All the great religions call on us to follow the Golden Rule: to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. Call me biased, but one of the best ways America follows this faith value in a secular way is in the treatment we give to individuals with special needs. Without so much as mentioning religion, we strive to treat these most vulnerable members of our society the way we ourselves would like to be treated.
I often speak to families with special needs kids. The room is inevitably noisy because the kids are running around being kids. I tell my audience not to worry and not to hush them—“That’s the sound of life”—and I just talk louder.
That these amazing moms and dads just chuckle and listen harder says so much about them. Their children aren’t easy. I know from experience that the overwhelming emotion parents have when they learn they will have a child with special needs is fear: fear that caring for a special child is too hard; fear that their marriages and their pocketbooks and their hearts won’t be able to handle it. Simply through the act of allowing their children to be born, the parents I meet are telling us something significant about themselves. Either that their belief in God gave them the courage to choose life, as it did for me, or that something in their hearts just told them to hold on and have faith, that they could handle it.
They are truly remarkable people. And although I, too, have a son with more challenges than many of us will ever encounter, I don’t count myself among their number. I am blessed with so much to support me—a wonderful, involved husband, a strong family, a caring community, and the resources we need to provide for Trig. So many of the families I meet aren’t nearly as materially blessed as we are, and yet they held on to faith and chose life. They would never approve of the term, but they’re truly heroes.
We could always do more, but America says a lot about itself in the way we support these amazing families. Not just with laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, but in our private lives; in countless individual gestures in countless communities, our faith-rooted values are put to work to help special kids and adults.
For example, I read about a special education teacher in the tiny fishing village of Port Washington, Wisconsin, who wanted to build a playground for kids with special needs. She asked her kids what they wanted to have on it. “They all said pirate ships,” she said. When she found out that the project would cost nearly $1.5 million, she almost gave up. But the citizens of Port Washington came together to make it happen. A design firm provided instructions. Businesses donated materials. Citizens gave of their money and their time. In the end, 2,800 people—a third of the town—pitched in to build the playground. Today it is a wonderland for all kinds of kids—and complete with a giant rocking pirate ship!
An American who is responsible, maybe more than any other, for challenging the low expectations we used to have of kids with special needs is Eunice Kennedy Shriver. As a child, this deeply compassionate woman had witnessed a society that did not live out its values in dealing with her mentally challenged sister, Rosemary. In those days, Americans like Rosemary were often locked away in asylums and sometimes subjected to inhumane medical procedures. Mrs. Shriver wanted to open the doors of the possible to all kids with mental and physical challenges. So in 1968, just seven weeks after her brother Bobby was killed by an assassin’s bullet, she held the first Special Olympics in Chicago. I love the message she used to open the games:
In ancient Rome, the gladiators went into the arena with these words on their lips: “Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.”
Today, all of you young athletes are in the arena. Many of you will win, but even more important, I know you will be brave and bring credit to your parents and to your country. Let us begin the Olympics.
It’s true that America loves winners, but there’s one thing we love more: competitors who are brave in the attempt. I think that’s why we all have such admiration for the kids with special challenges who come out to compete and have a little fun in the process. Our natural human desire to help others and see them succeed is translated easily to the playing field. Competition and hard work give all of us that sense of worth and dignity that all God’s children crave. And when someone with special needs not only tries hard, but tries hard and succeeds, we are all lifted up. One family I met told me about a deaf baseball player—the wonderfully named Curtis Pride—who proves the point.
Before he was five months old, Curtis’s parents knew something was wrong. But even after doctors diagnosed him with 95 percent hearing loss, they were determined that their boy not feel different. So they enrolled six-year-old Curtis in a local T-ball league. His first time at bat he hit the ball over the center fielder’s head and rounded the bases so quickly he passed the runner ahead of him between first and second base. What Curtis didn’t know about the rules of T-ball he more than made up for in talent and enthusiasm. He was hooked.
Curtis Pride became a standout high school athlete, graduated with a basketball scholarship at William and Mary, and was a draft pick by the New York Mets. He split his time between college and Major League Baseball until he graduated, when he began to play full time on a Mets farm club. After languishing for a time there, he went to the Montreal Expos farm club. He worked his way up through the system until one day his big break came. Reader’s Digest, in the way only the Reader’s Digest can, told the story of Pride’s first scoring hit in the major leagues:
Curt Pride was startled when Montreal Expos manager Felipe Alou yelled out his name. The Philadelphia Phillies were leading Montreal 7–4 in the seventh inning. With one out and two runners on base, Pride thought Alou would send in a more experienced pinch hitter. But Alou was calling him.
In his first time at bat a few days before, Pride had driven the ball deep to right. “I can hit Major League pitching!” he told his parents. Now his old friend Steve Grupe was in the stands to watch him play, and his new team was depending on him.
Bobby Thigpen, the Phillies’ flame-throwing relief pitcher, was on the mound. As Pride gripped the bat, Thigpen fired a hard slider. Pride waited; then at the last moment his bat exploded across the plate. The ball shot like a bullet between the outfielders and bounced all the way to the wall.
