Inclusion

Cue the nature shot.....

After I promised to behave myself two days ago, I think I am about to break down my own blogging barriers.
It all started in church this morning. Well, actually it started when we began attending our church in August of 2008. There was this guy at the church. His name was Terrence. He preferred to sit near the front of the church-and he sang quite loudly during various hymns. I found out later that he was around the age of 40. I was instantly drawn to him and watched his every move from my seat in the last pew. Week after week he showed up and sat near the front and didn't really seem to care that he was singing loudly and slightly off key. Week after week I showed up and sang along, not as loudly and slightly more on key but always listening with one ear for his voice. Fast forward to this morning. Father's Day brought a special treat--a men's choir. My husband and about 9 other men (including Terrence) from the church have been practicing for about 4 weeks on one piece. The Lord's Prayer--a difficult undertaking to say the least.
The offertory was announced and the choir assembled. Terrence and the other men strode up to the front of church and took their places on the steps. And then the most amazing thing happened. God's Holy Spirit entered our sanctuary and hovered over that group of men. Specifically, over Terrence. He only hit half of the notes correctly and mumbled through most of the words. Musically, the song was a failure. Spiritually, it was a home run. I was more blessed by that song, sung exactly the way it was this morning, as I had been by the previous 8 songs of the morning. You see, Terrence has Down Syndrome. Without his knowledge, he has been excluded from things his entire life. Should he have been excluded from this choir? Well, based on his musical abilities, yes. But, based on the fact that this choir is in a church, NO WAY. Let that boy sing! Let him praise his God and bless musical snobs like me.
And so, to conclude, I have included a video of another "Terrence" singing this same song. This Terrence was born blind and excluded from many things because of it. True beauty is captured through genuine INclusion not EXclusion. And for the record, I believe that in God's ears, the song offered this morning sounded just as awesome as this: