“The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal”, by Jonathan Mooney

Pg. 16-17

What the hell was I doing waiting for an ex-stripper to bring me the keys to a short school bus?

On the most obvious level, the bus represented a path set in motion when I was eight years old and labeled learning disabled. I was drawn to the short bus because it was a public symbol of disablity and special education. The bus emerged out of federal legislation, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1975, which mandated that children with disabilities be educated in a public school setting. It was a historic moment for my tribe, but there were problems: Schools were not required to fully integrate students with disabilities, and a segregated system of special education programs was created. Then along came segregated transportation: the short bus. Thrown together under the rubric of special education, these passengers included kids with physical disabilities, Down syndrome, learning disabilities, autism, as well as emotional problems. Special education and the short bus grouped together all these different students, expanding our culture’s definition of disabled. The short bus as a symbol of special education says as much (or more) about that culture–its values, beliefs, fears, aspirations, and injustices–as it ever did about people with disabilities.

“In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God”, by Gene Robinson

Pg. 11

God calls us to the hard work of compassion for our enemies. Some people may quarrel with that characterization, but we do have enemies. It’s a word that Jesus used. The hard part is following Jesus’ own command to love our enemies. Not to like them, not to be paralyzed by their opposition, not to give in to their outrageous demands, but to love them nonetheless. To treat them with infinite respect, listen to what drives them, try our best to understand the fear that causes them to reject us, to believe them when they say they only want the best for us. That’s hard work, and we can’t do it without God’s own Spirit blowing through us like wind, breaking down our walls, causing our assumptions to “come loose,” and reminding us all that our enemies are children of God, for whom Christ died and through whom they will be saved.

“Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia”, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Pg. 143

Every religion in the world has had a subset of devotees who seek a direct, transcendent experience with God, excusing themselves from fundamentalist scriptural or dogmatic study in order to personally encounter the divine. The interesting thing about these mystics is that, when they describe their experiences, they all end up describing exactly the same occurrence. Generally, their union with God occurs in a meditative state, and is delivered through an energy source that fills the entire body with euphoric, electric light. The Japanese call this energy ki, the Chinese Buddhists call it chi, the Balinese call it taksu, the Christians call it The Holy Spirit, the Kalahari Bushmen call it n/um (their holy men describe it as a snakelike power that ascends the spine and blows a hole in the head through which the gods then enter). The Islamic Sufi poets called that God-energy “The Beloved,” and wrote devotional poems to it. The Australian aborigines describe a serpent in the sky that descends into the medicine man and gives him intense, other-worldly powers. In the Jewish tradition of Kabbalah this union with the divine is said to occur through stages of spiritual ascension, with energy that runs the spine along a series of invisible meridians.

“The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography”, by Sidney Poitier

Pg. 127

When you’re addressing power, don’t expect it to crumble willingly. If you’re going to say, “Hey now, look you guys, please look at what you did and look at yourselves and punish yourselves and at least try to square this thing, right?” — well, you’ll make even slower progress at that than you would expect. I mean, even the most modest expectations are going to be unfulfilled…

There are also people who say, “Hey, after thirty years of affirmative action, they’ve got it made. Black people — it’s their own fault if they can’t make it today.”

Yeah, well, of course they say that. And they say it not just about black people. They say it in every country. We did something for you people, whoever “you” are. And we think that’s quite enough now.

That’s the gist of it: we’ve done something, and we think it’s enough. It may not be perfect, but it damn sure comes close to being okay. Now let us hear you applaud that for a little while. And thank us. And you can take that hat off your head when you come in here thanking us.

That’s the way it is. But let’s not get stuck there. We have miles to go before we sleep. We have lots to do, and some things just aren’t going to get done, you know?