At fundraising dinner for school serving learning disabledchildren, the father of one of the students delivered a speech. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:‘When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does isdone with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as otherchildren do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where isthe natural order of things in my son?’The audience was stilled by the query.‘A child like Shay, physicallyand mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realizetrue human nature presents itself, and it comes, in the way other people treat that child. ‘Then he told the story:Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew wereplaying baseball. Shay asked, ‘Do you think they'll let me play?’ Shay'sfather knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay ontheir team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed toplay, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and someconfidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.Shay's father asked if Shay could play, not expecting much. The boy said, ‘We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning.He can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.’Shay struggled over to the team's bench put on a team shirt with a broadsmile and his Father with small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart.The boys saw the father's joy at his son being accepted. In the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In top of the ninth inning. No hits came his way, he was obviouslyecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded,the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next atbat. do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to winthe game? Shay was given bat. Everyone knew that a hitwas all but impossible 'cause Shay didn't even know how to hold the batproperly, much less connect with the
ball.The
pitcher, recognizing theother team putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved to lob the ball so Shay could at least be able tomake contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. Thepitcher tossed the ball towardsShay. Shay hit a slow groundball to pitcher.The game would now be over, but the pitcher picked up the soft grounderand could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay wouldhave been out and that would have been the end of the game.Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the head of the firstbaseman, out of reach of all team mates. ‘Shay, run to first!’Never in hislife had Shay ever ran that far but made it to first base. He scampereddown the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.
‘Run to
second!’ Shay ran towards second, gleaming,struggling to second base. By the time Shay rounded towardssecond base, the right fielder had the ball, the guy on theirteam, who had a chance to be the hero for his team for the first time. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but heunderstood the pitcher's intentions and he too intentionally threw theball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward thirdbase deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases towardhome.Shay reached third base, the opposing shortstop ran to help him and turnedhim 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! and was cheered as the hero who hit the ‘grandslam’and won 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 true love and humanity intothis world.Shay didn't make it to another summer and died that winter, gotten being the hero and making his Father so happy and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!
We all send thousands of jokesthrough the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sendingmessages about life choices, people think twice about sharing. The crude,vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but publicdiscussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools andworkplaces.. We all havethousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the ‘naturalorder of things.’ Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up that opportunity to brighten the day of those with us the least able, and leave the world a little bit colder inthe process?A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's least fortunate amongst them.
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