"How does my son get to learn about God?"

It started as a simple question .... “How does my son get to learn about God?” It came from the same woman who asked “Why are we sending our children away from our community for their education when this is their home and this is where they will be adults?” What followed her question that time was the creation of a new school that would educate children with special needs and secondary behaviors that had resulted in out-of-district placements for years.  I still marvel at how this one woman seemingly moved mountains in order to support her belief that all of the community’s children deserved to be known.  Her story is much longer and surely inspirational but for now, let’s just say that her simple question, backed by her tireless, informed, dogged, savvy, caring, creative dedication to a vision of a community that KNEW all of its children, altered the landscape of more lives than can be counted and continues to do so today. 

“How does my son get to learn about God when our church isn’t equipped to handle his needs and frankly, he’s not equipped to adapt to their programs” she asked and I saw tears in her eyes.  “We are left with two choices.  Leave a part of who we are at home or stop participating in a community that we need, sometimes perhaps more than others?” She wasn’t looking to assign blame or demand change.  She recognized that even with adaptations, her family needs were so different that participation on any deep level would be impossible.  “And I know we aren’t the only ones,” she added as we stood by the side of the pool.  “Do you think maybe you could put something together and we could meet  --- maybe once a month?  There must be a way we could provide a place for these kids to learn important things like how to pray and how to serve and how to listen for God’s voice?”  And so our journey began to create an interfaith worshipping community specifically designed to meet the needs of this community.  It would be one which played to the wide range of needs present in the community and from that place, welcome in their family and friends.  It was not in any way discouraging the participation of participants in their own worshipping communities or intended to devalue the wonderful efforts of existing houses of worship to welcome people with varying needs.  It was created to meet a need not yet addressed in other settings. 

Two years later it would be birthed.  More specifics on the model itself soon, but just one image that always connects me with the tears in Diane’s eyes when she posed the question.  On our first night, after sharing a meal, acting out the story of the Good Samaritan, joining together in a circle of community that included a minute of silence and blessing our gifts to an adult cooking program for adults with differing needs, another mom had tears in her eyes.  As she expressed gratitude to Diane, our other partner, Linda and to me, she said “That was the first time I have been able to sit quietly with my son in many years.  Thank you.”

Thanks to Diane and her simple questions like “Why are we sending ‘our’ children away? and “How does my child get to learn about the divine?” a community took one more step closer to the beloved community that honors every child not in spite of their differing abilities but because of them.  Thank you, Diane ~

One more step on the journey ~

     Around 20 years ago, my journey landed me on the pool-deck of a YMCA in Massachusetts as a swim instructor.  It was there my relationship would take yet another turn.  A stay-at-home mom with four children and four part-time gigs built around their schedules, time was limited. Very limited.  As a swim instructor to many, I had caught the attention of a woman who worked with a Special Olympics swim team.  One Saturday as we hurried off from a morning of swim classes she approached me and asked if I would consider coaching.  My ‘I wish I could, but no’ seemed sensible, prudent, true and difficult.  I had first come to know Special Olympics in High School when a coach asked who would head over to the track and help out with a practice.  That experience reshaped much of what I knew about competitive sports, training and coaching.  It changed my understanding of what it was to ‘win,’ to ‘compete’ and to work with someone to discover what gifts they brought to an experience.  Although I had been coached by talented and caring coaches, it was these special athletes who taught me everything I came to know and value about coaching.   And so, in that hot second on the threshold of the pool deck, after offering my ‘no,’ I turned and said I would find the time as long as I was able to build in participation of my children even though they didn’t yet meet the age requirement for volunteering in the program.  What I brought to that ‘yes’ was the certainty that despite a fine school system, participation in swim team, music lessons, fabulous grandparents, engagement with the arts, participation in church and many other assets, that participation in the Special Olympics program would impact who each of my four children would come to be in the world.  I knew that real relationships with people so differently abled would change them in ways I could not articulate but knew deep in my own soul.  It was a selfish, ‘yes’ from a mother raising children in a world so eager to mold our young in manners tied to commercialism, ‘achievement’ based on scores, college acceptances and salaries, survival of the fittest on any field and celebration of Disney-drawn beauty.  I recall her appreciation as I offered my ‘yes.’ Over twenty years later, hours and hours of practices, years of competitions, buckets of pride and tears of joy, laughter, getting to know the struggles of families, losing two swimmers to early deaths, .... I look at my four, now adult, children and I realize it is I who owe her a long-overdue note of appreciation.