You Matter
Have you ever heard of Buddy Ball? Beth Campbell started the program in 1994, in Bellevue, Washington. Because of his disabilities, Beth’s son Stevie, age 7, was unable to play in the regular t-ball program. So, Beth started a baseball league that mixes children with disabilities and able-bodied children.
Every player has a buddy.
Each team has 18 players.
If you can’t hit, a buddy hits for you.
If you can’t throw, a buddy throws for you.
If you can’t run, a buddy runs for you.
If you can’t catch, a buddy catches for you.
A child with cerebral palsy (confined to a wheelchair but allowed to hit for themselves) is pushed around the bases by a buddy.
You’ve got to go to a Buddy Ball game. Just to see the unmitigated joy on the face of a child, who may never be able to catch a fly ball, but who knows that he or she is playing baseball; is in the game.
Oh, by the way. I need to let you know one of the “rules.” In Buddy Ball it is against the rules to strike out. Once you get six strikes—six tries, six swings and misses—you get to go to first base. (You are rewarded for trying. Some of you are thinking, “Well, I could have played with those rules!”)
But here’s the deal: Six strikes and you go to first base is about grace, and such grace unnerves people. At a conference for professionals, I told the Buddy Ball story. After my lecture, a therapist literally was “in my face,” letting me know where I went amiss, “Six strikes and you still get to go to first. How dare you teach that kind of freedom to children!” his face puffed and red. “Sir,” I said, “with all due respect, you could use more roughage in your diet.”
Here’s my favorite part of the story, and I’m quoting now (from memory) from an article in the Seattle Times, “When Beth’s son gets to first base he doesn’t stop there. But he doesn’t go to second either. He runs out into the crowd and hugs everybody.”
The reporter continued, “It is what sports can be, children running and jumping and playing because nobody’s keeping score because nobody cares.”
I’m still smiling. There are certain gifts that defy and counteract scorekeeping: compassion, empathy, camaraderie, reconciliation, inclusion and kindness.
I can’t improve on that. That is where this Sabbath Moment should end. But then, I’m a writer. Without an editor.
And I’m a preacher, and we’re not always sure when or where to stop.
Today, I was grateful to be the guest preacher at Interfaith Community Sanctuary in Seattle, WA. A good group gathered, and I told them the Buddy Ball story, and we talked about the gift we have of walking one another home (Thank you Ram Dass).
And it is easy to hear the story, and say, “Ame”’. But I see and feel the impact of “keeping score” in our current culture, with the emphasis on hierarchy and exclusivity—those who are “in”, and those who are “out”. And I know from my own experience, when that kind of score keeping takes root in our spirit, the urge for control and dominion and retribution is not far behind. And that’s where Buddy Ball breaks down. And without stopping to realize it, we are making judgments about a person’s dignity and worth.
Here’s why I love (and take to heart) the Buddy Ball story. “The real voyage of discovery,” Marcel Proust wrote, “consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
Andre Dubus wrote stories about regular people, like bartenders, mechanics, waitresses and the like. In 1986, after publishing several books of short stories, Dubus stopped to help a woman and a man stranded on the side of the highway, and he was hit by a passing car. Dubus saved the woman’s life by throwing her out of the way, but he lost one of his legs and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
You know, how “disabilities” make you think this life isn’t enough.
He wrote, “Some of my characters now feel more grateful about simple things—breathing, buying groceries, sunlight—because I do.”
I love the Buddy Ball story, because loud and clear we hear, “You Matter.”
And when we begin there, we’re at the heart of the Gospel. Love your neighbor. Serve others. Welcome the stranger. Care for the sick. Feed the hungry. Be a peacemaker.
You Matter.
“I can think of nothing more prophetic than to preach the gospel of Jesus. Nothing more radical, more countercultural, than to nurture and promote the values of the Spirit—love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness as well as self-control—in little ways and great.” (Thank you, Cyprian Consiglio, Epiphanies)
Yes, the task to promote love and kindness can feel ominous. Which is why I love Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ wisdom, “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely.”
So. Today, let us be grateful for the enoughness in the permission to hug, for sunshine after dark and cloudy days, for friends who listen and don’t keep score, and for kind gestures and that make you glad to be alive.
And grateful for the leaves, now beginning their color parade in our neck of the woods. Japanese maples with leaves ranging from apricot to coral. And our Katsura trees, a soft golden brown.
And for the geese now heading back our way. Ready to settle in for the cooler months.
Oh, and here’s an idea for your week… tell one of your friends that you’re glad they’re on your buddy ball team.
Quote for your week…
“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.” Charlotte the spider says to the Wilbur the pig, in E. B. White, Charlotte’s Web
BULLETIN BOARD
Today’s Photo Credit: “Terry, The story you shared about the children drawing butterflies brings me to tears. Truly they are a symbol of Resurrection.” Geri Hanley… Thank you Geri… Thank you to all, I love your photos… please, keep sending them… send to terryhershey.com
Yes, your gift makes a difference… Donation = Love…
Help make Sabbath Moment possible. I write SM because I want to live with a soft heart; to create a place for sanctuary, empathy, inclusion, compassion and kindness… a space where we are refueled to make a difference. SM remains free.
(Address by check: PO Box 65336, Port Ludlow, WA 98365)
Sabbath Moment Audio — The permission to see
Join us every Wednesday… Audio Sabbath Moment
Letters that do my heart good…
–Thank you for your words this morning, Terry. They nourished my parched soul. Blessings to you. Jo
–Today we are leaving Dallas for Angel Fire (where I met you). My sanctuary is there, a corner bedroom 10,000′ above sea level looking out across aspens and conifers over a valley to the mirrored mountains beyond. I have an overstuffed chair there and I arrange the books I’m reading in a stack next to it and settle in. I watch for elk or mule deer. While it is still dark, I can walk out on the deck and say a prayer of gratitude in the presence of the Milky Way. My soul lives there. I come visit it as often as I can. Ron
–Terry, I don’t have a photo to send you, but I so send my deepest gratitude to you for this beautiful reflection. I can find something in almost everything you write, but today’s hit very close to home. You have raised my spirits and renewed my hope. Peace, Jill
–Oh glory be, get a life indeed! Thanks Terry, reminders are a wonderful thing for all of us! Love watching red tailed Hawks gliding gracefully across the sky. Denise
–Good morning, Terry. This is excellent — and so needed right now. I love the Vonnegut, Zinn and Schweitzer quotes. Sometimes your blog posts are like a light in the darkness. Today is one of those times. Thank you. Don
