Grumps Allowed!" Iris recently drew this sign for the entry to Plough’s offices.