Running In The Halls
“Lateef’s family and his courageous community were blazing new trails far beyond the idea of mainstreaming.”
In the fall of 1987, in Mrs. Malte’s second grade class at Monte Gardens Elementary School, an African-American boy named Lateef McCleod was pushed through the door in his wheelchair and parked next to my desk. The straps across his chest, waist, and legs could not contain his personality, impact or reach. At the time, I was too young to understand that Lateef’s family and his courageous community were blazing new trails far beyond the idea of mainstreaming.
Lateef was “fully included” before that was a phrase or even a right. Somehow, I am the lucky one whose desk was at the back that day. Lateef became my friend and his friendship gave me new eyes to see the world and people. We were seven, so our friendship consisted of giggles and shared shenanigans on the playground, the annual school square dance where we were partners, getting him out of his chair on the slide or swings with the teachers and therapists, and the absolute joy of the simplest communication!
At the age of seven, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew there was something different about Lateef and many of the other students the two of us befriended. I remember the emotion and sense of security and safety I tried to describe to my mom one day as a small child. While I didn’t have the vocabulary for it at the time, I now know that Lateef and the other students from Terri Schwarz’s special education class set me free to be me; to be fully welcomed and accepted just as I was. This is probably the first place I felt safe to simply be without doing and it was more than enough.
“When we enter into friendships and life with people who are different from us, we often discover not just who they are, but we learn more about ourselves as well.”
As the school bell would sound for recess or the lunch hour, I would run to be with my friends. I was invited into the daily life of their classroom where I was taught alternative communication, and mentored by paraprofessionals, teachers, and a multi-disciplinary team of therapists. It was next to Lateef that I discovered ability, hope, courage, and depth. I found my peers tucked away in a classroom at the back of the school or at the back tables in the corner of the cafeteria.
Over three decades have passed and I am still running toward my friends with disabilities. Sometimes it’s down the halls of a public school, but now I am pulling everyone I know who will come along with me. When we enter into friendships and life with people who are different from us, we often discover not just who they are, but we learn more about ourselves as well.
When I must work harder to understand someone’s speech (or lack thereof), I value my voice and consider who/what I use it for. I find incredible joy in a friend’s victory as she perseveres to make herself understood. When I can’t communicate with a friend, we sit in the disappointment and frustration of that gap. When he loses out, so do I. When he wins, it’s my best win!
When I enter into sacred spaces of knowing their weaknesses and being trusted with them, it gives me courage to face my own weaknesses…
I experience the good news in a new and fresh way in my life when I sit with a friend whose intellectual abilities make reading comprehension or learning a major challenge for them, yet they understand Jesus’s love for them. I get a glimpse of the incomprehensible love of our Father who reveals himself to all of creation! I watch my friends with various disabilities begin to grow in God’s love and change. Sometimes it’s a new attitude that leads to new actions, such as serving overseas, or at camp, in the community and at home… sometimes the change is slow, gentle and deep, resulting in less anxiety, seizures or behavioral interruptions.
Some of my friends have limitations due to neurological or physiological issues, but the power of the gospel is still evident in their still, quiet and unassuming presence. I’ve walked with friends through the heartache, pain, loss, isolation, and even death that disability can bring. When I enter into sacred spaces of knowing their weaknesses and being trusted with them, it gives me courage to face my own weaknesses and find comfort in knowing I am not the only one who experiences these things.
Friendship with people with disabilities has been the single most powerful force in my discipleship and becoming like Jesus. The most profound suffering I have experienced has been alongside, with, or for one of my friends with a disability, and it’s caused me to value these friends more, grow in gratitude, courage, and trust in God.
I am so grateful for Lateef, for Monte Gardens Elementary School, and for Terri Schwarz who opened this world of friendship, dignity and full-inclusion. If you want to experience the depths of friendship, courage, dignity, hope, and God’s love, follow me when that bell rings, I’ll be running toward my friends with disabilities and we will all be changed together!
By Christen Morrow-Ara
The Gospel in Hard Times
Equipping believers with a biblical perspective on hardship, suffering and disability. From the pulpit to small groups and even in the children’s ministry, every area of the church will find help and hope in this collection of resources.
