I learned something big (not quite new because it has be with me for many, many years) about myself recently. In a round about way I learned it from Sanguine. You know, when she was born Paul and I were so happy that she was here. In some deep, in the soul, kind of way we felt that we had been waiting, preparing for her.

For me, in my own progressive, faithful, peaceful and righteous way I thought Sanguine was to help me deepen these characteristics to a more meaningful understanding and then to help me overflow with them to the people around me. Boy-oh-boy, that notion was big of me. I am surprised that I didn’t break my arm as I was trying to pat myself on the back. No! What I learned about me was ugly, quietly hidden, but none the less ugly.

Sanguine, my teacher, had a helper for this lesson. The teacher aide’s name was Amelia. Amelia is an 18 year old senior high school student. This young lady was a key note speaker at a conference that I attended several weeks ago. Her message was many little messages woven together like the great spider weaves a web. It was intricate, smooth, silky, strong, and sticky to the point of discomfort… for me.

Amelia’s presentation was one of those that made you laugh and cry. It made you want to know her. It made you want to pick her brain. And it made me want to cry some more because she called me out. She made me acknowledge and now confront my lie and or secret that I was semi, not really, but slightly aware of, but hid it under all those layers of blah, blah, blah – progressiveness, faithfulness, peacefulness and righteousness.

The sticky part of Amelia’s web… I mean message, was that people without disabilities live in a small world with a big wall around them and in that wall are doors. People with disabilities live just outside that wall and their world is big. The people with disabilities knock on those doors in the big wall hoping that someone will let them in. And nobody really ever opens the doors; either because they don’t hear, they don’t want to hear, or they are afraid to hear the knocking. Amelia asked for our ears to start listening for the knocking and to let the people with disabilities come in and stay and include them in all that goes on all the time. Don’t send them back beyond the big wall.

This is where Amelia might as well have pointed her finger at me and said, you are guilty. I am guilty as many of us are. I know that I have opened the door on occasion but I have never closed it behind anyone. Just as graciously as I have invited someone into my small world I know I have just as graciously escorted them right back to that door and helped them right back ever so gently to their big lonely world. I will never commit that again. My ears have become sensitive to the knocking. I will open the door and lock it behind them. They will be in my small, abled world whether they like it or not!

Amelia is all that I said she was in my writings. She is also aspiring to be a public speaker and to be an advocate for folks with disabilities. She is starting college in the Fall of 2008. She has been the keynote speaker for the United Way and the Special Olympics. She has been awarded the Special Olympic athlete of the year 2007-2008. Amelia has Down Syndrome.

You have to check out this video of Amelia Abel. Video.