The Williams Cross: A Visual Meditation on Some of the Things Williams Syndrome Means to our World from a Christian Perspective

The Williams Cross

A Visual Meditation on Some of the Things Williams Syndrome Means to our World from a Christian Perspective

The Cross

A cross in general in the Christian worldview, is a thing or situation that, at the time, seems (or is) burdensome, painful, stigmatizing, and/or horrible, but like labor pains it is something that is worked through and by the end it accomplishes great things for the individual or the world.  This is because for Christians Christ’s death was symbolic of humanity’s complete rejection of God’s gracious gift of love, yet at the same time it is the means of salvation for all humanity.  People with Williams syndrome and those close to them go through a great many trials, both medical and social due to the repercussions, of having a syndrome.  But in the end, Williams Syndrome may be a blessing and gift to humanity despite how society sees people who are categorized as different.

 

The Heart

At the center of the Williams Cross is the Roman Catholic image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Those who have syndrome often have peculiar dispositions toward others.  They are extremely gregarious, showing no social fear.  They do not recognize race, socioeconomic class, gender, or cultural alignment as factors for the exclusion of friendships.  They simply desire to connect to others regardless of who they are.  Because of this they often have a hard time picking up on social cues and therefore individuals with Williams Syndrome frequently become isolated from deep friendship precisely because of their openness and tremendous drive for deep connection.  In this, the figurative heart of a person with Williams syndrome reflects that of Jesus, who is also completely accepting of those around him, and suffers isolation because of his deep desire to authentically love everyone.   The image of the sacred heart bears fire for the burning love of Christ and a crown of thorns and a cross as a sign of the alienation and destruction people wish to inflict when they encounter true love.  This is often the struggle of one who has Williams Syndrome.  The image of the sacred heart also bears the wound inflicted on Christ’s heart by the lance at the crucifixion.  This is particularly symbolic for this cross because those with Williams Syndrome are almost always born with a literal wounded heart.

The Cross Beams

The Cross beams and the upper portion of the cross are narrowed in the middle.  This is symbolic of the very specific type of heart disease that almost all people with Williams syndrome have, supravalvular aortic stenosis and stenosis of the pulmonary arteries.  These conditions indicate a narrowing of the arteries that pump blood to the two lungs out the side of the heart and the aorta which pumps blood from the top of the heart and is a major supplier of blood to the body.  This condition puts many with Williams syndrome in a perilous condition.  It is a constant vulnerability in their life.  In this, they are linked to Christ who, according to the Christian tradition, is the Word of God made flesh.  This belief is called the incarnation and in this belief, something all powerful, the Son of God, willingly becomes vulnerable to help humanity in a very real and “fleshy” way.

 

The Double Helix

At the bottom of the cross is a double helix.  The double helix is the carrier of genes, the programs for biological life.  The double helix on this cross is missing a piece because Williams syndrome is a condition that is caused by a microdeletion of about 28 genes, out of tens of thousands, from chromosome 7.  In the theology of the cross, Christ gave up his life for love of all humanity and God.  The pain and burden of a cross is sometimes a symbol of things we have to give up as well as bear.  The lack of these 28 genes makes of the burden for those with Williams syndrome, both physical and cognitive, but like the cross of Christ and any true sacrifice in the biblical tradition, it is in giving up and sacrificing that we learn who we are and we receive what is most important for us.

 

Reflection

In our modern time the empirically and biologically minded seek to define humanity in terms of genetic composition.  This invariably leads to some brand of soft or even hard eugenics, wherein the people who don’t fit the norm are deemed of lesser value by those doing the defining.  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was an early proponent of physical evolution.  But Teilhard de Chardin also added that evolution was spiritual and teleological and was pointing toward some sort of divinely mandated end.  For Teilhard de Chardin the endpoint of evolution was Christ, who is the unique example of what a fully evolved human looks like.  The question for us is, what do we value and who is here to teach who?  If someone is intelligent, knowledgeable, able to think abstractly and able to distance themselves from others in order to calculate social responses we might extol them as the “more evolved”.  A person with Williams syndrome is the opposite of this personality.  They may not be able to think as abstractly or be what society considers intelligent due to cognitive limitations that come with the syndrome, but their ability to feel empathy and desire to share is far greater than most.  They have much to teach us and are possibly more advanced than the general populace on this, arguably, most important facet of being a human.  Knowledge, though a gift of the Holy Spirit, is not one of the three cardinal virtues, they are faith, hope, and love “and the greatest of these is love.”