Racing around first, Pride slid into second in a cloud of dust. Safe! Both runners scored! In the stands, Steve Grupe leapt up, pummeled the air with his fists and whooped.
Excited, Pride looked to third-base coach Jerry Manuel to see if he had the green light to steal on the next pitch. But Manuel was motioning to the stands. Pride looked up. All 45,000 fans were on their feet, stamping and cheering.
As Pride stood, frozen, the thunderous ovation continued. Manuel, tears welling in his eyes, motioned for Curt to doff his cap.
Then, as the stamping and cheering reached a crescendo, something incredible happened. It started as a vibrating rumble, then grew more intense until, for the first time in his life, Curt Pride actually heard people cheering for him. The silent curtain that had separated him from his dream had parted.
Consider it sappy, perhaps, but we may as well admit it: we love these kinds of stories. And how we treat the most vulnerable—the unborn, the disabled, the aged—says something fundamental about us as a country. It’s a question not just of faith in God, but of respect for the inherent dignity of every human being. Curtis Pride’s story is a remarkable reflection on him, but it’s also a pretty good reflection on the society that helped make it happen.
Speaking for myself, I find that my faith guides me in ways large and small, consciously and unconsciously, virtually nonstop. And I’ve found some great resources for even the most mundane aspects of life’s journey. In fact, our culture has produced a vast array of inspirational books and other resources that draw on our rich religious heritage.
When I was in Georgia recently, Dr. Charles Stanley gave me one of his many books, How to Reach Your Full Potential for God
. It sounds pretty heavy, but it’s full of helpful advice and wise counsel that can be applied to many of the situations I find myself in every day.
Here is Dr. Stanley on using your time wisely:
[One] important challenge you face is the way you order your time. A balanced schedule will help you be the person God wants you to be and do the things He wants you to do. YOUR TIME IS YOUR LIFE. TIME IS IRREVERSIBLE. IT IS IRREPLACEABLE . . . When you reach the age of 70, you will have lived 840 months. That’s 25,550 days or 613,200 hours or 36,792,000 minutes . . . every bit of that time is holy because it is a gift from a holy God. It is to be valued and spent in ways that honor the Giver. . . . Think of time as an investment.
It’s so important to remember that every day is a gift, especially when we feel pulled in too many directions and asked to do too many things. Dr. Stanley also taught me a great tip on how to tell the difference between the truly important and the merely urgent.
If something is presented to you as “you must decide right now or the opportunity ends,” take that as a sign that your answer should be no. An opportunity tied to a rushed or ironclad ultimatum is rarely from God.
If I had listened to what other people said about what I should do and how I should invest my energies in life, I cannot begin to fathom all that I might have missed or lost.
Had I listened to those who were skeptical that a simple Alaskan housewife and hockey mom could run for public office, I would never have had the opportunity to serve as a mayor, a commissioner, a governor, and a national vice-presidential candidate.
Had I listened to those who suggested it would be political suicide to hand the Governor’s reins over to my lieutenant governor entering my lame duck last year in office—a choice I made so that I could fight for Alaska, and America, more effectively in a different venue—then my state would have suffered from the obstruction and paralysis of my office by the politically motivated attacks that began the day I was announced as the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008.
Had I listened to the politicos (even some within my own political action committee) and shied away from endorsing candidates I knew were best for America—people such as Susana Martinez, Nikki Haley, Doug Hoffman, Joe Miller, and Karen Handel—I wouldn’t have been using my position in the best interests of the country I love.
I might also add that had I listened to the voices in our culture telling me that I should spare myself the trouble and heartache of bringing a child with special needs into the world, our family would have missed out on the most positive and life-changing thing ever to happen for us.
It’s quite bold of people we don’t even know, and who don’t really know us, to tell us what’s best for our careers, our families, and our future. Charles Stanley’s book reminds us that God did not put us on earth to have people pull us this way and that so we could do things for their benefit, their advancement, and their goals:
Certainly, we are to work with one another and help one another the best we can. But no person is to be the “author and finisher” of our lives apart from God. He has a wonderful way of weaving together everyone’s personal plans and purposes. When things function according to His will, people are helping one another even as they are working with or for one another.
But at the same time that we aren’t meant to be anyone’s slave or puppet, we are also called by our faith to understand that the purposes of life are much bigger than us and our private concerns.
Though this message is emphasized by all the great religious traditions, it also comes down to us from secular sources. I don’t claim to be a scholar of ancient Greek philosophy, but Plato is supposed to have said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
Whoever said it, the statement has the ring of profound truth. Our nature as humans is to be so self-absorbed that we must discipline ourselves to remember that every day, and in many ways, we yield to the changing nature of the universe. Conditions and circumstances ebb and flow, sometimes in our favor, sometimes in a way that upsets our plans or challenges our perception of the way things ought to be. Until we step outside ourselves and realize that change is inevitable for everyone, and that everyone is thus engaged in some kind of challenge, we can become overwhelmed by our own struggles. A constantly changing cosmos is the cause.
