posted 09-04-2003 02:00 PM         

After extolling the school and its
dedicated staff, he offered a
question.

"Everything God does is done with
perfection. Yet, my son, Shay, cannot
learn things as other children do. He
cannot understand things as other
children do. Where is God's plan
reflected in my son?"

The audience was stilled by the
query. The father continued. "I
believe," the father answered, "that
when God brings a child like Shay
into the world, an opportunity to
realize the Divine Plan presents
itself. And it comes in the way people
treat that child."

Then, he told the following story:
Shay and his father had walked past
a park where some boys Shay knew
were playing baseball. Shay asked,
"Do you think they will let me play?"
Shay's father knew that most boys
would not want him on their team.
But the father understood that if his
son were allowed to play it would
give him a much-needed sense of
belonging.

Shay's father approached one of the
boys on the field and asked if Shay
could play. The boy looked around for
guidance from his teammates.
Getting none, he took matters into
his own hands and said, "We are
losing by six runs, and the game is in
the eighth inning. I guess he can be
on our team and we'll try to put him
up to bat in the ninth inning." In the
bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's
team scored a few runs but was still
behind by three.

At the top of the ninth inning, Shay
put on a glove and played in the
outfield. Although no hits came his
way, he was obviously ecstatic just
to be on the field, grinning from ear
to ear as his father waved to him from
the stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning,
Shay's team scored again. Now, with
two outs and bases loaded, the
potential winning run was on base.
Shay was scheduled to be the next
at-bat. Would the team actually let
Shay bat at this juncture and give
away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat.
Everyone knew that a hit was all but
impossible because Shay didn't even
know how to hold the bat properly,
much less connect with the ball.
However, as Shay stepped up to the
plate, the pitcher moved a few steps
to lob the ball in softly so Shay could
at least be able to make contact. The
first pitch came and Shay swung
clumsily and missed.

The pitcher again took a few steps
forward to toss the ball softly toward
Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay
swung at the ball and hit a slow
ground ball to the pitcher. The
pitcher picked up the soft grounder
and could easily have thrown the ball
to the first baseman. Shay would
have been out and that would have
ended the game.

Instead, the pitcher took the ball and
threw it on a high arc to right field,
far beyond reach of the first
baseman. Everyone started yelling,
"Shay, run to first. Run to first."
Never in his life had Shay ever made
it to first base. He scampered down
the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.
Everyone yelled "Run to second, run
to second!" By the time Shay was
rounding first base, the right fielder
had the ball. He could have thrown
the ball to the second baseman for a
tag. But the right fielder understood
what the pitcher's intentions had
been, so he threw the ball high and
far over the third baseman's head.
Shay ran towards second base as the
runners ahead of him deliriously
circled the bases towards home.

As Shay reached second base, the
opposing shortstop ran to him,
turned him in the direction of third
base, and shouted, "Run to third!" As
Shay rounded third, the boys from
both teams were screaming, "Shay!
Run home!" Shay ran home, stepped
on home plate and was cheered as
the hero, for hitting a "grand slam"
and winning the game for his team.

"That day," said the father softly with
tears now rolling down his face, "the
boys from both teams helped bring a
piece of the Divine Plan into this
world."

And now, a footnote to the story. We
all send thousands of jokes through
e-mail without a second thought, but
when it comes to sending messages
regarding life choices, people think
twice about sharing. The crude,
vulgar, and sometimes the obscene
pass freely through cyberspace, but
public discussion of decency is too
often suppressed in school and the
workplace.

If you are thinking about forwarding
this message, you are probably
thinking about which people on your
address list aren't the "appropriate"
ones to receive this type of message.

The person who sent this to you
believes that we can all make a
difference. We all have thousands of
opportunities a day to help realize
your God's plan. So many seemingly
trivial interactions between two
people present us with a choice: Do
we pass along a spark of the Divine?
Or do we pass up that opportunity,
and leave the world a bit colder in the
process?

