God Plays Piano, Too Joshua is six years old. As an autistic child he is severely limited. When you speak to him, he slowly repeats back the words you said. When you sit him at a piano, he randomly strikes the keys, waiting for God, the conductor, to begin. Suddenly his fingers hit a musical chord, then another, and soon his hands are churning out music, wonderful music. And he sings along too--brilliantly. When the concert is over, Joshua's clumsy dismounting from the piano bench and his few stumbled words remind you of all his limitations. Who was playing the piano? God? Perhaps so. The children whom society has labeled "disabled" and "retarded" can--and often do--have rich spiritual lives from which other "normal" members of society might learn, says Brett Webb-Mitchell in his new book, God Plays Piano, Too: The Spiritual Lives of Disabled Children (Crossroad). According to the author, an assistant professor at Duke University Divinity School, most of what he learned at seminary has been eclipsed by his experiences working with children with disabilities. "The children taught me that our value lies in who we are as God's children--rather than in what we can do." |