scheme aaaaaa

Stephen Hawking is an amazing man. This guy is Einstein smart (smarter actually) locked in a body that without modern technology, can barely communicate with the world around him. The easy point to make would be the irony. The less obvious (and I think more interesting) observation involves the concept of applied identity. Most people have a single applied identity: Bob the teacher, Kris the deaf girl or Dani who killed herself. Dr. Hawking is a good example of someone who has a duel applied identity (there is a better term but I just can't think of it). He is maybe the smartest man...ever AND he is handicapped (with ALS). It is hard to shake either image.
There is another concept going on here known as body schema. This is how we see ourselves. This is brought out when people who have had a recent body altering event draw a picture of themselves. Often people who have had a leg amputated will continue to draw a picture of themselves with two legs for some time.
I was thinking about these concepts on the drive home from my best friend's house after he explained a couple of things to me: 1. the theoretical proclivities and structure of the church he is helping create and 2. how he is slowly sitting down into a wheelchair and how he suffers daily excruciating pain due to his CMT (Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease). It is kinda like Muscular Dystrophy without the press. He was telling me about the concept of Shcema (there is just really no way I spelled that correctly). In the first century, Rabbi's who were given shcema (recognition by two other Rabbi's to interpret Torah) could apply God's word to a (then) modern world. He believes that Jesus' directions of how to live are consistent through time but also delivered through cultural terms and concepts. The concept of culture shock is exponential if applied over 2000 years and translated through 2 or 3 dead languages. Shcema is the ability to translate God's directions for life in a culturally understandable and modernly relevant way. The church he is creating is designed to bring differing faiths and lifestyles together to figure it out. It is a leap from current thinking and practice.
I have told my best friend that I am having a hard time accepting his disease. I know him as a physically active person and talented drummer. It is hard for me maybe to accept his schema; but I think I am beginning to accept his concept of shcema.