I work with special needs children. I see the image of God in each of them:
One’s ever-happy heart reflects the joy of the Lord. Another never forgets a promise. Others take pleasure in keeping things organized. They patiently wait for those who are slow to move or speak. They are eager to help and quick to encourage. Their love for one another is akin to God’s.
These are sacred lives.
We talk of all life’s sanctity,
of the value of each soul,
but then we permit misery
and the weakest pay the toll.
Some see the newborn Mongoloid
as something of a lesser worth
and say a child may be destroyed
even after birth.
Where does this end, this brutal cull;
perhaps the dark-skinned will be next?
Are our hearts so very full
of pride, that we forget the text
that what most our Lord doth please
is our care for the least of these?
My uncle had Down Syndrome. When I was an adult (and my uncle was an even older adult), I asked my father if his brother had every been angry. My father gave my question serious thought and eventually responded, “No, he’s never been angry. But I remember him crying because the rest of us were angry.”
Such people aren’t “the least of these.” They are the great ones.
Well, you just did the impossible, and brought tears to my eyes.