The document summarizes a talk given by Tim Shriver about his mother Eunice Kennedy Shriver founding Special Olympics in 1962. It tells the story of Special Olympics athletes attending the opening ceremony of the 1995 World Games with disposable cameras. A photographer tried to help the athletes use the cameras correctly, but one athlete explained that looking through the viewfinder backwards allowed them to see the president clearly as if using a telescope. This opened the photographer's eyes to seeing the capabilities of those with disabilities rather than their limitations. The document encourages readers to shed prejudices and labels through opening their eyes to see others and God in a new way during Lent.

1. 21 March 2015 5th
Sunday of Lent Princeton, NJ
I just got back from Anaheim this past week after attending the LA Religious Ed Congress where over
35,000 Catholics and Christians gather each year to pray, to sing, to listen and to see the Church alive
with a new set of eyes. Actually that was the theme to this year’s Congress: See/Ver – for scripture is
filled with many references about our need to see differently:
- Jesus laid his hands on the blind man’s eye and his sight was restored and he saw everything
clearly. (Mark 8:25)
- And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. (Acts 9:18)
- When he was at table with them, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them. And
their eyes were opened and they recognized him. (Luke 24:30-31)
As we come into the final weeks of our Lenten journey– my question to you is: How well do you see? Has
Christ vanished from your sight? What do you see each day at work, at home and in your community?
Unfortunately I think many people miss the opening line in this week’s Gospel which starts out saying
some Greeks came to worship at the Passover Feast and they asked to see Jesus. Greeks were
gentiles, not Jews, and thus their reason to celebrate this feast had to be their attraction to this rabbi,
Jesus. For their query seems to be more than just star-crazed gentiles looking to get a glimpse of Jesus
– but rather a desire to really know who this Jesus is…to know how to follow Jesus…to know what it
means to see like Jesus.
And while some commentaries of this passage say that Jesus ignored the Greeks, I think it is just the
opposite, rather, Jesus’ answer is quick and to the point: You want to see what it means to be like me?
The seed must die in order to produce fruit. In other words – by following Christ we will experience daily
dying, and we will get it wrong and we will take two steps forward and then move backwards.…and false
assumptions will be exposed…and the false self will die…and then the lens through which we see
humanity and see God will change – allowing us to see in a new way.
This past month I had the opportunity to hear Tim Shriver give a talk about his spiritual journey and his
work as CEO of Special Olympics. His mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, once concerned about children
who were intellectually disabled, deeply desired to learn what these children could do in sports and other
activities versus dwelling on what they could not do. So what began in 1962 as Camp Shriver with 50
kids in her backyard has now grown to be the world's largest sports organization for children and adults
with intellectual disabilities, providing year-round training and competitions to more than 4 million athletes
in 170 countries.
In his talk, Tim told us the following story. It was July 1995 and the old dilapidated Yale Bowl was the
venue for the Special Olympic World Games. For the first time in its history the president of the United
States was to attend the opening ceremony. The Secret Service has already determined that the old
stadium was too porous to ensure protection of the president on the field. So it was decided that
President Clinton would arrive and be taken to the very top of the Yale Bowl, where a secure perimeter
could be established and that he would preside from there.
The athletes were each given one of those disposal cameras to carry with them into the Opening
Ceremonies so they could capture the moment. Tim recounts in his book, Fully Alive, “For most of them,
1 Deacon Jim Knipper

2. the experience of parading into that stadium must have seemed surreal. Coming as they did from
institutions and isolated classrooms and lonely corners of despair in villages and towns around the world,
most of them would never have been applauded for anything before. They were society’s outcasts. Over
and over, in countless languages they each would have heard “retard,” defective,” “sick,” and maybe
worst of all, “in-valid.” Success experiences were nonexistent.”
But the crowd roared as they entered the stadium, the president was in attendance and the Yale Bowl
came to life. As the ceremony was in full swing a professional photographer saw a group of athletes,
dressed in African garb, all with their disposable cameras raised up to take pictures of the president. But
he quickly realized that they were holding their cameras backwards. The lenses were flushed against
their noses as they looked through the viewfinders. He concluded that they must have never used these
cameras before.
So as Clinton was giving his welcoming address the photographer cut through the crowds and made his
way to the athletes in order to help them before they wasted all their pictures. Assuming that they did not
know English he motioned to them that in order to get a picture of Clinton that they needed to flip the
camera around. In response to his advice, one athlete, in perfect English, thanked the photographer and
said, “But may I show you something? If you turn the camera around and hold your eye up to the
viewfinder and look backward, it works as a telescope and you can see the president clearly. So we’re
using these little cameras so we can get a good view of the president. Thanks for helping us – but
backwards and it still works.”
Can you imagine the face of the photographer as he looked into the eyes of this young athlete who just
opened his eyes in a new way by telling him that the camera works in reverse? The eyesight of this man
was changed forever. The lens to which he sees the world was modified to where he no longer saw a dis-
abled person, but rather one who is very cap-able in a way he did not see. Labels that we all commonly
attached to those different from us were removed and prejudicial scales fell from his eyes, and this
photographer saw with new and un-assuming eyes. Backwards and it still works.
In other words, to use the Gospel language we just heard – a grain of wheat needed to die…a part of the
photographer had to perish – the part that judges others, the part that feeds the ego, the part that blocks
us from seeing.
Part of our Lenten journey is about learning to see God in our daily lives and how to better understand
and appreciate God’s indwelling. But it requires a new way of seeing. For we are all different, all
disabled in some fashion, and all have labels given to us by others and ourselves - labels which hold us
back…labels which limit who we are…labels we must shed by seeing in a new way. Backwards and it still
works.
But it requires us to let go of our past mistakes and be willing to live a daily life of death and resurrection.
The first reading tells us of God’s promise to always be our God no matter how much we screw up….for
God forgets our sins and promises a new beginning time and time again.
So as we head to the end of the Lenten season may you remember that part of life is a daily dying to
oneself… And may your eyes be opened to see in a new way all the blessings that we each have…And
may you never forget that in the eyes of God, as different and broken each of us may be…Backwards
and it still works.
2 Deacon Jim Knipper