HAD HELEN HEARD . . .

C. Philip Slate

Married people at times wonder, “What difference would it have made had I married ____ rather than my spouse?” One might ask, “How different might the USA and Great Britain be today if there had been no World War I and II? Another might ask, “If the USA and her allies had lost the war in the Pacific, what would life here be now?”

There is a mantra that runs, “It is futile to dwell on the ifs of history.” Indeed, it can be a waste of time. On the other hand, it might not be an entirely fruitless venture since those who are willing can learn from the past.[1] Take one case in point.

Most of us see differently as to who are our heroes and heroines. Indeed, one person’s hero might be another person’s villain. Despite such differences, most of us will take off our hats to the remarkable achievements of a woman who as a child became both deaf and blind, and soon thereafter, became mute. The little girl from Tuscumbia, Alabama lost her sight and hearing at 19 months through something like meningitis or measles. Helen Keller (1880-1968) eventually graduated from Radcliffe College as the first deaf and blind person to earn a B. A. degree in the United States. As extraordinary as that was, earning a college degree was not what chiefly gave Keller her worldwide reputation.

Her first autobiography[2] recounts those initial years when she lived “at sea in a dense fog.” With the help of a remarkable teacher, Anne Sullivan, she learned to read, write, and speak. Eventually, she authored a dozen books and several articles. She worked in numerous political and social causes and was especially interested in helping people with disabilities. Worldwide, she is known for what she did for the blind. Reading her biographies is an edifying and educational—even rebuking—exercise. It evokes a sense of both awe and appreciation.

Perhaps it is one of my futile “ifs of history” to wonder what difference it would have made in Helen’s life had she not lost sight, hearing, and speaking at a young age. Her accomplishments demonstrated she had enough native intelligence to accomplish those many important things, but would she have been inclined to do them had she been more normal? Would there have been an Annie Sullivan to believe in her? Would she even have cared about the blind and deaf? Who knows?

Few things excite my pity more than seeing a blind child! What light is shut out, what joyous views are cut off—sunsets, butterflies, smiles, flowers, and the friendly behavior of a puppy! Happily, Keller enjoyed animals. It might be some character flaw in me that I don’t feel the same outrage at a child with a twisted leg or a withered arm. The social consequences are not as severe for those maladies as for blindness and deafness; these life-limiting activities are of a different sort. Even now as I think of that triple-challenged little girl my stifled weeping hurts my throat.

What difference would it have made had Helen been able to hear and see? I wonder what would have tickled her fancy, what would have challenged her energies? Would she have desired to study at Radcliffe, or even care about the art in Europe? Would she have done any more for the blind than to put a dime in a plastic seeing-eye dog? What a tragedy it would have been if she grew up with aims no loftier than being a high school cheerleader or having dates with boys who drove old pickup trucks with gun racks in the back? Would she have been a spoiled little debutante?

What she might have become is indeed idle speculation, but it is clear that much of what she became and accomplished came through at least two things: her abject adversities and her teacher. Both elements are worth thinking about philosophically.

As a human being, there is no way I can bring myself to say or even feel it was good for little Helen to have been cut off from normal life. It may be a good line for me to say, in retrospect, that I am glad I was in that car wreck, or had that disease, or experienced that big disappointment since I grew through all of them; but it is not a line I can bring myself to say about another. I can rejoice and thank God for what Helen Keller did for the disadvantaged and do so without being glad she suffered her maladies.

Often people accomplish valuable things through what the British historian, Arnold Toynbee, called "the challenge of adversity" that can be observed in both nations and individuals. A multitude of individuals argues by their lives that the experience of adversity and setbacks is not irremediable. They are not the ultimate defeats. A person can fight back, to overcome, to build, to do things she or he might never try as long as life is lived in the cult of softness.

What I am stating here may function for you like the second factor in Helen Keller’s life, her teacher and fifty-year companion. One wonders how many potential scientists or preachers, physicians or teachers, counselors or pharmacists, writers or architects, skilled machinists or nutritionists there are in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, city ghettos, or little cabins in the mountains; people who could grow and achieve if someone were to be an encourager, a dream-creator for them? Adversity can demoralize and stultify the human spirit unless there is some kind of intervention of idealism and encouragement! The ability to overcome, to bring order out of chaos, must somehow be ignited by an external spark—an Annie Sullivan, a book, or a school. Two once-popular movies make this point: “Stand and Deliver” and “October Sky.”

Here we are, one hundred and forty years since Hellen Keller was born. Her life achievements can be assessed better than they could when she died in 1968, but I wonder how different things would have been if Helen had been able to hear and see.

Encourage people! Use written notes, letters, email, phone calls—in sermons, classes, and personally in the foyer--any way to say, “I think you would do well to. . . .You can do it." (see Eph. 6:11; Col. 4:8; 1 Thess. 5:11, 14; 1 Tim. 5:1; Heb. 10:25). Encouraging is a part of Christian living and ministry.

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[1] Joseph Edgar Chamberlin, The Ifs of History (1907; republished); Andrew Rogers, editor, What Might Have Been: Leading Historians on Twelve ‘What Ifs’ of History (2004).

[2] Hellen Keller, The Story of My Life. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1903. This work covers the first twenty-one years of her life.