Max Lucado’s easy, clever, and inspiring book It’s Not About Me talks about how humanity came to this (difficult) realization:
Blame the bump on Copernicus. Until Copernicus came along in 1543, we earthlings enjoyed center stage.
Ah, the hub of the planetary wheel, the navel of the heavenly body, the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue of the cosmos. Ptolemy’s second-century finding convinced us. Stick a pin in the center of the stellar map, you’ve found the earth. Dead center.
And, what’s more, dead still! Let the other planets vagabond through the skies. Not us. No sir. We stay put . . . But then came Nicolaus. Nicolaus Copernicus with his maps, drawings, bony nose, Polish accent, and pestering questions.
“Ahem, can anyone tell me what causes the seasons to change? Why do some stars appear in the day and others at night? Does anyone know exactly how far ships can sail before falling off the edge of the earth?”
“Trivialities!” people scoffed. “Who has time for such problems? Smile and wave, everyone. Heaven’s homecoming queen has more pressing matters to which to attend.”
But Copernicus persisted, Lucado reminds us.
He tapped our collective shoulders and cleared his throat. “Forgive my proclamation, but,” and pointing a lone finger toward the sun, he announced, “behold the center of the solar system.”
For over half a century people denied Copernicus’s findings of fact. And when like-minded Galileo came along, Lucado reports that the throne locked him up and the Church kicked him out! “You’d have thought he had called the pope a Baptist,” Lucado observed. “People didn’t take well to demotions back then.”
Well, we still don’t. Again, from It’s Not About Me:
What Copernicus did for the earth, God does for our souls. Tapping the collective shoulder of humanity, He points to the Son—His Son—and says, “Behold the center of it all.”
As individual human beings created to participate in and contribute to good on the third rock from the sun, we’d do well to quit thinking we’re the center of it all—the center of our circle of friends, our office, our softball team, our political party. No, we are part of a much larger body. The sooner we grasp this simple and obvious truth and change our behavior, the sooner we can get beyond our “self” and get on with fulfilling our God-given purposes.
Contrary to the Ptolemy within us, the world does not revolve around us. Our comfort is not God’s priority. If it is, something’s gone awry. If we are the marquee event, how do we explain flat-earth challenges like death, disease, slumping economies, or rumbling earthquakes? If God exists to please us, then shouldn’t we always be pleased?
Could a Copernican shift be in order? Perhaps our place is not at the center of the universe. God does not exist to make a big deal out of us. We exist to make a big deal out of him. It’s not about you. It’s not about me. It’s about him. . . .
Such a shift comes so stubbornly, however. We’ve been demanding our way and stamping our feet since infancy. Aren’t we all born with a default drive set on selfishness? “I want a spouse who makes me happy and coworkers who always ask my opinion. I want weather that suits me and traffic that helps me and a government that serves me. It’s all about me.”
Lucado spears us with a funny wake-up call—the one you didn’t get from the soccer coach who wouldn’t keep score because she insisted, “We’re all winners, despite the other team scoring more goals!” You also didn’t get it from your dad if he told you not to worry about passing the ball to the open guy on your periphery because “You’re the best basketball player on t
he block . . . er, in the whole country! You’re the next Michael Jordan, despite the fact you’re a short white guy who can’t jump!” And then you grew up and worked for a union boss who rejected merit pay proposals because “We’re all equal so we all deserve to be compensated equally, despite varying degrees of productivity!”
Self-promotion. Self-preservation. Self-centeredness. It’s all about me!
They all told us it was, didn’t they? Weren’t we urged to look out for number one? Find our place in the sun? Make a name for ourselves? We thought self-celebration would make us happy. . . .
But what chaos this philosophy creates. What if a symphony orchestra followed such an approach? Can you imagine an orchestra with an “It’s all about me” outlook? Each artist clamoring for self-expression. Tubas blasting nonstop. Percussionists pounding to get attention. The cellist shoving the flutist out of the center-stage chair. The trumpeter standing atop the conductor’s stool tooting his horn. Sheet music disregarded. Conductor ignored. What do you have but an endless tune-up session! . . .
No wonder our homes are so noisy, businesses so stress-filled, government so cutthroat, and harmony so rare. If you think it’s all about you, and I think it’s all about me, we have no hope for a melody. We’ve chased so many skinny rabbits that we’ve missed the fat one: the God-centered life.
What would happen if we took our places and played our parts? If we played the music the Maestro gave us to play? If we made his song our highest priority?
Would we see a change in families? We’d certainly HEAR a change. Less “Here is what I want!” More “What do you suppose God wants?”
What if a businessman took that approach? Goals of money and name making, he’d shelve. God-reflecting would dominate.
And your body? Ptolemaic thinking says, “It’s mine; I’m going to enjoy it.” God-centered thinking acknowledges, “It’s God’s; I have to respect it.”