​​I have taken off my shoes, to give you a sign to remember why I’m here. Yes, there are lesser reasons, but the main reason I'm here puts a fire in my belly—a fire powerful enough to burn through my fear at speaking to a crowd, my terror that you will find out I'm an imposter. That fire compels me to write and speak and act  to tear down the walls of stigma and nurture the tender shoots of  inclusion and welcome and belonging for people with disabilities and mental illness.

Christine Guth is Program Director for Anabaptist Disabilities Network. This is a talk she gave to the United Church of Christ national disabilities conference in September 2011. Listen to it on YouTube, below.

I took off my shoes, because at the deepest level, the reason I am here-- my best qualification for giving this talk--is that I have lived most of my life without the luxury of many things shoes represent. The barefoot African slaves who sang "I've got shoes" knew that shoes represented power, status, wealth, control, protection. Blessings they knew they would enjoy when their time came to walk all over God’s heaven.

My ancestors came from Europe, so that puts me in a privileged class in this country. But another fact about me boots me out before I even get in the door. I have lived most of my life in that no-shoes status where people look on with pity, condescension, and satisfied superiority. I have lived all of my life under the shadow of mental illness.

Watch video below or read a complete transcript of talk.