You have two choices now:
1. Delete this.
2. Forward it to the people you care
about.
You know the choice I made

posted 09-04-2003 04:34 PM         

Let me tell you a true story. Some kids really do have a big hart. In the mid 70's I coached a little League team. One year the spring tryouts were taking place and I had to draft six players that year. My oldest son was 12 at the time and his last year in little League. That year a boy who had Downs was at the tryouts. His name was Troy and didn't have any ability to even hardly throw a ball. My son asked me that day if I would draft him on our team. I thought about it and the day of the draft came and my first pick was Troy. When I did that you could have herd a pin drop in the room and every other coach in the room looked at as if I had gone nuts. The other boys I picked that year were all pretty good ball players. When I called the new players to tell them they were on my team I talked to Troy's father to tell him that I had picked Troy he told me that I really didn't have to do that as all Troy wanted to do was try out. I told him that he would be treated the same as all the other players. The first team practice I told all the players and their parents that every player on the team would play every game no matter how the game was going close or not. To make a long story short, Troy played every game it may have not been every inning but at least 1 or 2. I don't remember Troy ever getting a hit, but he was walked intentionally quite a few times. (I wonder why). All the boys on the team always made Troy feel like one of them and never said a word other than encouragement to him. I think it made all the other players on that team that year have a different look at how some people like Troy are special.

posted 09-05-2003 09:15 AM         

The
story quoted above is Perfection at the Plate, a work of Rabbi Paysach Krohn which appeared in his 1999 book, Echoes of the Maggid. Echoes is a "Chicken Soup for the Soul" type work, described by its publishers as "heartwarming stories and parables of wisdom and inspiration." It is the fifth such tome in the Maggid series. Rabbi Krohn says that the story is true and that he was told it by Shaya's father, who is a friend of his. (The "Chush" school mentioned in the piece is the Jewish Center for Special Education on Kent Street in Brooklyn, a school that caters to Yiddish-speaking children of Orthodox Hasidic Jews. )

The true value of any inspirational tale lies not in its veracity (or lack thereof) but in its ability to move those who read it to improve some facet of themselves. As with many other glurges, we find this story's premise a poor one, and its message one likely to do more harm than good.

What to make of an incitement to bestow upon the disabled to a pat on the head instead of granting them acceptance for who they are, even when that means accepting the limitations placed upon them by their infirmities? Has a disabled child who has been conditioned to believe he's good at baseball somehow been helped, or has he been set up for a greater hurt when he comes to realize he's been made the object of pity and an accomplishment he'd been praising himself for was just a sham?

Not everyone reacts well to having the rules of life changed on them in mid-game, so to speak. An experience from my sister's pre-school days might help illustrate this point.

As was my sister's wont, some mornings she would toddle after our brother when he headed off to school. She was always greeted warmly by the teacher and set down with crayons and paper to draw pictures (a ruse to keep her quiet) while the rest of the children went on with their lessons. When she proudly presented her drawings to the teacher, they never failed to earn gold stars, sometimes even rows of them! (According to our brother, she was never shy about demanding more stars. Loudly.) Her interruptions and demands were always immediately addressed, and the class learned to regard her as a lovable, if annoying, mascot who showed up every now and then but mercifully never stayed long. ("But always too long," our mortified brother would report.) When she tired of scribbling, singing, and cavorting, my dear sis would toddle back home, secure in the knowledge that this mysterious "school" thing was all sorts of fun, and it would be even more fun when she was grown up enough to be part of it officially.

That view changed on her very first day as a real student. Riding on the bus was fun, but nobody acted all that delighted to see her when she got to school. Worse, there were no gold stars for anything she did. When she piped up to sing a song, the teacher actually shushed her. She was told to stay in her seat instead of running around the room as she usually did. When she demanded crayons, she was told it was time to do lessons and that in future she had to put her hand up when she wanted something instead of just screaming it out. Confused and fed up, she tried to leave, but the teacher sat her back down! She was then told she couldn't leave, that she had to stay there for the whole day. Worse, she was told that if she didn't behave, she'd be taken to the principal. (She wasn't exactly sure what that was, but it sounded impressively ominous.)

That confused little girl grew up to be a young lady who dropped out of school in eighth grade. She never got over the idea that teachers lived to pick on her and that all these rules they came up with served no purpose other than to make her life miserable. Possibly a different beginning might have led to a different outcome: a brilliant, creative girl going on to complete high school and maybe even university. Maybe. But we'll never know because these other what-might-have-beens were killed with kindness before they even had their chance.

As amusing a story as my sister's experience may be, the pain she experienced was real. What that child went through shouldn't be visited upon another, especially upon one already burdened with limitations. Kindness is all well and good, but not when the expression of it sets up the recipient for greater harm later. The less abled don't require our pity -- they want acceptance, to be seen as viable and valuable members of the world. Lying down for them doesn't accomplish this; it just reinforces the belief they can't succeed on their own.