he world 60 years ago was different. A man named Adolph Hitler nearly succeeded in creating a world where everyone looked, acted, and believed the same. He led Europe in exterminating more than 6 million Jews along with mentally ill, physically deformed, non-Aryan people. These people had one thing in common that Hitler and his followers did not like: they were different from some perceived norm.

Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about “differences” these days, especially as the world rages against each other, end-to-end, faith against faith, heads ignoring the heart of what it is to be a human being. Differences abound, and always will, between cultures, languages, ideals, religions, and between mental and physical abilities. But sometimes, despite our differences, however challenging they may be, however much stronger or weaker than others we may think or know we are, sometimes words and actions, "things" just work like magic! 

A couple of weeks ago, someone sent me a video of an autistic young man playing basketball, and I viewed it in awe. The young man's name is Jason McElwain. Jason is a highly functioning autistic who loves basketball. His coach gave him the opportunity to play in the last four minutes of his last game as a senior at his high school, and in that short time, Jason scored 20 points, partially earned by landing an astonishing six three-point shots in a row, one at the buzzer! Young Jason had long been the team’s student manager who only shot baskets with players during practice, brought them water and towels, but never suited-up. No one was prepared to ever see Jason in a game, let alone achieve a feat many of the team’s regular players could only dream of accomplishing.

As I watched the video of Jason's triumph, I experienced a "goose-bump moment," hair standing on end, tears of joy rolling down my cheeks. I cheered along with Jason’s teammates and community members as if I were really there at that moment, "And we raised him to our shoulders and carried him across the floor, victorious and happy, very, very happy. It was magic...incredible!"

Jason was "different," and he had just made a huge difference in the lives of those who knew him well, all because he was given the chance. Well, today, I’m wondering if I would have felt the same if Jason had been a “normal” young player who’d always sat on the bench and finally was given the chance to play. No, I think, probably not in quite the same way. And that’s unfortunate, because so many people with challenges are capable of achieving so much more than we believe they can, more than we give them an opportunity to try. 

Here's what I believe: 

We have been given mysterious powers of the human mind and heart. To see that a word spoken by chance, or an act done in a moment of kindness or faith or fortitude, might have strange and surprising consequences. That that word or act might come alive, and what we want to happen, could happen. Nobody can explain this; that's just the way it is.  "Sensitive magic," I call it. When we are sensitive to other people, sometimes, something that seems as if it could only be magic becomes reality. Sometimes all we have to do is say the word, or do the act, give away the chance to someone who deserves it, and it happens. 

I believe that we’re put on earth as humans to learn that there is much in the world to see, that there are differences, and that these differences are good. We live in community with one another, and if we do no harm, our diversity is our strength, not our weakness. Our weakness resides in our intolerance of others' perceived differences and inabilities, in not allowing "magic" to happen because we don't believe it can. We are not the homogeneous world that Hitler so desparately and hatefully wanted and tried to create.

Ours is a world of cause and effect and that is powerful.

Cause: If we care to let Jason play, we may see that he can do amazing things, we may not.

Effect: What Jason did was amazing because our society thinks he is incapable of doing what he did because of his illness.

Bottom Line: We should let Jason (and all people) try, if they want to, regardless of the outcome. Sometimes our fear that someone might fail gets in the way of giving them a chance to succeed.

Let go...let life happen...do no harm.

Sometimes a guy wins the Tour de France seven times after having conquered cancer.

Sometimes a 95-year-old woman in the last stage of Alzcheimer's recognizes her daughter when she enters the room, and she speaks her name, a face and name forgotten years ago.

Sometimes, most times, magic is simply reality gone unnoticed.

Nan