Perfection - off topic

From: Impact - Doug Johnson (djohnson@impactengsol.com)
Date: Wed Oct 18 2000 - 16:26:59 EEST


Thought you would appreciate this.

It would be nice if people always acted this way.

In Brooklyn, New York, Chush is a school that
caters to learning disabled children.
Some children remain in Chush for their
entire school career, while others can be
main-streamed into conventional schools.

At a Chush fund-raising dinner, the father of
a Chush child delivered a speech that would never be
forgotten by all who attended.

After extolling the school and its dedicated
staff, he cried out, "Where is the perfection in my
son Shaya? Everything God does is done with
perfection.

But my child cannot understand things as other
children do. My child cannot remember facts and
figures as other children do. Where is God's
perfection?

The audience was shocked by the question,
pained by the father's anguish and stilled by the
piercing query.

"I believe," the father answered, "that when
God brings a child like this into the world, the
perfection that he seeks is in the way people react
to this child."

He then told the following story about his son Shaya:

One afternoon, Shaya and his father walked past a
park where some boys Shaya knew were playing baseball.
Shaya asked, "Do you think they will let me play?"

Shaya's father knew that his son was not at all
athletic and that most boys would not want him on
their team. But Shaya's father understood that if
his son was chosen to play it would give him a
comfortable sense of belonging. Shaya's father approached one
of the boys in the field and asked if Shaya 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."

Shaya's father was ecstatic as Shaya smiled broadly.

Shaya was told to put on a glove and go out to play
short center field. In the bottom of the eight
inning, Shaya's team scored a few runs but was still behind
by three. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shaya's team
scored again and now with two outs and the bases loaded
with the potential winning run on base.

Shaya was scheduled to be up. Would the team
actually let Shaya bat at this juncture and give
away their chance to win the game?
Surpassingly, Shaya was given the bat. Everyone
knew that it was all but impossible because Shaya didn't
even know how to hold the bat properly, let alone hit with it.
However as Shaya stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved in
a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shaya should at
least be able to make contact.

The first pitch came and Shaya swung clumsily and
missed. One of Shaya's teammates came up to Shaya and
together they held the bat and faced the pitcher waiting for
the next pitch. The pitcher again took a few steps
forward to toss the ball softly toward Shaya. As
the pitch cam in, Shaya and his teammate swung at
the ball and together they 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. Shaya
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, "Shaya, run to first. Run
to first."

Never in his life had Shaya run to first.
He scampered down the baseline wide-eyed and
startled. By the time he reached first base, the
right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball
to the second baseman who would tag out Shaya, who
was still running. But the right fielder understood
what the pitcher's intentions were, so he threw the
ball high and far over the Third baseman's head.

Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second."
Shaya ran towards second base as the runners ahead
of him deliriously circled the bases towards home.

As Shaya reached second base, the opposing short
stop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third
base and shouted, "Run to third." As Shaya rounded
third, the boys from both teams ran behind him screaming,
"Shaya run home." Shaya ran home, stepped on home plate
and all 18 boys lifted him on their shoulders and made him the hero,
as he had just hit a "grand slam" and won the game for his team.

"That day," said the father softly with tears now
rolling down his face, "those 18 boys reached their
level of God's perfection."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash different
ways of living and believing and then wonder why the world
is going to hell.

Funny how you can send a thousand 'jokes' through
e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you
start sending messages regarding life choices, people
think twice about sharing.

Funny how the lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene pass
freely through cyberspace, but the public discussion
of morality is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Funny isn't it?

Funny how when you go to forward this message, you
will not send it to many on your address list
because you're not sure what they believe, or what they
will think of you for sending it to them.

Funny how I can be more worried about what other
people think of me than what I think of me.

FUNNY ISN'T IT!

For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 23:04:33 EEST