Scorn Not

January 11, 2019

Every Monday morning they roll in like a big, happy wave crashing upon the shore. “Good mornings” echo around the room as they cheerily greet our volunteers before climbing the stairs to their workroom on the second floor. They are clients of the Resource Center, developmentally challenged in everything but kindness and joy. Some are effervescent, spilling over with the latest news and happenings in their world, while others are quiet and more withdrawn. They sort the clothes people drop off for the needy, separating the items we can use from those that will be passed along to the Buffalo City Mission.

In a world obsessed with physical and mental perfection, had these men and women been conceived today, many of them would likely have been aborted. I’ve heard people exclaim, “What quality of life could such a person have?” to which I would reply, “Come and see.” Most of them will likely need services for the entirety of their lives, but to say their lives are without meaning, or that their lives are less worthy is to underestimate the gifts they bring to the table. 

They aren’t perfect by any means. They get frustrated, angry, and saddened like anyone else. But somewhere along the way, most of them seem to have misplaced the genes for pride, bitterness, vindictiveness, and self-pity. Those of us who are privileged to know them understand how our lives are enriched by their presence with us.

Back in the ‘60’s, Phil Coulter wrote a song about his first son, born with Downs Syndrome. It was such an intimate and personal tribute that he rarely performed it publicly. However, Luke Kelly, lead singer for the Irish folk group the Dubliners heard it and begged Coulter to be allowed to record it. It is to me, one of the most touching songs I have ever heard; the kind of song I wish I had written, but of course, such lyrics can only come through deep and painful experience. Coulter bares his soul in his grief for all his son will never know, but in the last verse, stares with wonder at the mystery of life and the courage his child demonstrated each day. 

“Scorn Not His Simplicity”

See the child

With the golden hair

Yet eyes that show the emptiness inside

Do we know

Can we understand just how he feels

Or have we really tried

See him now

As he stands alone

And watches children play a children's game

Simple child

He looks almost like the others

Yet they know he's not the same

Scorn not his simplicity

But rather try to love him all the more

Scorn not his simplicity

Oh no

Oh no

See him stare

Not recognizing the kind face

That only yesterday he loved

The loving face

Of a mother who can't understand 

What she's been guilty of

How she cried, tears of happiness

The day the doctor told her it's a boy

Now she cries tears of helplessness

And thinks of all the things he can't enjoy

Scorn not his simplicity

But rather try to love him all the more

Scorn not his simplicity

Oh no

Oh no

Only he knows how to face the future hopefully

Surrounded by despair

He won't ask for your pity or your sympathy

But surely you should care

Scorn not his simplicity

But rather try to love him all the more

Scorn not his simplicity

Oh no

Oh no

Oh no