Once again, Sean Dineen has written something for our readers.  Enjoy!

“Well, my friends, another year will soon be over.  All of you, have worked, achieved, struggled and triumphed.   My heart is grateful for all of you, for the knowledge of what we as a community, endure and achieve is marked on your hearts.  By God’s blessing I have been privileged to serve as a professor of history, and worked towards my doctorate to become full time and earn a living.

Despite great obstacles, and trial, that work goes on.   My inner nature, will sustain my course.   You, my friends have your own quest to go on.   The average person, if there be such, doesn’t know.   We have drunk the cup, poured out everything we are, to become.   God sees all that we are my friends, in a way many in this world cannot.

Two other great blessings came my way this year.  Our guide, and light, Ms. Karen Lynn, came and spoke at Kean University, shared her fifty seven years of working to break down the barriers put over our lives, by the self indulgent and inconsequential who sit in power, and shut their eyes to all we are.     Watching her in front of a group my friends, is a joy without blemish.   Her voice, sooths and compels in the same breath, professors who were never exposed, join us, aware of the unique role they can play in making achievement possible.

The years melted into history, and what I saw in the front of that room was the voice of our people, distilled and shared in a way, even I wasn’t fully ready for.   She can see with a real vison, and a cleansing fire.  So this group moved on, fully aware, and fully committed as we are, to inclusion and acceptance.

The other event, was my second visit to South Africa.   This land of many peoples, and many trials, seems to almost physically, arch typically represent our struggle.   The Afrikaner people, along with their English settlers, created a society, unlike any other, more committed ironically to disabled inclusion than any other land even in apartheid’s hay day.   I spent two weeks exploring and learning in the company of Zulu politic ans, Shaagan tour guides, as well as people of Asian and mixed background.

This place, has become a second home to me.   I cannot urge too much my friends, travel if you possibly can, its the greatest learning experience on earth.  People of different beliefs and backgrounds coming together, is truly a blessing.   Whatever, your disability, or financial circumstance, if it is possible, make the journey.   It will also help in another way, to break down the myth, that we as a people, sit in drugged docility, unaware of the outside world.   May God’s blessing wash over all of you.”